Chapter 30 #2
I walk over to her bookshelf to buy myself time.“Which story do you want to read?”
“The Gruffalo,” she answers immediately, and my heart clenches again.
I pluck the thin, hardcover book from the shelf and turn it over in my hands, remembering the hundreds of times that I snuggled with Olivia in bed and read it to her. “My sister loved this one, too.”
Lyla nods seriously. “It’s a good one. My favorite, maybe.”
“Maybe?” I question, glad that we seem to have found ourselves heading down a less dangerous path.
“Well, I also like lots of other books, too.”
I turn toward her and walk over to the bed. “A well-read woman. Can’t go wrong there.”
A moment of hesitation stops me from sitting down, but she pats the bed next to her. “Will you do the voices like Daddy does?”
I sit down and swing my legs onto the comforter. My back is against the laughably small headboard, and I have to keep my arms tucked in at my sides so that I don’t jostle her. Which she seems to realize, too, snuggling underneath my arm and resting her head against my side.
When I exhale, it’s like I can breathe for the first time in too long.
I start speaking the words in the story slowly, tripping over them until I find my rhythm.
And suddenly, it’s like I’m back in Olivia’s bedroom in our too-small-for-a-family-of-six home in Michigan, reading the book that at one point, I knew by heart.
I wish every fucking day that Olivia hadn’t died in that car accident, but for maybe the first time since then–with Lyla’s body tucked next to my own, her focus intent as I pick up the pace, a dazzling smile flashing across her face–I’m glad that I didn’t, too.
“Asher,” a soft voice calls to me. There’s a hand on my forehead, brushing my unruly locks gently back.
I blink, making sense of what’s going on. I’m warm and relaxed, even though there’s an ache in my neck when I stretch it. “Chase?” I ask, looking up at him, trying to get my bearings. “You’re home.”
His voice is still quiet, and there’s a gentle smile on his face that makes my heart beat faster.
“I am. And I’d have tried to get home sooner if I knew that I could lose you to the only other bed in the apartment.
” I glance down. Lyla’s still snuggled into my side, fast asleep. “How many stories did she get you for?”
“Seven?” I answer sheepishly, still orienting myself.
I take the hand that he extends, and with my other one, I extract myself from next to Lyla, making sure to lay her down gently as I move away.
“She usually gets me for at least five, so don’t beat yourself up too much.” He pulls me toward him, our bodies brushing together.
“Sorry that I fell asleep in here.” I feel self-conscious, not sure if I crossed some parental-adjacent line.
But by the last story, Lyla was fast asleep, and I was pretty damn comfy myself, in spite of how I had to engage my core to stay on the bed.
I remember thinking that I’d stay there for a few more minutes, just to make sure that she wasn’t going to wake up.
Guess she and I both had a bigger night than we expected.
Still, I’m comforted when he quickly shakes his head. “It’s okay. I do it a lot of nights, too. She probably appreciated having you here with her. I know that she looks and acts tough, but she loves a good snuggle as much as the rest of us.”
“Let me just turn on her nightlight and you can tell me how things are with your dad?” I ask, and it takes more effort than it should to walk toward the starfish instead of wrapping my arms around him.
Once the room is illuminated in the soft blue glow, Chase shuts off the overhead light. We stand in the doorway together, watching Lyla sleep. It feels intimate–strangely more intimate than a lot of other things that we’ve done together–and I let myself bask in how good it feels.
Finally, he pulls the door partially closed, leaving a few inches for the hallway light to stream through, and we walk toward his bedroom. He doesn’t bother turning on the light. “How’d tonight go? Did she give you any trouble?” he asks, already pulling off his shirt.
I’m momentarily distracted by the expanse of skin that I’m greeted with, and it takes me an embarrassingly long time to figure out what he’s asking me. But I get there, eventually. “You’re raising a little card shark. Do you know that?”
He chuckles softly and unbuttons his pants. “I do. I have no idea if she can count the cards or something. She asked to play Go Fish, right?”
“She sure did,” I respond with a smile. “How was the hospital?”
He’s down to nothing except his boxer briefs, and I think that he’s going to answer me, except that instead, he says, “I’m going to grab a quick shower. Hospitals make me feel gross.”
I nod. “Do you want me to go or–”
I’m relieved when he shakes his head. “No. You stay right here. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
It’s in moments like these that I wish I had more clarity. If we were together, there’d be no doubt in my mind that I’d stay, at least for a little while. But his request–or more like, my offer–was to watch Lyla while he was gone, not stay with him once he got home, too.
And I’m still thinking about it when he comes back, a towel wrapped around his hips.
His skin is covered in little droplets of water, and his hair’s wet and messy, pointed in different directions from running his fingers through it.
He’s so fucking sexy, and it’s all without even trying.
Getting to see him like this, freshly showered and tired from a long day, is a sort of kink that I didn’t know I had.
Once his door is shut, he drops his towel and puts on a new pair of underwear, and I try not to look at him with the wanting stare that I know is so readily apparent on my face.
“Like what you see?” he asks playfully, walking toward where I’m sitting at the edge of the bed.
My nervousness settles when he stands between my legs, so that I can finally run my hands along his body.
Not to spark anything to life, but to comfort him.
To feel his steadying presence and hope that I’m doing the same for him, too.
“Are you going to tell me about tonight?” I push, even as his posture grows tighter.
He runs his hands through my hair, and I momentarily get lost in how good it feels.
