I glanced over at Addie. She was a ball under the covers, all the way on the other side of the bed.
It was the first time since we got home from our trip that I hadn’t made her come before we went to sleep, then held her close to me afterward. Every night together, she’d slept wrapped around me. I fucking loved it. Last night, when I got home, she’d already been asleep, and I couldn’t bring myself to wake her.
I’d told her we could take it slow, no pressure, no expectations.
I’d been full of shit.
She was already mine.
Addie knew it too. We’d spent every night together since we got back from Colorado. But if she needed me to lie to her so she could lie to herself until she was ready to take that step, I would. Her wearing my patch sure as fuck wasn’t just about protection, it was about showing everyone that she was mine and I was hers, and deep down, my girl knew that as well. How could she not?
But Addie had lost a lot, and she was skittish. So, for now, I’d give her whatever she needed, tell her whatever she needed to hear to make it easier for her.
I looked over at her again, so far from me. I didn’t like it. Sliding in behind her, I pulled her into my arms so she was pressed against my front.
“Morning, baby,” I said as I kissed her neck, then her shoulder. Her alarm would go off soon, and I wanted some time with my girl before she went to work.
“Hey,” she said but didn’t turn to kiss me like she usually did. She stayed in her little ball.
She was probably still tired. She’d been restless all night, crying out several times. It seemed to be happening more often. I’d held her close each time and she’d calmed, but somehow, she’d wriggled away from me after the last time. “You still sleepy?”
“Mm-hmm.”
She felt kind of rigid in my arms. “You okay?”
“Just tired.”
“Alarm’s going off in twenty, you want me to help wake you up?”
She didn’t answer.
Had she gone back to sleep? I grinned and kissed her neck again. “Roll over and I’ll go down on you, cupcake.” She loved my mouth in her pussy almost as much as I loved eating her out.
She turned to me then, blinking several times. “I’m not really feeling it this morning.” Then she pulled from my arms and got out of bed. “Besides, I need to get an early start. I’ve been relying on Gerald too much lately.”
I frowned. “Addie—”
She walked out of the room.
I lay there, staring after her, my mind spinning.
What the fuck just happened?
I shoved off the covers and followed her.
She was in the shower when I walked in, her back to me. I was already naked, so I pulled the door open and stepped in as well. She didn’t turn to look at me. “What’s going on?”
“I’m fine,” she said, still not looking at me.
I took the shampoo from her hands. “Let me do that.”
“I’d rather do it.”
Her voice was flat. I tried to turn her to face me.
She pulled away. “Jesus, Manic, can you give me some space? I just want to take a shower in peace.” Her dark eyes finally came to mine, and then she quickly looked away.
She hadn’t called me Manic in two weeks, not unless she was looking to get spanked, using it as foreplay, but that’s not what was happening here. “What the fuck is going on?”
She took the shampoo back from me and turned away. “Nothing. This is…it’s a lot. You’re a lot.”
What the actual fuck was this? “Talk to me, Addison.”
“There’s nothing to talk about.”
“Bullshit. This isn’t you—”
“How would you know?” she said and moved so she was as far from me as she could get. “We barely know each other.”
My head jerked back. “What?”
She said nothing and looked at her feet.
I turned her to face me, but she kept her head down. “Why’re you trying to freeze me out right now?”
Her chest was pumping hard, and her eyes glistened, but she still said nothing.
“Addie—”
“I don’t w-want to talk,” she said, her voice breaking.
“Did I do something? Have I somehow upset you—”
“You did nothing wrong, okay. This has nothing to do with you. I just…I need some breathing room.”
Fuck that. She wasn’t alone anymore. If she was going through something, which she clearly fucking was, I was here to help her through it. “Why?”
“Get out of the damned shower, Manic.”
“Levi,” I bit out.
Her eyes flashed. “I want you to stay at your own place tonight.”
Every muscle in my body tensed as if it were preparing to take a physical blow. “Not happening.”
“You said, no pressure. You said, fun. I’m not having fun anymore.”
Her words hit hard. “Addison—”
“I need you to leave.”
“No.”
Her eyes grew wider. “You can’t just say no.”
I shook my head. “I’m not going anywhere until you tell me what the fuck is going on.”
Her breathing grew more erratic. “Go,” she said, her eyes turning wild, panicked, then she shoved at my chest.
“Talk to me,” I growled.
She dropped into a crouch suddenly and gripped the wall. She was gasping like she couldn’t breathe.
I dropped down beside her. “Addison, Jesus. What’s happening?” She was freaking me the hell out now. “Addie?”
She shook her head. “I c-can’t…I can’t breathe.” Tears were streaming down her face.
I was no expert, but it looked like she was having some kind of panic attack. I scooped her up out of the shower and sat on the floor, holding her in my lap. “Look at me.”
She did, gasping and crying and shaking.
“I’ve got you, Adds. I need you to slow it down, okay?” I massaged the back of her neck. “Breathe in for me, baby, nice and slow. That’s it.” I kept rubbing her neck and holding her panicked stare. “And again, another one. Slow like that, good girl.”
It took a while, but her breathing finally evened out. She squeezed her eyes closed, pressing her head to my chest. “I-I’m sorry.”
“You don’t have to be sorry, baby. But I need you to tell me what’s got you all worked up like this. Can’t help you if you don’t talk to me.”
She shook her head. “You c-can’t help me. No one can. I’m b-broken.”
“You think you’re broken?” My fucking heart was shredding in my chest. Something was hurting her, and I didn’t know what it was or how to help her.
She shook her head against me. “I thought I had it under control. I thought I was better, but I-I’m not.”
“Baby, you’re scaring me. I need you to tell me what this is all about.” Keeping my voice calm was damn near impossible.
