After Hours (InterMix)(24)

I cleared my throat and nodded to the vase. “They’re lovely, thanks.”

“They’re secondhand. I nabbed them from the party.”

Aaannnd . . . seduction ruined. “You stole someone’s going-away flowers?”

“With permission. She had plenty more where those came from.”

Okay, so he hadn’t driven into town and back to get me a gift, but what in the f*ck did I expect? Who did I think this guy was to me?

“It’s the thought that counts,” he pointed out.

“You’re right.” I wandered to my bed and took a seat, weariness redoubled. Kelly must have sensed it, as he said, “Excited to spend your first morning off practicing choke holds?”

“Oh yes, thrilled. Though I’d rather do it with you than a patient.”

He crossed his arms and leaned against the door frame.

“You can come in, if you want.” I pointed to a chair that didn’t match its desk, all the furniture secondhand, castoffs like my flowers. Like every stitch of clothing I’d owned growing up, even the shirt I wore now, inherited from some ex-boyfriend whose face I could barely conjure.

Kelly’s gaze flicked around the room, but after a pause he shut the door behind him and pulled out the chair. My room was small to begin with, but stick Kelly Robak in the middle and it seemed all at once tight and hot. My womanhood suddenly felt much the same.

I cleared my throat.

“Seems like you’re finding your feet,” he said. I thought I could smell him, behind the lilies, but it was probably a delusion.

“I’m starting to get the routine. I know where stuff is, know some people’s names. Thanks, for letting me tail you at the party. It’s the least square-peggish I’ve felt so far. Overdressed or not.”

His eyes darted around again, and not in a sexy, Which wall shall I nail her to? kind of way.

“Is my room creeping you out?”

“Nah, not quite. It’s just weird. It’s so much like one of the rooms from the locked ward, but a different color and without the bars, and with like, stuff on the walls. I keep thinking, ‘slashing hazard,’” he pointed to a framed photograph that’d been there when I moved in. “Suicide risk.” He nodded to a belt of mine, draped around a bedpost, then to a bottle of perfume on my dresser. “Accelerant. Search the room for matches.”

I smirked. “You haven’t clocked out yet.”

“After four years, I never really do. Not ’til I’m through those gates and halfway to Darren.”

What a grim thought. Happy frigging birthday.

Kelly stood and strolled around my cell, taking stock of what little there was to note. He stopped before my bed, staring out my window with his hands clasped behind his back. “Nice view,” he said, gaze on the dark woods.

“Even better when the sun’s out,” I said dryly.

He looked down at me and smiled—the first real smile I’d seen from him all day, even during the party. It heated me just as it had at the bar, filled me with bad ideas.

“What?”

He took a seat beside me, dipping the mattress. “We got a little something between us, don’t we?”

Caught off guard, I deflected. “How little?”

Another smile, a deeper one with a flash of teeth. “Cute. But I’m not imagining it, am I? There’s something here,” he said, wiggling his fingers between our chests. He stared pointedly at the Red Wings logo on my shirt. “Plus you clearly dressed to seduce me.”

“If you say so.”

He winced like I’d just tried to knee him in the balls. “Okay, we can be like that.”

Behind whatever blank expression I’d managed to slap on my face, my common sense and my libido were rolling around, pulling each other’s hair, slapping and spitting and fighting to come out on top. Or to come out underneath Kelly Robak, in the case of my libido. Luckily it ended in a draw.

“No, there might be something,” I admitted. “But not the kind of something I want to do anything about with a colleague. Not my first week at a new job.” My * had added the caveat, opportunist that it was.

Kelly’s expression went cool, more calm acceptance than bruised ego, I hoped. He nodded. “Understood.”

And with that, what could have been quite a memorable twenty-eighth birthday present rose and headed for the exit, bouncing the mattress beneath my butt.