“What are you two talking about?” Sylvie asks when she reenters.
“The upcoming Super Bowl,” Theodore lies, his eyes finding mine across the room, one more challenge that makes me smile.
He’s not going to talk shit about me to Sylvie. He isn’t going to warn her off from me. He’s telling me how it’s going to be and giving me the choice on how I want to proceed.
The rest of the visit is smooth. Her grandfather and I chat as if our private conversation never happened, but it’s never far from my mind.
When he gets tired, he urges us out of his room so he can take a nap. The old man squeezes my hand harder than I expect before I exit the room, and unlike the last man in Sylvie’s life that shook my hand, this one leaves me with a grin on my face.
It calms me some, knowing that she has someone who is willing to speak their mind in her defense. I know she feels like she has to take care of him, but I get the feeling Theodore Davis is doing just fine.
Chapter 29
Sylvie
“Are you going to tell me what’s going on or are you just going to keep pretending that nothing is wrong?” Spade asks once we’re closed inside of my car outside Big Daddy’s care facility.
My first instinct is to tell him nothing’s wrong. I don’t answer to anyone in my life, and although I don’t feel the need to answer to him right now, the warmth of his gaze on the side of my face somehow makes me want to explain my mood.
I don’t know if it’s the care he took with me last night or what, but this man is starting to get under my skin, and not in the annoying way he has in the past. I don’t know what to do with any of it. Everything just feels like too much for me to handle on my own.
“Will was supposed to take care of the sale of Big Daddy’s land,” I explain. “Now that all of this shit has gone down, I’m right back at square one.”
He doesn’t say a word as he shifts the vehicle in reverse to back out of the parking spot.
“I’m not looking forward to going back to Telluride.”
His hands tighten on the steering wheel before he speaks. “You’re not going back there. I’ll take care of it.”
I take this as meaning, he’ll go back in my place, but that doesn’t bring me any comfort. As often as I wish he’d disappear, I just can’t imagine being in my house alone. More importantly, I don’t think I could bear being away from him even if he made arrangements for someone else to be there or have me stay at the clubhouse while he’s gone, which he mentioned would happen if he got called away for work.
“You don’t have to go out of your way,” I mutter, instead of voicing my true feelings.
I’m not foolish enough to think that last night changed anything between us.
Kissing for most people isn’t a big deal. It’s the first step in most intimate relationships, so it’s really not that big of a deal despite my heart trying to convince my head of the opposite.
“Max can handle the sale of the property without even leaving the clubhouse.”
Since he directs the car toward the clubhouse instead of my place, I guess he’s decided this is something we’re going to take care of right now.
He’s either wanting to relieve this stress on me or he’s eager to get rid of me quicker.
By the time we pull up outside the clubhouse, I still haven’t been able to figure out which it is.
He opens the car door for me, but he doesn’t drop his hand to my back like he’s done in the past. In fact, he keeps a respectable distance between the two of us as if what happened last night was a figment of my imagination.
Neither of us mentioned it, and it has somehow become the elephant in the room. I don’t know why I expected to wake up this morning and things would be different. I shouldn’t have longed for him to be beside me in bed when I opened my eyes when he’s always the first to leave as if he can’t wait to get away from me.
I roll my head on my shoulders, the headache that started while talking to the administrator doubling as I step inside the clubhouse.
It doesn’t take long for Spade to find Max and for the IT guy to sit down at his computer to help me.
The man is a wizard on the computer, only needing to ask me a few questions before he’s able to pull up everything he needs, but then he frowns.
“What is it?” I ask, my stomach swimming with dread.
“You signed the house and land over to him?”