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That’s what I do now. I scoot closer, hug him around his waist. He puts his good arm around my shoulders and I lean on him, inhaling his spicy, musky scent.
“Bad dreams?” I whisper, my cheek resting on the hard muscle of his pec.
He hums an affirmation.
“Want to talk about it?” I look up, searching his face for clues.
I like to think I’ve learned the small shifts in his expression that tell me what he’s thinking—but maybe he’s just lowering his defenses around me, letting me see what he feels. Even when he’s angry or sad, or shaken by a nightmare—something he wouldn’t have allowed himself before.
He trusts more. Slowly, in degrees, he’s letting himself believe his life won’t crash and burn come tomorrow. That this isn’t a joke. That he has a chance at happiness.
He’s back to training at the tattoo shop. Zane is really pleased with his work and wants him taking it up full time soon. Meanwhile, he got a job at a gym. In fact, Cassie’s the one who got him the job. Maybe one day the guys will become friends with her again.
And I have a surprise for him: I’ve asked at the Herpetology Club at the university if they’d accept a member from outside, and they said yes. I hope he likes the idea.
“How about I go make us some coffee?” I ask.
Seth doesn’t move. He’s looking at me under lowered lashes, and I frown. What I see in his gaze is fear.
“What is it?” I lift one hand and rub slow circles over the hard muscles of his chest. “Seth.”
He often dreams of the solitary confinement room where he was locked up sometimes, or the guard who beat him up. Can’t stand to see him lost in pain.
“Nothing,” he whispers. He smiles, the fear slowly fading from his gaze. “It’s nothing. Can’t even recall what the dream was about.”
I rub my cheek on the soft flannel of his T-shirt. “Maybe it’s stress, because you’re meeting your mom tomorrow.”
“Maybe.” He shivers, and I manage to scoot just a little bit closer. “Don’t know what the fuck to feel about that.”
Because she confessed, and maybe one day his record may be cleared. But how do you clear your head from all those memories of pain, or from the fact that it was your own mom who left you to suffer and vanished from your life?
Yeah. He may forgive her someday, I don’t know. It’s his mom. But as for myself, I don’t know if I can ever forgive her for putting him through this.
“I’ll be there with you,” I remind him gently. “You’re not alone in this, Seth.”
He sighs, kisses the top of my head. “You shouldn’t have done that.”
“Done what?”
“Been so nice. Now you’re stuck with me.”
“Good,” I murmur. “You’re mine. Not letting you go.”
I love the smile that lights up his face. I’ll convince him I’m staying, that this is for real, and that he deserves all the happiness in the world.
***
“Looks like another gray day.” I peek out of the kitchen window, clutching my steaming mug in my hands. “Let’s hope it won’t rain.”
I’m driving us to Indiana, to visit Seth’s mom in jail. Rain on the highway isn’t one of my favorite things in life, although for Seth, I’d do anything.
It’s because he looks so delicious, sitting in my kitchen only in his sweats, that muscular chest bare, I tell myself. Even the black sling looks badass on him, the tattoos on his arm peeking over the cloth, swirling on his pecs and shoulders.
But it’s not just that. I love his mind, his big heart that lets him listen to my petty complaints and rants and think they are important, even if his own problems are that much worse. His lack of selfishness and arrogance.
Still, that body… Holy crap.
He looks up from doctoring his coffee with milk and sugar and grins at me. “If it rains, we could take up our lessons in your car again.”
