Chapter 25 #2
"This is nice," she murmurs against my shoulder.
It is nice. That's the fucked up part. I don't want her. She doesn't want me. But this — just being close to someone without it meaning anything, without it hurting anyone — I forgot what this felt like.
"Yeah."
"I don't want to think anymore tonight."
"Me neither."
She lifts her head to look at me. Eyes red-rimmed but clear. "Is this okay? I know we're both —"
"It's okay."
She kisses me first. Soft, questioning. I kiss her back.
We move to the bedroom eventually. It's not desperate, not frantic. Just slow and sad and honest. She cries a little after, apologizes, and I tell her she doesn't need to. I hold her until the shaking stops.
"I miss being touched," she whispers. "Not sex. Just... being held."
When's the last time someone held me? Not a back-slap from Reid. Not the half-hugs you give people at funerals where nobody knows what to do with their arms. Actually held.
I can't remember.
"Yeah."
"Does that make me pathetic?"
"Makes you human."
She laughs. Wet, broken sound. Presses her face into my chest. Her hair smells like some kind of fruit. Not vanilla. Nothing like Laine.
I'm grateful for that.
We don't sleep much. Drift in and out, tangled together. At one point she gets up to use the bathroom and I pull the blanket over myself, stare at the ceiling. Streetlamp throws stripes of light across the room.
When she comes back, she stops in the doorway.
"You're still here."
"Did you think I'd leave?"
"I don't know. Maybe." She climbs back in, settles against my side. "Thank you for staying."
I don't say anything. Just pull her closer.
Sometime around four she falls asleep for real. Breathing deep and even against my chest. I lie awake, one hand in her hair. The room going from black to gray so slow you'd miss it if you weren't staring at the ceiling like an idiot.
Laine's in Reid's bed right now. Probably curled against him the same way Leanne's curled against me. Except Reid gets to keep her. Reid gets to wake up tomorrow and the next day and the next day and she's still there.
I get this. One night with a stranger who needed the same thing I did.
It's more than I deserve.
I wake up to the smell of coffee.
Leanne is standing in the doorway, two mugs in hand. She's wearing an oversized t-shirt and nothing else, hair messed up, mascara smudged under her eyes.
"Wasn't sure how you take it. There's sugar in the kitchen if you need it."
"Black's fine."
She hands me a mug, sits on the edge of the bed. We drink in silence, watching the morning light fill the room.
"I meant what I said last night," she says eventually. "You're not what I expected."
"You either."
She smiles. Tired but real. "What did you expect?"
"I don't know. Someone who wanted to forget more than talk."
"I did want to forget. But the talking helped more." She takes another sip. "Is that weird?"
"No."
We finish our coffee. I get dressed while she watches, neither of us pretending this is something it isn't. When I'm done, she walks me to the door.
We both look like hell and neither one pretends otherwise.
She reaches up and straightens my collar. Small. Automatic. The kind of thing you do for someone after years of doing it for someone else. Her hands stay on my chest a beat too long.
"You're a good man, Blake." Quiet. Not flattery. Just matter of fact.
I don't know what to do with that. I'm not. But I nod. My hand finds hers where it sits against my chest.
"You're gonna be okay."
She smiles. Sad but real. "Yeah. Eventually."
I step out into the morning. The door closes softly behind me.
I sit in my truck for a long moment. Sun coming up. Dashboard clock reads 6:23 AM. Reid and Laine are probably still asleep, tangled up in each other.
I'm tempted to just drive. No plan, no destination, just anywhere that isn't home. But that's just running, and I'd still have to come back. I have to face them both.
The house is quiet when I ease the front door open. The hinges creak and my boots are too fucking loud on the hardwood. I freeze. Listen.
Nothing.
I make it to the kitchen and start the coffee.
I'm leaving dirt footprints all over the floor.
I toe off my boots and toss them outside the door, then head to the sink to wet a cloth.
My reflection in the window looks exactly like what I am—a man who spent the night trying to fuck away his feelings and failed.
Shirt wrinkled. Hair a mess. Probably still whiskey on my breath.
And underneath it all, a faint trace of Leanne's shampoo, and sex.
The coffee machine gurgles to life. I lean against the counter. What the fuck do I do? I can leave the house every time they fuck. Or I can move back out to the shed.
Hell, if I thought I could convince Reid, I'd buy a trailer and park it at the back of the property where I can't hear or see them being happy. Living their lives.
Reid would lose his shit if I even suggested that.
I pour myself a cup of coffee even though it's not quite finished brewing, then pull a thermos out of the cupboard. I don't plan on coming back here today. Not as long as she's here.
The first sip is bitter and too strong. A few cups of this, and I'll be able to ignore the fact that I barely slept last night.
Footsteps on the stairs. Light. Barefoot. Not Reid's.
Laine.
Too late to run. And yeah, maybe wanting to bolt out of my own house should bother me, but it doesn't. Running's the smart play here.
But it's too fucking late. I turn around and she's in the doorway.
She's wearing his shirt. Slipped off one shoulder, showing that stretch of skin I spent half the night trying not to think about.
My lungs just…empty.
"Shoot," she says, looking for a second like she wants to run. "Um. Morning," she says softly. Her voice is still rough from sleep. From calling Reid's name in the dark.
"Morning," I force out, looking somewhere around her left ear.
Laine's eyes flicker over my appearance. The wrinkled clothes. The exhaustion. She steps closer, and that's when it happens.
She's close enough now that I can smell her—vanilla and underneath it all, the faint scent of sex. But she can smell me, too. I see the exact moment she registers the perfume clinging to my clothes. The floral sweetness that doesn't belong to anyone who lives in this house.
Her eyes widen slightly. Just for a second. Then her expression goes carefully neutral.
But not before I catch something else flickering across her face.
Something that looks almost like hurt.