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I don’t say anything as I sit there with water seeping through all my clothes, raindrops dripping from my nose.
“I’m going to be right there. Everything will be okay.”
He doesn’t cut the call. Instead, it just connects to his car when he starts the engine.
“You wanna talk about it?” he asks, his wheels spinning from wherever he is. School, I guess.
Guilt assaults me as I realise that I’ve just dragged him from the middle of his life.
I shake my head in answer to his question despite the fact that he can’t see me.
He must understand my answer though, because he doesn’t ask any questions. Instead, he starts giving me a rundown of his journey, letting me know what shops and buildings he’s passing, what lights he jumps in his hurry to get to me.
“Please don’t get in trouble,” I squeak, terrified that I’m about to hear sirens down the line as he gets pulled over for speeding.
Before I know it, he’s telling me that he’s turning onto the street, and in only seconds his car screeches to a stop right in front of me.
The door flies open and he’s out before I manage to even attempt to get my arse from the cold ground.
The fact that I’m dripping with water doesn’t seem to faze him as he wraps his arms around me and crushes my body against his.
My sobs break free once more as his scent fills my nose and his strength surrounds me.
I probably should be embarrassed about crying all over the guy I’ve been seeing for only a couple of weeks, but I’m not. There was no one else I wanted when I fled the coffee shop—not Mum, not Bri, not Sara. It was just him, and it tells me a lot about how quickly this guy has buried himself under my skin.
“Shhh,” he soothes in my ear, one hand holding the back of my head, my cheek crushed against his chest, while the other rubs up and down my back soothingly. “I’ve got you, it’s okay.”
I have no idea how long we stand there locked in our embrace, but it’s long enough for his clothes to be soaked through when I finally find the strength to pull away.
“Oh my God, Toby,” I gasp when I finally get a non-tear blurred view of his face. “What happened? Are you okay?”
“I’m fine, baby,” he assures me, but it’s not the truth. He can’t be okay. His face is…
“Shit,” I sigh, cupping his cheeks as I take in each of his bruises and cuts. One of his eyes is swollen and an awful purple and yellow colour. His eyebrow and lip are split, and he’s still got dried blood on his skin as if he hasn’t even attempted to clean it up. “This isn’t okay, Toby. Who did it?”
A dark chuckle falls from his lips.
“No one you need to worry about, Demon. And trust me, they’re in a much worse state than me right now.”
Releasing his face, I lift one of his hands, inspecting his busted knuckles.
“Have you even cleaned any of this up?”
His lips part to lie, but I raise a brow at him, glad to have something to think about other than my own disaster of a life.
“Maybe I was waiting for you to get your hands on me,” he growls, sending a shiver of desire racing down my spine. “Have you got to go back to work?” That question is like a bucket of reality tipped right over my head.
Fresh tears fill my eyes as I shake my head.
“Let’s get out of here, then. You want to go home?” he asks, concern more than evident in his tone as he wraps his arm around my shoulder.
“No,” I say sadly, lost in my own head as he closes the door on me. He moves somewhat awkwardly around the front of the car to the driver’s seat, which must be soaking after leaving the door open. “I just… I wanna leave,” I whisper. “I want to just walk away from everything for a bit. Does that sound crazy?”
He straps himself in and turns to me. The state of his beautiful face makes me suck in a sharp breath.
“No, Jodie. It doesn’t sound crazy. It just sounds like someone who’s had too much thrown at them recently and who needs to just take a breath.”
I nod, totally overwhelmed for a moment that he understands exactly how I feel right now.
