Nevertheless.
He was worried. That spoiled twit had been horrible to her but he’d woken up next to her for the last four or five years. He was worried because even though Corbin didn’t strike him as any kind of romantic hero—which was the kind of guy he had a hunch Avalon would hold out for—or even be worth fighting for, there was no accounting for the mystery of chemistry. Or history. History definitely exerted its own gravity.
Until tonight, he’d had those things in his favor with her—chemistry and history.
Until tonight, he hadn’t even thought of the day after tomorrow.
Until tonight, “Corbin” had felt like something theoretical that didn’t need to be addressed unless via sardonic jokes.
And Mac was man enough to own up to the fact that “spoiled twit” had once described him, too.
He imagined himself crawling out of bed to stand beneath her balcony and falling to his knees and bellowing, “AVALON!” like Stanley Kowalski. He kind of understood the impulse now.
He just didn’t know what he would say after that.
Making his way out to Avalon’s balcony in fact seemed as possible as a mummy creaking its way out of a sarcophagus.
He’d successfully jettisoned everything that threatened to chain him in or make him uncomfortable or prevent him from moving precisely the way he wanted to.
And then he’d rebuilt himself from the ground up.
And he was free! Helikedbeing free.
The light at the house went out.
And the bands across his stomach tightened, and something very like pain, but also very like fury, took up residence and burned in his chest in the vicinity of his heart.
He didn’t actuallyneedanyone, and that was indeed the definition of freedom.
The Cat, in his infinite wisdom, begged to differ, and jumped up and curled in the crook of Mac’s arm.