I turn onto my side and stare at the wall. Sleep does not come easy. Every time I close my eyes, pieces of memory slide loose. Travis handing me orange juice. Earl watching over the neck of a bottle. The room going soft around the edges. Red walls. Gold light. Men clapping.
Then colder memories. Trees. A cabin. Blood on the floor. Blood on his hand. His dark suit jacket wrapped around my shoulders. Being carried against a chest hard as carved stone while the world tipped in and out around me.
Across the room, his breathing evens out.
Slow. Steady. Deep.
I do not realize I am listening for it until I stop shaking enough to sleep.
When I wake, gray light has filled the room.
For one awful second, I only know one thing.
He is gone.
The floor by the wall is empty. Pillow gone. Blanket gone.
Ice shoots through me.
I sit bolt upright just as the door opens.
I jerk toward it.
He steps inside carrying a cardboard coffee tray in one hand, a white paper bag in the other, and a plastic store bag hangingfrom his wrist. Cool morning air slips in around him before the door shuts.
He is dressed differently now. Dark jeans. Black Henley stretched over that broad chest and those impossible shoulders. His cut sits over it all, black leather worn soft in places, a club patch stark against it. His hair is still slightly damp at the temples, like he washed his face and ran wet fingers through it. Stubble shadows his jaw harder in the morning light. He looks cleaner. Meaner. Better.
Which feels deeply unfair.
His pale eyes find mine at once.
The panic on my face must show because something in him eases.
“Easy,” he says.
I press a hand to my chest.
He shuts the door with his foot. “Went downstairs.”
I stare at what he is carrying.
Coffee. Food. Another bag.
The room smells like cold air and sugar all at once.
My stomach growls loud enough to make me flinch.
His gaze drops to my middle, then lifts back to my face.
“I figured.”
He sets everything on the table by the window and opens the white bag. Warm sweetness spills into the room.
Donuts.
My mouth floods.
I hate how fast hunger pushes past everything else.
