Chapter 26 - Wolfson
I wake to the sound of Dove breathing.
Not snoring. Not the labored chuffing of bad dreams. I’m greeted with the delicate, steady tide of air filling her pretty chest and emptying again.
And I’m hard. Harder than any morning wood has the right to be.
For the love of poor decisions, I hope my dream self didn’t grope her through the night. My awake self is hanging by a thread, and the last thing she needs is me crossing another line.
After we passed out, I don’t remember anything. None of my usual restless, twitchy half-sleep. That can only mean one thing. I just had the deepest, heaviest, best-ever sleep of my life.
We both did, judging by the positions of our bodies. Neither of us moved.
Through the blinds, the blue-gray light of early morning filters in stripes across her pillow and cheek, catching on the silver glint of her septum ring, the metal stud above her lip, and the tiny rod threaded through her eyebrow.
I lie on my side and stare like she’s the first real girlfriend I’ve shared a bed with in twenty-four years.
Because she is.
Nothing in my wreck of a life prepared me for how good this feels.
A clean, mineral scent lives in her hair. Skin, salt, rain, and underneath it all, my favorite fragrance. Sun-warm, feather-soft Dove.
I’ve never wanted anything as badly as I want to roll forward, drape an arm over her waist, tuck myself into the curve of her, press my nose to her neck, and pretend I’m a normal man sleeping beside a woman who wants to stay.
Pretend I didn’t have a mental breakdown after giving her stepbrother a handy.
Pretend I’m not a living nightmare with more scars than a used mattress.
Her lashes twitch. She murmurs something that might be a word and burrows deeper into the pillow. The blanket slips down her shoulder, exposing a pale slope of skin.
The urge to kiss that spot is a bright, roaring pain. My mouth waters, and I taste the metal of it. The want.
But I can’t. Not until I tell her what happened with Jag. And after that, she’ll no longer have a reason to stay.
Carefully, I slide out of bed. The room tilts, then steadies. I’m lightheaded, and my stomach cramps like I didn’t eat yesterday.
Oh, right. I didn’t.
I wrap the edges of the housecoat around me, covering my boxers and scars and tying the sash. The sleeves fall too short on my arms, and the purple fabric is worn to a thin nap. After all these years, I don’t know why I still wear it. Dr. Freud would analyze the shit out of that.
Dove sighs, and I go still, but she doesn’t wake. A shiny curl of blue hair hangs across her face. I don’t touch it. I memorize it.
Then I leave without looking back because if I do, I’ll climb into bed and make the wrong kind of promises to myself.
The walk to the main house is too warm for my Arctic-bred bones, the daylight too honest, and when I reach the back door, my reflection in the glass looks like a trespasser in a dead woman’s robe.
In the kitchen, I find Frankie at the island, barefoot, red hair twisted up in a knot, and shoulders slumped in a way that says she didn’t sleep as well as I did.
She glances over at me, and her eyebrows rise a millimeter. I know the robe caught her eye. It always does. But she doesn’t comment. One of the thousand gifts she gives me.
“I was just going to make eggs.” Her voice sands down to a gentle roughness that loosens tight places inside me. “You want—”
“Yes. Feed me before I start gnawing on the furniture.” I cross to the back counter and pour a mug of coffee. I’d offer her a cup, but caffeine isn’t good for the baby. “Where are your daddies?”
“Still asleep.”
“Let me guess. They stayed up all night braiding each other’s pubes.”
She smiles without showing teeth, and the softness of it makes my throat ache. She doesn’t need to correct me. I know they were up all night discussing my mental health.
I don’t have to pretend with her. We’ve seen each other at our worst. She held my eyes when Denver raped me. I held her hand when the doctor raped her. She has PTSD like me, though her panic attacks are growing fewer and farther between.
She moves around the kitchen. Pan on the burner. Flame. Butter hissing. The sound is indecent. My stomach groans and folds into cramps.
I sit at the island, slurping coffee and slicing bread to make toast.
“Did you sleep?” She approaches my stool, careful not to spook me, but close enough that her warmth presses into my space.
“Yes times a thousand. I slept beside Dove for the first time.”
“And?”
“It was… Clean.”
Anyone else would assume that meant no sex and move on. But not Frankie.
“Emotionally clean.” Her gaze pries me open. “I’m glad Dove could give you that.”
