“Fine by me. Anytime I don’t have to schlep Zy around is a good time,” Trees joked. “He’s a terrible backseat driver.”
“Because I’m better behind the wheel,” Zy bantered, then cupped her shoulder. “I’m happy to take you two ladies home.”
After a little more small talk, Trees followed the colonel out one door. Zy carried all her luggage while she pushed the stroller out to the parking lot through another. With a little direction from her, he installed Hallie’s car seat on the bench between them and got underway.
“Thanks for doing this.”
“You don’t need to keep thanking me.” He pulled out of the parking spot and got in line to pay the attendant. Once they’d left the airport, he turned back to her, the sharp angles of his face an interesting play of illumination and shadows as they drove past streetlights. “Tell me what sounds good. You want a burger?”
Honestly, she couldn’t even think about food right now.
Tessa shook her head. “I’ll be fine. I just need to get Hallie fed, changed, and into bed. Her schedule has been messed up for days.”
“What about you?”
Where to start? “I’m all over the place. Sometimes I’m numb. It doesn’t feel real that he’s gone. And sometimes, the pain is so sharp I can’t breathe.”
And the pervasive, nagging sense of despair felt like it sat on top of her, oppressing her. Smothering her.
Right now, besides her daughter, Zy was the only light in her life.
God, that was so unfair to him. He’d helped her so much, and she’d fallen for him. Then she’d repaid his kindness by boxing them into a corner where they could never be together. He had to look at her and know every day that she hadn’t chosen him. And still, he kept showing up for her.
“I know, baby.” He took her hand over the top of Hallie’s car seat and squeezed. “I’m here.”
“I don’t deserve you.” Of course, that sounded like she had him in the first place. “Your kindness, I mean. Your…friendship.”
“That’s bullshit, and you’ll always have it,” he vowed as they headed north on the highway.
Silence stretched between them, and as he drew closer to their exit, her dread grew.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
She probably needed to, but if she let go of the dam restraining her emotions, could she ever rebuild it? “I don’t want to burden you.”
Zy clenched his jaw as he pulled onto the shoulder and stopped the car. “You’re not a burden, and I swear if you say that one more time…” He shook his head. “Now I get why our bosses are the sort who spank their wives.”
They were? That was news to her. How did he know? And was he insinuating that he’d spank her?
To her shock, that didn’t totally horrify her, but she’d have to unpack that later. Definitely not now.
“Maybe burden is the wrong word, then. But you don’t owe me anything, and I’m aware—”
“Is Cash coming to help you?”
She withdrew her hand and pulled it into her lap, looking down as she laced her fingers together. “No.”
“Then I will. End of discussion. You just have to tell me what you need.”
Tessa licked her lips. She needed a good night’s sleep. She needed comfort. She definitely needed a few hours without any more drama. In the last few days, she’d had enough of that to last her. And Cash was a master at creating circus-level spectacle, complete with mental hoops of fire for her to jump through. She just couldn’t do it tonight.
“I need to go someplace where Cash isn’t.”
He rubbed at his chin and nodded. “I can drop you off at a hotel if you want to be alone.”
“I don’t.”
“Or I can bring you home with me.”
She started to ask if he minded, but since he didn’t want her to refer to herself as a burden, she didn’t. “Yes, please.”
He hesitated, then pulled off the shoulder and back onto the largely empty highway. “All right. But once we’re there, I’m going to take care of you my way.”
Tessa didn’t even argue. Not only did she lack the energy, she trusted that whatever Zy had in mind would be perfect. “I’d love that.”
Zy’s heart raced like he’d sprinted home from the airport as they pulled into his apartment complex. The place was decent, quiet—a definite step up from the last shithole he’d rented. Turned out when he’d asked Cutter’s advice, the local boy had a way better suggestion because he lived in the next building over.
He’d had fantasies of bringing Tessa here—lots of them. He’d always pictured himself undressing her and undoing her until she fell into a sated sleep. But never in his wildest imaginings had he thought he’d be bringing her here to unwind and to offload whatever weighed down her mind until she released her grief.