43. Esperr
ESPERR
It’s dark when I wake up.
For a moment I have no idea where I am until the faint scent of Zyran hits me—amber and cedar, the smell that somehow always brings me down.
I reach out, hoping that he is beside me, but the other side of the bed is completely empty.
And for a second I lie there just feeling the absence of him until the memories of everything that’s happened hit me.
Me running home to find my apartment trashed, the phone call with Zyran, and then an awkward, silent drive back to his house.
All of it settles back over me, and my skin begins to itch.
I’m okay.
I’m safe, but my skin is still itching the way it does when everything gets to be too much, and that’s when I know I have to find him.
Not because I can’t be alone; I’ve been alone most of my life, and I know how to do it. But because he’s somewhere in this house and I want to be where he is, and right now that feels like the most honest thing I know.
Sitting up, I swing my legs over the edge and grab my sweats from the foot of bed, pulling them on quickly. For a moment I stand there in the dark, second-guessing if I should go find him or just wait here.
The safe thing would be to wait, to stay in his room where it smells like him and the bed is warm and I don’t have to navigate a house full of people I’ve known for less than two days in the middle of the night.
But I’ve also never been particularly good at the safe thing.
And that itch under my skin isn’t going away.
Taking a deep breath, I hold it and then pad my way over to the door, letting it out as I step out into the dimly lit hallway.
One hand trails the wall as I move to the stairs and stand there at the top for a second just listening for any voices or noise.
The house breathes around me, with a creak somewhere as the heat kicks on, but nothing that sounds like movement.
I take the stairs down, careful of making any noise, and when I get to the bottom, I find that the living room is empty, two lamps on, but mostly dark. Most of me hoped that he’d be right there on the couch so I didn’t have to move further, but unfortunately he’s not.
Glancing around I see a faint light coming from the kitchen, so I follow the large hallway down, only to stop in the entryway when I spot Raiden.
He’s at the island with a mug in front of him, both hands wrapped around it, eyes down for about two seconds until he must feel someone there, and then he’s looking up.
We look at each other, and I almost feel like a deer caught in headlights—do I run, do I scream, do I pretend that he can’t see me?
I have no idea what my face is doing right now, but whatever it is, Raiden’s quick to read, and something in his expression shifts, just slightly, but it’s enough that I’m like a duck crossing the road and not a deer.
“Couldn’t sleep?” He asks, picking up his mug.
“Uh, woke up,” I mutter. Which isn’t exactly an answer, but thankfully he doesn’t push.
He nods towards the stool on the other side of the island, and I surprise myself when I cross the kitchen and sit down.
Raiden gets up without a word and pours another mug, setting it in front of me, before moving to the fridge and grabbing my favorite. I frown, head falling to the side—why does he have my favorite creamer?
Carefully I reach over and grab it, pouring some into my coffee before I take a sip, and for a single moment my eyes drift closed and I feel like myself again.
“Did you know Zyran hates coffee?”
My eyes snap open and I look over at him. “What?”
“Hates it,” he says, shrugging and taking a sip. “Always has actually.”
I stare at him, my brain not fully processing what he’s saying, like I hear him, but the words almost feel foreign.
“But he came into the coffee shop every single day…” I say slowly. “He ordered a latte… drank it.” I think back to every morning, the way he’d sit in the corner with the cup in front of him. He’d stare at me, and I pretended to ignore it, but… “I watched him drink every last drop.”
Raiden looks at me with that expression that doesn’t give much away but just enough that I know what he’s going to say before he does.
“Yeah, for you.”
I bite my bottom lip, glancing back to the hallway—he came in every morning and ordered something he hated and drank it because I made it, and he never once said a word about it, and the creamer—my creamer, my specific brand, is sitting in his family’s fridge.
I’m not sure what to do with any of that information right now.
“That’s insane,” I whisper.
“That’s Zyran.”
I nod and grab my coffee just so I can have something to do with my hands, and then I chug nearly half of it just so I have something else to do.
“He’s in the gym if you were looking for him,” Raiden says like he knows that I’m feeling awkward just sitting here.
I swallow, nodding my head, “is he okay?”
Raiden’s quiet for a moment and I watch him think about my question harder than most would have and that right away tells me it’s not a simple yes or no.
