Maverick deserves a great life and I’m already highly doubtful that I can give him that. He doesn’t doubt me and he never will, but I need to take time and rethink this. There’s no going backwards. I don’t want to go back. I want to keep going forward—with him.
“Will you sleep on the bed beside me?” I know that sounds needy as fuck, but I just want to be close to him.
As close as I possibly can.
“Or will Scythe get upset about that? Will he think that I’ve developed Stockholm syndrome? I don’t want him to be mad at you for anything.”
“He’ll understand. He just wanted you to have the space you needed. If you don’t want to maintain that distance, he’ll respect that as your decision to make.”
It sounds like half a question. Do I still want distance? Do I still think that’s the best path?
I wrap my arms around his neck and hold him tightly. I had no idea how lonely I was until I allowed myself to get this close. Being held feels like the only thing that exists in the whole world.
“Okay,” I breathe, but I don’t lift my head from Maverick’s shoulder. I keep it tucked tightly in the crook of his neck. I don’t loosen my arms. I don’t pull back even an inch.
I cling to him.
And he holds me too, just as tight.
Chapter 14
Maverick
Only an idiot would leave a warm bed with a good woman that he doesn’t have a hope in hell of deserving when she’s curled around him, all sweet and kind, her spirit so strong and forgiving and hopeful, but here I am.
I’m sitting on the couch, fully clothed, which was the way I fell asleep. After talking for a bit—mostly Loreena telling me childhood memories that she still takes so much delight in even if they’re bittersweet—she fell asleep. I wasn’t even close, but then, sleep for me usually means cycling through moments where I have my eyes closed and am still fully aware, to having grainy eyes open in the dark, just waiting for the damn ceiling to fall in and crush me.
The cats chose the bed in favor of me, and I don’t blame them.
I’m not good company, with all these black, poisonous thoughts coursing through my veins. It’s like sludge, that darkness, and eventually, the heavy, weighted, bleakness of it all chased me from the bed. I had to put some distance between myself and Loreena. I wanted to watch over her. I know it’s irrational, but it was like if I allowed myself to be beside her for another second, I’d infect her. If the power of positive thought is real, then the opposite about negative shit has to be true too.
I just needed a minute, but that minute has turned into hours.
“Maverick?”
A chill runs through me. I startle, realizing just which parts of me have gone numb. I probably look like a creepy statue over here, sitting so damn still and so up in my head that I didn’t even notice that Loreena was awake.
She pushes back the blankets gently and slips out of the bed at an angle after extricating herself carefully from the sprawled out cats.
I want to warn her off, but when I open my mouth, no sound comes out. I want to remain separate, keep this safe distance, hold myself remote. That way, I can’t corrupt her, at least not until I’ve got control of myself and all this shit that’s sludging through my brain.
She’s having none of it. I know she wouldn’t, even if I told her to stay away. She might sit beside me then, and talk to me, but she has no idea what’s going on. She just saw me perched here on the couch and she came straight to me.
She crawls into my lap just like that, so full of innocent trust. Naive, just like I was. I believed that the world wouldn’t bite me in the ass. I had faith in the justice system and in myself. I thought that doing the right thing was more important than all the money in the world. It was stupid. So fucking stupid.
I suck in a wavering breath as a cold sweat breaks out on my skin. My t-shirt sticks to me, clammy in less than a moment.
Loreena kisses the side of my neck, nuzzling in close. The sweet scent of her fills up my next inhale. I thought she saw me here and didn’t understand, but I’m wrong.
“Are you sitting up because you can’t sleep and the bed hurts your back and your shoulder is numb, or are you grapplingwith the weight of the past, present, future, and the rest of the world besides?”
“I thought I needed to be alone.”
Now that her arms are twisted around my neck and she’s leaning into me like I’m the kind of man that can be absolutely trusted to take that weight, half of me doesn’t know why I left the bed. The other half still worries that if she stays too long, the blackness in my soul might sink into hers. I thought I could set it behind me, but it’s still there. It’s not going to evaporate just because I’ve changed my surroundings. I’ll still be an ex-con tomorrow and the next day and the next, forever.
“In prison, I was so desperate for a connection. For touch.” God. I know how that sounds, but of course Loreena doesn’t take it that way and I’m not in the mood for dark humor. “And now that I’m not in there anymore, I leave the bed with you and sit out here, alone,”
“Sometimes the kind of touch we need isn’t physical.”
