Calida comes across the threshold, backwards. Of course, she was using her tail to “knock” at the door. In her jaws, she is dragging a huge rose bush.
I stare.
Ash stares.
Calida struggles. The bush is more than four times her size.
She finally drags it to the middle of the living room, dragging plant roots and dirt with her. She deposits her prize in the middle of the floor.
She looks ridiculously proud of herself.
‘When humans are sick or sad, they get flowers. So I brought you flowers.’She pauses. ‘Flint does it!’
And for the first time in hours, Ash cracks a smile.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Calida’s announcement makes me smile. The fact that she’s noticed human customs and even more, that she took notes, is touching. The rose bush is completely ridiculous and I have no idea what I’ll do with it in the morning, bu, for now, I’m going to embrace the gesture.
They’re taking care of me, I suddenly realize. No one other than Betsy and Annemarie, in my memory, has ever attempted to take careof me. It’s nice.
I try not to dwell on my lack of memories for family. I try not to think a lot about my parents – who they were, where they might be. Do I have siblings? Why am I like this?
I go out of my way to not consider it often. Largely because it hurts. And, through therapy and some self reflection, I’ve realized that’s where my desire to publish comes from. I want to be remembered. I don’t need to be important, or famous, or rolling in money. I just want to not be forgotten… the wayI’veforgotten.
Wow. An attempted sexual assault really brings out my melancholy, huh?
Putting those thoughts back in the metal box in my brain, I smile at Calida and offer my hand. She happily trots over and butts her nose against it, purring softly. She seems quite pleased with herself and it’s hard to remain locked in my own feelings when I have a fuckingdragonto pet.
“Thank you,” I say. Flint meets my eyes from the kitchen, where I assume he’s getting Calida’s dinner. “Thank you.”
He smiles in the delectable way of his, his eyes crinkling at the corners.
He combed my hair. I had taken the longest, hottest shower of my life. I scrubbed my skin until I thought it would peel away into ribbons of nothing, drifting down the drain with my sense of autonomy and self. Until it hurt.
When I had stepped out of the shower and saw the pile of clothes, complete with clean underwear, on the sink, I almost broke down again. Most men, at least those I’ve met, would have foregone the underwear in hopes ofgetting lucky. Hell, they probably wouldn’t have even offered pants.
Let’s be real. They wouldn’t have thought to offer clothes at all in hopes that I’d have to exist naked, in nothing but a towel, to get my own damn clothes.
Not Flint. He had my favorite pants, a long-sleeve tee, clean underwear, and even a sports bra waiting for me.
Something, some instinct or feeling, had me turning away from the shirt he had selected and sneaking out of the bathroom anyway to snag one of his behemoth t-shirts from the dresser instead. Never mind that the thing hits my knees and I look ridiculous. It’s soft and safe and most importantly, it smells like him.Like home,a voice in my mind had whispered, but I’d chosen to ignore it. The smell of leather, tobacco, and the wild scent of the woods surrounded me, and I immediately felt my body relax. So yes, I stole his shirt.
He'd been so sweet. Combing my hair. Not in a transactional way. Not in the way too many would have done it – as an action to elicit a favorable sexual response. He had done it as a way to take care, to help. To have that contact, as innocent as it was. It had steadied me in the deepest recesses of my soul. There are still good, strong, sweet… males, I guess… somewhere in existence. It helped to dampen the roiling fear, to know that I have a huge, strong male in the vicinity. It might be a fallacy, especially given how my evening played out, but it helped. I hardly expected Brett to show up in the night to complete his mission, but I won’t lie and say that having Flint here isn’t adding to my sense of security.
Now I’m sipping on the tea he went through the trouble to make, and spooning up the soup that heordered. It hits my stomach like glory, warming places that have felt frozen these past couple of hours. Was it really that long ago? This night has felt like it’s lasted eons.
Flint comes back, presenting Calida with a full pizza, just for her. She slips, trying to hurry to the plate, but not gaining any traction with her feet. Her ass slides, hitting the table and causing the dishes to jump. So it's not only human girls who go gaga for pizza. Ma'am – same.
She finally gets where she’s going, as Flint and I share another smile. He’s turned on one of my comfort shows. I know he’s going out of his way to do anything he can to make me feel better, and it’s working. While part of me is still quaking in terror and I’m fighting back the shame that, intellectually, I know isn’t mine to bear – I do feel better. His extra care, combined with the sense of normalcy, is all helping.
Can’t deny it, though. Watching him level Brett did wonders for my sense of wellbeing, too. I’ve spent hours studying this man’s body, but he spends so much of his time as a soft, squishy, cinnamon roll that it’s easy to forget he’s more than that. I forget that, despite not discussing it in detail, he is a powerful warrior. A predator, in his own right. Just because he’s got all the hardness of a piece of saltwater taffy when he’s here with Calida and I, doesn’t mean that he’s a pushover.
Tonight was a stark reminder of that. Not that I mind.
I mull that over, choosing to focus on Flint, his defense, rather than Brett’s ugliness. Tomorrow is soon enough to focus on the next steps when it comes to that asshat. Flint and I finish our dinner in relative silence, letting the noise from the television fill the space. He sits close enough that his thigh is pressed against mine. Anyother night, the heat of his body on mine would have sinful thoughts flowing through my brain, the electric current between us enough to speed both my heart rate and breathing until I felt honor-bound to jump him. The man is perfection and, on any other day, I would be thinking about unwrapping him like a candy bar and sinking my teeth into that perfect ass.
Tonight, though, the warmth and weight of his leg pressed against mine is just a comforting reminder that I’m not alone. That, for the first time in my extremely limited memory, I’m not alone.
