Chapter 17
Elias
“Zombies?” Wyatt waits until Maisie has left before he crosses the room and drops into a brown leather armchair.
His tone is dry, and his raised eyebrow communicates a whole heap of what the fuck energy.
I get it. I more than get it.
Making a face, I set the controller down as Maisie’s footsteps continue up the stairs. “If I’d known she would be interested in playing, I would’ve chosen a different game.”
“She seemed to like it.” Hunter glances at the controller she handed me before she left the room. “Not sure how the controller survived, but she was definitely into it.”
I’d caught her surreptitiously wiping sweat off it with the bottom of her shirt, and I bit my tongue about her mashing buttons when I’ve screamed at Hunter for less. “She was having fun. That was the important thing.”
Hunter nods his agreement.
Knox takes the seat she vacated, stretching his long legs with a jaw-cracking yawn.
I eye him curiously. “You were out for a longer run than usual.”
His evening runs are usually thirty minutes. Today, he was out for closer to an hour.
He closes his eyes and crosses his arms over his chest. “Needed to run off some frustrations.”
I know the ones he means. We all do. All of us were prepared to give Maisie a home after her ex set fire to her apartment while she was in it.
But none of us anticipated that having her under our roof would wreak havoc on our ability to function.
Now, she’s close enough to touch, kiss, and hug.
All things we’ve ached to do for a month now.
“Yeah,” I mutter, recalling that first morning she’d wandered down the stairs in a t-shirt and no panties. After we ate breakfast together, I walked into the shower, and not even a ten-minute cold shower had killed my erection.
I was forced to take matters into my own hands. Literally.
Wyatt hums, and Hunter lets out a groan of frustration. “You didn’t see her in those gray shorts bent over in front of the oven. Fuck. I thought I was still asleep and dreaming.”
Without opening his eyes, Knox adjusts himself in his pants and mutters. “Shut up.”
My lips twitch at the irritation in his voice. “Maybe try a cold shower,” I suggest.
Knox cracks open one eye to peer at me. “And how has that worked out for you?”
I drop my smile. “Fuck you.”
“Exactly,” he mutters and closes his one open eye.
“How’d you convince her to play?” Wyatt asks.
He must have walked in after Maisie was deep in the need to kill as many zombies as possible. When you’re in the zone, the real world falls away, and Maisie was deep in it, perched on the edge of the couch, drying her eyeballs out with her refusal to blink.
Hunter tells Wyatt—and Knox, who also wasn’t around for it—about me scaring the shit out of her by cursing.
I should’ve known what effect yelling like that would have on Maisie, and I shouldn’t have needed Hunter to rip me a new one because of it.
Maisie told us she rarely relaxed when her ex-husband was home, and after hearing the ways he would lash out at her for the tiniest things, I get why she’d be on edge.
Who wouldn’t be living with a psycho like that?
“What she said before she left was important,” Knox says, having opened his eyes as Hunter filled him in on what he missed. “She could have shut down, or she could have left, but she didn’t. She knows she’s safe with us, and she wants us to know it too.”
That’s a big deal. We all know it, but does she? Is that why she said it?
My dreams ever since I walked into Nico’s Diner have been about her.
My nightmare is that someone will hurt her and I won’t be able to save her in time.
I’ve been living with pain and pleasure, need and frustration, lust and the desperate need to be fucking gentle, so I’m almost always wound up too tight.
Tonight was the first time I’d pulled out my PlayStation 5 in weeks.
I thought gaming would help me unwind. Instead, I’d just scared Maisie.
She’d smiled at me in the kitchen, lips tight, eyes haunted, when I’d gone to find out the source of the plate crashing.
Then Hunter yanked me out of the room and told me how badly I’d fucked up.
I wasn’t expecting her to walk into the living room wanting to play. She sat down beside me, and as I’d watched her scream “Die!” at the zombie on the TV screen, I’d fallen a little more in love with her than I already am.
Every quirk she reveals is another window to the real Maisie Lucas, the girl she was before her ex made a wreck of her life, and she’s so fucking special.
I push myself up from the couch. “I’m going to bed.”
Knox peels open one eyelid, surprised. “You’re not playing?”
I’m usually down here for a few hours. They occasionally like to watch, but only Hunter will want to play too. After my epic fuckup scaring Maisie, I’m no longer in the mood.
I shake my head. “Not tonight. Do you mind…?”
Hunter, holding the controller, waves his hand vaguely in my direction. “Go. I’ll put it away.”
