He dishes himself up a pile of food and lets out a sigh so deep it makes his shoulders sag. ‘Thank you for doing this.’
I swallow, feeling a click in my throat. ‘Of course. I would do anything for you.’
His eyes blink, and I see them water slightly. But before he says anything, he grabs a wing and bites into it. I can’t hear himgroan, though I know he does, but I do see the way his body relaxes into the bite.
‘Delicious,’ he says with his free hand. ‘Where did you get all this?’
‘Some from the grocery store, the rest from Fly Bites.’
His eyebrows rise as he finishes the wing and licks his fingers. ‘Well, they make good wings.’
I place some on my own plate and eat everything slowly, nerves making it a little hard to get anything down. I want to ask him if he learned anything about the fire, how it happened and what the process will be to reopen again, but I also don’t want to stress him out.
I’ve never really cared about someone else more than myself. Even Robbie—as much as I thought I loved him—was never the first in my thoughts. But Dex? He’s all I can think about. He’s all I care about.
‘What?’ he asks when he catches me staring.
‘Nothing,’ I sign back, not wanting to push.
But Dex must read my face because he grabs the gummies and the brownies and moves toward the couch.
‘How about you feed me and hold me and I’ll tell you everything you want to know?’
I nod, grabbing the food and putting it away before Dennis does something to it, like lick it, and then I join Dex on the couch.
He’s bitten into a gummy and swallows half of it before holding out the rest to me.
‘You want some?’
‘Bad idea.’
‘Only half.’
I sigh and take it. It’s been a fucking day. I might as well.
I sink into the couch and pull him up against me, our legswrapped around each other, our bodies facing each other. I need to see him to be able to hear what he’s going to tell me. But before he can start, I reach out and hold up a bit of brownie.
‘I think you need chocolate.’
‘I do.’ He leans forward and takes a bite of it, his eyes rolling into the back of his head. Bits of chocolate linger on his lips, and I brush them away with the pad of my thumb.
His eyes meet mine, and I can see the heat in their depths. And I see something else.
Something more.
‘They aren’t one hundred percent sure,’ he eventually tells me, ‘but they think it was arson.’
My eyes widen, shock moving through me. ‘What? Who would want to do that?’
He sags against me slightly, but not enough that we can’t still communicate. ‘I don’t know, but I saw a car in the parking lot before all this happened, and it gave me a bad feeling. I knew something was off, but I did nothing about it. And now half of the gym is gone.’
‘You couldn’t have known.’
‘I know, but I still feel guilty as hell.’
‘Did they say why they think it was arson?’
‘Multiple starting points, traces of accelerants.’ He fingerspells that last word, and when those letters taper off, my breath has left my lungs. ‘It spread fast too. Thankfully, no one was hurt, and they had a great response time…butfuck.’ He runs a hand down his face and then peers over at me. ‘I don’t know what to do. The gym is my whole life.’
