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“If you passed me the soap.”
“I… could probably do that,” he says as he holds it out for me.
“Oh wow, the strength it took to do that, just… oh, it’s titillating.” I take it from him before squeezing some onto my palm.
“You want a washcloth?”
“No, I’m being sexy. Who can be sexy with a washcloth?”
“I’m pretty sure you can be sexy with anything.”
“With a flyswatter?”
“Fucking rock hard.”
“With a… rock?”
“It’ll be as hard as my dick.”
I grin at him before quickly hiding it. “Nope. Sexiness,” I say as I run my hand down my chest to my abdomen. “Look at me being all sexy. Rawr.”
“Did… did you, Landon, my one true love… just… rawr?”
“I deeply regret it and will likely burn it from my memory, but I get sad when you’re sad, and then there’s this thing inside me that makes me feel like I have to do everything, even act stupid, to make you happy again.”
He smiles at me before grabbing me and pulling me toward him. “Thank you.”
“You don’t need to thank me. I’m pretty sure I failed miserably.”
“Nah, you failed just right.”
I grin at that as I drape my arms over him and hold him close to me. “Will you believe me if I tell you that it’s going to be okay? That you have a group of people surrounding you that will support you to the absolute end of this? It might not feel like it. And it might seem like it’s shit, but every single one of us is there for you. You don’t have to go through this alone like you did in the past.”
August squeezes me so tightly, it’s like I can feel all of his worries and every one of his concerns. I can feel the tension wound up tight in his body, and I want to melt it all away. I know I can’t drag it all out of him in one night, but I want him to know that I’m here to help him carry whatever has been weighing him down.
“Do you really think you’re going to quit?” I ask.
“I don’t know,” he admits. “I don’t know if I have it in me to sit back and watch the city I’ve fought so hard for fall to ruins… but I also feel like I’m constantly falling myself. I was… I was falling for so long until you caught me, Landon. And I feel like I’m holding on to you and your love so desperately, constantly terrified I’m going to slip away.”
I squeeze him tighter. “I won’t let go. For you, I would become a villain, hell, I’d even become a damn hero. I would tear this world apart. Unlike you, August, I hold no love for this city. I don’t give a shit about most of the people in it, but I care about you and what you fight for. And if I can help you, I’ll do everything I can. I’ll pick you up and carry you as long as you want.” I try to demonstrate this by picking him up before I realize he’s fucking heavy and weighsmuchmore than a book. “Metaphorically, of course.”
He grins at me. “Of course. Thank you. I think… no matter what I do… I need to do right by the families of the ones who died that day. I need to find Alloy and stop him from ever killing again.”
“You think he’s still around? You haven’t heard anything about him in, what? A year?”
“I’ve heard rumors. But no, nothing about him. I…” He grits his teeth. “Landon, I haven’t… sought him out because… I thought I was going to die that day. No, that’s not right… I didn’t think it.I knew it. I knew that he was going to kill me. I knew that I’d finally used up all of my luck. I knew that I’d come across someone that I couldn’t stop. After the building collapsed, in a desperate attempt to just… live, I froze time and drew back. I knew I could… I could use that time to get close and attack him, but I would only be able to freeze it for a few seconds, maybe less. And I knew if I put myself in front of him, I was going to die whether I took him down with me or not. I wasn’t… I wasn’t ready to die. Because of me drawing back, it gave him time to flee. It gave him time to live to kill someone else—”
I take his face in my hands. “Right. It gave you time, August. You could have sacrificed yourself to kill him and then what? You wouldn’t have been able to save anyone else that you saved this past year. You’d have been dead. You couldn’t have made a difference in the lives of so many people, including me. I couldn’t have stopped Marauder without you. I couldn’t have saved my brother without you. What you did that day by stepping away from Alloy toliveis the absolute best thing you could have done.”
I hold his eyes, making sure he sees I’m serious, before continuing. “Because now, when orifyou ever face someone like him again, you have me and you have a crazy demon-worshiping assassin, and a firebender who… can’t bend fires but can cause a hell of a fire, and my brother who loves cheese, and my parents who want to take you on a bank robbery… August, you have a whole damn team behind you now that can stop him. And some of them might be useless when it comes to their powers, but I bet your ass that every single one of them would have run in that day and done whatever they could to help you. You don’t have to be alone anymore. It doesn’t matter if you’re a hero or a villain or just August, we’re all here for you.”
He takes a deep breath as his shoulders sag and he drops his head onto my shoulder. “Thank you… I needed to hear that. I needed that—needed you—more than you’ll ever know. When I was at the absolute lowest point in my life… I found you.”
I squeeze him tightly and kiss the side of his wet head. “Good. Now let’s get dried off and get some good sleep and worry about all of it tomorrow… or I guess today since it already is tomorrow.”
“I like that.”
“I thought you would,” I say as we finish up in the shower and head to the bed where Zacia is already sleeping on my pillow. I climb in next to August and curl up against him. He squeezes me tightly and I sink into him.
