Chapter Seven
~ Bodean ~
I sat on the floor at the foot of Josiah’s bed, knees drawn to my chest, toes curling into the grain of the hardwood.
The lights were off except for a dull, shadeless lamp on the dresser, which pooled a circle of yellow onto the battered floor and turned the rest of the room into a geography of shadows.
I kept my head angled toward the ground, but watched Josiah in the glass of the closet door, the way he paced and braced the frame with his arms whenever he stopped. It was less like a man relaxing in his own bedroom, more like a sentry doing perimeter sweeps.
He hadn’t said a word since Knox left, not even when he poured himself a glass of water and set it on the table with enough force to make the lamp shudder.
I should have been afraid, maybe, or at least nervous—alone, injured, boxed in by a man three times my size. But fear had long since burned out, replaced by a restless energy that felt like the last five seconds before the ropes snap or the bridge gives way.
The adrenaline wasn’t even about the pain anymore.
It was about him.
I wasn’t fool enough to think Jo didn’t know it. He could see me clear as an x-ray, bruised and sulking on his floor, staring at him in the mirror like a kid who’d been left at the wrong bus stop.
If he cared that I was wearing his shirt and nothing else, he didn’t show it, but the way his gaze hovered on the curve of my shoulder or the strip of thigh below the hem made my breath go sharp, like the air was too thick to swallow.
He let the silence stack up until it was a wall between us. Then, all at once, he dropped to a squat in front of me, one hand braced on the floor, the other dangling loose from a fist so big it could have cracked coconuts.
He wasn’t touching me, but his presence was a gravitational force. I felt it press down on my chest and pulse low in my gut.
He said, “I think we need to talk about what this is.”
I picked at a splinter in the floor, not meeting his eyes. “What, like a state of the union?”
“Bodean.” Just my name, flat as a tire. He waited, and when I didn’t speak, he ran a hand over his jaw, beard rasping under his palm. “You want to tell me why you’re really here?”
I started to laugh, but it came out like a cough. “You ever try to get a motel room at the end of the world on short notice?”
He didn’t smile. “That’s not what I mean and you know it.”
I leaned back against the bed frame, pretending it didn’t dig into my spine. “I needed a place to crash. You picked me up. End of story.”
“Try again,” he said. He said it gently, but it hit me like a sledgehammer. “Because you don’t show up broken unless you want someone to see you that way.”
I wanted to tell him to fuck off, to mind his own business. I wanted to say it didn’t matter, that nothing mattered. But instead, I curled tighter, arms banded around my knees, and stared at his boots.
He shifted forward, closer. I could see the tattoos climbing out from under his sleeves—sharp lines, geometric patterns, the edge of a wrench inked into the meat of his wrist.
“You’ve been running for a long time. Since Yreka and Portland and long before you ever left the valley. You think I don’t know what that looks like?”
I blinked hard, vision starting to swim.
He let out a breath, a low rumble that vibrated the floor. “I’m gonna ask you something, and I want you to be straight with me. No games, no bullshit.”
I tried for a shrug, but my voice came out thin. “Fine. Ask.”
“Do you want to stay here?” He leaned in, voice a rasp just above a whisper. “With me?”
The words rang in my ears, heavy as chain links.
Every smart, safe answer fluttered in my chest like moths: It’s just a pit stop. I’ll be out of your hair by morning. Nobody wants a stray hanging around.
I’d built my whole life around those lines, said them so many times they felt like gospel. But none of them fit here. None of them worked with him staring through me, waiting for an answer that wasn’t a fucking punchline.
I tried to say yes.
The word jammed behind my teeth.
He must have seen the panic, because his hand closed, slow as a glacier, over the fist I’d made in the hem of his shirt. The pressure wasn’t painful—just enough to remind me that I was real, that the world was still solid beneath me.
“It’s not weak to want this,” he said, thumb circling my knuckle, callused skin catching on the scab at the base of my finger. “You need someone to set the rules. Someone to keep you from burning out.”
I wanted to hit him, to bite, to spit in his face just to break the spell. But all I could do was stare at the place where his hand swallowed mine, the contrast so stark it made my pulse rabbit in my throat.
He let go, just like that, and stood. He was a wall, blocking the lamp, the whole room gone soft-edged and golden behind him.
“Is that what you want?” he asked, not moving.
A thousand answers rushed in, none of them safe.
I swallowed. “Yeah,” I said, voice almost lost under the hum of the heater. “Yeah, I think it is.”
