Chapter 8
Tristen
Emmett hasn’t stopped staring at me.
I felt his gaze latch onto me the second my leather jacket was shucked off, all through making toast for both of us that included peanut butter on mine, and it’s still on me as I take our dishes to the sink.
It prickles over my inked skin, making the hair on my arms lift with interest.
It’s unsettling.
My chest clenches and I clear my throat. “Do you need anything?”
Those deep honey eyes narrow when I turn to face him and lean back against the counter. Twitch when I cross my arms. Drop when I pop a brow.
He’s staring somewhere between my stomach and my thighs, not really looking at anything, but there’s something to the way his cheeks darken. It adds just the slightest amount of color to his pale face, but it’s enough to slam my brows together.
“What’s wrong?”
“Why are you being so nice to me?” he blurts to my kneecaps and my brows pinch even further. My chest aches even deeper.
“It’s common decency, Em.” The heel of my palm digs in between my pecs.
His shoulders are stiff, squared like he’s holding the weight of something more than just his baggy shirt, and his breathing is short puffs I can almost hear from across the room.
“I invited you here. That means you’re my guest and I get to be nice if I want to.”
There’s a sound that comes from his thinned lips that’s on the verge of a whimper and it’s a pained thing I never want to hear again.
“You shouldn’t have,” he murmurs to the floor.
Dropping my arms, I take a step closer to Emmett and immediately regret it when he flinches.
Frozen in the middle of my kitchen, I watch as Emmett buries his face in his hands and repeats his broken words.
You shouldn’t have. You shouldn’t have.
“No take-backsies,” I mutter and chance another step closer when his shoulders begin to shake. “Emmett, it’s okay.”
“No!” he roars and shoots to his feet. “It’s not okay. It’s not!”
He yanks his sleeves over his fists and balls them tight, scrubbing at the tears running down his face with the scratchy fabric.
When he starts biting them, I rush forward, only to stop before touching him.
My hands hover over his, so close I can feel the anguish rolling off him in waves of heat and desperation.
“Hey. Hey,” I emphasize when he bites harder. “Can I see these?”
“No.”
“Em, bub, I need to see it.”
Fresh tears roll down his face, but he doesn’t say no again. Doesn’t do anything except stand there, unmoving and unseeing.
I cover his fists with my palm, close my fingers gently over his curled-up ones.
He makes that sound again, the one that’s agony wrapped in innocence, and it makes my stomach roll.
“Thank you,” I say gently, though it still shakes.
There’s a burning deep inside me that ignites when he refuses to look me in the eye.
We’re close, so close that I can smell the toast still clinging to his heavy breaths, though he hides those eyes of his from me.
His chest shudders with the uneven pumping of his lungs and his hands shake beneath my grip.
I force myself to swallow back the burning need to demand shit I have no right to ask when thick tears track down his face.
Curve over his jaw. Gather on his chin before dropping to his shirt.
The tips of my fingers start to prickle, and I dig my teeth into the inside of my cheek until I taste copper.
Not fucking now.
Please, not now.
“I-i-if I—um—” Emmett’s jaw clenches so tight, I see each muscle jump. Watch his throat bob with a heavy swallow. Feel the twitch of his fingers under mine. “Can I, um—”
When he cuts himself off again, I tighten my grip around his covered hands, holding him just tight enough so he knows he’s safe here. With me. But not so tight that he couldn’t rip his hands away from me if he needed to.
“Tell me what you need, bub. It’s okay.” I dip to catch his eyes, hopeful that he sees the severity in my face. “Tell me.”
Another swallow when he darts his eyes away and his bottom lip trembles.
Trembles.
The sight alone is enough to challenge my restraint from pulling him to me and crushing him with a hug so tight he’ll feel me for days.
I don’t.
I want to with every fiber of my being.
I want to show him he’s all right.
Be the thing that I needed.
When those sweet honey eyes finally meet mine, big and wet and so fucking pained, it steals my breath.
“I-I’d like to s-shower,” he whispers.
My brows slam together, and I nod. “Of course.”
I guess I should have showed him where it was when we first walked in. God, he’s probably gotta piss and here I am worried about toast and naming inanimate objects.
I’d probably freak the fuck out, too, if I was in his place.
Fresh out of hospital hell and still in the same wrinkled clothes he slept in.
I take a step back, drop my grip, and sweep an arm out in the direction we need to go for the bathroom.
Emmett doesn’t move.
“Let me sho—”
“Alone.”
I blink and rub at the center of my chest.
“Yeah, yeah, go ahead.”
He darts away before I can tell him he can borrow some of my clothes. Where the extra toothbrushes and washrags are. That the hot water needs to be all the way on to get enough heat behind it.
But as I stand here, none of those things stick in my brain.
Instead, it’s a question.
Did he really think … ?
No way he thought I’d make him shower with me.
He couldn’t have thought I’d … that we’d … do that.
Right?
The idea twists something deep in my core.
Makes the pins and needles return to my fingers tenfold.
Shaking them out, I flex my hands, and head for the stairs.
I’m standing outside the bathroom door a few minutes later with a folded set of sweats in my hands and no idea how to knock on the door without terrifying him.
The shower’s not even running yet.
Swallowing the building thickness, I set the pile on the floor. Straighten. Touch the panel and whisper, “There’s clean clothes out here, Em. They’re all yours.”
Silence greets me, but the shadow beneath the door is a giveaway that he’s at least close. Possibly listening. Probably waiting for something horrible, and I shiver. Press my palm into my chest.
“I’m gonna go back downstairs. I’ll only come back up if you take more than twenty minutes, okay? Just to check on you. Use what you need to shower. It’s okay.”
With one last huff, I turn away with his low response digging into my ribs.
It’s not okay.
Fuck, I wish it was.