"Name one truly unhinged woman I've gone out with in the last five years."
She opened her mouth, but not a single name came to mind. "I try not to remember them."
"That's your excuse because it bothers you the same way I can't stand seeing you with another man." He pushed back his chair and stood. "I'm not saying it couldn't be. But the card said, ‘I know what you did’. Not, ‘what you did to me’. If it were a woman who felt wronged by me, don't you think that's what it would say?" He ran his hand across his hair and moved across his office, once again facing the bullpen. Facing his team. Her office was across the main room, and she often saw him just standing there, staring at—she had no idea what.
The thing was, she should be focusing on the problem and not on the fact that he'd just admitted her dating bothered him. But here she was, wondering which one bothered him the most.
For the first time since she'd walked through his door this morning, she let herself think about tonight — not the conversation she'd been dreading, not the words she'd been rehearsing since two in the morning, but the fact that whatever came next, whatever they said to each other before Troy's dinner, was going to happen against the backdrop of this.
Of someone out there who knew something.
Or thought they did.
She wasn't sure which one scared her more.
4
It took Noah all of ten minutes to get to Ziggy's place. He'd been there enough times that he didn't have to think about the route anymore. The town of Langley was small enough that her neighborhood, his waterfront home, Jag, Troy, and Darcie's places all existed within a reasonable radius. Close enough, that showing up unannounced was a thing and nobody made a production of it. He'd been absorbed into that geography the same way he'd been absorbed into everything else about the Bowies—gradually, without fanfare, until one day it was just true.
Noah entered Ziggy's neighborhood, his mind still battling with his heart. But he couldn't go on like this another second. He had to tell her what he was thinking and feeling. The rest would be up to her.
He clenched the steering wheel of his SUV as a florist truck pulled out of Ziggy's driveway when he turned onto her street.
He recognized the logo on the side panel—a local shop he'd passed a time or two, but he couldn't say he'd ever used them. No one would ever call him romantic. It wasn't that he couldn't be, he didn't want to be, and sending flowers had only two meanings. A man either sent them because he'd donesomething wrong and needed to apologize—Noah didn't stay in relationships long enough for that to happen—or because he wanted to show he cared. And while he genuinely liked the women he dated, none of them were Ziggy.
The thought that someone—a man—might have sent an arrangement to her sent a wave of jealousy through him that he had absolutely no business feeling.
He slowed as he watched the truck turn the corner and disappear. It was just a flower truck. It hadn't done anything to him, personally. But he wanted to chase it down and interrogate whoever was driving it.
Instead, he pulled into her driveway and cut the engine. For a long moment, he sat there with his hands still on the wheel while he tried to settle his pulse.
He got out and shoved his hands in his jacket pockets.
The neighborhood was the kind of quiet that Langley did better than anywhere else on the island. No water view from the street. That was the tradeoff she'd made, the neighborhood instead of the shoreline, but from the right window inside, she could catch a sliver of the Sound between the rooftops, and Ziggy had told him once that was the thing that had sold her. He'd never told her that he understood that completely. That sometimes a glimpse of something was enough to make everything else worth it.
He rang the bell and waited.
She opened the door in jeans and a soft sweater, her hair loose around her shoulders, as she did when she wasn't working. "Hey." She smiled.
He opened his mouth to say good evening and thanks for meeting him, but that's not what flew from his lips. "Who sent the flowers?" The words came out hot and fast, and he hated himself for them. For his attitude. His tone. For generally beingan asshole who thought she owed him something when she, in fact, did not.
Her smile faded. "What?"
He ran his fingers through his hair. "The flower truck." He gestured toward the street. "Someone sent you flowers. I assume it was that guy you were seeing, and before you even say it, I understand it's none of my business. It's just that I thought you and that guy were over."
"Are you kidding me right now?" Her face bunched the way it did when she drank that stupid shake every couple of months because she thought she needed to lose a few pounds. Ziggy was perfect. Every inch. Every curve. Every little line she complained about that came with a woman who wasn't twenty anymore.
"I'm just asking."
"It's a dumb question."
"Not from where I'm standing." He held up a hand. "Not when I came over here to talk about what happened last night."
"Sometimes your sense of humor is lost on me." She held the door open, and he stepped inside.
"I'm not trying to be funny."
Her place always felt like someone actually lived in it. Books that had actually been read. A throw on the couch that wasn't decoratively placed but bunched because she used it every day. Photographs on the wall that meant something.