Always Only You by Chloe Liese (z-lib.org).epub

Ren blanches.
“I’ll keep her outside,” I tell him, dropping onto my giant exercise ball with a
groan. “I just need to sit, Zenzero. Come on. If you want to talk, here’s where
we’re doing it.”
Ren closes the door behind him and walks slowly through my living room,
his eyes roaming the place curiously. His smile stays but he looks… Is it shy?
Nervous? God, what I’d give to better read faces.
Gently, he sets down his arms’ contents. First, a blazer, which I now
recognize as mine. Then, the package he was holding. He slides it across the
kitchen counter, pushing it my way. “Your jacket that you left behind,” he says.
“And a gift of thanks for letting the Shakespeare Club angle go.”
I frown up at him. “You don’t understand how much that hurt. We’re the LA
Kings. I had a skit in my head. Costumes and lines. So much material to work,
ya know? King Lear. Henry IV, Henry V, Richard II, Richard III, Macbeth.
Cymbeline. King John. That’s not even all of them…” My voice dies off as I
search Ren’s enigmatic expression. “What? Have I shocked you with my
categorical knowledge of Shakespeare?”
“A little bit.” It comes out hoarse.
“Don’t get too attached to the idea. I just know all the titles and some lines
here and there that I had to memorize for a quiz back in college. I don’t know
much about most of them otherwise.”
Ren clears his throat and shakes his head, snapping himself out of whatever
that was. His easy smile is back as he pushes the package closer. “Right. Well, I
didn’t want to make it weird by giving it to you at work tomorrow, and I thought
it would be even weirder if I mailed it to you. Plus, I had your jacket, so…”
Yanking the package my way, I tug warily at the string. Knots are the bane
of the arthritic’s existence. But the string unravels effortlessly.
I glance up at him and feel myself smile. “Thanks for avoiding the double
knot.”
He smiles bashfully and nods. My smile deepens as an unfamiliar warmth
floods my chest. I pull the paper away, tearing it easily. A bundle of soft cotton
drops onto the counter and I lift the fabric. “A dress shirt?”
Ren steps closer, flipping it over before he smooths it along the granite
counter. I stare at his hands longer than is most likely “appropriate.” But
they’re…beautiful. Long and faintly freckled. Upon closer inspection, they’re
also red at the knuckles, like he recently punched something.
“Maddox ruined your other one,” he says. “And I was pretty sure it looked
like this. Is it a good match?”
I stare at the shirt, processing what he’s saying, my fingers sliding along the