Page 157

Adrien’s arm tightens. “Yes.” He sounds like he hates the word. “I was working. I checked the camera when I could, but not enough, and you were sleeping the last time I looked. I should’ve come back sooner. I should’ve made another arrangement before I left. I should’ve told you I was leaving in the first place.”

My eyes burn, fresh tears threatening to spill over. “You left?”

“Yeah.”

“Where?”

“Work, baby.”

“Oh.” I press my face into the worn cotton of his shirt, breathing in his scent. “So you weren’t…” My voice gives out.

Adrien’s fingers trace circles along the tense line of my neck. “I wasn’t what?”

I don’t want to say it.

He waits anyway, his thumb pausing against my pulse.

“Gone…”

His body goes rigid against mine. I feel the sudden stillness in his chest where my cheek rests. “Gone how?”

“Like…” My throat tightens painfully. “Like you decided not to come back.”

For several heartbeats, Adrien doesn’t move at all. Then his arms lock around me, pulling me so close I can feel the hammering of his heart through both our clothes. “Oh, Kammie.”

I cry harder, the sound muffled against him. “I—I thought maybe after the bath you changed your mind.”

“My mind about what?”

“Me.” The word scrapes raw on its way out. “I thought maybe you thought about it, and I was weird, or embarrassing, or too much, and then you just…” I can’t finish.

Adrien makes an angry, rough sound in his chest. His hand cups the back of my head, fingers tangling in my hair as he presses my cheek even harder against the beat of his heart. “Listen to me, sweetheart.”

I sniff, wiping my nose on his sleeve without thinking.

“I am not leaving you. Not today. Not tomorrow. Not because of the bath. Not because you had an accident. Not because you cry too much, or need too much, or because you’re scared.” His thumb moves in firm strokes against my scalp, massaging out the tension there. “You are not going to wake up one day and find out I got tired of taking care of you.”

Something breaks—maybe the last piece I was holding together. A deafening wail rips out of me so hard my whole body shakes with it.

Adrien just holds me. Doesn’t tell me to stop. Doesn’t tell me I’m overreacting. Doesn’t remind me that I’ve known him for practically no time at all and therefore have no right to care whether he leaves.

He holds me until the crying eases into trembling, until my breaths come in ragged hitches instead of full-body convulsions.

Then he says softly, “And this?” His hand pats the damp fabric of my shorts. I want to disappear into the floorboards. Adrien keeps going before I can. “This is nothing.”

“It’s not nothing,” I mumble.

“To me, it is.”

I lift my face. My vision swims with leftover tears. “You’re really not mad?”

His expression shifts into something almost offended—brows pulling together, mouth tightening. “At you?”

I nod.

“Never, sweetheart.”

“But the bed—”