Page 23 of Crazy In Love

Screw them all.

“You need a hand, Aunt Fox?” Franky places his pen between the pages of his book and pushes his glasses along his nose. “I could help you if you want.”

“No, I’m okay, buddy. I need you to run the shop for five more minutes until I can get these squared away. Can you do that?”

“I’ve got it.” Chris sweeps past me, grabbing the heavier case and steamrolling across the store too fast for my brain to register what he’s done. But when he reaches the base of the stairs, he stops and glances back, softening his expression.

Though I know it’s fake.

How do I know? Because I have ten years of experience with Franklin Page, and those boys are damn near carbon copies of one another.

“You go first.” He waits for my slow approach and gestures up the stairs. “I’ll follow.”

“Seems your default behavior isdick. But when you have an audience tapped into the town grapevine, you sure know how to act right again.” I shoulder check him on the way past–since I can, and obviously, I still have a bunch of anger to work through–then I heft my suitcase up each step—climb, thud, scrape, climb, thud, scrape—and keep going until I get to the door that couldn’t possibly be confused for anything except an apartment.

I snag the handle, pray it’s unlocked, and growl when it’s not. So then I have to wait—climb, thud, scrape, climb, thud, scrape—for Chris to join me on the tiny landing, made smaller by my luggage crowding us in.

He leans around me, his chest touching my back and his arm brushing my hip. I can’t even call it a smooth move. The kind guys pull at the clubs in New York when they want to test a woman’s tolerance.

Here, at this moment, it’s nothing more than a necessity.

There simply isn’t enough room for anything else.

He twists the key and releases the lock, then shoving the door open, heextends his hand forward, like I’m some kind of simpleton who needs direction.

“I installed a new lock this morning.” He follows me in and rolls my suitcase just past the threshold, setting it out of the way. “Alana hasn’t lived up here, obviously, and the lady who owned the place before had sixty grandkids and had given out too many spare keys to trust the place to be secure.”

“Sixty?” I wander into the living room, which is also the bedroom, which is also the kitchen. Honestly, it’s cute as hell. “Don’t exaggerate for the sake of exaggeration, Christian.”

Finally, perhaps for the first time since knowing him, his lips curl into a ghost of a smirk. “I wasn’t exaggerating. Small-town folk with small minds only have two things to keep them busy. Gossiping is one of ‘em.”

Screwing is the other.

“I left a key for you on the counter,” he gestures toward the glistening silver, “and I fixed the shower ‘cos it was leaking. Alana brought linen and stuff over a few days ago and made the bed, but with all the work I’ve been doing, the covers got dusty, so I replaced all that this morning for you, too.”

“You changed the sheets?” Swallowing, I look past him to the bed that looks…amazing. Military corners, but with thick, plush covers and heavenly pillows artistically scattered.

Not in a million years would I guess Chris was the type to create somethingpretty.

“You didn’t have to change it all. You could’ve left the fresh linen on the end of the bed, and I would have dealt with it.”

“Just say thanks,” he grits out. “It’s easy once you get used to it.”

Smarmy bastard. But I’ll be damned if I don’t smirk anyway. “Thanks.”

“Franky and I went grocery shopping yesterday, but we didn’t go nuts, since I figured you’d spend most of your time at the house. Got you yogurts and fruit and stuff. Make sure you eat the bananas first, or they’ll go bad.”

“If they go bad, I tend to put them in the freezer until,like magic, they turn into banana bread.” I drag my suitcase across the room and deposit it beside the first. “Or, well, they used to. When Alana was in New York. Now, I just have a bunch of bananas and no bread.”

His eyes flicker with…something.

So maybe he’s not Franky’s carbon copy exactly. Because I can’t read this look before it’s gone again. Instead, I twine my fingers together and nibble on my bottom lip. “Thanks for setting the apartment up for me. I appreciate it.”

“You’re welcome.” He exhales a heavy breath and drops his gaze. Hisjaw hardens, the muscles in his cheeks firming and releasing. For every moment of silence he allows, the dread in the base of my stomach grows heavier. And when he starts toward me, measured steps and twitching nostrils, my pulse skitters just a little faster.

Finally, he stops just two feet away and brings his gaze up to mine.

Self-conscious, I look down at myself. My clothes. My shoes. My existence, really. “What?”