Savannah's mouth curved. "That tracks."
"Is it always like this here?" Emily asked. "People just showing up with coffee and blankets and?—"
"When someone needs it, yeah. And just between us, almost every girlfriend here has needed it from time to time." Savannahwrapped both hands around her own mug. "This place looks like a lot of things from the outside. On the inside it's mostly just people looking out for each other." She paused. "Rampage has been up all night."
Emily looked at her.
"Not telling you that to make you feel guilty," Savannah said. "Telling you because you should know who you're dealing with. He doesn't do anything halfway. You're under his protection — he’s already declared it to everyone. And being under his protection means something real to him. He’s not doing you a favor and you aren’t a burden, not with Rampage. He's decided you’re worth protecting and that’s that."
Emily didn't know what to do with that information, so she drank her coffee. It was delicious.
“This is so good.”
“I put a packet of hot chocolate mix in first, add the coffee and then some heavy cream. It’s my version of a mocha.”
“I’m making a mental note to buy some hot chocolate when I get home.” Both girls laughed.
"Chloe said you're in her book club," Savannah said.
"The Naughty Girls, yeah." Something loosened slightly in Emily's chest, the way it always did when she thought about the group. Her people. The women she'd found by accident and kept by choice. "You know Chloe well?"
"Getting there. Tyler introduced her to Rampage and he shared her number and info with us. We all love Tyler around here." A small smile. "She's good for him. You can see it."
"She really is." Emily stared at the window. The sky outside was going pale at the edges, that particular gray-blue of a Colorado morning not quite decided yet. "She called mebabylast night. On the phone, when I was—" She stopped. Laughed softly, a little embarrassed. "She’s never called me that before and she’s been my best friend for a while now. I know she didn'tmean it like anything. But somehow the word alone helped. Isn't that stupid?"
"No," Savannah said simply.
Emily glanced at her.
Savannah met her eyes with an expression that was knowing without being invasive. "It's not stupid. Being called something soft when you're scared, goes somewhere deep. There's nothing wrong with needing that."
Emily looked back at the window.
She thought about the books. The ones she read in bed with her door locked, dog-eared the pages of, felt embarrassed about in a way that coexisted uncomfortably with the fact that she'd read some of them three times. She thought about the passages she'd highlighted, the scenes she'd returned to, the specific thing she was always chasing that she'd never been able to name cleanly out loud.
She'd come closest, once, drunk on wine at a Naughty Girls night, telling Chloe that what she wanted was someone who would justhandle it.Handle her. Not in a way that took anything away but in a way that gave something back. The part of herself she kept tucked down small because there was always something to manage, always a next thing, always her own two hands being the only ones available.
Chloe had looked at her with an expression that said she understood perfectly and had more to say about it.
Emily had changed the subject. She knew her friends identified as littles and had found their Daddies. She just wasn’t quite ready to admit how badly she craved the same.
She heard heavy steps approaching before hearing the knock. It wasn’t light like Savannah’s, but more deliberate.
"Come in," Savannah called, like it was her room.
Rampage opened the door. His eyes went to Emily first, the same quick check as last night, looking her over from head to toeas if he was cataloguing, assessing and deciding she was intact. Then to Savannah.
"Savage needs your help downstairs," he said to her.
Savannah stood, unhurried. Touched Emily's shoulder as she passed, it was light, there and gone. "Come find me when you're ready to come down. I'll introduce you to the others."
Then she was gone, and the door was mostly closed, and it was just Rampage in the doorway looking at Emily on the bed with her cold coffee and what she could only assume was exceptional looking hair.
"How'd you sleep?" he asked.
"I didn't, really."
He nodded. Like that was the answer he'd expected. "Thank you for telling me the truth, baby. Savage has a preliminary report on your car. Thought you would want to hear it.”
