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“Can I not be a fair maiden?” She offered him a tiny smile, his cue to grasp her hand and pull her forward.
“Come on, badass…let’s go. Put this over your head, and let’s get the hell out of the Cock and Puss. That name should have been a hint to you…” He let out a low chuckle, handing her the jacket.
“Jake, I can’t,” she said, looking down at her boots.
“Shhh…put your arm around my neck.”
She slid her arm around his neck as he hoisted her up in his arms, cradling her. “Put the jacket over your head.” Turning, he called out, “Lana, open the door and lead us out the back.”
There was no fight left in her. Cradling her head against his shoulder, holding his leather coat over her head, she let the world go black as he carried her down the hallway into the parking lot. She heard Levi and Lana’s hushed, concerned conversation behind them. Her brain couldn’t assemble it. She was almost limp as Jake put her in his truck, buckling the seatbelt.
They sat in silence throughout the drive to her penthouse. “The code?” he asked as he eased her down in front of her door. Then they were inside, Rakell sitting on the couch as he knelt in front of her, unzipping her boots and gently yanking them off.
Her eyes were distant, looking past him to the windows. Her body was limp as he pulled her boots off. He went to the kitchen and returned with a glass of water. Rakell’s phone kept ringing. She heard it, yet she couldn’t muster the energy it would take to answer it.
“Sweets, your phone,” he said, reaching for it.
“I can’t,” she whispered, her eyes looking past him.
Picking up the phone, he saw that Matt had called several times. When it rang again, Jake hit accept. “Matt, Jake Skyler here,” he said evenly.
“Huh, Jake, where is she?” Matt’s low, commanding voice asked pointedly.
“We’re at her place. She’s…” Jake walked toward the front of the apartment. “She’s rattled, I got her…” He suddenly felt the urge to prove to Matt who he was… “She had locked herself in the bathroom for a bit…Well, I got her out of the bar. Levi called me, he said you were driving from Houston, but he was worried.”
“Is she talking?”
“Not really.”
Matt sighed, and Jake felt everything contained in that release through the phone. “I’m only forty-five minutes outside of Austin. I’ll be there soon.”
“Well, I’m here, sooo…” he asserted, his voice a tad stronger than he had intended.
“Jake, she needs to be with family right now.”
Jake clenched his jaw, biting back his response,You aren’t her family… “I may not be family, but…” He laid out his next words. “I care… I care a lot, and I will…”
“Jake, I appreciate everything you’ve done tonight. I just need you to stay until I get there…can you do that?”
Matt’s tone reminded Jake of his father. Coming from Matt right now, it felt irritating as fuck, but he shut down his knee-jerk reaction. “Matt, of course, I would never leave…clearly you don’t know me,” he added tartly.
“Fair enough, Jake. Please excuse my forwardness, but I am solely focused on Rakell. Is she having a panic attack?”
“I think so.” He shook his head, the thought hitting him that Matt and he had the same goal. “She’s breathing hard and staring into space,” Jake said, stepping toward the living room so he could see her. She was sitting with her knees to her chest, chin resting on them, her eyes vapid, tears streaming down her cheeks again. “Matt, she’s not pulling out of this.”
“Jake, she has a prescription for anxiety. She hasn’t needed it in a long time, but since the Jumbotron, she said she’s had a few incidents where she had to take it.” Matt left out that the Jumbotron incident had prompted a few calls with her mother, which always seemed to incite a spiral of emotions in Rakell. “It’s probably on the bathroom counter. Get one, run a hot bath, and put the lavender bath salts in it. There’s some chamomile tea in the cabinet on the left side of the refrigerator. Only give her the pill after she’s done with the bath and hang out close to the door so if she needs you…”
Staving off the impulse to spit out,Jesus, I got this, instead, he said, “Thank you, Matt. I will take care of her until you get here.” It was so un-Jake-like to hand over the reins, but clearly, this guy knew her well and, more importantly, he deeply cared about her. And the truth was that Jake knew he didn’t hold a title in her life. That thought worked its way from the back of his brain to the front as he walked into the kitchen to make the tea.I don’t hold a title in her life.
He set the tea down on the end table closest to her. “Rae-kale, I’m going to turn on the bath…”
Her head flew up from where it was resting on her knees. “I should have told you earlier; I should have trusted you…we should talk…” she rattled off.
“Shhh…we will. Let’s just take this one step at a time.”
“Jake, thank you. I, I…I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to…” She gulped again, losing her next words in another sob.
“Hey, hey.” His inkling was to sit beside her, wrap his arms around her, tell her it would be okay, but her body language did not invite him closer. “When you’re ready, I’m running a bath…Matt’s on his way.”
