31. Trina #2
I limp down the hallway and back down the stairs.
The rain is really coming down now, but I don’t have a choice, so I take a deep, shaky breath, and step out into the night.
The rain hits me immediately, and another sob escapes me as I make my way farther from Casey’s condo, back toward the train station.
“Trina?”
I shake my head to clear it. I’m losing it if I think someone is calling my name from across the street. But then, it comes again—that deep voice normally so full of care and promise, now a bit frantic.
“Trina!”
Slowly, I lift my gaze from the ground in front of me and slide it across the street where Casey is waving, trying to get my attention.
“Stay there! Don’t move!” he shouts. And I’m powerless to do anything but comply.
He waits for a car to pass, then runs across the street. When he gets to me, he doesn’t hesitate to touch me. Cupping my face with his hands, he uselessly wipes the water away from under my eyes.
“I didn’t know where else to go,” I sob, overwhelmingly relieved. He’s here. He’s holding me. He’s studying every inch of my face as if he could figure out where it hurts and take the pain away, all while the rain soaks us to the bone.
“I went to see you,” he says. “You weren’t there. I must have just missed you.”
A tiny little bubble of hope rises in my chest. “You went to see me?”
“I talked to Imani. I was worried. What happened?” He’s still running his hands over me, cataloging every inch.
“My…” A hiccupping sob is ripped from me.
I don’t want to talk about work. For once, I don’t give a fuck about work.
“My mom,” I try again. “She called. She said she loved me in her voicemail, and I don’t…
” Another sob. “I don’t think anyone has loved me since her, ever.
And I just thought of you. I don’t know why.
But I didn’t know where else to go, and I’m so sorry,” I repeat.
“Because I love you.” He says it as easily as if he were talking about a meal or a book he enjoyed. As if it’s the most obvious thing in the world. As if it requires no thought at all. “That’s why you thought to come here. Because I love you. Okay?”
His dark eyes search mine, his eyebrows pinched up in a question.
“I’m so sorry.” I’m not sure what are tears and what’s the water sluicing down my skin, but Casey wipes it all away just the same as he shakes his head.
“No apologies.” He folds my head into his chest, wrapping an arm around my shoulders and bringing his hand up to cup behind my head. “You can always come to me. I will always be here. Because I love you.”
I don’t know how long I cry into his chest, but he holds me there and lets me as the rain and tears wash away as much of the pain as they can. The rest, he cradles along with my body, holding it near as if it’s precious. And it feels so damn good to let him.
I love him, too, I realize, but I’m crying too hard to get the words out.
I’m going to tell him as soon as I can. I’m going to say it and keep saying it and not be afraid of it anymore.
Because what is there to be afraid of? This feeling is what I’ve been chasing for so long without even realizing it.
When my crying lessens, Casey runs his hand along my wet hair. “Let’s get you inside, okay?”
I nod, but when I take a step, the pain from the cut on my foot shoots up my leg, and I cry out as I collapse into him.
“You’re hurt.” His deep voice rumbles with a warning.
I shiver as I nod again. “I stepped on glass.”
“Jesus, Trina,” Casey curses, and without another word, he scoops me up with one arm behind my back and one arm under my knees and carries me all the way up to his condo. I’m too tired to protest, and it feels too good to be held like this even if I wasn’t.
Casey is here. He’s going to take care of me. He’s going to make me feel better.
Without a care about the puddles we’re leaving on the floor, he gently sets me down on a chair.
He walks to the hall closet and comes back with a pile of fluffy towels and a first aid kit.
Kneeling on the ground in front of me, he undoes the laces of my shoes and places them to the side.
Carefully, he picks up my injured foot and looks at it before taking some antiseptic and gauze out of the kit.
“This is going to sting, baby,” he says quietly.
“It’s okay,” I whisper back.
He nods, then presses a cotton swab with the solution to the cut. I can barely feel that, but I register every nerve ending as his gentle fingers slide over my foot, securing a bandage between my toes. His touch lights me up, brings me back to the world around us.
