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Good, they brought me outside, Scott thought when he looked down and saw the grass at his feet.
He wasn’t in pain, his chest no longer burning like an open wound as it had been for those seconds, so whatever they’d done, it must have been the right thing.
“Hey. You’re Scott, right?”
Scott turned toward the voice to find a kid standing next to him. Not a kid-kid, but a young guy. Early twenties, probably. He had tan skin and curly brown hair that was cut close on the sides.
“Yeah, I’m Scott.” He started to ask this guy who he was, but all at once he knew. “You’re Trevor.”
The kid smiled and gave a nod. “That’s me.”
Now Scott’s chest wasn’t blazing—it was freezing. “Wait,” he said aloud. He spun toward the house.
He was lying on the floor, half in, half out of the back door that had been standing open behind him just moments ago.
Cecily was there. She had him by the shoulders and was shaking him. Tears were streaming down her face. She laid herself down over him. When she sat up again, she was screaming.
Scott couldn’t hear her, but he saw her scream in the way the muscles in her neck strained and her eyes squeezed shut, the color draining from her face, replaced by red and pink blotches that climbed her cheeks.
“If I’m here—” Scott looked to Trevor, then back to the house, wanting to sprint across the grass.
Instead, he watched Callum step over his body, followed closely by Rhia who didn’t stop but came straight out into the grass—straight over to Scott and Trevor where she stood beside them like a sentinel. Scott didn’t want to know what that meant.
Cecily look up at Callum, who hooked his arms under Scott’s own—impossibly his own—and began to drag him onto the back steps, his head lolling unnaturally, neck limp.
Then Cecily stood, like Callum’s efforts had spurred her to action.
He turned to Trevor again. “Can she see me?”
He looked to the house, unable to keep his eyes away. Cecily had his body by the legs. Her expression had gone from despair to a fierce, blind kind of determination.
“No, they haven’t crossed past the runes,” was Trey’s calm response.
“I thought the runes meant—”
“You can see her because they’re faded.”
“But I can’t hear her.”
“And you can’t see the real her—the light.”
“What?” Scott looked to Trey, but Trey shook his head.
“It doesn’t matter. You’re not staying on this side, anyway. You can’t leave her yet.”
Scott shot awake to the sound of his own yell and with a force like he’d just fallen from a great height. He dragged air down his throat, his lungs spasming, which sent him coughing, only to gasp an inhale again and start the choking anew.
He rolled onto his side, curling into himself with the force of a choking cough so hard he thought he might be sick.
His ears were ringing by the time he got control of his lungs and his gag reflex again and rolled onto his back, breathing hard.
“Told you so.”
Scott opened his eyes and for one breath of a moment, he saw Trevor bending over him.
Then he was gone.
Replaced by the single most beautiful thing Scott had ever seen.
Cecily was sitting astride him, her hands on his chest, her cheeks streaked in tears, her open lips parched.
He reached for her.
She leaned down as he sat up, until his mouth was fused to hers and her arms were wound around his neck. He fell back onto the grass, his energy flagging the moment it peaked, but he didn’t dare stop kissing her. Her long hair was all around him, like a curtain that kept this private heaven separate. The entire world was her and there was nothing else.
⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸
“Is he okay?” Wren asked as Callum stepped back through the door he’d darted out of just moments ago. Her heart was still pounding, her head spinning, and her energy was waning fast, but she needed to know Scott was okay.
If she’d managed to trap the Shadow faster he wouldn’t have been in danger to begin with.
She still wasn’t sure if it had been trying to escape through the door, or if it had intentionally rushed at him—but now they’d never know, would they.
Because she’d banished the thing—destroyed it with her magic.
She hadn’t known she could do that.
“He’s okay, yeah.” Callum’s low voice and the way he swallowed when he paused made it clear just how close they’d come to Scott being very not-okay. “Thanks to you. How’d you know to grab the Shadow like that?”
She didn’t have a real answer—she’d been asking herself the same thing since it happened—so she shrugged. “Instincts, I guess? I felt it leaving Zander, and I knew I had to capture it. So I did. Sometimes magic is weird like that.”
Wren blinked to try to clear her blurring vision. When she opened her eyes again, Callum was ducking into the kitchen. He reappeared holding a thin, white dishrag before she even had time to wonder what he was doing.
“Your nose just started bleeding again,” he said as he tossed the thing to her.
She sighed, her energy flagging further, and brought the rag to her nose. “Thanks.”
