Chapter 13
You Saved Me
Leni
“Tea?” He stares at me, dumbfounded.
“Yes, Clay, tea. Would you like a cup? I could make some while you shower and bring it up for you.”
“Bring it up?” he repeats. I feel my eyebrows raise into my hairline as he stands there, blinking at me.
“Dude.” I turn to face him fully, putting one hand on my hip. “You clearly need a shower and some fucking sleep. I’ll bring the tea up to the bedroom; you can have the bed tonight. You need it more.”
“Oh, yeah.” He looks at me a second longer, his grey eyes unfocused, then yawns so wide his jaw cracks. “Sorry, I’m fucking beat. Tea is great.”
“Sleepy time?” I call after him as he’s already halfway up the stairs.
“Sure, doesn’t really matter, it won’t help.
” He turns at the waist, offering me a sad smile before continuing up the stairs.
I shouldn’t care that he’s not sleeping, or if he ever sleeps again.
Clayton Traeger is not my problem. Nor does he want to be my problem.
Still, my chest aches a little at the thought of him suffering alone.
Helping him is easy. He literally needs nothing more than my presence to sleep better, to relax. I’ve yet to meet anyone who needs me the way he does. And yet, he doesn’t want to need me. I think he might actually loathe the idea of needing me.
I’ve thought about what it felt like to press my lips to his again. Thought about the fact that Clayton Traeger could be my first and last kiss, how perfectly we could wrap up our story. Together.
Then I remember that he’s already been claimed by my brothers as their own. The same brothers who annoy me and habitually get up in my business. Yeah, nope, I don’t belong here anymore, but Clay does. He’ll find someone else, someone who helps him sleep at night, someone he wants to be with.
For now, maybe I’ll use this time to figure out how to be around him without secretly pining, even as my body flinches every time he moves.
If such a thing is possible with him. Maybe part of me will always want him.
Maybe that’s part of growing up. Acknowledging there will always be something and still finding a way to move forward. That’s possible, right?
I’m sitting on the bed, twisting my hair into braids, trying to convince myself it’s possible, when Clay stumbles out of the bathroom.
Judging by how long he took, I’m nearly certain he dozed off at least once while getting ready for bed.
His eyes find mine when he finally looks up, widening for a moment when he registers I’m sitting on the bed in my pjs.
“Your tea is cold,” I offer, but what I want to say is, let me help you.
“Okay.” His head dips, damp curls bobbing with the motion. He stands there, fingers flexing in and out as tension slowly draws his shoulders up to his ears. Jesus Christ. Is he for real right now?
“Tell me to go,” I say at the exact same moment he says my name, a little of that broken boy shining through.
“Please don’t.” He scrubs his hand down his face, eyes pleading with me. “I mean, you can, if you want…you can go, but please don’t. I’ll stay on my side of the bed. I just—fuck.” He pulls his fingers through his wet curls and sighs.
“What do you need?”
“Sleep,” he laughs, a broken sound that guts me. “You,” he adds. “I don’t know why, but somehow you’re the only thing that has ever helped and I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” I whisper. “You don’t have to be sorry.”
“Well,” he sighs, finally making his way over to the other side of the bed. “I am.”
“I’m not.” I shrug, slipping under the covers on my side. “Get some sleep.”
“Hmm,” he hums, his eyes closing the second his head hits the pillow.
I lay next to him, unable to sleep, like the night before, too aware of how close he is, and how warm it would feel to sidle up and be held by him. “Clay,” I whisper into the darkness, unable to stop myself.
“Yeah, Leni?” My name escapes on another yawn.
“Did you ever…” I trail off, cheeks heating with a blush I’m grateful he can’t see in the dark. This is so stupid. I’m twenty-seven years old. I don’t care, I try to convince myself. Only I do, and I care a lot.
“You can ask me anything.” Clay’s smooth, deep rasp coasts over me, settling into my bones.
“Did you ever miss me?” I don’t turn to look at him. I stay on my back, staring up at the ceiling, wishing it didn’t matter.
“Only every fucking day,” he whispers. “All three thousand four hundred and ninety-two of them.” The sheets rustle as his hand slides through them. His pinky brushes mine before wrapping around it. My stomach swoops as we lie there, listening to each other’s breath, fingers locked in a promise.
What we’re promising, I don’t know. But I think I’d like to find out.
Rough hands brush my skin, flashes of blond hair and dark brown eyes streak through my mind as I’m pulled under.
