She was shouting now, desperately wishing for the sweet pressure of his mouth on her skin. “I wanted you to say, ‘Hey, maybe I could ask her out. Maybe I could make her feel special.’ I wanted you to wake the hell up, maybe even be jealous, but all you did was talk basketball.” Her voice broke. “And give the man your fucking autograph. So the joke’s on me, I guess.”

“Will you see him again?” he asked quietly. So damn calmly.

She wanted to scream. “No. I told him that I wasn’t ready. I told him about Fritz.”

He drew a deep breath, but he must have taken a step back, because when he exhaled, she couldn’t feel it. For the best, she thought. He must have been toying with her after all.

Except . . . Tom isn’t like that. He wouldn’t humiliate me like that.

For a brief moment she wondered if he was doing this to make her so angry that she’d quit Sunnyside. But Tom wasn’t like that, either.

“Look,” she said wearily. “I thought I could do this. I thought I could talk to you and be your friend and help you shoulder the burden for this case. But I can’t. I’m sorry, but I can’t.”

“So Mike isn’t coming back?”

He was about a foot behind her now. She was tempted to take a step forward, but that felt like retreat and she wasn’t going to do that anymore, either.

“No. He’s not coming back. Why?”

“Because he had flowers sent to you.”

She stilled. “What?”

“I went home to walk Pebbles after the party and there were flowers on your doorstep. The card said they were from Mike.”

Liza rubbed her temples. “I don’t . . . I didn’t . . .” She sighed. “What did you do with them?”

“I threw them in a dumpster,” he said calmly.

Confused, she slowly turned to face him. He stood with his hands at his sides. Fists clenched. Jaw clenched. Body held ramrod straight.

He wasn’t calm. Not at all. And that goddamn hope began to sparkle again. “Why are you here, Tom? You could have called me about the bodyguard.”

His throat worked as he tried to swallow. Finally he cleared his throat. “Am I too late?”

She took a small step closer. A tiny, tentative step. “Too late for what?” she whispered, afraid for the answer, but hoping, hoping, hoping.

The small step seemed to defuse his tension. He released his fists, his eyes fixed on hers.

“I don’t want to lose you,” he said, his voice low and gravelly. “I . . . I can’t.”

Okay. Not exactly what she’d wanted to hear. She dropped her chin, breaking eye contact. “You won’t lose me as a friend. You don’t have to force yourself to—”

Strong fingers gripped her chin and urged her to look up.

The breath caught in her chest and it was like all the oxygen in the room was sucked away.