Page 20 of Preacher

“Give it time.”

That landed somewhere it shouldn’t have. I watched his eyes drop to the bottle in his lap, saw the color climb up the side of his neck that wasn’t bruised. He took another sip he didn’t want, just to have something to do with his hands.

I let him have the moment, sipped my own beer, and listened to Crowbar lose at something on the other side of the fire, while Drift laughed loud enough to scare birds.

“Preacher.”

“Yeah.”

“What did you mean? In the diner.” Trent’s voice had gone quieter, careful, the way a person sounded when they were stepping onto ice they weren’t sure would hold. “When you said I was your problem?”

I’d been waiting for him to ask. I set my beer down on the slate between our chairs and turned toward him, one elbow on my knee.

“Means what it sounds like.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“It’s the start of one.” I held his gaze. The firelight made the green of them deeper, almost gray in the middle. “Means as long as you’re under my protection, nobody touches you. Means Hammer doesn’t get within a mile of you. Means Royce finds out real quick that your name isn’t currency anymore. Means your brother doesn’t get to hand you out the next time trouble comes knocking.”

“And in return?”

“In return you eat. You sleep. You let me figure out the rest.”

His brow furrowed. “That’s not a deal. That’s a fairy tale.”

It was a removal of burden. Trent’s whole life had been earning and carrying everything. That shit stopped tonight.

“Take it up with management.” I leaned back, content in a way I hadn’t been in so long. I wanted to tell him the truth, wanted him to know why he felt so connected to me, but my mate was opening up, and I wanted to keep him talking. Wanted to hear the softness in his voice. Wanted those eyes focused on me, looking at me like I was something to him.

“You’re management.”

I smirked. “Then stop arguing.”

He laughed. It startled out of him, short and a little hoarse, and it was the first real one I’d heard from him. My wolf perked up at the sound and pressed against the inside of my chest like it wanted to climb out and lay at his feet.

“I don’t understand you,” Trent said after a moment, trying to map something that didn’t fit into every pattern he’d known. He’d gone back to studying me, head still tipped sideways on the cushion, eyes hooded with exhaustion. “Yesterday I thought you were going to kill me. Today you fed me ribs.”

“Both can be true.”

“Don’t say things like that. I’ll faint again.”

“Then I’ll catch you again.”

His brows shot up. I watched a swallow move down the long line of his throat and forced myself to look back at the fire before I did something the human wasn’t ready for.

“Why?” he asked, so soft I almost missed it under the crackle of the logs.

“Why what?”

“Why me?” Trent’s fingers tightened on the bottle. “I’m nobody. I’m a guy who pours coffee and pays his brother’s bills and got himself slammed into a wall because he was at the wrong corner store at the wrong time. There’s nothing here worth all this.”

I turned my head slowly, meeting his eyes, and held them.

“You let me decide what’s worth what.”

He didn’t answer. His mouth was open just slightly, and his pulse was visible under the skin of his neck, fluttering fast.

Pop, pop, pop. My hand was on Trent’s arm, yanking him out of his chair and slinging him toward Riot. “Get him inside, now!”