Callum gave a nod. He still looked like hell as he ran a hand up the back of his hair, but there was a light in his eyes that hadn’t been there before. He was no longer a blackhole of dread and anger.
He put a hand on Zander’s bare foot. “How long will it take her to wake up? Should we move her to the bed?”
Wren took the rag from her nose—sure enough, bloody, but she could feel it slowing already. She folded it and returned it to her nose. “It’s hard to know how long she’ll sleep, but I’d rather wake up in a bed if I were her, wouldn’t you?”
“Definitely,” Callum agreed, voice low, nod small. “You got it in you to help me?” He glanced out into the yard, then turned back to Wren with raised brows and a tired chuckle. “Scott’s sort of busy.”
Wren leaned to peek around Callum through the back door. She could see Scott and Cecily lying on the grass. From the looks of things, there weren’t any words happening, just a lot of lips and a lot of hands. Wren blinked, brow high as she put her eyes on Callum again.
“I don’t think I knew they were a thing before I got here,” she remarked. “Zander never mentioned it.”
“They weren’t until yesterday,” was Callum’s response, then he ticked a nod at Zander. “I’ll take her torso whenever you’re ready.”
Wren checked the rag again. No more blood. “I’m good to go. Let’s do this.”
As Wren helped Callum tuck Zander into bed, they heard the back door close, then two sets of feet shuffling through the house.
“Baby, stop,” Cecily said. “Stop. Sit down or you’re gonna fall over.”
Wren and Callum exchanged a what-in-the-hell kind of a look in the dim light of the room.
“I’ll go check on them,” Wren said as she headed for the door.
She found Cecily trying to help Scott, who was weaving across the living room. She jogged over and tucked herself under the arm Cecily wasn’t currently tucked under. “Lean on me.”
“He was fine, but when he got up, he got woozy.”
“I feel like what I remember drunk feeling like—only less fun,” Scott said.
Wren smiled to herself. Jesus, they were sort of helpless weren’t they? “You got hit with your first partial intrusion today. What’d you expect, to run a marathon afterward?”
“But Trey cleared him. He should be fine, right?” Cecily argued.
“He is fine,” Wren replied as they entered the hall. “Just exhausted.”
“I do feel like I could sleep,” Scott agreed. “What time is it?”
“Not nearly bedtime,” Cecily replied, “but whatever. Go sleep if you want to.”
“Sleep with me?” he said.
Cecily laughed under her breath then ticked a nod at the first door on the left in the hallway. “That’s his room.”
Wren reached and turned the knob, then pushed the door open. “You got it from here?”
“Yeah, definitely,” Cecily replied. “Hey, is Zander awake?”
“Not yet, but she’s good.” Wren nodded.
Cecily’s sigh was obviously one of relief. “Thank the gods. And thank you. For, like, everything.”
Wren smiled and gave a nod. She heard Cecily telling Scott she needed to talk to somebody before she could come to bed as Wren pulled the door closed.
They were cute together. Their energy meshed in a unique, complimentary way. It was nice to see, and nice to be around.
Wren knew it wouldn’t have felt like that a year ago—or even a few months ago. And maybe tomorrow it wouldn’t feel nice again. If the months since Bridgette’s death had taught her anything, it was that grief was a strange, twisting rollercoaster. One day you felt better and you were so relieved—and the next you felt worse than you had in weeks.
Wren took a minute to use the bathroom. She splashed cold water on her face. Then she leaned against the door, closed her eyes, and just—did nothing for a minute or two.
Feeling Zander’s energy on that table today, seeing the Shadow shoot from her chest—then watching it rush at Scott—and knowing the only thing standing between them all and that evil were Wren’s own instincts and her magic had been one of the scariest things she’d ever done.
It had also been an incredible rush.
It had felt good to work on the edges of her ability, at the edge of her knowledge like that. Like stretching first thing in the morning. She’d stretched her magical muscles, so to speak, and the feeling of using them to their full extent was heady, powerful and raw.
Bridgette would have been really proud of her.
And terrified for her.
But mostly proud.
She didn’t register crying until a tear skated over her lips, tickling and salty.
How had she known to push the Shadow into the floor like that? How had she so instinctively sent her energy sky high to capture it.
Between her hands. She’d held the fucking thing between her hands!
How was that even possible?
She’d read about stuff like that, sure. But she’d never known somebody who’d actually done it.
Not that she had a huge network of witches for friends or anything. Not that she had a whole lot of friends, witches or otherwise, when she thought about it.
