Chapter 14
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
kane
Look After You – The Fray
Iopen the door and catch myself before I turn on the lights.
Avery and Morgan’s house is always softly lit by plug-ins and string lights because Avery refuses to use the big lights, while I usually turn on every light I pass.
She used to laugh and then get annoyed, saying she could always tell where I’d been from the lights she had to turn off behind me.
My heart warms at the memory.
I bypass the mess Avery and Morgan made this week, throw Avery’s bag on the growing pile covering the table, and head toward her room.
I push the door open, noticing a wrinkled old T-shirt of mine on the end of the bed.
I don’t know how many shirts I’ve had to replace over the past four years because they would mysteriously go missing, only for her to show up in them at random times.
Always stolen from my truck, gym bags, or my closet back at home.
And because I love the sight of her in my things, I never said anything, but she knew I knew by the way she’d smirk and come sit on my lap, letting me discover she had nothing underneath.
I lay her down on the light beige covers. She rouses a little, looking at me through sleepy eyes.
Fuck, the sight of those eyes sends me stumbling backwards, toward her ensuite bathroom. She turns on her side, sliding her hands under her face as she watches me.
I walk into her bathroom and find her makeup wipes, grabbing one out of the pack.
I walk back to her bed and sit down next to her, gently wiping the makeup off her face since I know she’ll regret leaving it on in the morning.
She closes her eyes, her breathing evening out again as I carefully remove every trace of tonight from her face.
I take in her long, thick lashes and the dots of freckles that have now come out with the washed away foundation.
The freckles lining her nose and cheeks, like a constellation I could use to find my way back home.
I used to count them when she slept, just to make sure I never missed a new one.
There were nineteen when we first got together in high school, and I remember thinking how fitting that number was.
The nineteenth of August was the first day we met, which is also the password to my phone to this day.
When she asked about it, I told her it was the day my life changed. That still rings true today.
Last time I counted, there were twenty-seven freckles, the number growing just as my love for her has.
I wish I could stop and count now, just to make sure I haven’t missed any in the time we’ve been apart, but I don’t.
With an aching heart, I wipe the last bit of black from under her right eye, then turn to throw the makeup wipe away when I hear her mutter a small thank you, followed by a sniffle.
I turn back and sit next to her again, brushing the hair from her face and letting my gaze linger, drinking in her features. My hands linger in her long brown hair, feeling the silky strands glide through my fingers, the feel of them almost imprinted on my fingers after all these years.
“Do you need help getting changed?” I ask her softly. Her eyes are closed, enjoying the feel of my fingers against her scalp. “Or I can give you some privacy.” I pull my hand back, getting ready to stand and let her change.
“No, stay,” she says, her hand shooting out and grabbing my wrist. I reach over and grab my old T-shirt, then help her lift her arms and slide her top off.
The corset she wears is tight, taking some strength from me to get it undone.
I toss it into her overflowing basket in the corner before sliding my shirt over her head.
I unhook her bra once she’s covered so she can slide it out under the shirt, trying to be as respectful as I can since she really can’t consent to me touching her in this state.
She shimmies out of her jeans, then pulls down the damn fishnets that peeked through the rips in her them.
The scene is straight out of my favorite fantasy as my eyes get stuck at all the imprints left on her thighs, the skin so delectable that I glance away before I let my mind run with the memory of what it feels like under my tongue.
I would trace every divot and groove up her leg until I got where I wanted to be—fully seated home.
I flex my hands as I force myself to look away, suddenly feeling empty without touching some part of her. The imprint of her skin is permanently etched into me. I shake them out slightly, hoping this feeling goes away.
She’s always been so beautiful to me. The first time I saw her, it was as if I had been seeing the world in black and white, and suddenly the brightest colors exploded into my vision. She instantly had me wrapped around her finger, and there hasn’t been a single place I’d rather be since.
I used to find new ways to get her attention, pretending to forget pencils and paper so she would have to talk to me.
