The word tasted wrong. I hated startinguswith dishonesty. But I wasn’t about to tell her I’d spent ten hours driving through snow because of someone I barely knew. That would sound exactly like the stalker behavior it was, and she had enough weight on her shoulders without adding that to the pile.
It started the moment I saw her yesterday morning. I told myself it was curiosity. Then I pretended I was just watching out for someone who reminded me of the younger, stupider version of myself.
Lies. All of it.
The truth was, I recognized my own brokenness in her, and the part of me that lived deeper than thought or reason neededto protect it. To protect her. Like if I could keep her safe, maybe all the broken parts of me weren’t beyond saving either.
She wrapped her arms around herself, that pink jacket making her look like she’d shatter if you held her wrong.
“Get in,” I said, keeping my voice low to hide the violence that wanted to erupt at the thought of the man she’d left inside.
She obeyed without argument, sliding into the passenger seat. I walked around to the driver’s side, taking my time. She needed a moment to pull herself back together, and I needed a moment to understand what the hell I was doing.
When I slid behind the wheel, she was staring straight ahead, her jaw set hard. The muscle in her cheek was tight, like she was holding back a dam that wanted to burst.
I started the engine and cranked the heat. The silence was suffocating, heavy with her pain. It radiated off her, and I felt every pulse in my bones. I knew that pain. The one that comes when someone makes you feel small and stupid for wanting them.
It took a lot of effort not to go back in there and rearrange his teeth. The leather of the steering wheel creaked, and that was when I snapped out of my murderous thoughts.
“You can talk to me,” I said as I pulled out of the parking space.
The second the words left my mouth, I immediately wanted them back.Who says that to someone they barely know?I sounded like a creep. I didn’t recognize this version of myself. A man who would follow a woman just to make sure she held herself together. But looking at her now, small and hurt and trying so damn hard to hold herself together, I didn’t care about the logic. All I knew was that I wasn’t leaving her alone.
“You don’t know me,” she said, letting out a sound that might have been a laugh if it didn’t sound so broken.
“I know that dickhead would rather have a dinner date with his phone. He’s a fucking idiot.”
“You were watching?” She turned to me, red blooming high on her cheeks.
“Hard not to see.” I didn’t apologize for being there. I also didn’t pretend it was an accident. “You looked like you needed an exit.”
“It wasn’t anything... we were just talking.” From the corner of my eye, I noticed her start to pick at the hem of her jacket.
“Would you rather it had been more?” I asked.
We passed the main strip, Christmas lights blinking cheerfully in shop windows, so in contrast to the mood inside the car. She didn’t answer. She’d gone quiet again, but I knew she was thinking, processing, trying to make sense of everything.
I usually felt nothing around people. My father had successfully beaten the empathy out of me years ago, leaving just a cold, functional blueprint where a person should be. I watched people laugh or cry and only felt white noise where emotion should live.
But with her, it was different. Her disappointment felt like mine, like it belonged to me somehow. Her pain, I could feel it in my bones, like an old break that never healed right. I couldn’t explain it. But being beside her was also the first time in years I hadn’t been holding my breath.
“I can make you forget,” I said, the words slipping out and shocking us both.
“W-what?” Her voice trembled, and I watched her throat work as she swallowed hard.
Damn.I should take it back. I gripped the steering wheel harder.Take it back. Just say you misspoke.But when I opened my mouth, something else came out instead.
“I’m saying I can make it better. Make him irrelevant.”
Every muscle in my body pulled tight, demanding I stop the car right here, turn to face her, and show her what it looked like when a man actually paid attention. When someone saw her as more than just a convenience. No way I was letting her drown in this by herself.
“I can be whatever you need. A distraction. A reset button. Something to focus on that isn’t him.” I pulled into the empty lot of Tee’s Diner, the neon sign bleeding red across her face. “Tell me how deep you need me to go, and I’ll dig him out.”
I turned just enough to meet her eyes, and what I saw there sent a jolt straight to my groin.
Her lips were parted, her breath coming in shallow pants. Although her gaze darted to the door handle like she might run, she didn’t. The warm air from the vents blasted, and it carried her scent right to me. Not perfume, but the slick, sweet smell of a woman getting wet.
She was aroused.
