“Hopefully, I keep doing whatever that is.”
“I don’t know you, but I’ve learned a lot about people, and about myself. I wondered why Isaac would want to be with someone like me, or how I could possibly be helping him, but that’s not up to us to figure out. They care about us, so it’s who we are that’s making them trust us.”
“So…just be myself?”
“Exactly.”
“I can manage that,” I said with a chuckle.
I knew Clay had been through his fair share of trouble, though Cade hadn’t exactly spilled all the details in the few times he’d mentioned Clay’s struggles. I had picked up enough to know he hadn’t been able to stay at Arete and that he’d been going through intensive therapy. I knew he too had lost people who were vital to him and that he was only just recently learning how to deal with the weight of grief and sorrow that had been pressing in from all sides. I also knew Clay and Cade were incredibly close.
“Do him a favor, when you can, call him,” I told Clay softly. “He’s not going to call you because he knows you’ve got a lot on your plate.”
“I will,” Clay said quickly. “But, uh, I should let you talk to him, or just be there for him. Hell, suck his dick if that will help, I don’t know. Just…please.”
“I will,” I said and ended the call, knowing there was no way to reassure Clay that everything on our end was going to be handled.
Especially because after setting the phone down and turning to face Cade, I realized I had no idea what to do to make this better. There really was no way to make it better; it’s not like I could go back in time and prevent our team from being slaughtered. I couldn’t reach into Cade’s heart and remove the pain and the horror of the memories he would never lose.
I walked over to him, and as much as part of me wanted to take it slow and careful, there was no way in hell I was going to treat him like he was fragile or volatile. Instead, I sat down on the bed next to him, ignoring the way he tensed up now I was close. I gave him the chance to deny me if he wanted, but I looped my arm up through one of his and around to lay my hand over his clasped ones. I laid my head on his shoulder and sat there, listening to him taking steady breaths that were far too measured to be anything but intentional. I could practically hear him counting in his head with each breath, and I let him do his thing for as long as he needed.
“I’m sorry,” he muttered, his voice rough and wavering.
“There’s nothing to be sorry about,” I assured him gently. “It’s not like we didn’t both know that there’s a lot of dark and horrible things locked up in that head of yours. And it doesn’t make you weak, because those things sneak up on you when you’re at your most vulnerable. I don’t think badly of you, or think you’re weak or anything like that, Cade. Please don’t worry about that; I would never.”
“I know,” he said, surprising me a little. “But I-I attacked you.”
I blinked, having almost completely shoved that out of my thoughts. “I mean, you didn’t know what you were doing. I don’t know what you were dreaming about, but if you were attacking me in your sleep, you clearly thought that whatever was threatening you was real.”
“But I attacked ya.”
“And in case you missed it, I didn’t get hurt. If anyone ended up getting hurt, it was you. I should apologize to you.”
“That don’t make no sense,”he said with a scowl. “Ain’t no reason for you to be apologizin’, not when ya were just defendin’ yourself. And ya wouldn’t have to defend yourself if I hadn’t attacked ya.”
I sighed, craning my head around to peer up at him and smile. “You’re aware that I handled myself just fine, right?”
“Which don’t matter, ’cause if I hadn’t attacked ya, there wouldn’t have been no need for you to defend yourself,” he said grimly. “I’ve…never done that before.”
“Clay mentioned that.”
“Did he?”
“Yeah,” I said, closing my eyes and giving his hands a squeeze. “He said he’d slept with you several times before and you never did anything like that with him.”
“I didn’t…did he make a dirty joke?” he asked, and I thought it was a good sign that he sounded exasperated at the idea that Clay might have not focused on the problem at hand long enough to make some sort of crude joke.
“No,” I said with a chuckle. “Well, not about that anyway. He apparently wants to know what I said or did that brought you to liking dick. I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess he apparently tried his hand at sleeping with you?”
“He did,” he snorted. “Didn’t work. I didn’t think I was into guys.”
“And yet here you are,” I said, leaning forward to look at his face. “Cade, I’m serious, you don’t have to feel bad or be upset. Nothing that happened was your fault. You didn’t make yourself do that, alright?”
“Ya know that makes it worse, right?” he asked in a weary tone. “If I can’t control myself, then that makes me more dangerous. What am I supposed to do? Just not sleep. Or do I have to risk being a threat to people when I’m sleepin’? Because none of that sounds good to me. And what if I sleep apart? And what if that just means my sleepin’ self has to get up and find someone to hurt?”
“You make it sound like you’re some sort of death robot whose sole mission in life while asleep is to hunt people down and hurt them,” I said, trying not to roll my eyes, but sheesh, that was over the top.
I understood, though. I had never run into an issue where I lost control while I was asleep or at any other time for that matter, not without choosing to. I couldn’t imagine what it felt like to know you had become dangerous in your sleep. Not that I really thought it was going to become a thing, or that he was now suddenly out to kill me or anyone else. But it must have been frustrating to lose all sense, and now it was downright terrifying to think that he could have hurt me.