I’m walking out when I pass Wyatt’s armchair.
He grasps my arm, halting me. “Don’t go up there beating yourself up about what happened, all right? I know you. She’s fine now, and she knows you weren’t trying to scare her.”
We’ve lived and worked together for years, too long not to see each other's flaws. Hunter would have shrugged this off. Knox would’ve gone for a long run and come back relaxed.
Wyatt and I are a lot alike. It’s not as easy for us to shrug off mistakes the way Knox and Hunter would.
I hurt Maisie tonight, and even though I hadn’t intended to, I can’t forget it.
“I won’t,” I lie.
He raises his brow. “If you need to talk—”
“I’m good,” I cut in and head for the doorway, lifting my hand in a wave goodbye without looking back. “Night.”
As I head up the stairs, someone turns on the TV, volume low.
When I reach the top of the stairs, I hesitate outside Maisie’s room, considering knocking on her door to make sure she’s all right. I even lift my hand to do it, but I shake my head and continue to my room.
She’s asleep already. Let her rest.
Taking off my shirt, I throw it on the bed and go to wash up. After I use the bathroom, I wash my face and brush my teeth. Then I switch off the light on my way out, only to freeze in the doorway.
Maisie sits on the edge of my bed. Her strawberry-blonde hair looks soft and wavy as it hangs loose around her face. She’s wearing a t-shirt—one of mine—and her face is slightly pink, as if she washed up but came here instead of getting into her bed.
She gets to her feet. “Hey,” she says shyly.
I frown. “Hey, what’s wrong?”
Her eyes flick to my chest, lingering long enough for me to know she likes what she sees. She clears her throat, her cheeks flushing a soft pink as she curls her toes. “Feel free to say no, but can I stay here with you tonight?”
My insides shrivel.
That motherfucking game.
All those zombies and blood and gore. What the fuck was I thinking? Now I’ve given her more nightmares to go with the ones of her ex that had her up at two, unable to sleep.
Itching to punch myself in the face, I ask, “Because of the game?”
She scrunches her nose. “If you wanted to talk about the best time to use an ax over a machine gun, I wouldn’t say no. I really liked that ax. But it’s not that. I can’t explain why; I just want to be with you tonight.”
Yeah, this is love. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. I want this woman in my life forever.
“What?” she asks.
I still haven’t said she can stay. All I’ve done for the last several seconds is grin at her like an idiot, making her regret wanting to spend the night with me.
I will never stop being grateful she’ll look twice at me, never mind wants to spend the night in my bed.
“Just feeling lucky. You can stay with me tonight. Which side do you want?”
My bed is a king, and I like to sprawl, so there’s no way we won’t be touching in the night.
You’re pathetic.
I am. Utterly pathetic. And I don’t even care.
She shrugs. “I don’t mind.”
“Neither do I. Whatever side you want is yours. I’ll turn off the light, and you get into bed. Need to use my bathroom first?”
“No, I used mine already.”
I head to the door to close it. “If you turn on the nightstand lamp, I’ll get the ceiling light.”
She glances from me to the two nightstands, then walks around to the left side and gets into bed, turning on the lamp. “Elias?”
I turn off the ceiling light and cross the room to get into bed. I’m in shorts. Usually, I sleep naked, but there’s no way I’m stripping or doing anything that will scare Maisie away. Going commando might send her running if she’s only here to talk zombies and snuggle a bit before bed. “Yep?”
She waits until I’ve gotten into bed, then leans toward me and touches her lips to mine. “You are very sweet, but you should have told me you prefer the right instead of letting me pick.”
The kiss short-circuited my brain so I scramble for a response. “How do you know I usually sleep on the right?”
“You plugged your phone in on the right nightstand. I’m going to assume you’d prefer not to get out of bed and run around it tomorrow morning to turn off the alarm clock, which is also on that nightstand.”
“If you wanted the right? Absolutely.”
She smiles. “You’re crazy.”
“Probably,” I happily admit and point my chin at the lamp. “Want to turn that off now or later?”
“Later. I’m not tired yet.”
“Okay.”
I lie down, pull her against me, humming in pleasure when she rests her cheek against my chest. As I run my hand up and down her back, I’m so beyond content, it’s not even funny.
Fuck. I am never getting out of this bed again. Seriously, fuck work and food and ever needing to use the bathroom. This is it. I’m going nowhere
“I keep thinking about the pancakes you made for me,” she says, her voice quiet.
I wince. “That bad, huh?”