I glanced around the room. I couldn’t focus. I needed to go to bed, but I wasn’t going to be able to sleep here. No fucking way.
Tip-toeing back down the stairs, I shuffled through my soccer bag for my keys, opened the front door as quietly as I could, and got into my car. I didn’t really think about where I was going though my destination was completely clear to me.
I had only one place to go.
The light from the computer monitor created a soft glow from the other side of Nicole’s window. I had parked where there was an old logging road, and my car wouldn’t be visible from the street, and now stood on the grass right below her window.
Looking around, I found a handful of pebbles on the ground and tossed them one at a time at the window until Nicole looked out.
“What the hell are you doing?” she asked.
“Can I come in?” I called back.
She let out a sigh as she rolled her eyes.
“Go around to the door,” she grumbled.
I made it to the porch just as Rumple opened the door. She was dressed in a gray T-shirt and shorts and was obviously about to go to bed.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
“I can’t be in my room right now,” I said, begging her with my eyes not to ask. She must have heard my silent plea because she looked me over, sighed, and then motioned me inside the house.
“Be quiet,” she whispered. “Dad’s a heavy sleeper, but if he saw you…”
She really didn’t have to say anything else. Every time I thought about Sheriff Skye, I pictured him with a gun bulging out from his belt. I knew he’d never risk doing something to me in a premeditative way, but if he thought he was protecting his daughter, I’d be shot before he thought about it at all.
We crept upstairs and into Rumple’s room. She turned off her PC monitor and motioned toward the bed. I watched her as I tried to decide exactly what I was supposed to do now. It felt like I was suddenly playing on offense, and I couldn’t remember how to handle the ball with my feet. I had no idea what to do.
Thankfully, Rumple seemed to know.
“Come on,” she said with an exasperated sigh. “Get in.”
Perhaps Shakespeare would have said I “should suffer salvation, body and soul.” Somehow, I thought Nicole could be my salvation.
Now what if she didn’t want to be?
CHAPTER 12
PRACTICE
After I took off my shoes and socks, I climbed into Nicole’s bed and put my head on her pillow. Even before she lay down next to me, just the scent of her surrounding me seemed to calm my nerves. Once she was there beside me, and I wrapped my arm around her waist again, my world came back into focus. When her hand came up to my face, and her fingers tangled in my hair, I felt like I could take a deep breath again.
“What did he do, Th
omas?” Nicole whispered. With the lights off in her room, I could only just make out her features in the dark.
Somehow, that made it easier.
“He was in my room,” I said quietly. “I just… It’s stupid, I know, but…”
My voice trailed off.
“What?” Nicole pressed.
“He moved stuff…took stuff. Everything was out of place.”
Nicole was quiet for a moment while she seemed to contemplate what I said.