The Fixer

She handed him a water bottle and sat down on the opposite end on the love seat, as far from him as possible, which amounted to a half cushion away. “I wasn’t sure you’d come over when I called.”

The bottle made a crinkling noise when he grabbed on to it. “Why not?”

He didn’t mention that she’d used his emergency private number for a nonemergency, so neither did she. “You kind of ran out of here last night.”

Then she’d thought about him all night while Tyler sat there talking about his new job and the new city he loved. Emery had been happy for him, even as a part of her grumbled that it had been so easy for him to move on and never mention Tiffany.

For most of the night she’d been guilty of the same sin. As he talked, her mind switched to Wren. The sound of his voice. The way his muscles felt through his shirt. She certainly wouldn’t have won any Good Friend prize for her mental wanderings.

“You had company. Something and someone else to occupy your time.” Wren didn’t look at her as he set the unopened bottle on the coffee table.

She took in the stiffness of his shoulders and the fact he hadn’t even bothered to take off his suit jacket. He walked in and went to the couch because she told him to have a seat. Very little else had transpired except for her why-am-I-doing-this panicked race to the kitchen for water. “Don’t do that.”

He leaned back on the cushions and faced her. “What?”

Gone was the easy flow of conversation from last night and the touching. Yeah, he didn’t look even a little interested in touching, which was a damn shame. “You sound all haughty and businesslike.”

“You may have just summed up the majority of my personality.” He smiled but the gesture didn’t quite reach his eyes. It looked forced and disappeared right after it happened.

She tugged on the wrapper around her water bottle. Picked at the end until she could rip off a nice long piece. “I don’t buy that. Not anymore.”

His gaze bounced from her hands to her face. “What changed?”

“I don’t even know. Maybe it’s a sense or a hope.” Of course, neither of those explained why the air in the room was all but suffocating her.

“Ah.”

Talk about an unhelpful response. She put the bottle on the table next to his and sat back again, just inches away from him. “Does that mean you get what I’m saying?”

“Not even a little bit.”

She would have laughed at that if the tension strangling her in a bear hug would ease. “Any chance I could get you to take off your jacket? Maybe loosen that tie.”

“You still seem overly concerned with my wardrobe.” But he relaxed a little. Sank back into the cushions and rested his arm across the top.

“It’s like armor.”

His fingers tapped against the love seat. “It’s wool, I believe.”

“Now you’re being a gigantic pain in the ass, just because you can.” The guy could not take a hint. She was dying to get him out of the suit. She could pretend this had to do with wanting to know he was human and to loosen him up. Yeah, there was some of that, but this was really about wanting more from him.