I scrubbed my hand over my face, trying to think clearly.
“No,” I admitted. “I actually have to go to a doctor’s appointment today. Tomorrow. I work tomorrow.” I looked at him with eyes a little clearer. “Why are you here?”
“I’m here because I heard you mention something about a doctor’s appointment in passing yesterday, and how would it look if I didn’t go to this as your new boyfriend?” He paused, his eyes taking in the calendar where I wrote my appointment down, and grimaced. “And I also heard that my parents made a visit yesterday. And it always entertains me to see my grandmother yell at them. She wasn’t here yesterday, but she saw on the video feed that they came to your place, and then went over to hers, and I’m just assuming right along with her that they’ll be back today.”
I shoved up onto my elbows and knees, totally missed his eyes flare seeing as I was in underwear and a t-shirt and was a fairly rough sleeper—meaning my t-shirt was up around my belly—and hurried to the bathroom.
I needed to get my teeth brushed, use the bathroom, and wash my face.
Only then could I deal with the sexy man in my bedroom.
“As for how I got in here,” Malachi said as he toed the door open slightly. I squeaked in surprise as he shoved into the bathroom, but instead of turning toward me, he turned toward the sink which was all the way across the room and started to wash his hands. “I used to live here. A, I have a key. B, I know exactly how to get in and out of this place without creaking a single floorboard, let alone getting in and out of a locked door. And C, my grandmother has an entrance from her place to yours. You remember that, right?”
I hastily finished my business and yanked up my panties, flushing the toilet with my face flaming hot.
“You realize that I was going to the bathroom, right?” I asked, feeling the heat hit my cheeks as I sidled up to the second sink right beside the one he was standing at.
He finished drying off his hands with the towels that were for decoration only and turned to study me.
“You do realize that I’m supposed to have knocked you up, right?” he pushed. “And, just sayin’, but you know more about me than my own grandmother does. So, yeah, I feel like this is something that we can share.”
He had a point.
“Are you sure about them thinking that you and I… you know?” I asked. “I mean, your problems with Luke and the police department really can’t be that bad. Can they?”
He leaned his hips against the counter as he watched me wash my face.
He was silent so long that when I pulled back to look at him, water droplets streaming down my face, that I thought he hadn’t heard me.
He had.
“I don’t…” He blew out a breath. “I don’t fit in here anymore.”
I frowned.
“What?” I asked, drying my face off with the correct towel and tossing it onto the sink between us. “What are you talking about?”
“I was thinking of leaving,” he admitted. “The SWAT team is great but…” He tilted his head. “I’m not sure that a career in law enforcement is for me.”
I hopped up onto the counter, ignored the water that seeped into my panties, and tilted my head to stare at him.
“How about you tell me what’s been going on? And not give me the condensed version that I got in our letters,” I suggested.
I knew some of what he was going through, but not all of it.
“It all started when I came home.” He hitched one ass cheek onto the bathroom counter. “You remember Luca, correct?”
She nodded.
Luca was his best friend.
The man that had lost his memory and been in hell right along with Gab—Malachi for that year.
“Yes,” I confirmed.
“When he came back, everyone assumed he was me. They got him a job at the police station. He started… and then they realized who he was. When I came back, it was the next logical step—me getting a job there. Only, I didn’t want to go into motorcycle patrol like him. I wanted something else. Something that wouldn’t keep me doing the same thing day after day. So I went into the patrol department where we pretty much run calls for emergency services, do a bit of traffic concerns, and whatever else happens to happen that day whether it be school visits or something like that. Then in my spare time, I thought the SWAT team was great… but the longer that I’m here doing it, the worse that I feel. These demons…” He pointed at his head. “They’re not good.”
I pulled my legs up to my chest and tugged my t-shirt over my knees.