He held out his hand, and I took it, stepping down from the chair. I looked at his hand in mine, so much bigger, his palm rough and calloused. His skin had always been dark. He tanned so easily. He was paler now. Too much time indoors. Years. “Thank you,” I said, my words emerging in a rush. “For coming over so quickly. I hope I didn’t…disturb you.” I felt strangely shy in a way I hadn’t in…well, a long time. It was an odd feeling, but also somehow familiar.

“No,” he said, and I worked to bring myself back to the conversation. “You didn’t disturb me. I was just reading.”

I smiled, brushing past him into the living room. He followed, and I closed the sliding glass door behind him, latching it. “You and your books.”

He gave me a lopsided smile and rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah. They got me through a lot.”

A lot. Maybe he meant everything that had happened to him as a kid. Or maybe he meant serving time. Probably some of both. I shifted on my feet, feeling slightly uncomfortable. “That had to be very hard for you,” I said. “Being locked up.”

His eyes moved over my face as though searching, but then his expression seemed to fall in some slight way, and I sensed whatever he’d been looking for he hadn’t found. “It was, Emily.” He looked away, signaling that was all he was going to say about that. And I noted that it was back to Emily. No more Em.

Which was good. Of course. Our relationship was professional. It was confusing when it started to drift into other more intimate territory. So why was I disappointed? Not only in the fact that he obviously had no interest in opening up to me, but that the wall he’d momentarily lowered had just slammed solidly back into place? Why did I feel like I needed to save something, or defend something that I couldn’t even describe? A trill of panic rushed over my skin. I hated feeling like this with Tuck. Hated feeling this undefined want when it came to him and hated that I suspected he’d closed himself off because of something lacking in me.