Tapping my leg, he motions for me to stand. Grateful that I don’t have to think about what comes next, I do. That’s what he always did for me, isn’t it? He made it so I didn’t have to think when I didn’t want to. I only had to do what I was told.
Undoing the button on my shorts, he slides the zipper down and pulls them off to sit in a wet puddle at my feet. He plants a kiss on my hip, but none of it is sensual. It’s loving, caring. He’s taking care of me, I realize, and the thought pulls another sob from my chest.
He lifts my feet one at a time to move my shorts to the pile with my shoes. Then he stands and lifts my blue T-shirt up and off my head. He presses a warm kiss to the chilled skin of my collarbone before wrapping me in a giant towel.
I love you, each motion says, and I can’t believe I never saw it before.
“Casey,” I start shakily, but he stops me with a kiss to my lips.
“Not right now, baby. I’ll be back.”
“Okay.” My voice is small, like a child’s. I feel like a child in a lot of ways.
Casey goes into his bedroom for a few minutes and comes back out wearing dry clothes and holding more folded in his arms. He sets those aside, then rubs me with the towel and dresses me in one of his T-shirts and boxers, rolling the waistband so they sit on the fullest part of my hips.
He leads me to the couch where he instructs me to sit and covers me with a blanket before taking our wet clothes to the dryer in a closet next to his kitchen and tossing them in. Finally, he comes back to the couch and finds my hands under the blanket so he can hold them.
“You want to talk about it?”
“I want to tell you I’m sorry first.”
Taking a moment to look over my face, he narrows his eyes thoughtfully, pursing his lips. “You were doing your job. I…” He sighs deeply. “I’ve been pretty insecure since I took this role, and Ashton probably sensed it. He played right into my worries, and when you asked—”
“I shouldn’t have.” I lean forward in earnest.
Shaking his head, he squeezes my hands. “You were just doing your job,” he repeats, each word a staccato emphasis. “Speaking of which…you’ve had quite the eventful couple of days.”
“I quit,” I say quickly. “That might actually be the best thing that’s happened to me since…well, since the last time I saw you.”
He chuckles, and the sound does more to warm me than the blanket covering half my body. “Why did you quit?”
“Because Suzanna sucks. She wanted us to work with Ashton or use him to leverage more from you. She accused me of costing the agency money and threatened to put me on probation so I just…quit.” I shrug, shifting my gaze so I’m studying the pattern on the blanket instead of looking at him.
“But the more I thought about it, the more I kind of hoped maybe we could… If I wasn’t working for her, maybe I’d be less worried about it.
I was going to find a way to tell you, but I fell asleep and then… ” I shrug again.
Casey brings a hand to my chin, turning my face to look at him. He raises his dark eyebrows. “You quit your job for me?”
I scoff. “No. I quit my job for me. But…” I drag my bottom lip through my teeth, meeting his gaze.
“I love you too, Casey. You’re the first person I thought to come see tonight.
You’re the one who heals me, who makes me whole.
I’m tired of pretending to be anything but in love with you.
I want to be. Fully. And I think the first step toward that was to leave Northbridge. ”
Wordlessly, he draws me closer to him and lies back so his arms are wrapped around me and my head is resting on his chest. We lie like that for a while, until the thunder stops and the rain slows to a quiet patter against his windowpane.
“I can’t work on young adult titles and be with you, though,” I say quietly.
Casey starts to stroke my hair in a soothing motion. “We can figure that out later.” His voice vibrates through my cheek.
“I have plan for that.” I trace a line up and down his stomach, feeling the ridges of muscle under the soft fabric of his T-shirt. “What I don’t have a plan for is my mom.”
His hand doesn’t stop moving through my hair. “Do you want to talk about it?”
No, I don’t, but he deserves to know. And if I’m going to love him fully like I just said I want to, I have to have faith that he won’t run away screaming.
“I haven’t talked to her since I was fifteen.” I swallow hard. “There’s a lot of backstory, but…”
“We have time,” he says when I can’t continue. “Now or ten years from now. I’m not going anywhere.”
A tear slips out of the corner of my eye and darkens his shirt where it lands. It’s as if he knew I needed to hear that, which shouldn’t surprise me. He always knows what I need.