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“What do you need, Callie, tell me what I can do,” I plead, tipping her chin up to look at her face. She turns her head, resting her cheek in the palm of my hand, so sweetly, so delicately. My calloused hands are like sandpaper compared to her soft skin.
“My head… I think I’m getting a migraine,” she whispers, her forehead creasing, cringing with pain. I slide my hand to the back of her neck, just under the base of her skull, and massage gently.
“I’ll get you some medicine,” I whisper against her forehead, my lips brushing against her skin lightly.
I pull away, chastising myself for doing that, for being too intimate. I’m already breaking my own rules and it’s been five minutes.
Retrieving the pain reliever I’d given her earlier this morning and a water bottle from the kitchen, I return to the bathroom to find her standing, facing the mirror, her hands braced against the counter. Coming up beside her, I set the pills and the bottle on the counter.
“Drink the whole bottle if you can, you might be dehydrated,” I tell her through the mirror.
“Should I thank your mother or the Army for making you, you?” She asks, studying our reflections.
“Depends… What do you think I am?”
“So far… too good to be true,” she says with such a serious face, I’m not sure how to react. I could take it as a compliment, but instead, it feels more like a challenge. Like she is waiting for something to be wrong with me, waiting for a reason not to trust me.
“There’s plenty of bad in me. But never for you,” I match her tone, wanting her to know how serious I am. She analyzes me in the mirror, and I let her. If she wants to pick me apart piece by piece, she can. If it means she’ll feel better, that she trusts me, I’ll do anything, tell her anything she wants to know.
“Why don’t you keep any of your pictures on the wall?” She asks, the question seemingly out of the blue. “The one’s in your closet,” she clarifies.
She’s been snooping, not that I blame her since she’s been staying with a relative stranger. I think about her question for a second, not really knowing the answer myself, “I’m afraid to look at them too often.”
“Why?” She asks, a curious tone in her voice.
“Remembering makes the nightmares worse,” I tell her honestly.
She doesn’t ask anything else, she doesn’t even give me a pitying look, something I wouldn’t want from her anyway. She looked at me with understanding, like all she wanted was to understand me better. I think I passed the test.
She turns around to look at me directly, “Thank you for telling me.”
“Thanks for staying,” I respond, meaning it wholly, hoping she realizes how much her staying means to me. How much keeping her safe means to me. She wraps her arms around my waist, burying her head into my chest and I feel fucking victorious. I don’t hesitate to wrap my arms around her too. She exhales deeply, forcing her body to relax.
I can easily stare over her head into the mirror and she looks so small in my arms. Not in a petite way, but because she’s burrowed so snuggly against me, my arms envelop her. It feels right.
Having her so close is torture, but the best fucking torture there is. If this is all I get if Callie’s world is fixed tomorrow and she leaves here healthy and happy, I’d feel empty, but I would hold onto this moment forever.
I feel her cringe against my chest again, her head still hurting. I pull away slightly, just enough to look at her. She’s got a frown on her face. “Take the medicine. Take a bath. I’ll be in the kitchen when you’re done.”
She nods slightly. “Okay, okay… Bossy,” she mumbles that last part under her breath, but I see the smile in her eyes as she says it.
She jokes, but I can tell she likes it, she likes it when I take away her need to second guess or argue. When I take away her choice, it’s for her own good, and she knows it. She is used to being polite and apologetic for taking up space, and not being taken care of. That shit won’t fly around me.
I turn away, filling the tub the rest of the way up with hot water, trying my best not to imagine her five minutes from now, laying in the hot water, naked, her light skin turning pink from the heat. Fuck me.
“Take your time,” I manage to spew before hurrying out of the bathroom, and shutting the door behind me. I take a deep breath and adjust the front of my pants, hoping like hell Callie didn’t notice the raging hard-on I have now.
She didn’t even have to do anything, I look in her direction or think about her, and all the blood in my head rushes south. I’m worse than a fucking teenager.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Callie
I do exactly as Nathan says, take the pain pills and get in the bath. I don’t know how he knew a bath would be perfect for me, but laying in the hot water feels incredible on my aching body. I might actually wake up tomorrow feeling semi back to normal.
I rest my head against the edge of the tub, my thoughts keep going back to the photo in Sheriff Donahue’s office. How do they all know each other? And what is he going to do now that he knows that I could ID my perpetrators?
He had to have realized something was wrong as soon as we left. Did he know I would see the photo? He didn’t exactly have it hidden, so it wouldn’t be a stretch that I’d come across it. Then again, he wasn’t paying attention to my story at all until I brought up Tony and Bub’s names. He jumped up so quick to talk to Nathan after I told him they were shot, he probably hadn’t spared me a thought.
