“Em, bub, I need to see it.”
Fresh tears roll down his face, but he doesn’t say no again. Doesn’t do anything except stand there, unmoving and unseeing.
I cover his fists with my palm, close my fingers gently over his curled-up ones.
He makes that sound again, the one that’s agony wrapped in innocence, and it makes my stomach roll.
“Thank you,” I say gently, though it still shakes.
There’s a burning deep inside me that ignites when he refuses to look me in the eye. We’re close, so close that I can smell the toast still clinging to his heavy breaths, though he hides those eyes of his from me. His chest shudders with the uneven pumping of his lungs and his hands shake beneath my grip. I force myself to swallow back the burning need to demand shit I have no right to ask when thick tears track down his face. Curve over his jaw. Gather on his chin before dropping to his shirt.
The tips of my fingers start to prickle, and I dig my teeth into the inside of my cheek until I taste copper.
Not fucking now.
Please, not now.
“I-i-if I—um—” Emmett’s jaw clenches so tight, I see each muscle jump. Watch his throat bob with a heavy swallow. Feel the twitch of his fingers under mine. “Can I, um—”
When he cuts himself off again, I tighten my grip around his covered hands, holding him just tight enough so he knows he’s safe here. With me. But not so tight that he couldn’t rip his hands away from me if he needed to.
“Tell me what you need, bub. It’s okay.” I dip to catch his eyes, hopeful that he sees the severity in my face. “Tell me.”
Another swallow when he darts his eyes away and his bottom lip trembles.
Trembles.
The sight alone is enough to challenge my restraint from pulling him to me and crushing him with a hug so tight he’ll feel me for days.
I don’t.
I want to with every fiber of my being.
I want to show him he’s all right.
Be the thing that I needed.
When those sweet honey eyes finally meet mine, big and wet and so fucking pained, it steals my breath.
“I-I’d like to s-shower,” he whispers.
My brows slam together, and I nod. “Of course.”
I guess I should have showed him where it was when we first walked in. God, he’s probably gotta piss and here I am worried about toast and naming inanimate objects.
I’d probably freak the fuck out, too, if I was in his place.
Fresh out of hospital hell and still in the same wrinkled clothes he slept in.
I take a step back, drop my grip, and sweep an arm out in the direction we need to go for the bathroom.
Emmett doesn’t move.
“Let me sho—”
“Alone.”
I blink and rub at the center of my chest.