But only for a few seconds, until I lean back, so that I can look him in the eyes. “Is everything okay?”
He sighs, but I wait patiently until he’s ready. “A lucky break,” he finally says, “all things considered.”
“Did he get to come home?” It’s almost midnight, so either Chase has been at the hospital for the last six hours, or he took his parents home and was helping them get situated.
Either one means that I’m not sure how he’s still standing.
I put my hands on his hips and move him backward, so that I can stand up.
He doesn’t argue, and I walk him around to the side of the bed that he sleeps on, pulling the covers back.
“Not to make your night more complicated, but Lyla asked if I was having a sleepover with you tonight.” Even though I’m worried my words will cause tension, I need to be honest with him.
For the first time, I see a genuine smile on his face. “She’s become a little obsessed with the idea of sleepovers lately. I don’t think that it’s about us. One of the kids in her class had one with their cousin, and she thinks that it’s the neatest thing in the world.”
“Sleepovers are pretty cool,” I say, wiggling my eyebrows. Plus, I’m just glad that the possibility of Lyla finding out about us doesn’t have him running for the hills. “Speaking of which…”
“Take your clothes off and get into bed with me. I think I’m too tired to do anything but actually sleep but…”
I walk around to what’s become my side of the bed and disrobe quickly, only asking, “But what?” As I’m already sliding in next to him.
“I want you here.” He turns off the light on his bedside table, and the room is bathed in darkness.
“Come here,” I say, opening my arms so that he can burrow in and rest his head on my chest. I love holding him like this, when he finally softens against me. It’s like I can feel his stress melting away. I run my fingertips soothingly through his hair. “Tell me about tonight?” I coax.
He stills, and finally, he lets out a long exhale. “He broke his arm in one place. It was a clean break that could have been a lot worse, but I still feel terrible.”
“This isn’t your fault.” And I’ll tell him that as many times as he needs to hear it.
It’s clear that he doesn’t want to let himself off the hook. “I always put the lights up at my parents’ house. I completely spaced on it this year with everything going on, and I shouldn’t have. If I’d have just put them up, then none of this would have happened.”
I keep stroking his head, wondering if it’s doing anything to allay the guilt that he’s so clearly feeling. “Or, you could be the one with a broken arm and a five-year-old to take care of. Have you considered that?”
I’m not sure, but I think that he’s finally smiling. Just a little bit–maybe–but I’ll take it. “I hadn’t actually considered that, no. Because I’m invincible, didn’t you hear?”
“And it’s your job to take care of everyone else?”
He turns up toward me and presses a soft kiss against my chin. “It is, actually.”
“Then who takes care of you?” I ask seriously, the weight of everything unsaid hanging between us. Because I want–desperately–to be the one who takes care of him.
He keeps it close to the vest, but he’s one of the most self-sacrificing people that I’ve ever met. And I know that he does it because he feels like he has to, but at a certain point, he’s going to burn himself out not letting anyone help him.
Not letting anyone in.
It hits at some place inside of me uncomfortably, knowing that I’m here and want to be that guy, but he’s too proud or stubborn or… whatever it is he thinks drives this need, to let himself go completely and trust me.
His fingers are tracing patterns around my chest when he says, “I can’t let myself need you, Asher. It wouldn’t be good if we…”
“If we what?” My words are soft; I’m trying not to scare him into clamming up.
“If we went there. I mean, really went there. It wouldn’t be good for Lyla, definitely.”
“I’m already a part of Lyla’s life. You think that if you send me away now, she’s not going to still be confused? That’s an excuse, Chase. And it’s a weak one at that.” My words aren’t angry, just resigned. He doesn’t want to–or can’t–let me in.
And hell, I don’t know if he’ll ever be able to let me in in the way that I want him to want me.
“I’ll miss you while you’re home,” he says after quiet seconds, and it’s like a gut punch, since I’ve been thinking the exact same thing.
I kiss the top of his head. “I’ll miss you, too.”
“How are you feeling about it? Being back?” he asks, changing the subject to me and my problems and needs. Something that I’ve realized he does often.
“It’s really going to suck,” I answer with a light chuckle. I’ve accepted that much, already.
His hands still, and his fingers push lightly against my warm skin, against my chest hair. “You’re too perfect. Do you understand that?”
“I thought it was just my ass that was perfect?” I tell him, trying not to focus on the way that my heart is hammering in my ribcage. I wonder if he can hear it. “And too perfect is sort of an oxymoron, no?”
“Your ass is perfect, but so is the rest of you. And it’s an oxymoron when being so perfect means that I’d never let you make sacrifices for me. It’s rotten work.”
I feel like my heart is going to beat out of my chest. I left a book here one night, one of my philosophy texts for a class. He read it, so he knows what I’m going to say before I say it. “Not to me. Not if it’s you.”
“Those stories are tragedies.”
“And they have things to teach us about the world and the life that we want to lead within it.”
He looks up at me again. “Is that really your takeaway from them?”
I cannot believe that I’m lying in bed with this incredible man, discussing philosophy while he’s wrapped up in my arms. I didn’t know that this is what life could be. More than a story about someone else, or the flimsy sense of self that I’ve been cobbling together from the experiences of others.
This–with Chase–is my story. And for the first time, I’m finally living it. There’s loss and hurt and frustration, but there’s also contentment and joy and love.
So much love. In a way that’s soaked into my skin. I couldn’t shed it, even if I wanted to.
I wrap my arms more tightly around him, not ready to give it up.