She would roll her eyes at me and chastise me for being unprepared, not knowing I would throw my pencils away before that class for an excuse to have her look at me at all.
The first time she cracked a real smile at me, I felt my heart ache in my chest. Time stopped, and I knew then that I’d spend my life fighting to keep that smile on her face.
One smile, and I was gone.
She’s fully changed when I turn back around, and she looks sad, a stark contrast to how I always remember her being in my presence.
Before I can ask, she races into the bathroom where I hear the consequences of tonight’s decisions hit. I rush in to hold back her hair, brushing it all back and gathering it into the braid she taught me to do when she didn’t feel like doing it herself.
I grab a hair tie from her bathroom floor, securing it just as she finishes up, and she sits back so her upper back rests against my chest, her breathing deep.
I lean back so my back rests against the cold wall next to her shower, taking her with me. I hold her against me gently, waiting for the moment she may need to lurch forward again. The silence becomes a warm and comforting presence, the stillness of the moment calming my racing heart.
I just sit there with her, letting her breathe, softly stroking my thumb across her stomach where it rests.
“I’m so sorry. I really did not mean to drink so much. I’m a mess,” she groans, starting to get up. I stop her before she can make it far, lifting her with me as I stand.
I carry her back to bed, then go get a fresh bottle of water from the kitchen and coax a few sips into her before setting it on the nightstand.
“You are not a mess. You forget to fold your clothes and then complain about the wrinkles later, and you make me do the dishes even if most of them are yours. You may be messy,” I comfort, finally getting that smile back on her face, “but you’re never a mess.
You shine way too bright to ever be anything but perfect, especially to me.
” I hold eye contact with her so she knows how I feel, a raw moment of honesty between us.
Her blue eyes dance with so much emotion that I look away before I force a conversation neither of us are ready to have, especially not while she’s in this state.
When we have that conversation, I need her to remember why I’m in her bed in the morning.
She lies back down, placing herself under the covers so just her head peeks out from her cave of blankets.
“Want me to sit with you while you fall asleep?” I ask, standing over her, unsure what to do next. All I want to do is lie down next to her, pulling her close so I can feel her breathing all night. But I don’t want to push my luck—I’m grateful just being in the same room with her again.
She nods, and I look around at the floor, deciding that’s where my bed will be tonight. I grab a spare blanket and pillow from her bed and throw some random things to the side, then take my spot, staring up at her ceiling.
A beat of silence passes, and just when I think she’s fallen asleep again, her voice comes in a barely audible whisper as she says, “I thought she was your girlfriend and I got sad. Sorry I stole your string.”
“What?” I sit up, spare blankets tangled around me. I wait for her to answer, but her breathing evens out again, and I know she really is asleep this time.
I lay back down on my makeshift bed for the night, my hand propped up under my head, while what she said swirls around my mind.
My string?
My guitar string?
That can’t be what she means.
I asked Marcus and he said no one had been over, but as I think back, he did seem extra cagey that night.
I thought I had just come home while he was watching porn again.
It happened once, and I don’t think our friendship has been the same.
Not since I found him pant less in the kitchen, dick in hand, eating a cupcake.
I shake my head, forcing that image out before it can ruin my life all over again.
The night I asked him about the string comes back to me instead—his shifting eyes, his hand running through his hair nervously.
I should’ve caught it, but I’m not always good at reading what people aren’t saying, especially when I’m already stressed.
I go quiet and shut down. It’s something that always created so much space between me and Avery.
I study her sleeping silhouette, suddenly putting it all together.
She’s been fucking pranking me, hasn’t she?
One year Marcus filled Morgan’s car up with balloons full of confetti and cling-wrapped the doors shut. It took her hours to unwrap it, and Morgan retaliated by somehow getting one hundred pounds of glitter in Marcus’s room. Three years later, and half his clothes still have gold sparkles in them.
Confusion hits me as I stare at her ceiling fan rotating. Hands over my chest, I listen to her deep breaths.