I would know.
For weeks after that basement, nightmares chewed through my sleep like hunger. Skip never said a word about me constantly waking him up. He just pulled a chair to my side of the bed, sat awake all night, and watched over me.
Every time I started thrashing or whimpering, he’d wake me gently. Whisper my name. Bring me back. This went on for weeks.
Then one day, I told him I felt like we were drifting apart. He was clinging so hard to who Iwasin that basement…hurt, broken, and terrified…while all I wanted was to move forward. Be myself again. Be alive again.
Something changed in him that day.
That night, instead of sitting in a chair with a gun in his lap and worry in his eyes…he climbed into bed beside me…pulled me against his chest…wrapped his arms around me like nothing in the world could touch me.
And I haven’t had a nightmare since.
So, yeah! I know there’s someone out there who can do that for my friend. It may not be this guy she’s meeting up with. It may not be the next guy. But he’s out there. Someone who will put my girl first and make her feel completely safe for the first time in years.
He’s out there…Unfortunately, I think we just left him back at the compound.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Tank
Fuck!
Epilogue
Eli
Skip tells me to meet him behind the clubhouse after dinner.
Which, historically speaking, could mean anything fromI wanna kiss you in the pooltohelp me move a suspicious box before Spike asks questions.
Don’t get me started on that last one. Let’s just say that the compound is now the home to two golden retrievers.
But tonight…Tonight feels strange.
When I turn the corner, I stop dead in my tracks.
Candles.
So many candles.
Like…a fire marshal’s personal nightmare.
They’re arranged in a big, uneven circle, flickering against the warm desert air. Some are tall, some are half-melted, one looks like it’s shaped like a cat…Sunny, definitely Sunny…and the whole area smells like lavender and something citrusy that I’m pretty sure is supposed to calm anxiety but is instead causing mine to amplify.
Skip stands in the middle of it.
Hands in his pockets. Head down.
Nervous. My Skip…nervous?
The apocalypse must be scheduled for tomorrow.
“Hey, pretty boy,” he says when he catches me staring. “Come to me.”
I step into the circle. “Skip…did someone die? Are we summoning a demon? Did Micah take up witchcraft? Because he was talking about it the other day.”
He huffs a laugh. “No one’s dying, and if there’s any demon I’m summoning, it’s the demon of love.”
