The Eagle has landed.

I stare at my phone for a few seconds. The text from Con, tying my stomach in knots.

Cari is finally home.

Me: Thanks, man. I owe you.

Con: The Eagle is also angry at me for not

taking her to her hotel.

I knew that’d be the likely outcome when I asked Con to cancel her hotel reservations and pick her up from the airport. Take her home.

Con: The Eagle called me an asshole and

slammed the door in my face when I

tried to help her in with her bags.

Con: She mocked Siberia.

Me: I have no idea what that means.

Con: It hurt my feelings.

I laugh out loud, wishing I’d been there to see it. Besides Tess, I’ve never met a woman who can resist my cousin’s charms. Jessica doesn’t count. I have serious doubts she’s even human.

Me: I owe you twice.

Con: I’m still waiting for my pony.

I shove my phone into my back pocket and try to concentrate on work, not the fact that it’s been eleven months since she left and I haven’t so much as talked to her. I meant what I said that night—I love her. I’m waiting for her. But I’m not chasing her. If she loves me, wants me, she going to have to say so. Eleven months gone and she never once called. Texted.

Nothing.

I’d be lying if I said my confidence hasn’t taken a bit of a beating.

“That Con?” Declan says, and I look up to see him on the extension ladder he’s using to double-check measurements for the windows we need to order.

“Yup.” We could have a dozen guys measure the same window and come up with the same measurement and Dec would still want to do it himself, just to make sure.

He tucks his pencil behind his ear and heads down the ladder. “Cari home?”

I nod, holding the ladder for him. “She’s at our place.”

Our place.

That’s what I call it in my head. The apartment above Gilroy’s is our place. After she left, I moved out. Because it’s not our place without her, and without her, I don’t want to be there.

I moved into one of the Backbay loft properties. Hired a part-time bartender to handle the lighter shifts to give the three of us some breathing room. Time to focus on things beside running the bar.

“Want to take off?” Dec looks at this watch. “It’s about time for lunch anyway.”

Yes. I wanted to be the one to pick her up from the airport. I wanted to pull her into my arms and kiss her the second she stepped off the plane. I wanted to take her home and take her clothes off and remind her how good it is between us. And if that isn’t enough to convince her to stay, do it all over again.

“Nope,” I say, lifting my clip board. “I want to get these windows ordered. If we don’t get it done today, we’re going to miss the shipping window.”

“Come on, man,” he says, landing with a solid thump that shook the floor. “She’s been gone eleven months. Don’t you want to—”

Fuck yes, I want to. “I’ll see her later,” I say, cutting him off. “Same as everyone else.”

“Seriously?” Declan says, fiddling nervously with the measuring tape in his hand. “I’d think—”

“Yeah, Dec—seriously.” I look over my shoulder, calling over the first knucklehead in a hard hat I see.

“Yeah, Boss?” he says, jogging over. He’s a new guy, one of the temps we hired on full-time. We’ve been running two crews for months now, so that we can stay on schedule. We’ve got builds scheduled out for the next eighteen months, and we just submitted plans and a bid for our first commercial project. If we land it, we’ll have to hire on a third crew. We’re busy. Too busy for me to go chasing after Cari. That’s why I had Con pick her up from the airport. Because I didn’t have time.

Oh, is that why? Explain why you had him cancel her hotel reservations and take her back to the apartment.

Fuck.

“Help Mr. Micromanager finish re-measuring these windows.” I slap the clipboard into his hand. “I’m going to lunch.”

What the fuck am I doing here?

Trying to figure out exactly when I sustained a head injury, I press the buzzer next to the shiny new door I hung on its hinges less than a month ago. Around the same time, I heard through Tess that Cari was coming home. Until then, it was just an open doorway with a staircase leading to the apartment I spent the better part of a year completely gutting and renovating.

Quit knocking and use your key, pussy.

Yeah, I have a key. It’s stuck in the front pocket of my jeans, burning a hole in my leg, but I’m not going to use it. Because it’s not my place anymore, no matter how much of my spare time I spend here. I don’t live here anymore. Won’t again. Not without her.

So, I buzz again. Wait for her to open the door like a religious nut, looking to spread my crazy, while wondering how many times I can push the buzzer before I cross over into creepy stalker territory.

I’ll ask her if she wants to grab some lunch. I won’t push. I won’t beg. I’ll just ask. If she has plans, then it’ll be no big deal. I’ll grab a burger downstairs, head over to check up on the job site Jeff is running across town and then head back to the office to finish the plans I’m drawing up for a meeting with potential buyers on Monday.

If she says yes...

I press the buzzer again. One more time.  Three times is persistent but not creepy. If she doesn’t answer, I’ll leave. Three unanswered rings says, kick rocks, creepy stalker. I’m here for my art debut, not because we fucked a few times and you got all attached and weird about it—

The door opens, and there she is.

Cari.

Bare feet. Hair swept off her neck. Wearing yoga pants and a thin, loose-fitting shirt I’ve never seen before, the low, scooping neckline showing off her birthmark. The color of it deepens from pale pink to red wine in the space of a breath.

Instant. Hard-on.

Shit.

Her lips part, mouth opening slightly when she sees me. “Patrick...” Her tongue darts out to lick along her lower lip and I barely manage to stifle a groan. I want to grab her. Push my hands through her hair. Pull her against me. Put my mouth on her. Bury myself inside her.

Someone needs to follow me around with a spray bottle full of vinegar.

“Hey,” I say, amazed at how human I sound. “Just swinging by to check on things—thought I’d stop in and see if you’d like to grab a bite.”

“Uhh...” she looks over her shoulder, chewing on her bottom lip for a second. She looks nervous. Apprehensive. “Sure,” she finally says, just as I’m about to cut and run. She moves back, opening the door a bit wider, giving me room to pass through the door. When I don’t, we stand there at the foot of the stairs, too close for either of us to be comfortable, looking at each other like neither of us knows what to do next.

I clear my throat. “I thought we’d go to Benny’s,” I say, shoving my hands into the pockets of my coat in a last-ditch effort to keep them to myself.

“That would be perfect.” She smiles, and some of her nervousness evaporates. “Let me grab some shoes and—” She looks down at her shirt front and blushes. “change my clothes.”

I make the mistake of looking, my mouth open to tell her she looks perfect the way she is. Her nipples are clearly visible through the thin cotton of her shirt. She’s not wearing a bra.

Jesus.

“I’ll wait here,” I say, leaning against the doorframe while giving her what I hope to Christ is a smile and not a creepy stalker leer.

She looks like she’s going to insist I follow her up. Instead she nods. “Okay,” she says, tilting her head in the direction of the stairs. “I’ll be right down.”

She jogs up the stairs and disappears through the open archway. I can hear her moving around. Down the hall to one of the brand-new guest rooms. Not her old room. Our room. The only room in the apartment that didn’t get a complete overhaul.

After she left, I went a little crazy.

Okay, I went a lot crazy.

The kind of crazy that only total destruction can mollify. I knocked out walls. Pulled down ceilings. Ripped out cabinets and plumbing. I didn’t stop until it looked exactly the way I felt. Devastated. Damaged. Destroyed.

It didn’t matter that I’d only finished renovating it a handful of months ago. I wanted it gone. All of it. Anything that reminded me of her. How she felt. Tasted. Smelled.

I destroyed it all.

But when I carried my sledgehammer into our room, intent on tearing it all down, I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t destroy the place where I felt her the most. So, I left it alone. Closed the door. Put it away. Moved on.

And then I started to rebuild. Fix it. Make it bigger. Better. Looking around the space, you’d never know it had been in ruins only months before.

The irony is not lost on me.