AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He sighed as if the distance seemed too great. Still he shuffled over, curling himself on the end of the couch as far away as possible.
The knot once again held his attention.
“Not there. Here.” Lila patted the spot next to her once more.
His eyes narrowed.
“Don’t worry. I’m not going to bust your balls.”
Dixon arranged himself beside her, crossing his legs on the seat cushion. It seemed he expected a lecture of some sort.
Lila didn’t give him one. She wouldn’t have known what to say. Instead, she just put her arms around his neck and pulled him close, running her hand down his neck and back, over and over and again, her gloved fingertips grazing his scars.
He didn’t pull away.
After a time, he buried his face into her shoulder. Her neck grew wet, and his breaths grew ragged, sounding like he had been infected with another round of poison. He moaned, noise unlocked by sadness, startling her because she sometimes forgot that the tongueless man could make noise at all.
She held him all the tighter for it.
“I’m here,” she said, because she had absolutely nothing intelligent to say.
She’d hoped he would talk to her; she hadn’t expected him to cry.
Eventually the tears slowed. He pulled his face away, and she wiped a few drops from his cheek. She pulled his notepad from his back pocket and put it in his lap. “I know you’re mad at me and Tristan, but—”
Dixon shook his head.
“It’s okay. We know. Tristan’s been feeling guilty for what happened. That probably doesn’t help, but—”
“Idiot,” Dixon mouthed over a little hiss of air. He touched his pen to paper, scribbling out a sentence, the text loose and ragged, so unlike his usual tidy blocks. I’m not mad. He had to shoot Reaper. I would have done the same thing.
“Then what’s wrong?”
He shrugged and tried to stand, but Lila grabbed his hand and tugged him back down. “Oh no, you don’t. I’ll always be a shoulder for you if you need it, but I’d be the shittiest friend ever if I just let you walk away now. Whatever is bugging you isn’t getting any better. You’ve brooded for long enough. Talk to me.”
His pen hovered over his notepad. You handle it so well. You walk around like nothing happened. It pisses me off.
“What am I handling?”
Peter nearly killed you.
“Yes, he did.”
You don’t seem bothered by it at all. He stared as though
some answer had been locked inside her mind, an answer he desperately wanted to get at, an answer he needed.
“That wasn’t the first time someone tried to kill me, Dixon. I’ve lived with that crap my whole life.”
I know. And you’re fine. You’re really fine with it, aren’t you?
Lila thought back to how she’d handled the last week of her life. Right after she’d woken up from nearly been killed, she’d almost slept with Tristan in a hospital bed. Less than a week after that, she had slept with him. She was still sleeping with him.
Oh gods, was that why they’d begun?
“I’m coming along.”
You had regrets?
