Page 22 of The Next Lie

“Shiloh.”

“I’m here. We're all here.”

The words are simple, and maybe that is why they get through. He stands, crosses the room, and picks Homer up from where the kitten has now made himself comfortable on Shiloh’s discarded jacket. “You little bastard,” he mutters. Homer purrs. Shiloh brings him to the bed and sets him near my feet. Homer immediately trots up the blanket and collapses against my stomach as if he has been summoned by grief itself.

I put one hand on his tiny back. His purr vibrates into my palm. Shiloh watches us for a second, then pulls the chair close to the bed and sits. “You’re not sleeping?” I ask.

“Eventually.”

“In the chair?”

“Unless you tell me otherwise.” He glances at the nightstand beside the bed. "I'll leave the lamp on."

I look at the space beside me, remembering another night, when a storm knocked the power out and Shiloh learned one of my deepest fears: the dark. The thought of being alone in this bed, even with the lamp casting its tiny glow, makes the room stretch too wide.

The thought of asking him to stay makes something proud and wounded in me bare its teeth. Shiloh waits me out.

I exhale, reaching to flip the covers back. “Get in the damn bed, loser.”

He doesn't laugh. That's how I know he understands how much it means for me to invite someone...anyone...to share my bed. He stands, lowers the light just a bit, and slides into bed behind me. After a minute, I reach back and drag his arm over my waist. His breath catches. Then he settles against me, a bulwark between me and the door, Homer on my other side purring between my ribs and the mattress.

The house remains too quiet. Somewhere else, men are still awake. Secrets are moving. Deacon is still breathing. My sister is alive somewhere in the city, carrying answers she refused to give me. Tomorrow, I will have to stand up inside all of it. Tonight, I close my eyes. Shiloh’s hand rests flat over my stomach, heavy enough to anchor, light enough to let me leave.

“You okay?” he asks softly.

I almost tell him to stop asking. Instead, I cover his hand with mine. “Yes.”

He presses his mouth to the back of my head. “Then sleep.”

I don't think I can. But the bath has left my bones heavy. The sex has wrung something violent out of my body. Homer purrs against me with the steady arrogance of a creature who believes all pain can be solved by warmth and proximity. For a few breaths, I let him be right. The last thing I feel before sleep takes me is Shiloh behind me, awake and watchful, holding the line between me and the door.

Delia—

I did something tonight that probably makes me a terrible sister. Or maybe it just makes me alive, I don’t know. I don’t know anything anymore.

I wanted to stop thinking about you. That sounds awful. It is awful. But your face kept showing up behind my eyes, and every time it did, I felt seven years old again.

And I’m so fucking mad. Jesus, I think the mad is going to swallow me whole some nights.

So I chose something else. A body. A mouth. Heat. Noise.

For a little while, I remembered I had skin instead of just scars.

I don’t know if that makes me selfish. I think maybe surviving is selfish sometimes.

CHAPTER FIVE

DEACON

Nash does not invite me into his private room.

He points.

That is the whole invitation.

I follow because I deserve whatever he feels the need to dish out. And I’ll take it—to an extent—because I deserve whatever hell’s about to rain down from Reva. Not Nash Blackwood.

The club has gone back to pretending nothing happened. Music moves through the walls. Glasses clink. Men laugh too loud because men often think volume is a kind of armor. Women in pretty dresses watch from corners with eyes that miss very little.