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It doesn’t take long for the cab to pull up, and Gage maneuvers me toward it, opening the door and letting me slide across the backseat before he gets in after me.
The cabby glances at me in the rearview mirror, curiosity in his eyes, but that’s nipped in the bud when Gage shoots him a death glare and pulls me closer. It’s a silent warning, and the man never looks at me again.
Our driver keeps his eyes firmly on the road as we make our way back to the house, and when we get there and hop out, he barely looks up from his steering wheel when Gage pays him.
The front door opens before we even get to it, and Ash is standing there, looking disheveled and relieved. He’s still in his sleep clothes, but that doesn’t stop him from coming onto the front step and pulling me into a hug as soon as I get close enough.
He smells like Ash, warm and a little bit spicy, and I melt into the hug, grateful for it after the night I’ve had.
“You’re in so much trouble, young lady,” he says. It comes out teasing, but I can hear the relief in his voice all the same.
“I know,” I mumble into his shoulder. He just hugs me a little bit tighter and then pulls away so he can see my face. I’m not sure what he’s looking for, but he clearly finds it, because he nods once and then steps back.
Priest has been hanging back, and I see him there in the shadow of the entry way. His face is half obscured by the darkness, but I can see the look he’s wearing clear as day.
There’s that same tortured, tight expression from when they got me back from Julian. Anguish clouding his pale eyes, taut muscles that speak to the tension he’s carrying. I know what he must be feeling. That same pain and worry and impending loss that he felt the last time I was gone without any notice.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper.
The words are for all of them, since I know they were all worried and fucked up over me just leaving. But I say them to Priest, because he’s the one wearing the most haunted expression.
That gets him to move from where he’s been rooted to the spot, and he pulls me fully into the house and into a crushing hug. His arms feel good around me, holding me close to him, and I can feel him shaking against me. Those fine tremors wracking his body, and I can’t tell if it’s relief at having me back or leftover from the anxiety he must have been suffering through before.
For good measure, I say it again, softer and just for him. “I’m sorry.”
Priest shakes his head, still enveloping me with his body. “You don’t have to be sorry,” he murmurs roughly. “I know how this feels. How the loss tries to destroy you.”
I nod against his shoulder, and he wraps his arms even tighter around me, like he needs some time to really convince himself that I’m there and alive and alright.
As alright as I can be, anyway.
Ash and Gage give us space, and Priest holds on to me for a long time. It’s nice to be here in his arms, warm and safe and not alone. All the pain and shitty feelings are still there, lurking under the surface, but Priest’s arms seem to block them out a bit.
Eventually, he lets me go, and we break apart. Some of the pain is clearing from his eyes, and the sharp lines of his face don’t look like he’s barely holding himself together anymore. He looks more like himself than the husk of worry he looked like before, and that settles something inside me.
“You need to eat,” Gage says.
I open my mouth to tell him I’m not hungry, but he pins me with a look that makes it clear he wasn’t asking.
“It’s still early for breakfast, but you gotta have something,” Ash chimes in, slinging an arm around my shoulder and steering me into the kitchen.
Priest and Gage follow, and I give up on even thinking about arguing. I can tell when they’re serious about something, and they’re right. It has been almost a day since I’ve had anything to eat. Breakfast from before the “wedding” feels very far away. Like it happened in a different lifetime and possibly to someone else.
I don’t know how I can be the same person who walked into that church, confident we were going to pull off our plan.
“What do you want to eat?” Ash asks. He deposits me in a chair at the table and goes to the stove. “Pancakes? French toast?”
Ordinarily, I’d be happy to eat that and to watch the production Ash probably makes of making breakfast. But now just thinking about having syrup and a lot of food makes my stomach turn.
“Something light,” Priest says, speaking before I can. “Toast. Some fruit.”
Ash glances at me, and I nod.
“Your wish, my command,” he says.
He’s still a flurry of movement around the kitchen, loading bread into the toaster, pulling out butter and jam. He slices up an apple and flips the knife in his hand, catching it by the handle.
It’s interesting that I know him well enough now to know that it’s not even him showing off so much as him working off the nervous energy of waking up to find me gone.
