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“Shower?” Bellamy asked, kicking out of his shoes.
“I get to be under the hot water seventy-percent of the time,” I declared, taking off my own shoes.
“Not if I get there first,” Bell declared as he charged through the cabin.
“Fucking cheater!” I yelled, following close behind.
We stayed in the shower until the tap grew cold before climbing out, then tossing our soaked clothes inside to be dealt with at some other time.
We didn’t have a washing machine.
Which was going to be a pain in the ass.
And Bellamy made sure he made a mental note to get that rectified in case of any future trips to said safe house.
So dealing with the wet clothes was going to mean hand washing and ringing and hanging them. And, quite frankly, we both knew that was going to fall on me. I didn’t have a washer as a kid, either, so bathtub clothes washing days were a regular part of my childhood. I could do it again. Just not right then, after a long walk and then the sex and then the run in the pouring rain.
I just wanted a bowl of spaghetti and some cheesy action movie from the collection of DVDs. Then about ten hours of uninterrupted sleep.
Which was exactly what was on my mind as I slipped into the warmest clothes I could find, which wasn’t nearly warm enough thanks to the seemingly bone-deep chill I had even after the hot shower and getting the fire roaring.
Once my hair was dry, I figured I’d feel better. And my belly was full. And Bellamy pulled me close like I knew he was going to do, like I’d stopped pretending I didn’t love.
With all that in mind, I put my hair into a loose braid so the wetness didn’t annoy me, grabbed one of the blankets off the bed, and made my way toward the stairs.
“I hope you’re ready to stuff your face with an obscene amount of spagh—“ I started, cutting off when Bellamy’s voice called to me.
But not his normal voice—light and carefree.
Not even his dark voice that he got when he talked about his time in the service.
No.
This was something else entirely.
It was a sound I didn’t think he was capable of making.
It was pure panic in his voice.
“Shawn, run!”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Bellamy
I think, without us actually using the words, and without Shawn being one-hundred percent aware of the fact, we’d become a couple.
Somehow, the revelation wasn’t as shocking to me as I figured it might be. I never really saw myself doing any relationships yet, so finding myself almost unintentionally in one should have been surprising at the very least.
But it just sort of progressed naturally.
I was sure the forced close proximity helped. We got a chance to really get used to each other without the common breaks that life and work and friends and family would have given us.
It was good.
It gave Shawn—and me, at times—very little chance to regroup and rebuild walls that had started to tumble when we had a deep conversation.
I got to see sides of her that it likely would have taken me months or years to see outside of the cabin. If at all.
She opened up about the poverty that kept her, and her neighborhood, so trapped, about the fear of the landlord coming to kick them out onto the streets. She’d even told me the story of the time they’d needed to sleep in an alley behind an apartment building for several nights before they found somewhere else to live.
It was a reality I knew existed. But it never felt quite as real as when Shawn told me about it in a shaky voice, her eyes darting away because they would get glassy when she revealed something really personal.
I could clearly see her as the scared little girl in a bad area with no protection from the elements, let alone anyone who wished her ill-will. I could see her as the sad girl on Christmas mornings with no shiny paper or no new toys.
My heart ached for that girl that she’d been, even if the woman she grew into was someone I was really starting to grow fond of. If I were being completely honest, it was more than fond of. I didn’t feel comfortable labeling it love yet. Love was a heavy word. It required thought and care. And while I’d been doing a lot of thinking and caring about Shawn, it still seemed too soon to start thinking, let alone using, that very weighty word.
But we were heading somewhere.
And a part of me hoped we got to stay in the woods just a little while longer. Because Shawn still needed more time. And I wanted her to get it before we had to leave and go back to our old lives where, I imagined, she would feel the need to put her old guards back up again. Even with me.
