I dry off as best I can with the towel, blinking through fresh tears because there is something so humiliating about undressing heartbreak alongside rain and being treated with gentleness when you feel least deserving of it.
The T-shirt is enormous.
Soft from too many washes.
Faded Stanford across the chest.
It smells like detergent, clean cotton, and him underneath it.
By the time I’ve pulled it on and wrestled my wet sleeves into a sad little pile, I’m shivering again.
“Okay,” I say.
Drew turns.
Looks at me once in the shirt that hits mid-thigh and the boot and the tear-swollen face and the towel still clutched in my lap.
His jaw tightens.
Not hunger.
Not triumph.
Something like hurt on my behalf.
He walks back over, lowers himself onto the couch beside the ottoman, and says quietly, “Come here.”
That’s it.
No flourish.
No charm.
No fake Texan accent.
No swagger.
And because I have absolutely nothing left—because I am so gutted and cold and broken open I can barely hold my own bones together—I let him help me up from the ottoman and into his lap on the couch like I weigh nothing at all.
One careful movement at a time.
One arm behind my back.
One hand guiding the boot so it doesn’t jar.
Then I’m there.
Curled sideways against him in his giant T-shirt, my good leg folded awkwardly on the cushions, his arms wrapping around me slow and sure until I’m entirely surrounded.
Warm.
Huge.
Safe enough that my body gives up the last fight it had in it.
The first sob tears out of me before I can stop it.
Then another.
