Rock Chick Redemption (Rock Chick #3)(100)

“Yes I do,” I told him. “When I wake up my eyes are al squinty and my face is al blotchy and my hair is always a mess.”

He pul ed me into his body and tilted his head down so his face was an inch from mine. “I see you’re in the mood to argue but I have to get to the station so can we argue while we’re walkin’ the dog?”

Then, before I could answer, he rubbed his nose alongside mine, let me go, turned me around to face the bathroom, put his hand to my ass and gave me a little shove. I whirled around to glare at him and say something smart, or at least say something, but he was already walking away.

Shamus sauntered into the doorway of the bathroom and sat down, tail wagging and his tongue rol ed out.

“Whatever,” I muttered and grabbed my toothbrush.

* * * * *

We didn’t argue while walking Shamus. I pouted and practiced my cold shoulder while trying not to think about my life’s spiraling descent through the seven depths of hel . My cold shoulder didn’t work; literal y nor figuratively.

Hank ignored it completely and slung his arm around my neck, making me walk pressed against his side.

I also managed to think of nothing but my downward life spiral through the depths of hel and by the time we made it back to his house, I had waltzed through the fourth depth of hel and was careening headlong into the fifth.

Hank left me to my thoughts and my getting ready routine. While he scrambled eggs and made toast, I showered.

I was standing at his bathroom sink applying blusher, when he brought me coffee and a plate of food. They were good scrambled eggs, with a hint of garlic and some cheese and the toast was toasted perfectly, not too light, not too brown and with a generous coating of real butter and grape jel y.

I found it immensely irritating that Hank was even a good, f**king cook.

I ripped off a chunk of toast angrily with my teeth and chewed while Hank watched me. He was leaning against the bathroom doorway, foot crossed at the ankle, plate in his hand, forking up some eggs.

“What now?” he asked. His eyes were lazy and amused.

“Nothing,” I said with my mouth ful .

“You have jel y on your face,” he told me.

My eyes flew to the mirror.

Shit.

I rubbed it off, put down my toast and took a sip of coffee.

He walked into the bathroom, kissed the side of my head and walked out.

Fucking Hank.

* * * * *

We were parked behind Fortnum’s and I had my hand on the door handle when Hank stopped me and turned me to him. “You want to tel me what’s buggin’ you?” he asked.

“No,” I answered.

His eyes smiled but his mouth didn’t.

How he could smile, I did not know. Even if it wasn’t a ful blown smile, to my mind there was nothing to smile about.

“Is this about our conversation last night?” he went on.

“No,” I repeated, this time it was a lie.

It was totally about our conversation last night. I couldn’t get it out of my head, any of it. Last night, he’d made sense.

In fact, everyone made sense, Daisy, Duke, everyone. I wanted to believe, even tried to believe.

In my heart, I couldn’t.

Deep down, I knew I had to protect myself from that time; the time that happens in any relationship, when my judgment was cal ed into question. Then, where would I be?

What would I say? I didn’t have solid moral ground to stand on and Hank was a pil ar of solid moral ground. Any relationship had to have equality. Ours did not. He was clean and good, I was dirty and, if not bad, then at least dubious. Who wanted to be the dubious girlfriend?

Not me.

That said I spent more of my time thinking about him tel ing me that I undid him than my moral dubiousness.

“I can’t believe you can cook,” I snapped, deciding to focus on something other than the matter at hand.

His smile went away and he did a slow blink. “Sorry?”

“You’re a good cook,” I said.

“You’re angry because I can make eggs?”

“Wel … yeah,” I said not caring, even a little bit, that I sounded demented. Demented was good. No one wanted a demented girlfriend.

“Sunshine, I can scramble eggs and I can cook meat on the gril , that’s the extent of my cooking skil s,” he told me.

“Feel better?”

“You make good toast too,” I made it sound like an accusation.

He stared at me a beat and then threw his head back and laughed. Out and out laughed. I’d never seen him laugh, not like that. I’d felt him laugh, and I’d heard him chuckle, but I’d never watched him laugh. He was good-looking al the time, sometimes better than others, but when he laughed he was beautiful.

This did not make me happy, so I scowled at him.

He caught sight of my scowl and snatched me across the cab, into his arms and buried his face in my neck.

“You’re a nut,” he said there.

Enough was enough. I had to end this. I didn’t want to, I had to.

Okay, so Hank didn’t get it. And neither did anyone else.

So they al thought I was a crazy person and I would disappoint a lot of people if I broke it off with Hank. That didn’t matter. What mattered was I knew what I was doing and what I was doing was for Hank.

He deserved better than me.