What I wasn’t ready for was the hand that snuck beneath my head and lifted it—Rip lifting my freaking head—, before effortlessly sliding the pillow under my head before his fingertips touched my forehead. “Go to sleep. I’m here,” he said to me.
I looked up, or tried to look behind me, and I saw him stretch out from upside down.
Rip was too busy yawning to notice I couldn’t take my eyes off him. “Sleep, Luna. I’m not going anywhere.”
I didn’t say a word. I didn’t know what to say. Mostly though, I felt exhausted.
Stretching out on the couch, I thought about telling Rip that he should lie down and that I should be the one to sleep upright. I could have slept on the floor.
I rolled over to my side, tucking my hands beneath the pillow under my head. I didn’t think of anything. I just… lay there, listening to Rip’s deep breaths. But I still couldn’t wind down.
When the clock had changed to tell me that ten minutes had passed, a low groan came from the man beside me, and a moment later, fingers settled right in front of my face, palm up. “Nothing’s gonna get you,” he rumbled quietly, his voice rough and mellow.
I stared at those big fingers, taking in the calluses all over them and the palms. They were strong hands. Solid hands. And they made my own itch.
“You think I’d let that happen?”
I rolled onto my stomach and propped my hands under my chin, so I could look up at him. I mean, if he wasn’t falling asleep yet either… “No.”
His head was back against the couch, his eyes heavy and low. “Good, ’cause I wouldn’t.” Those impressive fingers squeezed mine. “You talked to your sister?”
I knew exactly which one he was asking about and couldn’t play stupid. “No. She’s still ignoring my calls.”
“Anybody else heard from her?”
Lord, he was digging that dagger deep when I felt like I’d already gotten the crap kicked out of me. “Yeah, it’s just me she’s ignoring.” I took a deep breath through my nose and slid that dagger in deeper myself.
He made a grumbling noise. “I thought you all left that house because your dad was a piece of shit.”
That made it worse. “We did, but my dad was at his worst with me. He just didn’t give a crap about my sisters. That was the difference.”
This pause hung in the air in between us. Then, “What’s that mean?”
“I told you things are complicated. My dad used to tell me that he should’ve pulled out. Him and his wife… even though now that I think about it, I’m not even sure they were legally married… they were the worst people I’ve ever met in my life. They were mean and unhappy and selfish. I don’t… I don’t know why they were together in the first place. Misery invites misery or whatever that saying is.” I took a breath, thinking about them. “And my brother never did anything. He was never really around in the first place. He never defended any of us. I know he hated them as much as I did; he left the second he graduated high school and never looked back.”
I didn’t tell him the rest. About all the times my dad told me I was stupid and worthless. About that woman saying those same, exact things. About all the rest of the things I didn’t want to remember. Not ever.
Those eyes locked on mine and his grip tightened. “I thought you only had sisters.”
“No, I have an older brother too, same mom and dad. I just never talk about him. I haven’t seen him in eleven or twelve years now. I couldn’t even make it until I turned eighteen, you know. I left a couple months into my senior year of high school.” But I didn’t leave my sisters. That part I didn’t tell him.
“They kicked you out?” he asked in that quiet voice.
I sighed. “Not exactly.”
“What’s that mean?”
I scrunched up my toes beneath the blanket. “I mean, they had been counting down the days until I turned eighteen since I was like three. And one day they gave me no other reason but to go. So I left.”
“What happened?”
I squeezed Ripley’s hand and thought about that time in my life. “I did something,” I told him in a very small voice.
There was a pause. “What’d you do?”
I scrunched them again. “I don’t know if I want you to know.”
“Why?” he asked relentlessly, lowly.
