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“Let me grab you an extra blanket,” he told me, going into the hall, then his room, and coming back with a giant fluffy deep green one, draping it over the bed. “I tend to keep it a little cool in here,” he explained. “Alright. We can talk more in the morning. I think we’re both dead on our feet,” he explained, moving toward the door. “Sleep tight, Gem,” he offered, closing the door, leaving me alone in my new home-away-from-home.
The dominant feeling should have been guilt right then. At half-deceiving him. In accepting his help without giving him the whole story.
But all I could feel was a deep contentedness as I put down my bag, kicking out of my shoes, and climbing into the bed that protested a bit as I tried to find a comfortable position.
I’d been prone to sleepless nights, tossing and turning, for the past few months. Even when I knew I was safe in the room above my old workplace.
But I was asleep before five minutes even passed.
It was the first time in longer than I could remember that I slept hard and deep.
The front door wasn’t even locked.
But Lincoln was across the hall from me.
I knew him well enough to know that he would never let anything happen to me.
That, well, that was the most comforting thought in the world, wasn’t it?
He was offering me safety.
I was going to grab it with both hands.
I could deal with his anger–and my guilt–when he found out the truth some other time.
THREE
Lincoln
I couldn’t sleep.
In general, I was someone who could pass out anytime and anywhere. When you spent so much of your life on the move like I did, you had to learn to be able to sleep on planes, trains, in cars, in a cold shack in the woods with nothing but a hard floor beneath you.
It was a survival adaptation.
I never tossed and turned, overthought myself to complete consciousness.
Yet there was no denying that was exactly what happened after depositing Gemma into my rarely-used guest room.
It wasn’t uncommon for women to be in my home. Anyone who knew me knew I was a somewhat chronic relationship-guy. That mystical unicorn, as Miller would put it, having been convinced before meeting me that no guy actually wanted relationships, just casual sex.
Don’t get me wrong, casual sex could be fun. It could clear your mind, help you think more clearly, or allow you to forget your troubles for a while.
But I had always been seeking that feeling of home. Meals cooked in my kitchen, a familiar face on the couch waiting for me when I was on my way home, someone to share my time with, my stories with.
Everything else felt hollow.
And, yeah, I was almost comically bad at making choices when it came to women.
I would never live down the time I thought I found a keeper when it turned out she was actually just homeless and using me for a place to stay for a few weeks before jacking half my shit and taking off to rebuild her life.
But I never seemed to stop trying.
Something in me refused to settle for a life without someone to share it with.
I figured that, eventually, I would find the right person, could build a life with them. It just took me a bit too long before I realized someone wasn’t the right one.
But the women who were in my house in the past were in the bed next to me, not across the hall. And Miller, when she happened to come by, had a few too many drinks to drive home, always crashed on my couch because the bed in the guest room Shrieks like an orgy is going on if I so much as adjust the pillow.
Aside from Miller, I wasn’t sure I had ever had a woman just… staying over. Platonically.
Grumbling, I knifed up in bed, scrubbing a hand over my sandpaper eyes.
She wasn’t exactly there platonically either. She was there because she was scared and unsure, because she was in a little over her head.
I honestly had no idea if she genuinely was in trouble or not. Some of her shit could be explained by assholes wanting a nice iPhone or wanting to steal her identity from her mail or a cleaning crew accidentally switching on the camera on her work computer.
But I wasn’t going to take that chance with her either.
Partly because I just, as a man, couldn’t turn my back on a woman who was scared. The other part was because she was a part of our extended family.
Jules would have my head if anything happened to her, and I had a chance to help her, but didn’t.
Hell, she’d probably have my head regardless if or when she learned I kept this shit from her.
