Page 66 of On Your Knees

There’s an old brick fireplace and a long table of worn, dark wood. The walls are white, and the cabinets are dark green with soft gold fixtures. That’s all I have time to see because Patrick is standing at the end of the table with his arms crossed over his muscled chest. Behind him, a set of glass doors leads to a patio. Beyond, I can see the black Mercedes.

Scowling, Patrick comes walking toward us. Ethan starts to step back and catches himself. Patrick grabs Ethan’s jaw as Ethan has often grabbed mine. Patrick’s expression slowly softens.

Patrick asks gently, “What happened?”

Ethan shakes his head against Patrick’s hand. He doesn’t want to tell him, or maybe he can’t. My throat tightens at all the things that are answers to Patrick’s question but won’t be said. So many things happened.

Patrick frowns again. “Ethan—”

Ethan pulls free of Patrick’s grip. Patrick sighs and drops his hand. His eyes shift to me, but he doesn’t say anything. I lower my eyes in shame. All of this is my fault.

Patrick says, “You two go clean up. I’ll make something to eat.”

Ethan objects, “Patrick—”

Patrick cuts him off with, “I’m not leaving this goddamn house, so you can deal with it, Ethan. Go take a shower and take care of Levi.”

With that, Patrick brushes past us and goes into the pantry. Ethan sighs, clearly too tired and overwhelmed to fight with Patrick. He guides me past the pantry, where Patrick is hunting through the cupboards, and along the hallway in the other direction. We walk past an elegant staircase into a bright, beautiful foyer. From the foyer, there are exterior doors in either direction and both have panels of stained glass around them.

Other doorways lead to additional rooms, but Ethan guides me up the winding staircase to a second floor that’s just as beautiful as the first. His penthouse is gorgeous, but this is a different kind of beauty. I can’t take it all in, but I still notice that it’s there.

We enter a huge bedroom with a four-poster bed and a fireplace, but we pass through it to a bathroom with dark blue tiled walls. Everything is so interesting, but it’s all blurring. I’m so tired.

Ethan goes to turn on the shower then comes back to me. He pulls the blanket away and drops it on the floor. He strips off his sweats.

We take a long, hot shower. Ethan touches me the whole time, and it feels good. I start to relax. He’s with me. He came to find me. No one has ever come to find me before.

He washes my hair. He washes my arms. At first I try to pull away, but there’s something in his eyes when he looks at me that makes me submit. I start crying as he works on the cuts and scrapes. I feel so stupid. The water hides my tears, but it can’t hide my shaking. When I have to sit on the shower floor, Ethan lets me. He’s shaking too, but he just keeps working and petting my wet hair.

By the time he’s done, I’m crying really hard, and Ethan pulls me into his lap. We stay there under the spray until the water gets cold. Then Ethan makes me get out to dry off.

I sit on the bathmat wrapped in a towel while he quickly washes himself in the cold water. When he scrubs the bottoms of his feet and I see how cut up he got from the glass, a fresh wave of shame washes over me.

Why does he bother with me?

When he turns off the shower and reaches out for a towel, I can feel him looking at me, but I don’t meet his eyes. Because I’m blocking his way and can’t seem to get up, Ethan dries off inside the shower. Then he wraps the damp towel around his waist and reaches down for me, pulling me to my feet.

Ethan doesn’t scold me or ask me what’s wrong. He just leads me out to the bedroom, where he makes me sit on an upholstered bench at the foot of the bed.

He vanishes into a closet and returns a moment later with a stack of folded clothes. Ethan hauls me up and helps me into a pair of sweats. They’re way too big, but he cinches them at my waist. He gets me into an oversized T-shirt as well. I’m sure I look ridiculous, but wearing his clothes soothes me just a little, enough that I let him lead me back into the bathroom, where he gets out a first aid kit and bandages my arms. But the sight of them wrapped in white makes me feel sick.

Ethan asks quietly, “Do you want a different shirt?”

I nod.

Back in the bedroom, he finds me a blue and red flannel. While he’s putting the other shirt away, I crawl into the bed. Ethan returns from the closet and looks at me.

I say, “I’ll just stay here.”

“You need to eat. You haven’t eaten in…” Ethan scrapes a hand through his damp hair. “I don’t know how long.”

“Neither have you,” I point out. I know he hasn’t eaten. He was never in the kitchen.

“Then we should both go down.”

“Who’s Patrick?” I ask.

Ethan takes a deep, audible breath and doesn’t answer me.