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We step back, and he walks through the apartment to her bedroom with us following close behind. We watch, tension in our muscles, as he places Harlow gently on her bed before pulling her comforter up and tucking her in. He moves the hair covering her face with soft fingers to tuck it behind her ear, and she looks peaceful lying there, as if she’s just sleeping. Maybe she is.
Nico stands upright and turns, only to receive a fist to the face from Sawyer before he can see it coming, much less defend himself. I don’t have time to stop him, even if I wanted to—which I’m not sure I do. He pins Nico to the wall with his forearm across his throat, and they snarl at each other, blood beading on Nico’s lip.
“What the fuck happened to her?” Sawyer grits out.
“Get the fuck off me and I’ll tell you what I know,” Nico responds with icy words, not backing down. I’ve seen glimpses of an angry Nico but would not have expected this aggression rolling off him.
Sawyer doesn’t seem as if he’s willing to give him that, but I need to know where she’s been and what’s wrong with her now. They can fight it out another time for all I care. I step forward and pull Sawyer back as he reluctantly drops his arm, not looking happy about it at all. The hostility doesn’t dissipate as Nico prods at his lip with his tongue, wiping the blood from it with his finger before talking, as promised.
“I found her outside,” he starts, before Sawyer cuts him off.
“What were you doing here?”
“I’d tried to call a couple times, but it was constantly engaged, so I thought I’d drop by.”
“At this time? Why?”
I have no idea why Sawyer’s so fucking suspicious all of a sudden, but I guess seeing Harlow this way would do that. While I’m relieved she’s home, he’s wanting to blame someone for her going because he’s currently blaming himself.
“Why do you fucking think?” Nico says unhappily, although I could guess his excuse before he says it out loud. “I wanted to see her.”
“And?”
“And she was just outside, curled up in a little ball.” Emotion and anger flashes across his face as he looks away, which is understandable, as the same feelings fill me. I don’t like the idea of her being that vulnerableatall.
“She can’t have been there long. We didn’t get back that long ago,” I try to reason, but apparently, they’ve both got too many questions to listen.
“How could you let her be in that position in the first place?” Nico asks, pissing me off. “Anything could’ve happened to her.” I’m well aware of that and don’t need him telling me we fucked up.
“How do we know it didn’t?” Sawyer asks, running a hand through his hair for the fiftieth time tonight.
“Let’s not jump to conclusions,” I say, trying to calm the situation down before they start beating their chests again or some shit. “She could’ve left and got drunk somewhere else before coming home.”
“She wouldn’t,” Sawyer says confidently. “Not on her own. Not after the Guards were only just in this area, and not after finding out about the baby.”
“Baby?!” Nico nearly breaks his neck whipping his head around to face Sawyer, incredulity all over his face. “What baby?”
“Fuck,” Sawyer mutters. “Pretend you didn’t hear that.”
Nico looks like that’s the last thing he can do, slowly turning with wide eyes to watch Harlow once again.
“Well, we have no idea what the fuck she did do, and we can’t do much until she wakes up and tells us, can we?” I ask, anxiety eating at my chest as I absorb Sawyer’s words. Because he’s right—she’d never go from getting a positive pregnancy test to getting blackout drunk. And she’d never wander off alone, no matter how mad she was. Which means she went willingly with someone else. And then what? How is she in this state?
Sawyer runs his hands through his hair, tugging at it before releasing the strands. “Shit, I know. I fucking hate this.” I know he’s feeling worse because he blames himself—probably thinks Harlow will blame him too—but we can’t know anything until she regains consciousness. “I should’ve just told her,” he continues.
“But you didn’t, so let’s stop the pity party and wait. We don’t wanna be stressed as fuck when she wakes up.” The last thing she’ll need is us quizzing her. He nods reluctantly, but at the end of the day, he wants what’s best for Harlow too and will put whatever shit he’s going through to the side for her. “She’s back and okay, that’s all that matters. I need some fucking sleep.”
I leave them there while I use the bathroom, then brush my teeth before I head back in. I expect to see the room still full, but Nico has cleared out in the three minutes I’ve been gone, and Sawyer leaves as I enter. I don’t bother to tell him I’m staying—he’ll assume I will anyway—so I strip down to my boxers and climb in behind Harlow, pulling her to me and inhaling her scent. Her breaths come shallow but steady, and I try to relax my body as it wraps around her.
Sawyer comes back a couple of minutes later and takes the other side of her, settling in before watching her with anguish clear on his face.
“She’ll be okay,” I tell him, closing my eyes and pressing my nose into Harlow’s hair.
“Yeah,” he murmurs. “She’ll always be okay.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Harlow