The dream begins to take shape: grungy tile walls, a metal door with a deadbolt looming in front of me.
Teeth flash, and I whimper, curling in on myself as if I could ward off the memory.
Warm, calloused fingers pull me backward.
I want to fight it, but I can never outrun these dreams. A scent fills my nose—warm, spicy, and familiar.
I burrow into it, breathing it in, letting the warmth wrap around me.
Safe.
I’m safe here.
Hours after my almost nightmare, a blaring alarm rips me from a soft, dreamless sleep, and Clay’s warmth pulls away from me to silence the alarm. His arm wraps back around me, pulling me even deeper into his chest as he mumbles into my hair. “Five more minutes.”
I don’t argue. I could sleep for ten more hours.
My body melts as I inhale the warm vanilla and cinnamon scent of him.
Yeah, I could do ten more hours of this.
Please. This is bliss. What feels like only seconds later, the alarm shrieks again.
Clay’s soft curses whisper over my hair before he eases himself from my hold.
“No,” I mumble, trying to reach for him.
I can’t open my eyes, or rather, I have no desire to open them.
I want to stay like this a little longer.
Clay chuckles, then plants a soft kiss on my temple before he climbs out of the bed for the day.
I sigh, clutching his pillow to my chest, a poor imitation of holding him again.
I know we don’t have a future together. I can’t be with someone who actively works against whatever he might feel toward me.
But I can imagine what it’d be like, waking up to Clay every morning, kissing him goodbye, and pulling him back into bed with me for five more minutes.
I squeeze my eyes shut tighter, willing my heart to remember that we missed our chance.
Clay is not mine, and I have to be okay with that.
By the time I’m up for the day, it’s after ten o’clock. Clay has the coffee ready for me to start a pot. A blueberry muffin is sitting next to it. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say he snuck back to the cabin and left it for me. Mom’s muffins are top tier, and blueberry happens to be my favorite.
I scroll the job boards for Benson as the coffee maker begins to sputter, filling the tiny kitchen with warm, cozy notes of hazelnut and vanilla.
There are a few teaching gigs open, but most of them are in early childhood.
The thought of sitting in a room full of seven-year-olds has me shuddering in my chair. That’s too many little kids.
I want kids someday. Badly enough that when Miya suggested going and getting our ovarian reserves tested, I signed up.
We went to a fancy medical spa where they gave us freshly squeezed juices and then drew our blood.
Turns out, I’m a Fertile Myrtle. Miya, on the other hand, was diagnosed with a diminished reserve.
They suggested she go through an egg retrieval cycle to freeze them, in case she wanted kids down the road, but she never told me if she went through with it or not.
Miya is the kind of person who needs to be the best at everything she does. Secretly, I think she might want kids eventually. I also think it broke something in her when she got the news. I didn’t push; having kids is such a deeply personal topic. I figure, if she wants to talk about it, she will.
We haven’t been as close as we once were.
My family dynamic wasn’t the only thing that changed the night of the attack.
We’re still best friends, still talk all the time, it’s just more superficial.
I hate that there’s such a big space between us now.
I need to get back to Benson so I can fix things and see my girls.
Reaching for my phone, I'm about to text Miya and Pepper when I notice several messages waiting for me. I open Clay’s first. Seeing his name on my screen does something strange to my stomach.
He’s inching his way back into my life, and it’s getting harder and harder to pretend that there’s nothing between us.
HE WHO SHALL NOT BE NAMED
heads up Adler’s been spying on the cabin. he knows I slept on the couch the other night
Of course, he was. Swiping out of that conversation, I move to Ethan’s because I’m not prepared to deal with Clay’s until after I’ve had breakfast and some coffee.
Ethan Todd
You should come home.
Oh yea? Why?
Ethan Todd
Brooks is going through something
I heard something about that
Care to share?
Ethan Todd
…
Client confidentiality and all that
Well I doubt anything is so bad you need me home for it.
Ethan Todd
Fuck you’re stubborn
I mean… you’ve met my family right?
Ethan Todd
Just come home Leni. What else do you have to prove? You went off and did the thing. Time to come back and be apart of the family again.
I’m not doing this with you
Ethan Todd
Fine. Who will you do it with then? You’re needed here.
You don’t leave your family
You’re just mad that you were wrong
Ethan Todd
I’m never fucking wrong.
Bullshit.