54. Kit
Kit
“Let me see,” Bowen says, crouched down in front of me. He holds out his hand expectantly, but I’m sort of lost in the fluttery feeling in my stomach because he’s watching me suck my thumb.
Any pain from a second ago is overshadowed by the sight of him. Knowing he’ll come to my rescue is a very, very dangerous thing for me to know. I feel like I just cracked the code. Unlocked a feature that I lost when I quit the game two years ago and had to start over again.
I pull my thumb out with a soft pop and place my hand in his open palm. His eyes drag from my mouth.
What even is breathing?
His own thumb grazes over mine, shiny from being in my mouth. God, I’m like a pubescent teen. Why is him touching the thumb that was in my mouth absolutely doing it for me right now?
I’m a touch-starved animal. I feel like one with how my body lights up under the gentle touch. Smooth leather against silk. His skin is rougher than mine—proof of his ability to use a hammer, I’m sure.
He bends my thumb, pushing up the center and on the sides. When I only wince and not yelp or cry out in agony, he drops my hand. “You’re fine…big baby.” My skin is burning where he touched me.
And then, as if it's just a reflex, Bowen lifts the same hand and ruffles it through my hair. Muscle memory.
We both freeze.
His hand stays in my hair a second too long.
Not long enough.
I feel the flex of his fingers before he pulls them back.
I see my Bowen look at me from the man’s face. Eyes searching and as familiar as the touch had been. He’s looking like he’s remembering someone he used to reach for and isn’t sure it's actually me.
“Hey, Boe?” I say softly.
The muscles in his neck look tense, and he swallows hard enough I hear it. “What?”
“It’s raining.”
Like my statement is the key to unlocking the storm clouds, what was a steady drizzle quickly turns into a downpour. Bowen looks at my smirking lips before pushing up and looking around, cursing.
I watch him gather the power tools first, tucking them to his chest and moving to the shed. Then I get up to help. The ground turns to mud fast with the rain and our feet pounding over the space, and by the time, we’re done my sandals are filled with mud, and I grimace with every squishy step.
Bowen snatches me up by the elbow when I slip in one of his big boot prints. Then his hand hovers on my lower back as we make it around to the front of the cabin and up the steps.
“Thanks,” I murmur. The air feels cooler already.
Judging by the clouds and the distant roll of thunder, it looks like we’re in for a while.
Bowen pulls a tattered looking towel from the outdoor bin tucked into the corner that used to hold sunscreen and lake toys.
He runs it over his head, black curls once again wet and hanging loosely around his broad shoulders.
His expression is both intense and closed off.
A ringing breaks the moment.
He pulls his phone out of his back pocket and barely flicks his eyes up to me as he flings the towel my way.
“Don’t track that mud inside,” is what he says before answering the phone and pushing the door open to get inside.
I hate that him leaving has the ability to take away the breath of life I felt just moments ago. I dry my own head, kick off my sandals, and wipe the grime from my feet. I hesitate with my hand on the doorknob, thunking my forehead to the cool surface.
His deep voice makes its way to me, even over the sound of the rain. I only catch fragments. “I’m good.” And “You don’t have to come, D.”
It’s enough.
I push the door open, and it closes with a soft click behind me. Bowen is placing logs of wood in the fireplace, holding the phone with his free hand.
“Tell Delaney I say hi,” I say. I don’t wait around for a response; instead, I scurry like a spooked field mouse to my room. This door closes with a much louder click behind me.
You don’t have to come, D.
Delaney. The barrage of feelings that hit me just thinking of her, of them, is ridiculous.
No. Fucking stop it. Right now.
The wood is smooth under my palms, and I splay my fingers wide on the surface behind me. At least I can’t hear him anymore in here. Small mercies.
I give myself long enough for three deep breaths before I move into the room and gather stuff for a shower. It’s quiet in the cabin when I walk across to the bathroom.
Quiet when I walk out on a billow of steam.
