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I felt the warm body behind me, holding me up, brushing my hair back from my sweaty face, supporting me without question, without words, and the hot tears of exhaustion poured out of me.
“It’s okay, baby,” Adam murmured, stroking my back as I continued to dry heave. “I’m here. I’ve got you. It was just a—”
“Don’t you dare—say it was just a dream,” I choked out, my voice thick with the acid still burning my throat. I wrenched away from him and flushed, eyeing the shower. My shoulder throbbed from falling out of bed, and my limbs felt like noodles, so I crawled in the bathtub and turned on the shower, fresh sobs racking my body as he climbed in and wrapped his arms around me. “Nothing—nothing was a—dream,” I hiccupped, his long legs bent awkwardly around me in the small tub.
“Tell me,” he said.
“I already have,” I sobbed. “A guy in a hoodie, choking me—the smell of hi—” I stopped. The details were more this time. “The smell,” I repeated. “It’s his breath. Sweet. Like—gagging sweet. I could—I could see the puffs.”
“The—puffs,” he echoed. “Like in the cold, his breath vapor?”
I nodded, looking up at the water raining down on my face.
“He hit me and said he was gonna kill me,” I whispered. “If I didn’t give him the money, he’d kill me.” I felt his every muscle tense around me. His breathing quickening. “Someone else was there, too.”
“Someone else?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know, just a voice. Laughing—telling him to—do it.”
His fingers flexed, and I laced mine with them. I didn’t need him going off on a murderous spree, killing everyone with a hoodie.
He buried his face in my wet hair, water sluicing over both of us. “I’ll never let anyone hurt you again,” he whispered.
“Some damage is forever, Adam,” I whispered back, squeezing my eyes shut against the words I still couldn’t say out loud. “You can’t protect me from everything.”
“What I can do is literally anything to find who did this to you,” he said. “That, I can swear to God.”
Adam brought meto bed eventually, and we lay there in the quiet comfort of each other’s arms. I knew he wouldn’t sleep till I did, so I pretended to so he’d relax. Once his breathing steadied, I spent most of the remaining hours in my head. Not a good place to be.
Eventually, I must have succumbed to the exhaustion because when I awoke at daybreak, he was gone. I left him a note, hit up the grocery store for food and booze for the party, then headed to the swamp, keeping myself busy freshening up the bungalow. Busy was good.
Busy was necessary.
Sleep wasn’t.
I’d gotten used to the nightly hell over the past couple of months, but that last one—it was just too real. I had no desire to revisit that horror again, so I did what any sane, rational person would do. Spent the day on coffee and energy drinks.
By two o’clock, I’d hit my second wind, pacing the bungalow in anticipation of Matthew’s arrival. I’d cleaned it twice, hid away the party supplies, and filled a vase with fresh flowers for the table. I wanted it to feel welcoming and homey to him, even though he’d never known this place as home. Hope picked him up at the airport in New Orleans, and when I heard the tires on the gravel, I was thrumming with nervous energy.
When Matthew walked in with a laughing Hope, I could see that I wasn’t the only nervous one. Having met him already in his own element, I had a baseline. Walking in here, to a family home that was never his, around family he knew about but could never claim, I saw the hint of anxiety in his body language. The fight or flight look in his eyes.
That one I recognized immediately as he stood next to Hope. It was her go-to expression for most of her life until Tobias settled her down.
I approached and hugged him, catching him off guard as he laughed and hugged me back.
“I’m so glad you’re here,” I said, letting him go and squeezing his hand. “Good to see you again.”
“It’s good to see you not being chased by goons,” he said.
“Yeah... well.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Still?”
I raised one back. “We like to keep things interesting. Iced tea? Beer?” I asked. “Bourbon?”
He laughed and opted for the beer, setting an old canvas duffel bag on the floor.
“I’ll take the bourbon,” Hope said, lifting a finger.
