Page 156 of Colliding with Ten

It was raining. It barely rained in LA, but during my wretched fall from grace, the gods had cooked up some dystopian, weather-dooming farce. It plastered hair to my face, trying to finish the job the last forty-eight hours had started.

I knocked, if you can call it that. The door swung open. He was in sweats and a T-shirt, barefoot on the tile.

“Ayla,” he said, relieved.

Hearing my name, the last of the wall around me came tumbling down. He caught what was left of me. Arms and legs wrapped around him. It was the most ungraceful I’d ever been. Huge, wracking sobs came out of me, raw, the sound of an animal dying.

He pulled me into him and out of the rain.

“It’s all gone,” I choked out. The words were soaked in rain and tears. “The fellowship, they took it. And my brother, he believes them. He thinks I⁠—”

“I know,” he said into my ear. “I’ve been trying to reach you for two days.”

The frickin’ phone that I neglected to charge because sometimes I liked not being attached to it was dead. I didn’t want to know anything being said about me. “My phone—” I started.

“It doesn’t matter. You’re here now.”

The heat in the house, even the floors, felt good against my soaked skin. Through blurred vision, I took in the cleaned living room. A half-empty glass of water was left on the side table. I gulped it down.

“Let me get you more.”

“No, I’m fine.” I grabbed him before he could leave me.

On the couch, he had paused his tablet on game film.

“I’m disturbing you.”

“No.” He shook his head as he pulled me down onto the couch with him. He moved the tablet aside and looked at me as he rubbed soothing circles on my back. “I’ve got you. You’re not alone in this.”

He caught my chin and tilted my face to his. Those light blue eyes, the sole reason for ruining my concentration on many occasions, looked right into mine. “They don’t know what they’re losing.” He wiped a tear off my cheek with his thumb. “And your brother, he’ll come around.”

I buried my face into the crook of his neck. My tears soaked his shirt.

“I gotta get you a towel before you catch a cold.”

I let him go, but he came back with plenty of towels, blankets, and another glass of water.

He held me tighter after, pressing his mouth against my hair. “I’m here. No matter what.”

We stayed like that for I don’t know how long. My hair dried halfway, and the wave of sobs decreased. My breathing started to match his, my body believing what he kept saying: You’re safe. You’re here. Everything is going to work out.

LENNOX

I moved her onto my lap, settling her against me, her legs curling into the couch on either side. In a house designed around me, who’d spent four years sleeping in the center of a king bed, she fit.

“Better?” I asked.

“A little,” she admitted, voice hoarse from crying.

Worry lines formed around her mouth, the skin beneath her eyes puffy. She’d lost her fellowship and her brother, and still chose to come to me. That thought eased all the worry I'd carried since the break-in.

Her fingers stroked my jaw as if checking whether I was real. I returned the gesture, caught her hand, and pressed my lips to the center of her palm. I held it there, breathing against her skin.

“Ayla.” My voice was rough with want. “Will you let me take care of you?”

Her eyes searched mine. I didn’t know what she found there, but I hoped she saw how deep I was in this. She leaned in, pressing her chest to mine. At the touch of her lips, I tasted salt from her tears. The kiss deepened as my hands pulled up the hem of her shirt, the wet fabric resisting before peeling over her head. I dropped it to the floor. Her skin was cold. I pressed my palms against her back, trying to coax warmth into her.

My knuckles grazed her ribs, hesitating at the patch of skin along her left side that had sent her into a laughing fit so catastrophic she’d made me swear a blood oath never to touch it again. My fingers slowed; the temptation to hear her laugh was so strong. But not tonight.