She hovers so close I feel her need to touch me like a hand held near a fire. I look down. She looks up. There’s a question in her eyes and a hundred unsaid words circling like wolves.
I give her a tight nod.
With a relieved breath, she throws herself against me.
Not in front like a hug would be, but onto my back.
She hangs there, arms looped around my collarbones, cheek at the hinge of my jaw, her weight comforting, familiar, her warmth sinking into my spine, into places where last night hollowed me out.
When she exhales, the sound comes out of me, too. I let my head tip back until it hits her shoulder and rests there, waiting for her questions.
“How much did you tell her?” She nuzzles my hair.
“Bits.”
“Graphic bits?”
“More like big-picture bits. In fairy-tale format.”
“Did these fairy tales feature a drag queen?”
I nod.
She pulls a heavy breath through her nose, doing her best to remain neutral.
The silence that follows is a barbed wire fence. I could grab it and bleed. Or I could sit here with her arms around me until I say something offensive that sends her running away.
Except Frankie doesn’t run from a challenge. She faces it head-on.
“We knew, Wolf.” She kisses my temple and shifts around to face me. “We all knew about your scars.”
“Leo told you.”
“He loves you. We all do, and we’re trying to give you space, knowing you’re talking to Dr. Thurber—”
“Dr. Freud.”
“Right.” A smile moves through her voice, a tremor rather than a sound. “I know it’s hard.”
Hard implies there’s a correct angle of attack, and if I apply enough force, it yields. This isn’t that kind of hard. This is a cliff in the way of a river, and the river in the way of a cliff.
I’m stuck between two unmovable realities. Captivity and survival. One blocks. The other erodes. Both are in the way. Both require a lot of work.
The butter in the pan goes from a hiss to a sizzle. Frankie peels away, grabs a spatula, and starts cracking eggs.
Saliva floods my mouth as the smell hits. Fat, pepper, a hint of singe. It grabs my spine and shakes.
I start the toast and stare off into space. When the toaster pops, I flinch.
Frankie pretends not to notice.
After she plates the food, we sit side by side and dig in.
The first bite is ridiculous, the crisp edges of fried egg giving under my teeth. My jaw works, chewing too loud and fast. I eat like I’m on the clock.
My body doesn’t trust abundance, so when it’s placed in front of me, the old instinct flicks on.
Eat it before the hills eat you.
When I come up for air, Frankie’s watching as if she knew I would inhale every bite and made peace with that outcome before she cracked the first egg.
“You want more?” she asks.
I nod, starting to stand. But she’s already up and plopping more eggs into the pan.
When she brings the plate back, I force myself to go slower, trying to taste things individually. The black pepper, the toast’s char, and the butter’s sweetness.
As I finish, heat pools behind my sternum. Not panic heat. Coal fire. Steady. I lick my thumb where yolk slicks it.
Frankie clears her throat. “How’s it going with Dove?”
I set down the fork and choose the smallest word, the safest one. “Fine.”
“Wolf.” She leans her elbows on the table, eyes gentle but not easily fooled. “You don’t have to be alone in your head about it.”
“I’m not.”
“You are.” It’s not a scold. It’s an acknowledgment, like pointing to a scar and naming it Scar. She sits back. “Do you trust her?”
“More than I trust myself, which is fucked up, but there it is.”
“Will you tell her your story?”
“She already got the full experience with my scars, my breakdown, and my fairy tales. That’s more than I’ve shared with anyone else.”
“That’s not the same as talking about it.”
“Words don’t fit this. They slide off the bone and make an ungodly mess.”
“You talk to Dr. Thurber.”
“I toss him juicy bits here and there. You know what they say. Vague book—”
“Isn’t the best book.” Her mouth turns down. “Will you wait a second?”
At my nod, she pads down the hall. I hear the soft thud of a closet door, the sigh of a drawer. My pulse climbs, and I occupy myself by stacking plates and aligning the butter knife with the bread crumbs.
Footsteps return. When I look up, she’s holding two books.
I recognize the one on top. The cracked spine. The stains on the cover. The dents and scratches from outlasting arctic blizzards, famine, and a plane crash.
Survivor’s marks.
My stomach drops hard, and the room blurs.
If I open that book, it will open a past I’m not ready to face.