Page 102 of Price of Angels

She was surprised by his vehemence, the firm set of his jaw.Madly in love with you…Ava had said. Holly shivered with wanting, so wanting it to be true, sure she didn’t deserve it, afraid Ava was wrong, not willing to give voice to it.

“I’m not part of her world,” she said. “I like her, sure, but I don’t want to be a burden. I don’t want to be this girl she thinks is pathetic and lonely and who she needs to be friends with because you asked her to as a favor. I don’t want to be anyone’s favor, Michael.” A touch of vehemence of her own.

He made an exasperated sound. “Why would you be a favor? If you get along, why can’t you be friends? Why can’t it be that simple?”

“Things are never simple.”

“They ought to be.” He ate his soup quietly a moment as she watched him, managing not to dribble it off the spoon or send the slick onions flopping down onto his plate. “I didn’t know I was starting a buncha shit,” he grumbled. “Just nevermind.”

“You didn’t,” Holly assured. It was too difficult to stay mad at him in this instance. He thought he’d been helping, emotional cripple that he was. “It was a very sweet gesture.”

He shot her a dark glance.

“It was. But it–” She broke off, under the intensity of his scrutiny, struck by the notion that, though he’d never admit it, she was hurting his feelings. If she told him what she’d planned, that friendship wasn’t as simple as putting two people at the same lunch table and telling them to get along, he would read it as her rejecting a gesture that was, at its core, kind and selfless.

So instead, she smiled and said, “I was nervous, is the only thing. I still am. I don’t want to force myself on anyone.”

His expression eased, the tension going out of his jaw. His snort sounded amused. “You sure never worried about that with me.”

Her cheeks warmed. “I was trying to strike up a business deal. That was totally different.”

“It was?”

“There’s no such thing as ‘too forward’ in business.” She laughed. “At least, that’s what I got fromWall Street.”

He shook his head and bit into his burger. Crisis averted. Tension gone. Holly shoved down her fears about her miniscule social life and rose to leave the table.

“Midnight?” he asked, and she knew he meant the time her shift ended.

She nodded. And knew he’d sit right here at this table until then.

She glanced back over her shoulder once, when she was halfway back to the bar, and saw that he’d produced a book from inside his cut and was reading while he absently stirred his soup.

Waiting for her.

It was in the entombing dark of just before dawn that Holly remembered what Ava had told her that afternoon. She lay on her side, tucked back against Michael’s chest. His arm lay like a dead thing across her waist; his breathing was light, though. He was awake.

She rolled slowly onto her back, and then onto her other side, turning in his arms. His legs shifted, opened up a place for one of hers to slide between. She marveled at this warm closeness under the covers, skin-to-skin, but even more marvelous was the way Michael had never seemed conflicted about it. He’d been that way from the beginning, wanting hands and arms on her, sleeping together after, staying in bed with her, keeping her close. He liked the intimacy, and he wasn’t self-conscious about it. He’d never given her reason to question it; it was just the way things were.

“Michael,” she said, a whisper in the total dark, smoothing her hands across his chest.

“Hmm?” His hand was warm against the small of her back.

She took a deep breath. Here went nothing. “Ava said you guys were having a big New Year’s party.”

No answer, which she took to mean “yes.”

“She said I should come with you. That you should bring me.”

She cringed, waiting.

“I didn’t figure you’d want to.”

She held her breath.

“Do you want to?”

She wanted any chance to be with him, even if the idea of a big club party scared her witless, so she said, “Yes.”

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