With a breath, she scrubbed her face with the hem of her shirt, wiping away tears and the final beads of moisture from the faucet.
It seemed cruel to leave Callum alone to stew while Zander slept. She knew the guy wouldn’t leave her side, and Wren couldn’t think of anywhere else she wanted to be either. So she slipped out of the bathroom, across the narrow hallway, and gave the door and gentle knock as she let herself into Callum and Zander’s room.
Callum sat up from where he’d been lying on top of the covers beside Zander with a breath. “Everybody okay?”
Wren nodded. “Everything’s fine. Scott’s exhausted, but he’ll live. Speaking of which, you should sleep. I’ll leave.” She should have thought of that before coming in.
But Callum shook his head. “I thought I would too. I tried, but my brain won’t shut up. I can’t sleep until I know Zander is going to be okay.”
Wren could relate to that. Her mind was spinning in a similar way. “Well, mind if I sit on the floor and wait with you?”
Callum gave an easy swing of his arm. “Be my guest. Sorry we don’t have a chair or something.”
“Don’t sweat it.” Wren pressed her back into the wall behind her and slid down until she was sitting against it. It felt good to sit. They sat in silence for a few minutes. It must have felt heavy to Callum like it did to her, because soon he spoke like he needed to fill the void or risk spinning into his own thoughts. Or maybe that’s just how Wren was feeling.
“Is your nose better?” he asked.
It took Wren one split second to realize he was asking about the nosebleed. “Oh. Yeah, it’s fine.”
“Is that common? Like, when you use magic do you always get a nosebleed?”
“Jesus, no,” Wren replied. That would be so awful, getting a nosebleed every time she used her magic. She’d be seriously anemic. “That is not common, but I’m fine. It happens when I channel more energy than I can generate on my own. I’ll feel sort of hungover tomorrow, but I’ll live.”
“Good. I was going to say that really sucks if you’re dealing with nose bleeds all the time.”
“It really would,” she agreed with a chuckle. Then forged ahead before the silence could descend again. “Can I ask you question?”
“Shoot.”
“When you guys banished the Shadow last year—how’d you do it? I mean, clearly, Zander absorbed it, but how?”
“I let it inhabit me,” Callum replied, voice low. “That backfired. Bad. The next day, it inhabited Cecily. That’s when Zander found the cloak—when she could see it.” He shook his head slowly and when he went on, his tone was laced in amazement. “She tore the thing open like it was drapes on a window. It rushed at her—and then it was gone. And I thought, holy shit we actually did it. Ya know?”
He stopped and stared into space. Then he came back with a shake of his head and his voice had lost the awe.
“But we didn’t. We just sentenced Zander to a living hell.”
“She’d going to be fine.” Wren leaned forward like she could make him see it if she was inches closer. “And for what it’s worth, I think she would have done it even if she’d known what was coming.”
Callum’s scoff was as good as “yeah right.”
“I’m not joking,” Wren said. She could remember Zander’s voice when she talked about Callum in those early days. She’d played it cool and nonplussed but she’d been crazy for him from the first time she mentioned him while they ate beignets at that breakfast joint just down the street from this very house.
“I never asked her how that all went down,” Wren said. “I knew you were fighting something bad. She called me, looking for help, but—”
“You had other things to worry about,” Callum interjected when she stopped.
“Yeah, I really did.”
“It shook her up,” Callum went on. “She cried when she told me about your girlfriend. She never cries. But we’d just gotten back from Seattle—on a victory high after we thought we’d ended the Shadow. We were in bed, and she got quiet. I asked her what was wrong and, honestly, I didn’t expect her to tell me. You know how she can be sort of closed sometimes? So I just figured she’d brush it off. Or thought I was misreading her—we hadn’t been together long. But she told me and her voice hitched and when I looked down at her—she was lying on me at the time—her eyes were wet.” He smiled a small, far away smile at the memory. “She wiped the damp away and played it off, of course. But...I don’t know, I knew you must mean a lot to her.”
Wren just stared at him. For six whole heartbeats she couldn’t say anything. She didn’t know whether she was moved by the story itself, or by the fact that Callum remembered it with such a beautiful, simple kind of detail. That he saw fit to share it with her in this intimate, vulnerable moment between him and the love of his life. That was when words came to her. “She’s madly in love with you,” she said. “Like, lay-it-all-bare, I’ve-never-seen-her-like-this, in love.”
