Chapter 47
chapter
forty-seven
CALDER
Shay fell asleep sometime near the end of season one. Blue television light effervesced with city lights, illuminating Shay in a soft glow. Her eyelashes cast fluffy shadows on her cheeks. She gripped my thigh with one hand as she slept, her mouth slightly parted.
My gut twisted at how easily she breathed.
She felt safe.
I lightly traced her mouth with my knuckle, over the bruise she didn’t want to talk about.
In deeper than you realize.
Maybe it was somehow related to her illness.
Or maybe Butcher was right, she was in deeper than I knew, and someone gave this to her.
Shay was an intoxicating and slightly infuriating combination of vulnerable and aloof.
Sometimes being with her felt like a magic trick.
I knew there was something happening beneath the surface, but she only showed me what she wanted me to see.
But I also knew that trying to get her to open up before she was ready would be like prying apart a clam. Maybe I’d get a pearl, but the clam would die.
The front door opened, and I ripped my gaze from Shay. Instinctively, I wrapped my arm around her.
Bright-yellow hallway light set the shadows on fire.
Shay’s sister, Lilith, stood in silhouette.
I saw her shadow-puppet hand about to drop her keys into a ceramic catcher shaped like a cat, when she froze.
Her head shot to me, and though I couldn’t see her eyes, by the way her head jerked up, I got the impression she’d spotted me.
With keys still in hand, she walked over to me.
Her seven-inch, spiky black stilettos clacked across the hardwood as she landed before me, folding her arms.
“Why are you here?” Her voice was low, the tone in her voice implying she knew the answer already, but was suspicious of it.
“Shay doesn’t like being alone when she’s sick,” I said.
Lithie pushed her tongue into her cheek, brows knitting together.
“There’s dinner in the fridge.” I offered an olive branch.
Once again her gaze flitted down to Shay, then back to me. She shifted on one heel, then wordlessly made her way to the kitchen.
She pulled out the glass Tupperware, eyes narrowed on me. “You made this?”
I’d read anti-inflammatory foods and healthy fats could help when someone had a chronic fatigue episode. So I’d made a simple meal complete with things like legumes, spinach, peppers, and quinoa.
“I’m a better baker.” I shrugged. “But judging by the plates of food I assume you left her—and how only the sweets were eaten—she wasn’t eating well. I made enough for you and anyone else who wants it.” My gaze shot to the door, knowing her other friends lived across the hall.
Lilith came back, watchful. “I will castrate you with a butter knife if you so much as make her cry.”
I held her stare. “I’ll give you the butter knife.”
She gave me a long, searching look, then exhaled, dropping her arms to her sides.
“Thanks for dinner,” she said, leaving the room.
Lilith shut the door to her bedroom, and Shay stirred. Her fingers stretched across my thigh. There was something both illicit and precious about being able to witness her wake, like stumbling upon a fairy—something not meant for mortal eyes.
Shay yawned, covering it with the back of her hand, and her eyelashes fluttered open.
A million micro expressions flitted across her face. Then, as if realizing where she was, her eyes widened, she blinked, and she quickly shoved herself up and off me.
I fought the urge to drag her back to my lap, instead pushing the hair out of her face. “How are you feeling?”
“Better,” she said.
There was more color in her face. Seeing her before had scared the hell out of me.
“How many spoons?” I asked.
“I don’t know if I can run through graveyards today…” She gave me a teasing smile at the look on my face. “I’m probably at, like, a four. Which is much higher than the negative billion I was at earlier.”
A soft smile. “Good.”
She laughed, and then as quickly as her joy came, it faded.
“I don’t… You don’t need to be here. I don’t need to burden you with this.”
“Did your family call you a burden?”
“No! Never.” She shook her head. “It wasn’t them.”
Then it was him.
I dragged a hand across my lips, forcing calm to replace the fiery venom in my lungs. The last thing Shay needed was another man going off the handle.
I lived by a code—no death, consent from the victim.
It was getting really hard not to break my fucking rules.
“You are not a burden, Shay,” I said. “It’s a privilege to spend time with you. In any capacity.”
“I won’t be much fun tonight,” she said, voice soft.
I had that instinct again—that predatory, caveman feeling that made me want to destroy whoever or whatever had stolen her joy.
I stifled it and squeezed her shoulder. “Lorelai just ran away from her wedding with Max. I’m invested.”
She gave me a look that reminded me a lot of the one her sister had given me—suspicious because I was doing something nice. Her brow furrowed, her mouth scrunched, she settled back against the couch, and I pressed play.
“Why are you still here?” she asked, her eyes on the screen. “You said you didn’t want a relationship with me.”
“I didn’t say that—”
“You take care of me, you wash my hair, you protect me, you give me the best sex of my fucking life, but you won’t commit?”
I tried to ignore that she’d said best sex of her fucking life because she was currently giving me the same eyes her sister had when she’d threatened to shove uncooked pasta up my ass.
I wanted to commit. To have a life with her. To be her boyfriend, husband—whatever she wanted. For her to brand me with that label so everyone knew I belonged to her.
But I couldn’t want that.
The truth was, I never should have seen her past the first night, because the best-case scenario I could hope for was an easy breakup.
“There are things I can’t tell you,” I said. “But if you knew, you would understand.”
“Can’t or won’t?”
I paused. “Won’t.”
She rolled her eyes. “You know everything about me. Why won’t you let me know about you?”
“You do know me, Shay. You know me best of everyone.”
“I don’t know where you work. I haven’t met your family. All I know is you grew up in Utah and have some kind of mask fetish.”
I fought the urge to laugh. She was funny, even in situations I wasn’t allowed to laugh at.
She knew me. Better than anyone. She knew the parts of me I didn’t share, my hopes and dreams, my fears.
“You know me, Shay,” I said again.
“Am I some kind of game to you? See how easily you can make the sad sick girl fall in love? God, I must be so fucking pathetic to you—”
“Shay,” I said, voice tense. Trying to ignore the fact that she was falling in love with me.
But it clawed anyway.
Latched spiky teeth to my soul.
Love.
“I want more with you,” I said. “I want to hear you laughing and singing in the other room. I want to buy you books and listen to you talk about dark matter. I want to take care of you, because you deserve that, and because I feel so fucking lucky and honored that you’d let me.
I want you leaving your clutter everywhere because it’s a sign that you’re home with me. I want a life.”
“Calder—”
I crushed my lips against hers, cutting off whatever she was going to say.
She melted into me. Fingers fisting my shirt as she released a small gasp that I swallowed with a groan.
I snaked my hands into her hair, gripping her skull, pulling her closer, kissing her like it was the last time, because it probably was.
It wasn’t enough.
I needed her in my fucking veins.
But I pulled back, and Shay’s eyes fluttered open. She had that dazed, sex-drunk look she got. Cheeks red and eyes hazy. I ran my thumb up and down her cheek.
Her gaze still on my mouth, she whispered, “Then why?”
“My life is dangerous, not just to me, but to the people I love. I can’t risk you getting dragged into that. I can’t have another person I love’s death on my hands.”
Her eyes popped up to mine. “Love?”
“Did you hear the first part of that? The part where I said you could die?”
“You love me?” she asked.
I dragged a hand down my jaw.
Yeah, I loved her.
That was the problem.
“Calder, I love y—”
“Shay,” I cut her off before she said something she couldn’t take back. “I clean money for the Mafia.”