I find Bowen in the living room with two bowls in front of him on the coffee table, scrolling through Netflix by the looks of it. The massive TV over the fireplace is definitely new.
“Does my dad know you took down the wall of stuffed animal heads to hang a TV?”
“Man caves have advanced. It’s twenty twenty-five, not nineteen eighty-five.” He pauses on a movie long enough for the preview to autostart in the corner. Something explodes, car flips.
He presses play, and it’s so predictable, I roll my eyes towards the ceiling. But before the beginning credits can start, there is a loud boom, and all the lights and TV snap off.
Bowen tilts his head back against the couch and groans.
I ignore the tightening in my gut at the sound. At least I’m not wearing thin shorts anymore.
Not that we can see much. The late afternoon light coming through the windows isn’t much with how much the sky is darkened by the storm. Bowen is cloaked in gray soaked shadows, which means so am I.
“Remember when that one storm wiped out the power for two days?” I hold my breath, looking away from his profile. Waiting to see if he’ll bite.
“You walked around with a flashlight for a week afterwards,” he eventually adds from next to me.
I relax back into the cushions. “The lights went out when we were playing hide and seek. I had myself wedged between the one bunk bed and wall.”
“Your pants got caught on a nail in the frame, and you were stuck. I remember.” It feels safer, with the low light. The air in the cabin is much calmer than the storm outside. “You slept in my bed for a week after, too.”
I move my head on the couch to look at him. His eyes are closed, arms crossed, but it feels like a relaxed pose not a defensive one.
“Can I tell you something without you getting mad?”
“Can’t make any promises.”
“Sometimes I pretended to be a bigger baby than I was.”
Bowen snorts and peeks an eye open to look at me. “Did you think you were slick?”
I gasp softly in mock outrage. “Are you saying I was a bad actor?”
He scans my face before closing his eye again. “You know damn well you were.”
About everything, Bowen?
I fiddle with my fingers in my lap as the quiet settles once again between us. I’m surrounded by his scent, and the comforting weight of his presence. Kit just a few months ago would have dreamed of this opportunity, even though the idea would have scared him to death.
“I’m not really scared of storms anymore.
Or the dark. Total devastation and a ruined life has a way of putting silly childhood fears to rest, I guess.
” The taste of truth is…exquisitely terrifying.
I lick my lips and continue. “I actually found some relief when it stormed. Gave me a reason to hide out in the van. I didn’t feel pressured to go out and try to fix myself for just that one day, you know?
An excuse granted by Mother Nature herself to stay in bed. ”
Bowen is quiet, but his body is still, and I know he’s listening.
“I felt closest to you then,” I say softly.
I frown and pick at the skin on the side of my thumb.
“I had such an easy time finding Brett in everything. The sunshine. People laughing. A bag of candy.” My nostrils flare with my deep inhale.
“I found it impossible to replicate the feeling I felt when I was safe. With you. But I could almost pretend when there was a storm.”
“Kit…”
“Please, let me say this,” I plead quietly. I half expect him to jump up and storm off. He doesn’t.
“I wasn’t a good friend to you, Bowen. Not just after Brett, but for a long time before, too.
I want to be better. I want…” I exhale and breathe through the burning in my throat.
“I want to be a space you can come to on your bad days and know I’ll always be there.
I want to give you the same support you gave me, even…
even when I didn’t fucking deserve it. I’m so sor—”
“Please,” he rasps, quick and desperate. For what I’m not sure. The emotion in it guts me either way.
“Tomorrow is two years from the day I left. I’m sorry it took me so long to find my way home. But just know, Boe…I’m not going anywhere this time.”
I feel raw and exposed. And just like on the stormy nights I lay awake in the van, the deepening shadows hold me in a way that Bowen can’t.
His silence is expected, but just because I expect it doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt. Like a finger digging into a deep bruise. It aches, but I sit in the ache anyway.
So does he.
He may not forgive me today. Or tomorrow. But he doesn’t leave.
I don’t know how long we sit there in silence. But it’s long enough for both of us to fall asleep.