His smile was sad when he leaned his head back against the wall. “Which is what makes it all the more awful that I put her in this position to begin with.”
Wren shook her head. “I don’t buy that. You didn’t put her in any position. Not knowingly.”
He leveled his gaze at her. “Exactly. Not knowingly. Because I don’t know shit about any of this. I’ve lived it my entire life and I don’t know a damn thing beyond how to ignore a spirit like it’s my fucking job.”
That brought Wren up short. “Have you not—Do you not know any other mediums?”
“I mean, my mom, technically, but that doesn’t count. Long story. Otherwise, nobody besides Cecily—and she’s only known she was a medium since last fall because she’d lived with Zander her entire life. To her credit, though, he knows more about this shit than I do at this point.” He stopped talking like he didn’t want to go on.
“You never explored it all, as a kid?” Not that Wren judged him for it—she hadn’t explored her magic when she was a child, either.
He shook his head and leaned back into the wall again. “Nah. When you’re in foster care, blending in is the name of the game. Until I told Zander, Scott was the only person who knew. Well, and my Mom but she hardly counts.”
Wren just sat and stared at him for a moment. They had more in common that he realized—more than she’d known to expect. “I didn’t explore my magic until I was an adult.”
Callum looked at her, cynicism all over his expression. “Yet you just destroyed a fucking Shadow with your bare hands.”
She smiled. Yeah, she still sort of felt like a badass about that. “I grew up with my grandmother, who is very religious. She still doesn’t know about my magic. I didn’t even really know about my magic until Bridgette showed it to me. That was four years ago. So, you didn’t start learning this shit when you were a kid—okay. Start learning now. You’ve got time.”
⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸
Cecily could hear Scott snoring lightly already as she slipped out of his bedroom. She could hear the rise and fall of quiet voices, Callum’s and Wren’s, as she silently passed Callum and Zander’s bedroom door.
It was hard to believe it was still the same day as when Callum had shouted Cecily and Scott awake as he bound down the hall, calling her name in a terror-strangled yell. It felt like she’d been awake for a week.
What they’d done today—what she’d seen Wren do, seen Zander’s body do on top of that table—it was next level. She’d been doing a lot of studying in the last twelve months, reading everything she could find about spirits, the other side, her role and skills as a medium. She’d been looking inward through meditation and journaling so she could find her relationship to it, her place within this world she hadn’t known existed before and learn the limits of her skills. She’d discovered parts of herself she hadn’t known before through all her study and self-reflection. She was an inexperienced medium, new to everything, but she was learning, and she’d taught herself a lot—and none of it came close to the level of supernatural, paranormal shit they’d witnessed today.
Jesus, the way Scott had shouted, the sound strangled and scared, before he slumped to the floor, boneless, was something Cecily knew she’d never forget. Something that was liable to play on a loop in her head in her darkest moments when her anxiety got the best of her and she couldn’t sleep.
Except all she’d have to do now, when that happened, was roll over, wasn’t it? Because Scott would be there. Because they were moving in together. Because he was fine. He’d survived that partial intrusion even though, for a few moments, she had been certain he was already gone.
But he wasn’t. He wasn’t gone. He was sleeping in his bed—soon to be hers, too.
Which was why she was padding across the living room now, on her way to have a conversation she never thought she’d have. She stole a glance at the clock in the kitchen: 9:03 p.m. Then she slid her feet into a pair of Zander’s flip flops that had been tossed into a corner of the dining room in the rush to get the room ritual-ready this afternoon.
Something warm and damp bumped her hand while she did it and when she turned, she found Rhia standing beside her with an expectant expression.
“You wanna come outside, too?” she whispered.
Rhia stepped in place, tongue lolling like she loved the idea. She’d been uncharacteristically quiet this afternoon. As soon as the Shadow had emerged, she’d gone ballistic, but as soon as Wren had captured it—as soon as Scott slumped to the floor—she’d gone quiet. At least that’s what Cecily remembered, but then it could have been that she simply hadn’t registered anything else around her once she saw Scott fall. Rhia could have gone into full attack mode and as long as it hadn’t been aimed at Scott, Cecily wouldn’t have noticed.
She let herself out onto the back patio with Rhia a silent shadow at her side. She crossed the patio and out of the rune’s protection, into the grass. She avoided the part of the yard where Scott had laid—where they’d kissed and kissed and made promises against each other’s skin.
“Don’t ever leave me,” she’d said between their mouths.