“Honestly, I’m not sure. Lately it feels like you know more about him than I do.” The way he says it isn’t with bitterness like I’d expect but more hopeful, like at least someone is understanding him. “And he’s my brother.”
I look down at the counter, hating myself as the words seem to tumble out of me.
“He’s been having nightmares… about the warehouse, about…
you.” I pause, unable to look up or even look at him.
“He doesn’t talk about it, not really, I mean like once…
but it’s like he goes somewhere else and comes back looking like he ran the whole time…
like he was trying to save you and couldn’t. ”
Raiden goes very still, and I take a deep breath, sparing a glance up at him.
“He told you that?”
“Sometimes, he told me that it’s usually him lying on the warehouse floor watching them take you and that there was nothing he could do about?—”
“That’s not his fault,” Raiden snaps, cutting me off.
My lips press together, and I nod, because it was never Zyran's fault. He went in there to save his big brother’s girlfriend, and knowing him, he’d do it again, no questions asked.
“He was shot; he went down because someone put a bullet in him. And even if he hadn’t—” he stops, jaw working.
“It was never his responsibility. It was mine; I’m the one who pushed him to go in.
I’m the one who wanted to be the one to end it.
” He shakes his head, gaze locked on the wall.
“Whatever happened to me was a consequence of my own decision, not his failure.”
I nod, because I agree with everything he’s saying, but I also understand Zyran would do anything for his family, even if that meant walking through fire or, in this case, getting shot in the neck.
“He doesn’t see it that way,” I say carefully.
“I know he doesn’t.” Raiden looks at me quickly before focusing on the counter. “That’s the thing about Zyran; he takes everything on, always has. Even when it was never his to carry in the first place.”
I wrap both hands around my mug and think about the sixteen-year-old boy who counted footsteps in the hallway, hoping his father would just go to bed.
He never did.
“Yeah,” I sigh.
The kitchen settles back into this quiet, and I sit there with what he just said—and then the truth of my past hits me again. I still need to tell Zyran, and I can’t keep putting it off, not when I’m now stuck here, putting them all in danger.
“He needs to hear that from you, what you just said,” I finally tell him before downing the rest of my coffee.
Raiden stares at his mug, refusing to look at me. “I know.”
“Not eventually, soon.” My voice comes out more stern than I expected, but it’s too late to take it back. Grabbing my big girl breeches, I keep my gaze on him, refusing to back down. And for some reason it’s not as scary as I thought it would be, not when it comes to defending Zyran.
Raiden slowly glances up, a brow raised, and when I think he might push back, I tilt my head up, hoping that I look tougher than I’m feeling inside.
I don’t know how long we stare at each other like that, testing the other one, but then he nods. “I will.”
“Good,” I mutter, climbing to my feet. “You said he was in the gym?”
“Yeah, it’s down that hall, door on the left, and down another flight of stairs.”
“Thank you,” I say and then turn on my heel, heading down to the basement.
The door at the end of the hall is heavier than it looks, and it takes a little more effort to pull it open.
Thankfully, no one is there to witness my struggle.
Standing at the top of the stairs, the door closes quietly behind me, and I’m left there in silence for about two seconds before the sound reaches me.
The rhythmic impact of fist against the bag is steady and hard, and something tells me he’s been down there a while.
Slowly I move down until I reach the last door and push it open.
The gym is dim, just the overhead lights on the far side casting everything in a low yellow glow, and then I see him—Zyran stands at the bag in the middle of the room, his back to me, shirt off, hands wrapped, and moves around it with a focus that I haven’t seen, like the rest of the world has ceased to exist for him.
And something about it is hot.
Down right hot.
The back muscles on this man have me drooling between the legs, ready to lie down and open for him.
I wanna bite the man's biceps until he calls me a bad girl.
My cheeks flush, and I’m only half glad he hasn’t heard me—or perhaps he has and is giving me the opportunity to announce myself, which with Zyran could go either way.
I find myself leaning against the wall, watching as he throws one more combination—could he fuck me standing up?
He grunts as he throws another set of punches, and the sound goes straight to my center. I’d lick the sweat off this man like I was his own personal towel.
Oh my god, I need to stop.