Page 92 of Resonance

I pulled back to eye him dubiously. “When?”

“Well, lessee.” His brows furrowed as his gaze went distant. “We did karaoke night.”

“That doesn’t count,” I huffed. “That was a work trip.”

“All right, you ornery little thing.” He thumped my back lightly, then brushed his lips along my jaw. “We went to that estate sale together. We’ve watched countless shitty movies together, complete with popcorn. We’ve taken walks together, played music together. We’ve danced together. Eaten together. Woken up together. If that’s not some version of dating, I don’t know what the hell else to call it. But we can get fancier if you like. I can take you out to dinner. You can even wear that chartreuse coat you were talking about that one time.”

I shook my head vehemently. “No, I loved all of that. I don’t want to change it.” I slid my hands up the side of his neck, spread my fingers over the scruff of his jaw, the rasp of his whiskers biting pleasantly at my fingertips. “I missed you. So much more than I expected to or told myself I would. It was… it was overwhelming.”

Dan turned his head to brush his lips over my palm. “I knew I’d miss you. Was just waiting for you to catch on. Then I ran out of patience.”

“But the tour,” I protested.

“It’s not what matters right now, and it’s being handled anyway. Right now it’s just you and me.” He captured my hands in his and guided them around his neck before rocking to a stand. “And maybe a shower.”

“I stink, don’t I?” I wrapped my legs around his waist as he moved toward the patio door and maneuvered us over the threshold.

“You smell like… lost sleep and worry and sadness. Taking a page from your book there. How’d I do?”

To my surprise, a smile broke loose. A real one I could feel reach deep down inside me. I pressed it into his shoulder. “Not bad.” I threw a hand out for balance as he swayed to one side and muttered,got it.“But you’re still saying I stink.”

“Just a little bit.”

“That was really dumb of you to burn all those notebooks.”

Dan lowered a hand to cup my ass. “Yeah, well, they won’t be missed, and I was making a point anyway. You’re a little thickheaded sometimes.”

“Takes one to know one.” Sliding down his body outside the bathroom, I hooked a hand behind his waistband and gazed up at him. “Will you get in the shower with me?”

A flash of heat moved through his eyes as I spread my fingers over his warm skin. “Bet on it.”

Chapter 32

The next morning, Ru and I waited inside the shop for the insurance adjuster to arrive. Ru, Quinn, Ivy, and even Howie had already pitched in to clean up a good portion of the shop, but there were still broken display cases and records to be sorted. Papers and various office items from behind the front counter that also needed to be gone through, reorganized, or discarded.

Taking it all in in such an upended state made me realize just how much I’d accumulated over the years, and as I surveyed the aisles from the front counter, the unsettled feeling I’d had all morning lightened by a fraction. This was manageable. Not pretty, but manageable, even if the insurance payout was as minimal as I expected it to be.

“Bet we can be back up and running within the week.” Ru dropped a stack of records on the counter next to me where I was fiddling with the old register. It was toast, though, I was almost certain. Guess that was as good a sign as any to move into the modern age and get a tablet like everyone else seemed to be using now.

“Probably so. Where’s Ivy? Thought she was planning on showing up today, too?” I’d forced Owen to stay at home and rest for one more day on pain of death or dismemberment, and not an hour later I was already eager to get back to him. I could tell he was hurting, that he was blaming himself in a way that only time and persistence could heal. But I was more than willing to speed the process in any way I could.

Ru made a face. “I dunno, she’s been a total flake lately. I think she’s taking more hours at that coffee shop gig she got with her boyfriend.”

I grunted and picked up another sheet of paper, scanning it before tossing it into the trash bag beside me.

“Something’s bothering me,” Ru said after a moment, and when he didn’t get on with it, I glanced up at him to show I was listening. “Owen said he heard the alarm beep and then the glass shatter, not the other way around. I don’t know what he told the police, but that’s the way he said it to me.” Ru had been the first one Owen called from the shop phone in my office after coming around. The cordless we kept at the checkout counter had been smashed. “When I first got here, he swore he’d set the alarm. And then I think he started doubting himself. And he was out of it anyway, but… who all has the alarm codes for this place? When’s the last time you changed it? Because it’s been the same for at least a year that I can remember.”

I stared at him, a deep, hollow pit forming in my stomach and congealing into a mass of poker-hot ire. “Goddamn, I’m an idiot. I’m going to fucking kill Aiden.” I’d called him after the robbery and left him a message, but he’d never returned the call. Which wasn’t unusual for Aiden, of course. And though part of me maintained a measure of hope he wouldn’t do something like that, I also knew Aiden when he was desperate. He’d gotten away with more than he’d ever been caught for in his life. He knew the shop was decently insured, and while I’d been on the road, Owen had said he’d come in with him to open one morning “out of boredom.” At the time I’d told Owen he might suggest Aiden redirect that boredom into finding a job, but now I wondered… had he been casing the place? Returned with a couple of layabout buddies? Acid burned a hot path up the back of my throat.

“I mean, I don’t want to accuse—” Ru cut himself off and took a sharp breath. “I just know he’s in town. Or was. And there was that whole issue with the bar he was working at a while back.”

I stepped around the counter and stalked into my office, which was still a wreck. Ru had been reluctant to do much more than clear a path to my desk and tidy things into stacks until I got there.

I swept a stack of file folders and papers from chair, sat in it, then stood up again as I pulled up Aiden’s contact. Not that I expected him to admit to anything. He sure as shit hadn’t before.

He didn’t answer any of my five calls, so I left him another terse message that I also expected to be ignored, telling him to call me back.

Then I kicked the goddamn desk chair so hard it streaked across the floor, rebounding off the wall before crashing onto its side.