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I scoot closer with my dog still in my lap and lean into him. Echo shifts to be tucked between us, and I feel cocooned between Wes's embrace and my furry girl.
"Do you want to talk about it?" Wes asks after a beat of silence.
Do I?
I don't want him to know this side of me, but I owe him an explanation as to what he witnessed.
"In the morning?" I lift my head slightly to glance at the alarm clock on my nightstand. It's almost three, which explains why Mags was letting Echo out. She always does it when she gets home from her shift.
Wes tightens his hold for a second before letting go, and I expect him to push me away and leave. Instead, he starts drawing circles on my upper arm, and I wish right about now that we didn't have a chaperone dog between us.
My eyelids begin to droop, and eventually, I am lulled to sleep by his caress. My last thought is that I never fall back asleep when I've had that dream.
CHAPTERFOURTEEN
I gotzero shut-eye after King's…what the fuck was that? How could I? The last time I saw someone that scared, one of my best friends was—fuck.
I had sat on King's front porch for over an hour, waiting for her to get back from work. Why I was so early, hell if I knew. I owed her an explanation for disappearing for almost a week—at least that was how I justified it. Then, she pulled up, and I saw how tired she was, so I suggested watching a movie. We could always talk in the morning.
I expected her to cross-examine me. Every other girl I'd ever dated would have. But King is so far from those chicks that I wasn't surprised that she instantly agreed. When she dozed off on the couch, I carried her to her bedroom, and in a spur-of-the-moment decision, I stayed. I'd been away from her for far too long, fighting my own demons, and it was time to change that.
What I didn't expect was getting jolted out of a deep sleep byherdemons.
After she calmed back down, I was the one who wanted to demand answers. I knew she had damage, but witnessing the…the terror in her eyes, the need to hold her was overpowering.
Seeing all the tension leave her features reminded me of watching Den sleep in LA—the one time she was truly relaxed during those days.
King is still out when I slip out of bed at seven. I have to move. Think. I pull on my jeans, and Echo trails after me. I take that as her signal that she has to take care of business. After opening the back door, I watch her run around the yard.
What am I doing here?
My focus should be on training, but instead, I've let this girl completely consume me. It's been weeks, and I know jack shit about her. This is so not me. I used to be in it for fun, not drama. And after what I saw a few hours ago, there is a lot of that in King's life.
"You're up."
I jerk around and find Mags in her pajamas, standing in the doorframe to the kitchen. Her hair is a mess, and she covers her mouth as she yawns.
"Didn't go back to sleep." Why downplay the situation? From what I gathered, Mags is familiar with…whatever that was.
She nods and makes her way over to the Keurig. "I can never sleep past seven, no matter what time I go to bed. Which is why I hate closing the bar."
Is she making small talk? Echo plows back in and straight to her water bowl before disappearing down the hallway.
"Ha," King's best friend guffaws. "She is totally abusing this."
I cock an eyebrow, and she elaborates, "King doesn't let her in her bed."
Oh.
"Where is King?" Leaning away from the counter, she peers down the hallway.
"Still out cold."
She whips her head around so quickly I take a step back. Whoa.
"What do you mean she's out cold? What did you do?"
Huh?
