She maneuvered around him without catching his eye and made a beeline for the sink filled with a mess that she actually could fix. She slammed on the faucet to its hottest temperature and immediately started scrubbing. The non-stick coating didn’t stand a chance.
“Piper, you have to relax. You’re going to hurt yourself.”
Kol’s voice was in the kitchen with her, but she scrubbed harder to drown it out. “I’ll be fine,” she mumbled, steam rising up from the running water.
“You don’t need to punish yourself for one little mistake.” His voice came closer.
“Onelittlemistake?” She blew out an angry breath. “It was ahugemistake! And an expensive one. Why am I so fuckingstupid?”
“Don’t talk about yourself like that,” he snapped.
She scrubbed even harder, hands burning. “But it’s true! And now half my family is gone, and the rest will probably leave in the morning before Christmas even happens.”
“If they really think that’s the appropriate reaction to this, then good riddance.”
Piper slapped the pan with her sponge, splattering hot soapy water up her sleeves. “Don’t you get it, Kol? I’m letting her down!” The truth broke out of her with an angry, ugly sound that made her clamp her mouth shut.
Kol reached around her and turned the water off. In the new silence filling up the kitchen, Piper’s heartbeat pumped in her ears, and her breaths were shallow and too loud. And then Kol’s voice broke in, patient and quiet, “You’re not letting your mother down.”
Piper grabbed the edge of the sink, knuckles red and flesh burning. “Yes, I am. She was so good at this, at keeping everyone together no matter what, and she made everyone happy. They loved hersomuch, Kol. She wasn’t even their blood, and theylovedher.” She wiped at her face, eyeliner smudging on her fingertips. “She took such good care of everybody, and I know it’s because she lost her family so young, but she made a new one, and now I’m ruining all the hard work she did. I’m ruining everything.”
Kol’s arms came around her waist and squeezed her back against his chest. Her knees buckled, and she would have fallen had he not been there. “You aren’t ruining a thing,” he said softly into the back of her head. “Everything is better when you’re around.”
She snorted but it was weak. “Hardly.”
“There’s only so much one person can do, and somehow you do even more. Your father and aunt would have strangled one another if not for you, the poor dog would have probably been eaten by a bear without you watching him, and that shitty little cousin of yours would have poisoned himself with peanuts if you didn’t inspect every piece of food that comes into this house—not that that would be a great loss.”
“Kol,” she chastised lightly.
“I’m sorry, I’m not good at this.” She could hear him swallow against her ear as he readjusted his arms to pull her tighter against him. “But the only way you’re letting your mother down is by not taking care of yourself. You take care of everyone else, you even taken care of me. But she wouldn’t want to see you suffer like this, Piper. You have to know that that’s the truth.”
The truth? The truth was that none of it mattered when they still left in the end, just like he would. “What if they’re done? What if they don’t come back?”
“Then they don’t,” he said. “But there’s nothing you can do about it tonight.”
His answer didn’t calm her, body still tense, urging her to dosomething. “I could make cinnamon rolls, and—”
She reached for the nearest cabinet, but Kol snatched her wrist. “No,” he said sharply. “You deserve to relax.”
“I can’t.”
“Well, you need to.” He released her hand, returning his arm to her waist. “Do you want to go on a walk?”
“It’s too dark and cold, and we’ll just drag in more snow.” Piper flexed her fingers, but it felt all wrong. She shook out her hands and sighed, but her chest just tightened.
“Do you want me to run you a bath?”
“The tub is too dirty. Maybe if I scrub it—”
“Piper, you need to turn off the part of your brain that makes excuses and won’t let you rest.”
“But Ican’t,” she stressed.
“Stop saying that. You’re—” His grip loosened. “You really can’t, can you?”
Piper shook her head, staring down at the soapy water. A bubble popped, and a cluster of smaller ones took up its place. There were hundreds of bubbles, and each held her warped reflection like a hundred things she could be getting done.
Kol cleared his throat. “You can’t accept my help, but maybe you need more than just an offer. Maybe I can make you take it.” His hands slid away from one another, traveling over her middle, one running over her ribs, the other to her hip. “Would you like that?”
