He started casting around for his phone. Not wanting him to forget whatever he’d been about to say, I touched his chin again. “Reid, what did ye want to ask me?”
“Oh.” His eyes widened slightly. “Um, just why you’re so insistent about this? I guess I’m confused still. If it’s not about the guilt, is it because we hooked up? Like, why are you going to so much trouble for me?”
My heart ached that he’d even felt the need to ask this question once, let alone twice. It underlined just how deephis trauma went, how ingrained his belief was that he wasn’t deserving of unconditional love.
I cupped his face with my hands as I offered him a little piece of my soul. “Because I’ve watched you fade away over the past few months, and it’s made me fade away too. We’ve both been disappearing, sweetheart, but maybe we can help each other find our way back.”
Chapter 21
Reid
Ihad no idea what to say.
Actually, scrap that, I knew exactly what to say. “How do you know?”
Evan frowned. “Know what?”
“That I’ve been…struggling.” I didn’t bother to deny it. Not when it was abundantly fucking clear that my mental health was in the toilet. “Did Chester tell you?”
“Ah…no.” He rubbed at the back of his neck, something I’d noticed he did when he was nervous. “I saw it myself.”
“How? When?”
“When I was guarding you.” He winced. “I know I shouldn’t have been watching so closely, but I had to know you were safe.”
Horror slowly dawned. “When you say watching…”
“Like, through your windows,” Evan muttered, his beautiful face maroon. “Fuck, now I sound like a stalker.”
“Oh my god.” I dropped my own burning face into my hands. “Were you on guard the night I decided to reenact the TTPD section of the Eras tour?”
Evan cleared his throat. “I thought it was very inventive, especially how you used the mop.”
Kill me now.Seriously, it couldn’t get any worse.
That was when my brain happily provided a memory that proved that, yes, it could indeed get worse. Because dancing around dramatically was definitely tamer than the other ways I’d been trying to improve my mood.
Namely by riding my oversized dildo.
Every night.
While moaning Evan’s name.
I slowly lowered my hands away from my face. “Um, exactly how good is your hearing?”
Evan suddenly couldn’t meet my eyes. “It’s okay.”
“No, it’s better than okay,” I said slowly as mortification flooded my veins. That could be its new home, because there was no way I’d ever get over this. “Because you heard me cry out when I found the spider.”
He blew out a breath before speaking very fast. “Okay, I heard youonce. But that’s on me. You were in the privacy of your own home, and fully entitled to do whatever you wanted.”
“Just once?” How was that possible?
His head bobbed rapidly. “I brought earbuds with me after that. Whenever I suspected you were going in for some, ah,stress relief,I popped them in and played music. Loudly. Very, very loudly.”
I didn’t know if it was his earnest expression or not, but I laughed. “That’s…oddly sweet.”
“It was the right thing to do. I never should’ve heard it the first time. I’m so fucking sorry that I violated your privacy in that way. It was never my intention. All I wanted was to be close by if you needed me. To hear if you called out my name.”
