“Mmh?”
“You’re safe.”
Brick turned his head just a fraction, enough to see her in the dim light.Her dark hair spilled across the pillow.Her lashes brushed her cheeks.Her expression wasn’t fearful or hesitant, just trust.
Brick’s throat tightened.“Stay,” he said, the word dragged from a place in him he never touched.“Please.”
Her eyes softened.“I’m not going anywhere.”
Something inside him broke open.Tessa scooted an inch closer, enough that their legs brushed under the blanket, enough that her warmth sank into him completely.He didn’t tense or pull away.
He let himself need this, need her.Brick exhaled, a long breath that seemed to empty out all the nightmare’s weight, the guilt, the pressure he always carried.
His muscles loosened one by one and his heartbeat slowed.Tessa hummed the same soft tune she had the night before.He felt it seep into the cracks of him, sealing them in ways he didn’t understand.
Brick’s eyelids grew heavy and his breathing deepened.
“Goodnight, Brick,” Tessa whispered.
His hand found hers under the blanket and she laced their fingers together without hesitation.Just like that, Brick finally fell asleep.
Chapter Six
The dismissal bellscreeched through the hallways just as Tessa stepped into Dillon’s classroom.The noise was a shock after twenty minutes of relative quiet in the counselor’s office, where she’d waited for his meeting with the school’s admin to wrap up.
Kids poured out of classrooms like a tide, voices rising, lockers slamming, backpacks thumping against legs.Dillon spotted her through the crowd and his face split into a relieved grin.
“Tess!”Dillon called out to her.
He pushed his way toward her, gangly and bright-eyed, fourteen and somehow taller every week she saw him.After her first failed visit to the trailer, she finally saw Dillon on her second visit.She pulled him out of there and social services assigned him a new and decent guardian.He didn’t look like the neglected kid she pulled out of that hellhole just a few days ago.He finally looked like somebody who knew he was safe.
That alone made her chest ache.
“You done?”she asked, stepping aside so a group of girls could squeeze past.
“Yeah.Ms.Carter said she’ll email you the form about the weekend program.”Dillon pushed his backpack higher on his shoulder.“We can go now if you want.I’m starving.”
