Walking through the door, I stepped to the side and let her take in the space. “Nope.”
She just sighed, smelling the flowers as she passed me and looked around.
“This is my home.”
Almost dropping the flowers, she stuttered on her next words before looking around. “What? You brought me to your house?”
I just nodded and moved past her into the living room, where I sat as she looked over everything. She noticed the ceiling first and how it was broken into small sections from dark exposed beams. Following each one with her eyes, she moved on to the soft lighting that was tucked into the edges of each one. Her focus moved again, down to the dark wood floors that matched the beam's color above. I wondered what her thoughts were, considering my home was completely different from my office. “What do you think?”
She eyed me, like she couldn’t figure out what my next move was, and I realized it had been a while since the last time I’d received that look. “I didn’t take you for a modern house kindof guy. The fact it doesn’t look like a jail is commendable, but Ididexpect neutrals. That’s not surprising at all.”
“Yeah well, itwaspainted yellow.” I answered before disappearing down the hall to find a towel. I grabbed a few from the extra closet and then some of my clothes for her, realizing she was probably going to need new ones after she showered.
When I came out, she was standing in front of a shelf in my living room. Somehow, I knew the exact picture she was looking at, I’d known that was the one she'd be drawn to. As I moved closer, I saw the picture from over her shoulder. The photo she held was of three boys, huddled together on a broken tree. The tallest one was me, and I could see she’d figured that out because her thumb was rubbing my face. Beside me in the image was Kyrin and Greyson.
“Your brothers?”
“Yeah,” My shoulders dropped slightly when her gaze met mine. I wanted her to know everything about me, and yet, I was hiding something from her about her own life. I offered her the folded towel and clothes. “My mom took that.”
She smiled softly and leaned against the wall next to me. Turning the towel in her hands, she brought it up to her chest and wrapped her arm around it. “What’s she like?”
There was a quick tick in my jaw as I pushed past the discomfort I was starting to feel. The discussion with her abouthimand what he was doing to her would be ten times worse, so I needed to start with this,even if it made me want to be sick. I took the photo from her and ignored all of the bad feelingscoming back. “She was everything good in this world—the type of person that lit up a room. Everyone loved her.”
Ember’s whole demeanor changed, but not in a bad way. She seemed to pick up on the fact that it was a really sore subject for me. “I’m sorry, Silas. She sounds amazing.”
I pulled my eyes up so she could see how I was laying down my shield for her, how I too could be exposed and vulnerable. “Shewas, even though she was the sole reason why everything in this house was painted yellow.” I laughed, feeling the sting inside my body from actively talking about her.
A look of realization crossed Ember’s face, just like I was hoping it would. “Yellow?” She blinked at me a few times. “Like my dress?”
I smiled one more time at the picture before placing it back on the shelf. “There were a lot of reasons I couldn’t get you out of my head, even from that first night. I think I knew though, even then. Finding someone like you is extremely rare. I know that, because when she died, the world lost part of its light and so did I. When I saw you in the club that night, in that yellow dress—I couldn’t help but get angry. I hadn’t felt that warmth since I was sixteen.”
Ember’s arms wrapped around me, and the towel she held pushed into my side. The hug was foreign and I wanted to reject it, but I’d take anything from her as long as she stayed with me.
“What was her name?” Ember asked from my chest.
Another imaginary wound was inflicted from that question. Instead of retreating, I wrapped my arms around her back. “Lacey.”
I felt the exact moment she put everything together about my tattoos. “Silas, I’m sorry that I—”
“It’s fine,” I replied, not wanting any type of apology from her.
“Was it just you guys and your dad, then?”
That question hit the hardest, and the pain wasn’t just a sting, it was a gut punch. “My dad was the one who killed her.” The words echoed like a scream in the quiet kitchen around us. “I think it’s safe to say the world is full of really shitty people.” I mumbled into her hair, “I raised my brothers after that.”
With that information she pulled away and looked back at the picture. “You did that alone?”
I shrugged slightly. “Someone had to. I wasn’t going to let them get taken from me.”
When she looked at me, it was like she truly saw me for the first time. There was no wall between us, none whatsoever, and now it was my job tokeepit that way.
When she turned, I thought she was stepping away to shower, but to my surprise, she walked a few feet away and pulled out a barstool from my counter. Once it was out far enough, she sat down and placed her elbows on the towel, holding her chin in her hands.
I pointed in the direction of the bathroom before moving to the fridge and pulling out a bottle of water. “I thought you needed a shower?”
Tapping a finger on her chin, she smiled up at me “That canwait a few more minutes. I want to know about you. Is that okay?”
It was definitely okay, but as she said that, I cursed internally at Knox. After a few seconds of making her wait, I let her win. Grabbing an extra bottle out of the door, I handed it to her and took a seat in the barstool next to her. “I’ll tell you whatever you want to know as long as you drink this.”
