The Long Way Home (Corps Security #6)(12)

“Someone’s Someone” by Monsta X



“He’s out there again,” Ella whisper-yells into my ear.

Of course, it wasn’t a necessary warning, seeing that Riley’s been out there with him talking up a storm for the past half hour, so I already knew he was there. Without fail, he’s there propped up against the brick at the corner of my building each day like clockwork. She’s done the same thing every day when we’re about to leave, and he arrives. She joins his silent watch from his relaxed post at the corner of Olde Mug.

Just like every morning when I leave my home and find him there, too.

Silently waiting, like it’s the most normal thing in the whole world.

My questioning became more persistent when he showed up at my home.

When I walked out and saw him standing just outside the building’s front gate, I just knew something was going on. However, having that gut feeling doesn’t mean a thing when I can’t get the man to talk.

It never works.

I’ll give him credit. His stubbornness is one heck of a strong iron shield.

I’m pretty sure he could withstand any kind of torture and never crack.

I stopped questioning him a week in.

A solid week of him walking with Riley on his shoulders and me locked in my head trying to figure out what the hell was going on. All the while, he stayed silent.

I still tried asking every now and then, but really, I’ve all but stopped doing that. Somewhere around the two weeks mark, I just accepted his silence. Almost looked forward to it. But at the random moments when I did ask, there was still silence. He just looked at me, eyes calm, and cocked that damn brow. So I stopped wasting my time trying.

“You get it out of him yet?” Ella continues.

“I stopped trying,” I reply with a shrug. “I wasn’t getting anywhere.”

“What the hell have you been doing for the past two weeks, then?”

I shrug again, drying the teal deep-set coffee mug with swirling lavender vines on it with a towel. “Walking home. Just silently walking home with Riley’s chatter filling the air.”

“And he still just leaves when you get inside?”

“Yup.” I nod.

Thinking back over each night he’s silently walked with Riley on his shoulders while she does all the talking for us, I noticed three days in that he was answering her with slight squeezes of her ankles with his hands. One hand for no and both for yes. I will never know how she knew what that meant, but it’s just another one of those things I stopped questioning.

“This is seriously so strange, Liv.”

“You don’t think I know that,” I snap, then sigh when I realize my tone is too sharp. “I’m sorry. I just have no idea what the hell is going on, and it’s driving me insane. When he ignored my questioning of it for so long, I just figured whatever. It wasn’t worth my mental sanity while I tried to figure it out on my own. He’s been coming in here for so long, it doesn’t feel like he’s a stranger, but maybe it should feel weirder than it does. It just is. At first, it was awkward. Now it’s just like … I don’t know? Maybe comfortable?” I lift my arms in sync with my shoulders as I shrug, sigh, and drop them heavily at my sides.

“Oh boy.” She sighs, her eyes wide, staring at me as if I have two heads.

“What?” I question, turning my head toward the front window, thinking that he was coming in. When I see him and Riley in the same position, her still talking with her animated movements and him just looking at her with all of his attention, I look back at Ella. “What?” I ask again, a little firmer.

“You like him.”

“What?” I gasp, my head snapping back like she had slapped me.

“You like like him, like him.”

“I do not!”

“Oh yeah, you do.”

“I’m just confused by him. I do not like him. He’s a puzzle.”

She scoffs. “He isn’t a puzzle. You’re frustrated that you can’t just jump his bones.”

I narrow my eyes. “Would you keep your voice down?”

She tosses her head back and laughs loudly.

I look around the room and see we’ve gained the attention of a handful of customers. I look back at the window, seeing Riley laughing with her whole body, jumping on her toes. When my gaze moves to Drew, I see his gaze on her, but his normally stoic face looks relaxed and almost boyish.

I’ve had a lot of time to study him during our silence. As his attention is always on Riley, I take in as much as I can from the corner of my eye. Much more time than I’ve had over the years of him coming into Olde Mug. I knew he was older, but I had assumed he was, at most, five years older than my thirty-five. But when I get a good look at those sandy locks during our walks home, I’ve seen more silver in them when the sun hits his head. He hides them well, just as he hides the faint signs of him being older in his face. If I had to guess, he’s closer to fifty than forty. However, when he’s with Riley, a side of him comes out that looks a little more relaxed, giving him an air of something so contradictory to the harshness I’ve grown so accustomed to.

The wrinkles at the corners of his eyes give him away. I don’t know what happened to him, but I have no doubt that Drew wasn’t always this closed-off, hard man.