“I’m yours. I’m not going anywhere. I’m yours,” he’d mumbled against her lips.
“Hey Cissy.”
Cecily turned to find Trevor standing a few steps away—farther away than he’d have normally appeared—and something quieted inside her. This was right. What she was about to do was right. “Hey, Trey.”
She cared about Trevor so much, and she always would. But she needed to move forward—to move on.
“How’s your boy?”
She paused for a second, her attention caught on Trey’s turn of phrase. “He’s good. He’ll be okay.”
“And you?” Trey’s smile was warm, small, and gentle.
Cecily gave a nod. “I’m good. Are we?”
His brows furrowed and he stepped closer. “That was never in question. We’re good, Cissy.”
Her eyes stung so she nodded instead of speaking.
“You’re good together,” Trey said simply, his smile half smirk, his eyes even warmer than they’d been before. “He’s solid. And you’re happy with him.”
She paused, overcome with the truth of what he’d just said. “I really am.”
Now Trevor’s smile spread. “And I’m so happy for you.”
Tears blurred her vision so the sight of him fuzzed out, but she didn’t need to see him to know he wasn’t going anywhere. She wiped the tears away.
“I love you, Trey.”
“I love you, too, Cissy. Always. You know that.”
She laughed under her breath as she scrubbed more tears away with the collar of her shirt. “I thought he was gone today.”
“I know. But he’s still here—there, I mean, with you.”
Cecily nodded and drew a breath. Scott was fine. They were fine. Which meant they were moving forward—together. Because she couldn’t imagine her life without him. “I’m moving in with him.”
Now when Trevor’s smile spread, it was accompanied by a sort of low, amazed laugh. “Wow. Okay. That’s awesome.” He gave a nod. “We need to set some ground rules, though, huh?”
She was glad he said it so she didn’t have to. She gave another nod as she swallowed the lump in her throat. “Yeah, I think we do.”
It was an hour later when Cecily silently slipped back into Scott’s room. She and Trevor had talked—a lot, about a lot of things—and she felt better than she had in a long time, in some ways. In others, like when she thought about Scott slumping to the floor earlier, or when she let mind start spinning on all the what-ifs that being with him conjured—what if something happened to him, what if they didn’t work out?—she was still brittle. And that was okay, she told herself. She didn’t have to have everything under control to be okay. She didn’t have to be perfect to be well.
She closed the door behind her using her hand against the jam to keep it quiet while she did it.
“I’m awake.”
Turning with a start, she found Scott sitting up in bed. His hair was a mess and there was a book in his lap, though the light in the room wasn’t nearly enough to read by.
“What are you doing up?” She crawled to him from the foot of the bed.
“I slept for a while; I only woke up a few minutes ago.” He seemed quiet, thoughtful maybe? Or still exhausted.
“I expected you to still be sleeping, but all things considered I’m glad you’re awake.”
He lifted his arm and she sat herself beside him, tucked securely to his side where she could put her head onto his shoulder and revel in the warmth of him.
“How’d your conversation with Trey go?” Scott asked, his voice low, after a number of quiet moments.
“Good,” she replied. “Really good, actually.”
His hum of a sigh was peaceful and happy. “And how’s Zander?”
“Still sleeping, I think. How are you feeling?”
“Better. Is the Shadow gone?”
Cecily sat up and looked at him. “It’s gone, yeah. Wren destroyed it—or banished it, or something—after... Well, after you passed out.”
“Good. I’m glad it’s gone.” He snugged his arm around her again and she snuggled back in with her head tucked into his neck.
“Was it the pain?” she asked. “That made you pass out, I mean. A partial intrusion hurts like hell.” She wasn’t sure why she wanted to know, but she did. She needed to know what had happened.
“No, it wasn’t the pain. I just—” He paused and she looked up at him again, sensing something she couldn’t put a finger on.
“I don’t know what happened,” he said. “One minute I was standing there, the next my chest was on fire—and, yeah, it hurt like hell. But then...” he shrugged and shook his head.
He didn’t remember what happened next. That made so much sense. . Of course he didn’t remember—he’d been unconscious.
“I thought you’d stopped breathing,” she said, sitting up a bit so she could see him more clearly. “It was—really awful.” She tried for a laugh but it fell short.
He took her hand, the one laying on his stomach, and brought it to his lips where he turned it to kiss her knuckles. When he looked at her, his eyes lingered on her lips before they met her eyes. “Come to bed.”
