“You want something from me?” she barked. “If you’re trying to ask for a raise, I haven’t had enough sleep or coffee to laugh you out of this office.”
“No, ma’am,” I said. “I’m here for Bridget.”
Pearl sighed. “Lucky her. You gonna earn your paycheck this season?”
My neck felt hot. “Yes, ma’am. I hope so.”
She grumbled something under her breath, snapping the binder in her hands shut. I thought she’d go back to her office, but both women merely waited for me to speak with faintly amused expressions.
“Sorry to interrupt,” I said. “Bridget, I came to get that ... thing.”
She arched an eyebrow. “Yes, thisthingcost me about seven favors in order to get it done in thirty-six hours, so you owe me, Evans.” From behind her desk, she produced a sleek white box with the Buffalo logo on the top. “Don’t worry, though. I’ll call it in at a very inopportune moment when you least expect it.”
The box was light in my hands, and I held it carefully. “Can’t wait.”
She smirked. “Who’s it for?”
“A friend.”
Bridget and Pearl traded a look, but Pearl was the one to speak next. “If it’s a female friend, the kind that you’d like to play naked Twister with,” she said pointedly, “I suggest flowers and jewelry. Not merch.”
The ground could swallow me up at any point.
“Yes, ma’am. I’ll, uh, keep that in mind.”
Bridget snorted quietly.
“Thank you,” I told Bridget, lifting the box slightly.
Her eyes warmed imperceptibly. “I hope it achieves the desired result.”
“Me too.”
Since Remi had walked out of my house not even forty-eight hours ago, time had slowed to a sluggish crawl. My entire body vibrated with the need to seek her out. She hadn’t asked for space, per se, but she was off the day before. Therefore, I had no reason to be at the shelter.
Missing her was the best I’d ever felt in my entire life. It was an ache that felt good, like the healing of a bone, or the stretch of an unused muscle flaring back to life.
That being said, I didn’t really know what to do either.
There was no protocol for this. No game plan I could take home and study.
Remi wasn’t like reading a defense, who had a clear, definable objective, lining up against me while I tried to execute my own. Nor was she an opponent, even though it felt at times like we were always in opposition.
Wanting the same thing, going about it in entirely different ways.
Left up to me, we’d have spent the entire night in bed, and the next day doing clothed activities that I wanted just as badly. I could’ve taken her out to breakfast. Her and Gavin. There was this place not far from my house that served the best cinnamon rolls I’d ever had in my life, and I wanted to see their faces when they tried one. We could have watched a movie or playedMario Kartin their small living room, and I would have been the happiest guy in the entire fucking world.
Even if she couldn’t see a clear path there, Remi wanted that too. All that was left was to find a compromise, if there was one to be found.
The sun was bright as I exited the building, and I whistled quietly as I walked to my truck. Just as I hooked my seat belt over my chest and lap, my phone buzzed in the console, the shelter’s name appearing on the home screen.
A smile spread over my face before I could stop it.
God, I was a sap for this woman and couldn’t dredge up a single fucking ounce of shame over it.
“Good morning, firefly,” I said.
There was silence on the other end of the phone.