He crouched again, this time closer, his knees bracketing my legs. “You think or you know?”
The old panic shot through me—fight or flight, all my bones screaming at once. I tried to lean away, but the bed frame had me pinned.
“I don’t—” The words splintered, caught in the web of shame that Harley had left behind. My chest seized, and I looked away, blinking hard. “I don’t know if I’m any good at it. I tried, once. Back in Portland. It got… it got fucked up.”
His jaw flexed, a twitch at the corner that made him look almost angry. “You talking about Westbrook?”
I felt the color drain out of my face. “How do you know about him?”
“Because Knox told me. Because I’ve got ears. Because you called me once, and I heard the fear in your voice.”
I wanted to tell him he was wrong, that I didn’t call anyone, that it was just a bad night and a bottle of whiskey and a mistake. But the lie wouldn’t fit my mouth.
He leaned in, lowering his voice until it was just a growl in my ear. “He hurt you.”
My mouth went dry. “Yeah. He did.”
Josiah’s hands curled into fists, the tendons on his forearms going taut. “If I ever see him in this valley, I’ll kill him.”
There was a part of me that wanted to laugh, wanted to say “get in line.” But all I could do was let my head drop forward, forehead knocking against his knee.
He didn’t flinch. “That’s not what this is, Bo. I don’t want to hurt you. I want to keep you.”
It hit me in the gut—harder than any punch I’d ever taken. “Why?” I mumbled, lips against the denim of his jeans.
He paused, a long moment where I felt his hand hover above my neck, then settle, careful, on the back of my head. “Because you let yourself be seen. Because you belong to someone, even if you don’t know how to say it. Because I can take it, and I want to.”
I felt the first prickle of tears, stupid and hot, behind my eyes. I clenched my jaw, determined not to let them fall.
He gave my hair a gentle tug, enough to lift my chin. “Look at me.”
I did.
He searched my face, scanning for something. When he found it, his expression softened, lines easing at the corners. “You don’t have to be afraid anymore.”
He let go, stood up, and turned to the window. The room went silent, the air heavy with everything left unsaid. I stayed on the floor, letting the words settle over me, weighing each one until it pressed out the last of my fear.
For the first time in years, I felt a flicker of something that might have been hope.
Jo didn't move for a long time. He stood at the window, arms crossed, the city lights painting the edge of his face with shards of orange and blue. I sat where he left me, heart pounding against the insides of my knees, trying to make sense of what I’d just said and if he’d actually heard me.
Then he turned, slow and deliberate, and crossed the room to where I sat. He lowered himself to one knee, so close the lamp behind him set fire to the rim of his hair and lit up the broken-down contours of my face.
His hand found my jaw, gentle but not hesitant, and I almost flinched out of habit—except he didn’t squeeze, didn’t force. Just cupped my chin and thumbed a slow arc along the fresh welt under my eye.
His fingers were rough, but the touch was like static—electric, alive, nothing like the dead weight of Harley’s hands when he’d wanted to prove a point. Jo was careful, almost reverent, and I realized I was shaking just from the effort of holding still.
He studied the bruise, then met my eyes, and for a second I thought I’d say something funny, something to break the tension, but he beat me to it.
“I would never hurt you like he did,” he said. “Dominance doesn’t mean cruelty.”
The words landed with a force I couldn’t describe.
My whole body seemed to rearrange itself, like I was bracing for a blow that never came.
I breathed out, slow, and didn’t realize until then that I’d been holding it.
I leaned into his palm, just a fraction, and saw the way his mouth softened at the edges, like he was proud of me for letting him.
He brushed my cheek with his thumb again, even lighter this time. “You okay?”
I snorted, voice watery. “Never better.”
He grunted, which was about as close as he got to a laugh. “Liar.”
We stayed like that, not speaking, the lamp buzzing and the world outside going quieter by degrees. Then, right as I felt myself tipping into something soft, my phone buzzed on the floor next to me—once, twice, three times, the vibration digging a trench straight through my stomach.
I froze, muscles going rigid under Jo’s touch. I didn’t have to look. There was only one person who ever called me at two in the morning, and it wasn’t a friend.
Jo’s gaze narrowed. “Is that him?” he asked, voice gone hard.
I didn’t answer, but my hand went instinctively to my phone, and that was, apparently, all the answer he needed. He took my face in both hands, tipped it so I had to look at him.
“You don’t have to answer,” he said. “Not ever again.”