“You didn’t,” she quickly replied, her chest still heaving.
I nodded and rubbed the back of my neck. “Look, I’m…fuck, I’m sorry for falling asleep. I didn’t mean to. The breaker is fixed, but when I came to ask you a question, you were asleep, and I…” I trailed off and cut my eyes to the picture of the mountains on the wall, my jaw jumping.
“You were just as exhausted as I was,” she said. “Clearly, our bodies were tired of lying.”
Her words hit my ears, and my brain took the liberty of twisting them to mean something else, tucking them away for when I was alone, drowning in the darkness again. I opened my mouth to say something. What, I didn’t know, but like everything else in my life, I was prepared to wing it. This. Her.
She beat me, her voice soft and quiet. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost, Ash.”
“I’ve seen a lot of ghosts in my time,” I confessed, my voice low.You were never supposed to be one of them.“Thank you.”
Her right eye narrowed as her head tilted in that direction. “What are you thanking me for?”
For letting me back into your life when I haven’t earned a place in it.
For letting me fix something of yours so I don’t feel like a damn failure.
For letting me hear you sing.
For letting me love you, in secret, up close instead from a distance.
For surviving when I couldn’t find you. For being strong when I failed you.
There were a million things I wanted to thank her for, but none she would accept. Not now. Maybe later. Or even in a different life. One where we’d find each other in a cute coffeehouse on the coast instead of the hell in this one. “For letting me install your generator,” I said, before realizing I actually hadn’t installedit yet. “For letting me eventually install your generator,” I corrected, wincing.
She gave her head a small, confused shake. “You don’t have to thank me for that. You’ve done so much for me, Ash. I should be the one thanking you.”
“I don’t need your gratitude,” I murmured, moving to her. My hand moved on its own, coming up to her face and tucking a lock of her pretty hair behind her ear. Her head tipped back, eyes scanning mine. “Each breath you take is more than enough for me.”
She flinched, the color in her cheeks deepening. “You,” she rasped, “you can’t say things like that to me.”
I touched her cheek with the back of my finger. “I know,” I told her, lost in her beauty, waiting for her set the boundary, to tell me to fuck off. She didn’t. Instead, she gave me something precious, a confession that I never expected from her.
“I’ve had such a horrible day, but you…” She took a breath and dropped her head, hiding. “You being here has made it better.”
My fingers gripped her chin, and I brought those gorgeous eyes back up to me. “Don’t hide from me when you talk like this,” I whispered, desperate for more.
Her eyes welled with tears, and she bit the corner of her lip. Her voice was trembling then. “Like what?”
I didn’t answer her, leaving the line uncrossed. A tear slipped out, sliding onto her cheek. I adjusted my hand, cupping her soft face in my palm as I wiped it away with my thumb. “This is the third time you’ve cried today since I got here,” I noted, her tear hot on the pad of my thumb.
“Fourth, actually. I cried in the bathroom while you were sleeping.”
My jaw clenched.Yeah, fuck the line.
“What’s going on?” I asked, stepping closer, our bodies mere inches from each other. She shook her head and tried to hide herface from me. My thumb hooked under her jaw, holding her in place. “Talk to me,” I begged, my voice ragged. “Tell me what’s going on so I can fix it.”
“Fix it?” she breathed out.
I nodded.
“There’s no fixing this,” she said, her voice cracking. “Ash, please.”
“Please, what?” I pressed. “Tell me what you need, and I’ll give it to you.”
I’ll give you anything, everything I can. Just let me.
Her hands came to my sides, her fingers gripping my shirt. “My day was bad because Marg told me to go home.”
