I finally found the courage to look at him.
He was staring straight ahead, into nothing, his posture rigid. “When I pulled her out of the water. And…” He rolled his lips. “And I’ve been preparing. Planning to hold a body, a smaller one, but a lifeless body in my arms. And… fuck.” He ran his hand through his hair as if he wanted to tear it out at the roots.
“I was glad,” he whispered. “That I wasn’t holding my daughter’s lifeless body. Just that of a woman I have come to think of as a sister. Who my brother loves with everything he is. And…” he trailed off again. He couldn’t seem to form a complete sentence.
The pain in his words, the shame painting his expression, was too much for me to bear. I feared I didn’t have a sophisticated enough internal dictionary to say anything that would help him.
So I didn’t try. Instead, I acted on instinct.
Slowly, I reached out and pulled him into me. I expected resistance. I was ready for the rubber band to snap back, Beau realizing that this kind of intimacy didn’t belong here, with me.
But he let me pull him down onto my lap. Technically, his headcollapsedonto my lap. Like he had been struggling to hold it up all that time, and he simply didn’t have the power to do it any longer. I swallowed my gasp of shock. Fighting off my body’s instinctual reaction to his weight, his scent. It didn’t feel too heavy. Didn’t feel wrong.
In fact, it felt right. Perfectly so. To be on this sofa, the one that I had snuggled with Clara countless times, with Beau’s head in my lap.
Of their own volition, my fingers found their way into his damp hair, running through the strands. I reveled in the thickness of it, the surprisingly silky strands. The scent of juniper stronger so close to him, piney, woodsy. Beau.
He let out a grunt of pleasure. I froze for half a second at his sound of contentment, one that I felt in the core of me. I had elicited that sound from him. It was me who he let hold him in his time of greatest need.
Granted, I was the only one here, but I didn’t linger on that thought for long. I continued what I was doing. It should have felt strange, exquisitely so, to be in such a compromised position with Beau.
Except it didn’t. Not even a little bit.
Beau was in the kitchen when I woke up the next morning.
Normally, when I found him there, he was busy cooking, which was handy for him, giving him a tangible reason not to interact with me.
But there wasn’t anything on the stove, no ingredients laid out with a militant neatness that gave me a headache. It was deathly silent without the small sounds of Beau cooking. I hadn’t realized how much those sounds comforted me until I didn’t have them.
Beau was standing at the sink, cupping a mug of coffee, staring out the window.
Tentatively, I stepped into the kitchen. He startled when he caught me in his peripheral vision, head swiveling to stare at me.
There was no knowing what the energy would be like. He looked like shit—well, for Beau. He still looked great, even withthe deep frown, red rimming his eyes, and the messy tangle of his usually well-groomed hair.
I doubted I looked much better. I’d sat up for hours last night. His head in my lap, brushing his forehead as if I could erase the crease between his brows even in sleep.
Eventually, I must’ve nodded off because when I woke, the dim dawn rays were shining through the window, and I was horizontal on the couch, covered with a blanket. Beau was nowhere to be found. I’d stumbled to my own bed and tried to catch another hour, but I’d lain awake until I heard the quiet sounds of life from the kitchen.
We stared at each other for a few long beats. I swallowed, my throat dry. I didn’t know what to say, where the lines were with us.
“How is Calliope?” I asked softly. I hadn’t gotten any of the story as to what happened, and I was worried sick.
Beau blinked a few times before responding. “She’s, uh, in the hospital. Last I heard, induced coma. I need to head over there now. As soon as Clara wakes up, I can tell her what happened.”
There was a heavy dread in his voice when he spoke of Clara. I knew he was sick to his stomach at the prospect of handing her bad news. She’d had enough to last a lifetime.
“Whatdidhappen?” I asked, stepping closer, wringing my hands.
Beau stiffened at my approach, nostrils flaring, jaw clenching—all signs basically flashingdo not come any fucking closer.
I stopped in place, heart falling. I’d known last night was an extreme situation, a one-off, culminating in extreme circumstances. I wasn’t so dense as to think comforting him in his time of need would change the fundamental base of our relationship. Even knowing that, it hurt.
Beau rubbed his jaw. “We don’t know too much yet. A waitress from the restaurant was involved. Essentially, she tried to kill Calliope. Calliope didn’t die … yet. There’s poison in her system, they’re trying to detox her right now. Some organs are shutting down.”
He said all of this in a businesslike way. Cold. But I didn’t miss the way his hands shook as he spoke. Calliope meant everything to Elliot. Was important to Clara. And to him. He was scared.
I tried to take in all of that information. Someone had attempted tomurderCalliope. Tried to poison her, by the sounds of it. And that only invited a heck of a lot more questions, since I didn’t think people were poisoned in real life and because Calliope had always been this iron queen in my mind. It was unfathomable for anyone to hurt her.
