“Don’t,” I say quietly. “Please.”
Her body freezes. “Don’t what?”
“Don’t pull away because you think you should. Don’t be embarrassed. Don’t apologize for needing me.” I meet her eyes. “You had a nightmare. I helped. That’s what…that’s what people do for each other, right?”
“People who are friends?” Her innocent question oozes with emotional booby traps.
“People who care about each other,” I say.
She searches my face, her gaze darting back and forth between my eyes, but I don’t know what she’ll find there.
“Grey’s renovating his house so Savvy has a place to go when she gets out of the hospital. She—she won’t be coming back here.” The fear is alive in her words, tense in her muscles. She’s deliberately changing the subject, but I let her. I much prefer when she’s relaxed.
“He said that after the movers grab her stuff, you’re welcome to stay over there. At least you’d have a real bed. It has to be better than”—she gestures vaguely at our situation—“living in the tank.”
“RV.”
“Sure.” Her cheek twitches as though she’s suppressing a smile—a smile I want to see. “But he offered. If you want yourown space. A real bed and a kitchen that has more than a hot plate and mini fridge.”
I should want that. I always have. Privacy. Space. A door that actually closes.
But then the thought of her cries in the night makes my chest tight, and the first inkling of an idea forms.
“I think that’s a great place for Chief. He’s…struggling. It’ll make him feel useful. I think he’d appreciate being next door instead of three houses away.” I don’t mention that he’s lonely, though I’m not sure why. I don’t hold any loyalty to him, but I’m beginning to feel like I might.
“And you’ll what? Stay in the tank?”
“RV.” My chest squeezes tighter. “Or…”
“Or what?” Her eyes are wide, honest, sincere. I think she’s always been this way.
“What if I stayed here instead?” The words are out of my mouth before my plan is fully formulated.
What the fuck am I saying?
“H-here?” she splutters.
“Downstairs. Not—” I gesture to her bed. “Notherehere.” Jesus fucking Christ. What the hell am I doing? “I mean, in your house. Close enough to…” To what? Protect her? Hold her through her nightmares? Stop pretending that I can function knowing she’s alone. Fuuuck. “Close enough to help. If you need it.”
“Valen—”
“You don’t have to decide now. Think about it. But Clover.” I touch her face, just fingertips against her jaw because I can’t not touch her anymore. I’m hypnotized by the tune of her, and I can’t help but wonder if this is how I felt around her…before.
Well, what I felt then was surely more innocent than what’s raging through my bloodstream now, but that want? The need?The overwhelming urgency to keep her near? That, I’m almost certain, is the same.
“Last night.” My throat constricts, and I force myself to swallow down the lump lodged there. “When you were scared, I was watching a monitor ten feet away, knowing I might not get here in time. It— If someone were in here—I— If I’m here, in the house?—”
“Chief made me turn my guest room into a gym for our sessions, so you’d be sleeping on a couch instead of a bed.”
“Your couch is more comfortable than my Murphy bed.”
“You’d have no privacy.”
“I grew up with four cousins. Privacy is overrated.”
She concedes that with a small nod. “People will talk.”
“People already talk. Chief told someone at the diner that I’m your bodyguard, and they told the entire book club that they think we’re secretly married.”
