Chapter 15
Rane
I can’t get this girl out of my head.
It’s been a week. Okay, a week and a half. And I’ve literally rearranged my entire life around her. We all have. Schedules shifted, routines rewritten, every decision filtered through where she is and is she okay and does she need something.
It’s terrifying. It’s stupid.
I love it.
She’s eating more now. Not a lot, but more.
Between the five of us, we’ve figured out how to get food in front of her without making it a thing.
Vaelor leaves plates where she’ll find them.
Beckett keeps the fridge stocked with stuff she likes.
Kyron “accidentally” orders too much when we get takeout.
Locke doesn’t say anything, but he’s started making sure there’s always bread on the table because he noticed she reaches for it first.
And me? I just talk. Fill the silence so she doesn’t have to think about what she’s putting in her mouth, just does it while she’s distracted.
It’s working. Even in the short time she’s been here, she looks better. Healthier. The shadows under her eyes aren’t as deep. Her cheeks have a little more color. She doesn’t flinch as hard when one of us moves too fast.
And she’s fucking beautiful.
I said it before, and I’ll keep saying it until she believes it. I just might not say it out loud again for a while yet.
Now if we could just keep Harrick and his lackeys away from her.
They’ve been circling. Nothing direct—not since that first morning on the path. But I see them watching. Silas especially. He’s in her Mark Theory class, and every time she comes back from it, she’s wound tight in a way that takes hours to fade.
We can’t be in that room with her. It’s the one place she’s unprotected.
I fucking hate it.
But today’s Sunday. No classes. No Harrick. Just the house and the five of us and her, and I’m going to focus on that instead of all the ways this could go wrong.
The phone arrives after breakfast.
I’m the one who ordered it. Set it up myself—our numbers saved, everything configured so she just has to turn it on. The guys gave me shit about it, but someone had to do it, and I wanted to be the one.
I wanted to be the one to give her something.
I find her in her room.
The door’s open a few inches, and I knock on the frame before pushing it wider. She’s sitting on her bed, legs crossed, a book open in her lap that she’s clearly not reading. When she looks up, something in my chest does a stupid little flip.
“Hey,” I say. “Got something for you.”
I hold up the phone. Her eyebrows pull together.
“You didn’t have to—”
“Yeah, I did. We need to be able to reach you.” I cross the room before she can argue and sit down on the bed beside her. “Here. It’s already set up. All our numbers are in there.”
She takes it carefully, like it might bite her. Turns it over in her hands.
“I don’t really know how to…”
“I’ll show you.”
I shift closer. Lean in so I can see the screen, my arm coming up behind her. Not touching, but close. Close enough that I can smell her shampoo—something soft, a little floral. Close enough that I can feel the warmth of her.
“Okay, so this is the home screen,” I say, and my voice comes out mostly normal. “You swipe up to unlock. Contacts are here—see? That’s all of us. You tap a name to call, or you can text by—”
She leans into me.
Not a lot. Just a fraction. Like her body decided to do it without asking her brain first. Her shoulder presses against my chest and she makes this tiny sound—barely a breath, almost a sigh—and I forget what I was saying.
I forget everything.
“Rane?”
My name in her mouth. She’s turned her head to look at me and her face is right there, inches away, and her eyes drop to my mouth for just a second before snapping back up.
Oh fuck.
“Yeah?” My voice is not normal. My voice is wrecked and I haven’t even done anything.
“You stopped talking.”
“Did I?”
“You were showing me the contacts.”
“Right. Yeah. Contacts.”
I need to move. I need to put space between us before I do something stupid. But she’s still leaning into me and her eyes are still on my face and I can see the pulse jumping in her throat and—
I stand up so fast I almost knock her over.
“That’s—you’ve got it. You’re good. The guys are all in there, so if you need anything, just—yeah.”
Smooth, Rane. Really smooth.
She blinks up at me, confusion flickering across her face. “Are you okay?”
“Great. I’m great. Just remembered I have to—there’s a thing. Downstairs. I should go do the thing.”
I’m already backing toward the door. My heel catches on something—might be my own stupid feet—and I stumble, catching myself on the doorframe.
Her lips twitch. Just a little.
“Thanks for the phone,” she says.
“Yep. Welcome. Enjoy.”
I escape into the hallway and pull the door mostly shut behind me, then stand there for a second with my hand on the wall, trying to remember how to breathe.
What the fuck was that?
Her shoulder against my chest. That little sound she made. The way she looked at my mouth.
I need to walk this off. I need to think about something else. I need to—
I make it to the common room and Kyron is on the couch, phone in hand, and he looks up when I come in.
His eyebrows rise.
“You okay there?”
“Fine,” I say. Too fast.
“You look like you just ran a marathon.”
“I didn’t.”
“Your face is red.”
“It’s not.”
“It is.” He sets the phone down. Those blue eyes are way too sharp. “What happened?”
“Nothing.”
“Rane.”
“I was showing her the phone.”
“And?”
I run a hand through my hair. Pace toward the window. Turn back.
“She leaned into me.”
Kyron goes very still.
“And she made this—this sound. And then she looked at my mouth, Kyron. She looked at my mouth.”
Silence.
“So what did you do?” he asks.
“I left.”
“You left.”
“I excused myself.”
“Smoothly?”
I think about tripping over my own feet. About saying there’s a thing like an absolute idiot.
“Not exactly.”
Kyron’s mouth twitches. Then he’s laughing—not loud, but real—and I want to be annoyed but I can’t because he’s right. I’m a disaster.
“It’s not funny,” I say, but I’m almost smiling now too.
“It’s a little funny.” He shakes his head. “You’ve got it bad.”
“Shut up.”
“We all do. You’re just the worst at hiding it.”
I drop onto the other end of the couch and stare at the ceiling.
He’s not wrong.
I’ve got it so bad, and she looked at my mouth, and now all I can think about is what she tastes like.