It felt so easy with Bee, even when things were decidedly difficult.
Maybe this is what Ivy spoke of when she meant for me to put myself out there more because nothing ever felt like it could go back to how it was before.
“Trauma hours,” Bee mumbled.
I pulled her back to study her and make sense of what she said. Her eyes were still closed, her lips swollen, her mouth slightly parted, her cheeks pink, her short hair framing her perfectly.
Gorgeous.
Breathtaking.
“What?” I asked.
Her eyes fluttered open, and it seemed to take her a second to remember what she said. “Trauma hours. It’s like dog years. Time is subjective in crisis.”
I chuckled as I kissed her lips because I had no idea what she was talking about. To be fair, only half the blood in my body was going to my brain at this point. “What does that mean?”
“We’re trauma-bonded. It might have only been a few hours, but they were pretty critical hours. We had to get to know each other quickly and trust each other even faster than that.” Herhands cupped my face, and she seemed to peer deeper into my eyes. “But it feels like more than that, doesn’t it?”
I wanted to pretend I didn’t know what she meant in a last-ditch effort to keep distance between us, but of course, I knew what she meant. It might have been the circumstances, but it was so much more too. It had to be Bee.
“Yeah, it feels like a lot more than that,” I admitted, and my heart raced.
“And just in case I haven’t made this clear, I’m not afraid of you, Owen.” She brushed her fingertips along my cheeks. “If any of us should be scared, it’s you. I’ve lost track of the times I’ve accidentally poked or hit you.” She brought my knuckles to her lips and kissed them. “Why do I have to keep reminding you of that?”
I looked up to meet her eyes and swallowed thickly. I wanted her. She had no idea how bad.
“Being stuck here, I would never want you to think—” These hands were capable of violence. She couldn’t understand.
“I don’t?—”
“But you don’t have the whole picture.”
“Then tell me.” She shrugged and patted the bed next to us. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“It’s a long story,” I said.
She scooted out of my lap and up to the headboard. She leaned back, and I knew what the next words would be out of her mouth before she even said them. “Lucky for us, we have nothing but time.”
“I really set myself up for that one,” I said and sighed.
“Yep.”
As she settled in, I grew more uncomfortable. I wanted to come lie next to her, cuddle in the safety of her small frame, and scoop her up to me again. I wanted to touch her all the time, andshe didn’t seem to mind. But I saw what it took for her to confess her fears of tomorrow, and I owed her some truths of my own.
I stood to pace, checked the fire, and organized her numerous snacks; anything to avoid looking at her.
“I’m going to say this quickly because I hate talking about it,” I said after a few minutes of awkward silence that Bee somehow managed to withstand.
She sat forward, a gentle frown tugging at her features. “Owen, if you don’t want to, I understand. There’s no pressure to?—”
“No. I don’t want to, but you need to know the sort of man I am.”
She watched me for a moment, mouth open, poised to argue some point. Then she closed it without a sound. She swallowed and gave me one small nod, the familiar look of determination creasing her brows. A few hours and I could read her better than anybody and knew her thoughts and needs. It was insanity to think that. I mocked those who felt instant connections with people as hormones and horniness. I never thought it could be real, but nothing else explained this wild need to tell her the truth about these hands and this body before I touched her.
“Talk to me,” she said, and it was permission and comfort. My confessional.
“In high school, my senior year, at the homecoming game, I tackled a linebacker from the visiting team. He ended up in the hospital in a coma for two days and never played football again,” I said, like ripping off a Band-Aid. I gripped the basin of the sink, the muscles of my neck feeling like knots on knots. I hated talking about it, thinking about it. Not that it ever stopped. The crunch of his body when I impacted him and we fell to the ground was burned into my mind forever. “I hadn’t meant to hit him so hard. I didn’t know how strong I was.”