She tried to look at me, but she was struggling to hold my gaze. “I’m sorry for scaring you…f-for being a jerk to you. You must think I’m such an asshole.”
“You’re not an asshole, and I told you, you don’t need to be sorry.”
“You don’t know me, Levi, not all of me.” Her eyes hit mine and they were full of pain. “I can’t do this…I can’t do this with you.”
“Yes, you can.” I swiped my thumb over her cheek. “Baby, you just have to let me in.”
Her gaze searched mine for several long seconds, round and fucking lost. “I told you I lost all my family, but I didn’t tell you everything.”
I hadn’t asked because whenever I’d brought her folks up, she closed down hard. I was waiting for her to feel comfortable enough to finally share with me. “Okay,” I said carefully.
“They died in a house fire,” she said and actually fucking flinched when she said it.
“Jesus, Adds.”
She motioned to the shower. “That’s what happens when I try to let people in.” She looked away from me. “Me and my younger brothers were in the house as well. It started upstairs. An electrical fault. It happened so fast. My parents died trying to get to my brothers. I was the only one who lived because mine was the only bedroom downstairs. I got out, and when I realized they were still inside, I tried to run back in, to help, but our neighbor held be back. I remember every moment, every awful sound. Their panicked screams…”
Oh fuck.
“Afterward, I had nightmares, insomnia for a while, flashbacks, panic attacks. Sometimes I’d swear I’d seen them. I’d run up to strangers and think they were my mom or my dad or my brothers. Certain smells and sounds can trigger me, sirens or alarms especially, even now. I had counseling. My therapist said I had a grief disorder and PTSD.” She chewed her lip. “It’s something I learned to manage, until recently.”
I didn’t know what to say. “Christ, Addie, I had no idea.”
“How could you? I hide it from everyone. My friends only know because they’re relentless,” she said, and her lips actually twitched. “When I tried to pull away from them, they didn’t let me.”
“’Cause they’re good people.”
“Yeah, they are. But I was also in a good place when I met them.” She looked back at me. “I’ve spent most of my life refusing to plan for any kind of future, because what’s the point, right? I partied hard. I tried not to get emotionally invested with anyone. Then I turned twenty-one and I got the money my folks left me. It threw me for a bit, but I’d started to feel like myself again with the help of my therapist and medication. And Macy. I was solid. I thought I was better. I bought the cottage and turned it into a café. I met my girls and for the first time in a long time, my world didn’t feel so…so broken.”
She started to tremble, her pain saturating the fucking room. I wanted to hold her tighter, but it wasn’t possible and not hurt her. I couldn’t get her close enough.
“Then I lost Macy,” she whispered, and her breathing got ragged again. “I knew she was sick, but I didn’t deal with it. I lived in denial, refusing to face it.”
“Take a minute. Keep it slow and easy.”
She nodded. “Macy…was all I had left. I started having the nightmares again, the flashbacks. I started slipping backward…then I went home with you.” She offered me a shaky smile. “Her loss was still affecting me in a big way, but then you were all I could think about, and things didn’t feel as bad. I freaked out on you when we got back from Colorado, but still I thought I was managing it. Then you asked me to wear your property patch, and Macy’s boyfriend brought me some things. Jewelry that belonged to my mom and my grandmother, to Macy and…and the floor dropped out from under me.” She clutched onto me. “It was all…too much, and I freaked out again.”
My fucking heart seized in my chest. “You’re not ready for more, we won’t do it yet, baby, okay?”
“The thing is…” Her lips trembled. “I don’t know if I’ll ever be ready, and the only way I know how to stop myself from being dragged back under is to shut myself off, to shut down.”
I froze. “Baby—”
“I can’t do this with you.” The tears kept coming. “I want to. You don’t know how much I want this, but I…I can’t.”
“What are you saying, Addison?”
“We can’t…we can’t see each other anymore, Levi. I need time. I never allowed myself time to grieve Macy, to work through it, and it’s…it’s made things worse.”
“You can’t do that with me here?” I rasped. My heart fucking shattered in my chest. This couldn’t be happening.
She shook her head. “Being close to you, thinking about a future with you, it’s a trigger for me right now. I can’t give you want you want no matter how much I want to. I’m sorry.”
The tears were streaming down her face now, and I didn’t know what the fuck to do. A grief disorder, PTSD, wasn’t something I could bulldoze my way through. I couldn’t make it better for her. Only Addison knew what she needed, what was best for her.
But still, I had to try because I was in love with this girl and walking away from her, ending this, wasn’t something I was capable of doing. “Forget the patch. We can go back to the way it was before I fucked everything up by mentioning it.”
“You did nothing wrong,” she sobbed. “You’re wonderful, the man of my dreams. You’re everything, but I can’t…I can’t…”
“It’s okay,” I said, pulling her against me. “Whatever you need, baby.” I cupped her face. “I’d rather you let me help you through this, to be here for you while you’re struggling. But if you can’t deal right now, it’s okay.” My gut was in fucking knots. Walking away from her while she was like this felt wrong in every possible way. But the last thing I wanted to do was hurt her more. “But I’m not giving up on this, understand? I’ll be waiting, Addie, however long it takes.”
She nodded, those tears an endless stream on her smooth, mahogany cheeks.
I held her heartbroken gaze. “You need me, I’m here. Any time, day or night. I’m here for you, Adds, you know that, right?”
“Yes,” she rasped.
“Don’t forget it. Promise me.”
“I promise.”
I pressed a kiss to her lips, and she trembled against me. “I’m gonna call your girls to come over, okay. Don’t want you on your own like this.”
She nodded but said no more.
I didn’t want to let her go, but that’s what she said she needed. If I held her tight instead, I knew without a doubt I’d lose her forever.
So I’d let her go…and hope like fuck she’d come back to me when she was ready.