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Chapter Twenty-One
Rafferty
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BY THE TIME WE GETback to the compound, Honor is half asleep. She yawns and excuses herself before shuffling off to her room.
I look to the others. “I’m going to take care of her tonight,” I say firmly.
No one argues. I think they all get I need some time to decompress after the somewhat surprising turn of events today, and I don’t want to do it alone. I don’t want to be around the guys, though, either.
It’s not a long-term thing. My masculinity isn’t so fragile that I’m going to freak out around them now. I just want a bit of time to get my head around it.
“Okay, boss,” Wilder says easily, with no hint of sarcasm.
It seems as soon as that little scene on the beach was over, things went back to how they usually are between us. The dynamic doesn’t seem changed.
“I’ll go and see if we have any more activity,” Asher says.
“Get me if there’s any news.”
“Of course.” He nods once and heads out of the room.
Asher’s reaction to today is a bigger worry than my own. I always felt that out of all of us, he’s processed the abuse the least well. Will seeing some man-on-man action have freaked him out?
“Will you go and see if he’s okay?” I ask Wilder.
He nods and ambles off in the same direction as Asher. Wilder has an easygoing way about him, and maybe Asher will open up to him if he is feeling weirded out more easily than to any of the rest of us.
“At some point, we need to talk about sleeping situations,” Brody says. “I don’t like us all taking turns with her. I’d prefer we have some sort of situation where we are all together.”
“What? Four men in one bed? That will be one snore fest.”
He chuckles. “Yeah, but we can work it out somehow. Maybe like, a suite or something, where we have a few beds in one room? Or interlinked? I don’t know. Something where she’s close to us. I think Asher has been sleeping with her because he’s scared that even in this compound, she’s vulnerable alone in her room.”
I nod in agreement because the thought had hit me, too.
“We can have a talk, include her, see how we want this to work out,” I say.
“It’s not out of the realm of possibility to find a solution. All it takes is a good architect.” Brody grins. Then his face sobers. “Once we find Wren, I’ll rest a little easier.”
