AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Arms loose around her, his mouth grazes the crown of her head.
And she finally stops weeping.
She’s suddenly just… still. Safe. In his arms.
Nothing can hurt her here. No one can hurt her when Preston is around.
‘You hate each other! Why are you with him?’
‘I can’t wrap my head around it, why the fuck would you ever get back with him?’
‘Do you even love him?’
All these digs, these confused people attacking her—her love for the man who helps her dry off out of the shower, dresses her piece by piece, then tucks her into bed. But this, this right here, this moment when he asks not a single detail of what she saw, experienced, or even how she is…
This is the kind of understanding from Preston that fuels her love for him. He’s not prying. He knows her. Best to leave Billie alone, leave her thoughts and feelings alone—she’ll come whenshe’sready.
So he does all that he can, and all that she wants from him.
He looks after her.
He climbs into bed—the side nearest the locked door—and wraps his arms around her, pulling her into his cocoon.
And he says absolutely nothing.
It’s in that familiar, comforting quiet that she finds peace.
And she slips away to blank dreams.
5
Most days, Kate’s brown eyes are warm. A contrast to her soul, warm brown puddles that swirl amber in the right light.
Sometimes, Trevor itches to reach into those honeypots and swim. Get lost, if just for a moment, in the softness of her eyes that never matches the darkness of who she truly is within.
But not tonight.
Tonight, those brown eyes have hardened from hot cocoa to hard blackwood slabs with cutting, sharp edges. Splinters aiming at him.
He feels the cut of her unwavering stare. The suffocating weight of her silence. The same silence that carried from the parking lot at the station all the way to his home up on Rich Hill, where—now—Kate sits on the window bench opposite him. He’s slumped on the foot of the bed, and she daggers him with her silent stare alone.
Trevor is quiet. But not like she is. His breaths are louder. Heavier. He bites down on the inside of his cheek, the tuck of his tongue makes slightest of sounds, a sound so small it shouldn’t have been heard at all.
But Kate hears it.
To them, it’s a deafening noise that shatters the tension.
And Kate spears through the moment—
“Where were you?”
The accusation cuts through the air. But the sharpness of it compares little to that unwavering stare of hers.
Trevor lifts his brow. A question. ‘Where was I when?’
The window bench creaks under Kate as she shifts her weight and folds her arms over her chest. “Billie said you were at the station. That night.”
His pause is a falter. He blinks. Tilts his head. Mind churning behind plain eyes that should be pretty under the thick lashes he was gifted with, but to Kate, still wear the same stupid gloss since they met.
