Page 14 of Damaged

I completely forgot about Dalton and closed my eyes as I tried to reach for an obscure image in my brain.

Impossibly green, lush, cool grass.

Laughter.

Hands touching that grass as the owner of them did one cartwheel after another.

“Hey,” I heard someone saying. It sounded far away.

“Silver,” the voice said firmly. The name sounded all wrong and didn’t match up to the memory I was still trying to cling to. But just like that, it was gone. All of it. The grass, the laughter.

“Hey, you okay?” I heard Dalton ask as he pulled me out of the doorway to the restaurant. I wanted to curse him and thank him at the same time for pulling me from the memory or dream or whatever the hell it had been. I’d probably seen it on TV or something.

I nodded with all the strength I could manage but didn’t say anything. Dalton’s fingers were gently wrapped around my elbow, but I ignored the little zaps of energy that popped beneath my skin.

There was a long beat of silence before Dalton said, “How about we go in and check out their menu and if you don’t like it, we can leave?”

I nodded again because I didn’t know what else to do. Between Dalton confronting the jerk who’d called me that word and the knowledge that he had done it for me, I was worn out mentally, physically, and emotionally.

I was done.

Just… done.

Chapter 5

DALTON

Silver didn’t say a word when we sat down in the booth of the busy little restaurant. He seemed to be in some kind of trancelike state.

I waited until the hostess handed me both menus and walked off before I softly said, “Silver?”

I had to repeat his name two more times to get his attention and snap him out of the weird silence he’d been lost in. When his eyes met mine and awareness returned to him, he snatched away the hand I’d put mine on and cradled it against his chest as if I’d physically hurt him.

His reaction stung but I did what I always did. I allowed a mask of indifference to slip over my face and placed one of the menus in front of him before flipping through mine.

It didn’t take me long to make my selections, so I put the menu down and reached for the glass of water the hostess had left on the table. I took a long drink before discreetly reaching into my pocket for the bottle of painkillers. I did my best to ensure what I was doing went unnoticed as much as possible. I drank enough water to swallow the two pills down. When I put the glass down, I noticed Silver watching me intently.

There was no way he could have missed what I’d been doing.

He opened his mouth to speak, but the question that came out wasn’t the one I’d been expecting.

“What did you say to him?” he quietly asked.

“Who?”

“The man outside. The one with the red car.”

“I just told him to be a little more careful to watch where he was going,” I murmured as I fiddled with my menu.

“Oh,” Silver responded, sounding a little dejected.

I casually reached for the little plastic sign that showed pictures of some of the desserts available.

“And I told him that he was lucky we were in public because if we weren’t, I would have ripped off a certain part of his body for calling you that word and that maybe he should rethink doing something like that in the future because he might not be as fortunate to have witnesses around.”

“Oh,” Silver repeated, this time his voice carrying the notes of surprise and confusion I was looking for. I wasn’t sure why it mattered that he knew I’d basically threatened the asshole who’d nearly hit him with his car and called him a bitch, but there was no denying that I did care.

I still didn’t know what had possessed me to approach the stranger in the first place. Probably because I’d needed someone to take some of my internal anger out on. Or worse, I’d done it because I’d refused to allow anyone to cause Silver any more hurt than he was already feeling.

---