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I turn to face him. “Thank you for last night.” I was a mess when I texted him just before midnight. I’d spent the three hours before that telling myself I was okay, that I could make it through the night by myself. I tried to downplay my anxiety when he called; I felt so dumb to reach out to him for help.
He shifts his attention from the ceiling to me. “Do you have a lot of nightmares?”
“Some.”
“How often?”
“A few times a week.”
“And being scared while you’re home alone. Is that usual?”
I nod, feeling defeated and like a failure. “Yes.” My voice cracks as I answer him. These are things I’ve tried to make go away, but instead of succeeding in that, they’ve gotten worse. Or maybe it’s not that they’ve gotten worse, but that each time compounds in my mind, making it all feel like a mountain I can’t scale. I feel like I can’t make it over the top of this mess and get to the other side.
He sits up, swinging his legs over the bed and standing. Jerking his chin, he says, “We’re gonna have some breakfast, and then I’m gonna show you some shit you can do to defend yourself if you need to.”
Before I’ve left the bed, he’s out of the room and down the hall.
“Ah, I’m going to need a shower first,” I call out.
“Make it fast, princess. I’ve got shit to do today,” he calls back.
I’m pretty sure it’s messed up that I like him calling me princess even though he started calling me that in a mean way. But that’s because I don’t think he uses it in a mean way anymore. I need to remind myself, though, that I like him in a different way than he likes me.
I throw myself in the shower and make it as quick as possible. That I’m no good with fast showers means that Fury has time to cook bacon and eggs before I join him.
He eyes me as he transfers the eggs to our plates. “That’s your idea of a quick shower?”
I shrug. “I tried.” Sliding onto a stool across from him, I say, “I’m not trying to be ungrateful here, but I don’t eat bacon. So you can have all of that.”
He stops what he’s doing. “Who the fuck doesn’t eat bacon?”
“Me.”
“Fuck, are you vegan?”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
He shakes his head. “Not a bad thing, but I’m not down with any evangelical vegan bullshit. I’ll do a lot of fucking things for you, Zara, but listening to that shit isn’t one of them.”
I skip over the vegan stuff—because I’m not vegan—and focus on what he says about doing a lot of fucking things for me. His words spread warmth through me. I have family members who will do anything for me, but I’ve never had a friend who is willing to go out of their way and do stuff to help me like Fury has.
“Thank you for being my friend,” I say softly. “I know we started off rough, and I know you probably weren’t looking for an eighteen-year-old friend, but just so you know, you’ve found one.”
He’s slow to respond to that. In fact, he kinda goes still and just stares at me for what feels like a long time. To the point where I feel a little awkward that I even said it. God, he probably thinks I’m a silly teenage girl who—
“I wasn’t, and I’m not,” he says gruffly.
He’s saying he doesn’t want a friend, but his eyes aren’t in agreement. “People don’t do ‘a lot of fucking things’ for people they don’t think of as a friend. We’re friends whether you want one or not. Just sayin’.” I drop my gaze to the plates of food. “Now give me my breakfast and let me eat so we can get this self-defence stuff done so you can go and do all the shit you have to do today. And by the way, I’m not vegan, but I’m gonna love harassing you with all that evangelical vegan bullshit you love so much.”
“Fucking hell,” he mutters as he shovels all the bacon onto his plate. Then, sliding my plate across to me, he says, “There’s coffee too if you want some.”
“See, we really are friends; you made me coffee, too.”
He arches his brows and hits me with an exasperated look. “You want some or you wanna sit around and talk shit all day?”
I laugh. “Well, I would say yes, but I don’t drink coffee.”
He does what I call the male eye-roll and mutters, “Of course you fucking don’t.”
