The headlights of my Jeep flashed across the dark woods and onto the great house. I pulled the e-brake and waited.
And waited.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” I yelled at the house.
There was no answer.
“Okay, that’s it.” I yanked my keys from the ignition and stepped out into the night. Guilt be damned, I was going to use my key to the great house to walk in and upend her grocery bags right on her head, then walk away and consider my debt repaid. I wasn’t her servant. And if she couldn’t even bother to come out and meet me when I returned from doing her a favor, then I owed her nothing more.
I hefted the bags into my hands and stomped up the deck stairs to the upper level. The house was dark again, save for a single light blazing from the atrium.
I tried the handle and found it locked up tight. “Aria!” I bellowed before sliding my key into the lock. “I’m coming in! Don’t worry about putting clothes on, you’ve already showed me everything.”
I swallowed hard after saying that. Me seeing everything was why I’d agreed to be her errand boy in the first place.
The naked, transparent fear she was trying so desperately to hide, coupled with the marks on her body, told me everything I needed to know about why she didn’t want to leave this house.
And if there was anyone in the world who understand the need to hide, it was me.
But that didn’t mean I’d let her use me as a doormat. “Aria!” I shouted. “I got your shit! Come take it before I dump it in the trash.”
There was still no sound. Except…
The faintest little mew. Like the sound a kitten makes in its sleep.
I followed that sound through the living room and into the atrium, then stopped.
The light over the piano was on, but no one was here. “Aria?” I whispered, starting to get a little worried.
There was another sound. I walked around the piano and then stopped.
Aria was asleep. She’d curled up on her side with her arm splayed out, like she’d fallen asleep mid-throw. I followed the line of her arm and spotted a cell phone about ten feet away from her hand, its screen shattered into a spiderweb of cracks. Like she’d flung it against the wall, then crumpled to the floor, asleep.
She let out a shuddery breath, but didn’t wake up.
I stood there, frozen. It was strangely intimate, watching her sleep. I felt like I was intruding on something I shouldn’t be allowed to see.
She muttered, then groaned. Her eyelids fluttered.
“Hey,” I whispered.
She didn’t move.
“Aria?” I said, a little louder.
She was dead to the world.
I set down the groceries and knelt beside her. She couldn’t sleep here. Well, clearly she could, but it felt wrong leaving her on the floor when there was a bed only a few rooms away. Gently, I rested my hand on her shoulder. “Hey. Wake up.”
She didn’t move.
“Aria?” I said again, shaking her. She rocked from side to side and I had to reach my hand out to catch her lolling head before it slipped from the rug and hit the hard tile.
Should I prod her awake and help her walk to her room? Or should I carry her there like an over-tired child?
The latter was the more tempting option. The idea of holding her body in my arms was more alluring than anything I'd felt in a while. How would she react? Would she be grateful?
Or would she slap me across the face?
I looked her over. The way her body curved made the risk of getting slapped worth it.
But those bruises… I couldn’t carry her without the risk of hurting her. “Aria?” I said, shaking her a little more firmly.
She awoke with a start. Her whole body stiffened and her arms shot up to protect her head.
And everything I’d suspected about her ex was confirmed.
“Hey,” I said cautiously. The way she awakened made my stomach turn. “I brought you food.”
“Oh,” she said, stretching. Some of the stiffness went out of her limbs. She gave a huge yawn that she tried to hide behind her hand and failed. “I fell asleep?”
“You did,” I nodded.
“Sorry about that,” she said, rising up to her knees. “I was waiting up for you, but…” She glanced towards her shattered phone and winced.
I stepped back. My heart hammered my chest. My hand shook with an old, forgotten tremor. “It’s fine,” I grunted, turning away. “They’re right there. I’ll be at my place if you need me again.
I turned on my heel and hurried out the door.
I needed to be more careful. The more I learned about Aria, the harder it got to send her packing.
If I was going to have a prayer of winning back my solitude, I needed to be better about staying away.
And now I knew I needed to stay away for her sake.
A bad man had hurt her.
And I was a bad man too.