Her smile took no effort this time. “That sounds amazing. Can I borrow another T-shirt?”
The low, private tone to his chuckle was all kinds of sexy. “Please do.”
Cecily crawled off the bed. She slid open the top drawer of Scott’s dresser—the same drawer he’d pulled the tee he’d lent her this morning from in their mad dash to meet Callum in the hall. Then she pulled the first T-shirt off the stack—soft and black, with a few non-intentional paint splatters across the edge and near the hem.
“That’s a paint shirt,” he said quietly. “You can grab another if you want.”
“No, I like it.” She smirked at him before she peeled the shirt she was wearing up over her head. She almost left the shirt sitting on the bed and crawled up onto Scott without it, but stopped herself. He was clearly still recovering—he did not need aerobic activity of the sort she had in mind right now. So she plucked the tee up from the where she’d set it, slipped her arms through, and then pulled it down over her head again.
It smelled like Scott. Pure, unadulterated Scott.
“Trevor was there.”
Huh? She gave Scott a questioning look—but then it clicked. He was talking about this afternoon. “Yeah, he cleared the remnants the Shadow left behind when it hit you,” she explained as she smoothed the hem of the shirt down and hooked her fingers into the waistband of her shorts, ready to pull them off.
“I met him,” Scott said.
She stopped. Everything stopped.
“One second my chest was on fire,” he went on like he couldn’t stop. “The next I was in the yard and there wasn’t any pain. Trevor was with me—and my body was with you.”
She couldn’t move. She didn’t even breathe until her lungs flexed and sucked in a desperate plea for air.
“Say something,” he said. “Please.”
Keep breathing. In, out. Inhale. Exhale. “I—I gotta go brush my teeth.” Cecily turned and pulled the door open. She bounced off the door frame when she misjudged the doorway through rapidly blurring vision, but she kept going.
She just had to brush her teeth. So much.
If she just brushed her teeth, she’d come back into the room, and she’d crawl into bed, and they’d go to sleep—
But as she opened the door to the bathroom, she began to crumble.
She’d lost him. Just like she’d lost Trevor.
She threw the door closed behind her and caught the wall, gasping for air that she knew she was breathing but still, she drowned. Her knees went weak and, with her shoulder pressed against the wall, she slid downward—only she didn’t land. Scott’s arms caught her. They guided her down so she landed tucked against him where she clung to him—and let go.
“I knew it!” she choked. “I knew you were gone!”
“Shhh.” He cradled and rocked her as sobs stole her words again. “I wasn’t though,” he said, his lips against her hair. “I wasn’t. Trey knew I wasn’t staying with him. He said I couldn’t leave you yet.”
She swallowed the sound, but her crying continued, shaking her body in his arms.
And he never let go, even as minutes passed and her tears began to ebb.
“I thought you were gone,” she breathed. “Because you were.”
He didn’t say anything in response. Instead, he hooked an arm under her knees, keeping the other tucked around her back, and stood.
Cecily gasped as he lifted her, equal parts surprised and concerned. “No, you should rest.”
“Ceelee, I’m fine,” he murmured gently as he angled them through the door and into the hallway.
She closed her eyes and tucked her face into his neck as a fresh round of tears burned her eyes. But these were different. They were a sort of sad-happy mix.
He had left—and he’d come back. He was back here, with her. And she was so grateful.
“We’re okay,” Scott murmured into her hair as he let them back into his bedroom where he carried her all the way to the bed.
He sat her feet on the floor but held her tight as he pulled back the covers on what she already considered her side of the bed. Then he guided her to sit, and lay down.
“You’re the one who nearly died today, but I’m the one crying,” she remarked as she lay herself onto the bed.
Scott’s smile was small and somber as he reached for the fly of her shorts. He was always taking care of her. “I can’t say it wasn’t a shock, but I’m good with it, I think. Should I have not told you?”
“Of course you should have told me,” she said, lifting her hips so he could slide the shorts down her legs. “And you don’t have to be good with it for my sake. I—I think I knew. I’d just convinced myself I was wrong. But I’m okay—you’re here, and I’m okay. So tell me if you’re not.”
He gave a nod and tossed the shorts onto the floor. “I will. I promise.” When he looked at her again, something in his eyes had changed, deepened into something hungry. “But right now, all I want is to get inside you. Like proving I’m really here, or something.”
When her breath went shallow this time, it had nothing to do with fear or despair—and everything to do with desire. “Then prove it to me.”
