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I had no idea if he meant that as anything but literal, but he didn’t chuckle or wink. He merely stepped close enough so his calf brushed against my thigh, then began to rub straw in circular motions on my head.
I let him.
I picked my battles carefully and this was one that didn’t need fighting. He was attempting to help me so if Ream saw me when I got back to the house, I’d at least appear half-decent.
An odd sensation hit my chest and there was a slight twitch at the corner of my mouth as I thought of what he was doing. It was mildly ridiculous. No, it was utterly ridiculous.
I sat in a stall, soaking wet while the bass guitarist of a hit rock band rubbed my head with horse bedding.
But I didn’t smile, and laughter hadn’t passed my lips since I was sixteen. Since before Gerard. Before the drugs. Before Ream and I were separated.
A few pieces of straw fell in front of my face and onto my lap and I stared at them, now damp and flimsy, having soaked up the water from my hair. Crisis’ hand slowed and I noticed he barely had any straw left in his grasp; it was his hand stroking my hair.
I stiffened and his hand slipped away. I looked up and froze when I saw he was already watching me. The deep contours of his face were accentuated as he scowled, brows low, shadowing the magnetic blue in his eyes.
“Don’t know what to do here.” He sighed then crouched between my legs, palms on either side of me, resting on the bale of straw. I kept my eyes on him, watching for any hints of lust.
But it never appeared and my shoulders sagged, not enough for him to notice, but it was inside me, an inner relief that he wasn’t helping me in order to get in my pants. He looked genuinely concerned and that worried me too because he and Ream were like brothers.
“Don’t tell him,” I said firmly, my voice steady, the shivering minimal.
“Can’t do that.” I clenched my jaw and glared. “You’re his sister. He loves you and wants to help.”
“I don’t need help.” His brows lifted. “I. Don’t. Need. Help.”
“You rarely talk, not even to your twin brother who you haven’t seen in twelve years. You don’t smile and sure as fuck don’t laugh. I get that you went through some serious shit and I’m not going to pretend I know—”
“Then don’t.” I had to give him something to chew. Something to convince him I didn’t need help because there was no way in hell I was going to sit on a couch and spill my life story to some pompous ass who probably had seen me naked at the club, then fucked me. “I’m starting university soon. I’m fine.”
“Because you enrolled in school means you’re fine?”
“It means I’ve moved on.” That was what I was trying to do. Move on. Get a degree in Sociology, do what I never had a chance to do before . . . live and make something of myself. I swore if I ever escaped, I wouldn’t waste my life, my freedom.
“Moving on? Do you really want to go there? Because I’m standing in a barn in the middle of the night in a fuckin’ storm with a girl shivering, muddy and wet, with a gun in her pocket.”
He was right. But I’d find a way back to the numb like I always did.
He reached up and picked a few pieces of straw from my hair while he spoke. “You’re going to be alone for months. I don’t like it. I know Ream sure as hell doesn’t. We’ve been talking about cancelling the tour and—”
“No.” I pushed on his chest and he lost his balance and fell to his ass. I stood, walked over to the back wall and leaned against it. “He needs this. He loves music. I see it in his eyes every time he talks about performing.”
“Didn’t think you paid attention to anything we said.”
I shrugged. I did. I always paid attention; I just acted like I didn’t. I avoided sitting and having meals with everyone, but on occasion I did and I listened. “He loves music.”
“Yeah, he does.”
When we were kids, he’d lie beside me in the closet and sing when I was scared. I felt his love for it and despite our screwed-up childhood, the music always made everything okay until it didn’t anymore. Until it died in him. It was after our mom sold us to her drug dealer, Lenny, to pay off her debt and I never heard Ream sing again. Lenny was the one who made Ream go to the basement with ‘clients’ in order to clear my mom’s debt.
When Lenny died, probably from some drug deal gone bad, Olaf moved into the house with me, my brother and Alexa, Lenny’s daughter who was a couple years younger than us and obsessed with Ream.
It didn’t take long before she took advantage of her father’s death and concocted a plan to hurt me, so that I’d no longer be my brother’s innocent angel. That was when Gerard came to my room at night. That was when he shot me up with heroin. That was when I knew my life would never be the same.
Crisis stood.
I hardened my grey eyes and curled my hands into fists at my sides. “You have no idea what he went through for me. He deserves to be free from the ugly in this world.”
“Yeah, he does, but what do you deserve?” Not many met my glare head on, even Olaf. But then he’d just smack me if I ever looked at him like that. “I don’t know shit about what happened to you, but I do know Ream’s past was pretty fuckin’ bad. I also know yours is probably worse.”
Nothing was worse than what Ream had been through. We were kids and he sacrificed his own innocence in order to protect mine. Again and again. Week after week forced to go downstairs into the basement so I didn’t have to.
