I’m calling his name before my door is even open. “Ben?”
I rush through my apartment, into my bedroom, and blink at the empty bed. “Ben!”
“Emmy?”
I spin, almost sagging in relief when he appears in the doorway, a towel slung around his hips and water snaking down his chest.
Taking a step, I pause. Ben tilts his head. “What’s the matter?”
I’m staring at his bare skin. At his chest. His shoulders, his arms.
So familiar to me now. And yet… not.
Because something is different. Something I can’t put my finger on.
Ben looks a little confused as I throw myself into him, but his arms are solid as they wrap around me. “Hey. What’s all this? Did something happen?”
I shake my head into his bare chest. He’s warm from the shower, droplets of water soaking into me. “Doesn’t matter. How are you feeling?”
“Better.” There’s a hint of suspicion in his tone. “Why aren’t you at work?”
I shrug, swallowing down my panic and forcing a smile up instead. “We were quiet. Angelo gave me a half-day.”
“Hmmm.” He hums against me as I close my eyes and listen. It's so fast. As if he's going to take flight. “So you have a few hours before your bar shift?”
I nod into his skin. “I’m a little tired, though. Maybe a movie?”
I wait for him to argue. He likes being outside. But Ben only sighs, his hand stroking the back of my head.
“That sounds good to me.”
12
Ben
“Will you tell me about your brother?”
I stiffen. Emmy is curled up against me, my arms wrapped around her and her cheek pressed to my chest. “Jared? Why?”
“Jared,” she murmurs. “You don’t talk about him.”
Another surge of nausea threatens, and I swallow it down.
It’s nearly time.
I manage to shrug through the pain that thought invokes. “There’s not much to tell.”
She twists until she’s looking up at me. And the strain in her face as she looks at me… it tells me I’m not hiding things as well as I’d hoped.
She hasn’t asked. Not directly.
But Emmy doesn’t try to tear it from me.
Instead, she gives me something else.
A piece ofher.
Her eyes are bright, fixed to mine with a ferocity that I know means she’s preparing for battle. “He threw a pan of oil at me.”
