Chapter 22
“If you don’t want me to go, you can just drop me off at my dad’s.”
When her suggestion was met with total silence, Maxi shifted in the passenger seat of Billy’s SUV and adjusted the air vents so they were facing right at her in an attempt to hold the sweat that was forming on her brow, behind her neck, on her chest, her underarms, basically everywhere at bay. For once, over the past couple of months, her nervous perspiration and the butterflies fluttering low in her belly had nothing to do with her.
She tried again. “Lloyd’s there and I know I would be perfectly safe.”
“I don’t know that.” Billy continued staring straight ahead at the road in front of him. His hands were gripping the steering wheel so tight, his knuckles were white.
After her dad was released from the hospital this morning, they’d tried to convince him to stay at Billy’s house for a few days. He didn’t go for it. He wanted to be home, in his own bed. Which Maxi understood, it’s just she would’ve felt better if she could keep an eye on him for the first few days he was home.
Lloyd was waiting for them when they got there. While they were getting her dad settled, making sure he had everything he needed and was straight on what medications he needed to take when, Billy’s phone started blowing up.
Of course her mind immediately went to the investigation, she assumed that there’d been a break in the case. But it turned out to be Billy’s mom. She’d been contacting him a lot over the past couple weeks and he hadn’t seemed that concerned. But now he did. He’d pulled her aside and said that he needed to go check on her and that she was going to have to come with him. It was obvious that he really didn’t want her there, but he felt like he had no choice except to bring her. She hated being anyone’s burden, especially his.
“I can wait in the car when we get there,” she offered hopefully.
“No,” he answered flatly. “You can’t.”
Ooookay.
Maxi looked out the window and decided to stop trying to talk to him. He’d given her space when she needed it and he deserved the same consideration.
Yesterday when she’d seen the news report about Samuels, she’d retreated into a shell. Well, first the bathroom and then a shell. Billy had noticed. Once they got home last night he tried several times to get her to open up about what was bothering her, but she’d denied that anything was wrong.
Telling him that it upset her seeing Damien Samuel’s picture would just lead to more questions. Questions she didn’t want to answer. Instead of making her avoidance a big deal, or pressuring her to tell him, he’d just held her and told her that he’d be there when she was ready to talk about it.
His supportive and sweet comment had meant the world to her. She was falling even further down the rabbit hole into love-wonderland. Her reaction to his unwavering support had put a mirror up to her and caused her to face what she was feeling for Billy in a fearless inventory.
She was in love with him. Him, not the fairytale prince, knight in shining armor version that she’d built up in her mind. She loved the man that raked his fingers through her hair until she fell asleep. The man that covered her knee when she wasn’t even aware that she was tapping it. The man that with one look could transport her into a realm where only they existed. The man that called her friend to make sure that she had clothes to wear after her dad suffered a heart attack. The man that spent six days by her dad’s bedside, never once complaining, and whenever she thanked him he told her there was nowhere else in the world he’d rather be and she believed him. The man that showed her just how much passion she possessed and inspired her to own her sexuality. The man that took care of everyone around him without asking for anything in return.
She loved the real Billy Marshall, not the persona, not the fantasy.
All night last night, as she’d lain in his arms, she’d been thinking about what she was going to do about her feelings. As tempting as it was to continue on, making love to him, playing house, ignoring reality, she knew that she couldn’t do that. If she had any chance of surviving the inevitable, devastating heartbreak that she’d suffer once this, whatever this was, was over, she had to start putting up some protective walls. Starting with eliminating their physical relationship. There needed to be a no contact rule in place.
Sooner rather than later.
And she also knew that she needed to let him know what was going on. He deserved that much. She wasn’t going to do an emotional one-eighty and not give him any explanation. Now all she had to do was figure out how to tell him. It wasn’t a conversation that she’d ever envisioned herself having.
What was she going to say? “Hey there friend with benefits, it looks like we’re going to have to lose the benefits because, funny story, in the midst of all the chaos, that laughingly is my life, I sort of fell in love with you and since I know that’s not really your ‘thing’ I think it’s best if I just back out gracefully before you stomp all over my heart.”
Yeah, probably not that.
She glanced over at Billy and her heart sank even further. He wore aviator sunglasses, a white T-shirt that pulled taut across his chest and around his biceps and his jaw was sprinkled with just enough scruff to add to his bad boy appearance. Her eyes traveled further down his arm, across his muscular forearms. Those arms were going to be hard to give up.
“What?” he asked, still looking straight ahead.
His peripheral vison was off the charts.
“Nothing.” She turned her head back.
They were silent for the rest of the fifteen-minute car ride. When they pulled up in front of the small, quaint looking house that Billy had grown up in he cut the engine but made no move to get out. Maxi was trying to take her cues from him, so she sat and waited. He removed his glasses and turned towards her.
“Before we go in there…you should know…I mean…” Without finishing his thought, Billy ran his hands through his hair.
With clients she was so used to being the one that fixed things, the one that calmed them down when they were upset, that supported and comforted them. But she’d never really been that for Billy. He was just so strong, so sure, so competent and capable. Their dynamic had always been that he took care of her. Even before her life had gone crazy, he’d always been there for her.
Seeing him look so unsure was such a new experience for Maxi that she totally forgot about enforcing her new no contact rule and she reached out and touched his shoulder. “It’s fine, really. I promise.”