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She’s here. And I’m so fucking happy about it I can’t make myself care about what a bad idea this is, for all the reasons spinning inside my head.
I take her hand and tug her inside the apartment. I start the heater and shrug off my jacket. “You didn’t answer me. What are you doing here? Is everything okay?”
“Yes. I think.”
“You think?” I turn to her, and she puts her arms around me. It’s such a relief to feel her body pressed to mine after this shitty week and an evening spilling my guts out to Jet I sag against her, letting her warmth seep into me.
“I’m just…can’t make up my mind on some things.”
“Need help with that?”
She rests her cheek on my chest and I stroke her soft hair that’s falling in loose waves around her face. “What do you think of Ryan?”
A sting in my heart, a wave of heat in my balls and dick, a flash of irrational anger. “I dunno,” I say carefully. “Why, having second thoughts about him?”
Or about me?
“Rid…his mother’s dead.”
I go very still, my breath hitching. With thoughts of my mom in the hospital like fresh wounds in my mind, I can’t help but feel an empathic stab of pain on his behalf.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper against her hair. “You care for him, don’t you?” As I speak the words, I know it’s the truth. “You’re in love with him.”
“I don’t know. Don’t know what I feel.”
But it’s obvious.
Anger flares again. “He treats you like shit, Princess. Even if you love him, that’s a bad deal. Don’t take it.” I beg you. “You deserve better.”
“You don’t believe in second chances?”
I bury my face in the scented cloud of her curls and say nothing. Not sure I believe in anything anymore. She loves Ryan, and I can’t fucking deal with this right now.
“Sit with me,” I whisper.
She doesn’t reply, but walks with me to the sofa and lets me pull her on my lap. Her arms are around me, and mine around her, and for a while the world goes still and quiet.
“Are you all right?” she asks, and it’s my turn not to reply.
Not sure I can without falling apart.
“Your mom?” she whispers, and I nod. “Still in the hospital?”
“Yeah,” I whisper, my voice lost in the sweet juncture between her shoulder and her neck, where she smells like flowers.
“Is she getting out soon?”
“I dunno. The fucking docs won’t tell me anything, and I just…” I bite a little into her soft skin, to muffle the howl that’s trying to escape me.
“And your brother?”
She’s stroking the back of my neck. It’s soothing. I exhale, kiss her neck. “Hasn’t come home in more than a week.”
She pulls back, puts her hands on my face. “Rid…”
And she kisses me.
It’s unbearably gentle. Her soft lips move over mine like a whisper, and I’m afraid this will finally break me to pieces, this gentle, tentative touch, so different to anything I remember, so perfect.
