Page 36 of Tell Me Something True

Lowering her arms, she turned him again and he ducked his head under the spray, rinsing his hair. She opened the shower curtain and stepped out, shutting it behind her. He stayed under the warm spray, his head pressed against the slick wall, eyes closed until he heard the curtain being opened again.

He opened his eyes as Tabitha reached in and shut off the water. She had one of his dark blue bath towels wrapped around her, the edges tucked in at her breasts, her shoulders and arms wet.

She held out her hand and he took it, stepping onto the thick bath mat. Then he stood there, still and silent, while she opened another towel and rubbed it gently over his hair before swiping it across his shoulders. She dried him off briskly, hung the towel on the hook on the back of the door, then took his hand and led him into his bedroom. Helped him get into bed, tugging the covers over his naked body, tucking him in like he was a child.

“Is there someone I can call?” she asked from the side of the bed. “So you don’t have to be alone?”

He should tell her he didn’t need anyone to take care of him—despite all the evidence pointing to the contrary.

He should claim that this had never happened before.

He should thank her for taking care of him.

Then he should send her on her way.

But for once, he wasn’t about to do what he should.

What was safe.

For once, he was going to do what he wanted.

He reached out and lightly grabbed her hand. “Stay. Please.”

Chapter 7

Tabitha stepped onto Miles’s porch, her shoes in her hand. Breath held, she carefully shut the front door behind her. Gave herself a moment to let out a tiny sigh of relief before crossing the porch. At the top of the stairs, she shot a quick, guilty glance back at the house.

Shoulders hunched, head ducked, she scurried down the steps and onto the sidewalk, the concrete cool and damp under her bare feet. She wasn’t proud of sneaking out of Miles’s bed without waking him.

But she couldn’t stay.

Last night he’d done exactly what he’d said he would do. He’d dismantled her. First with his words, then with his touch. He’d taken her apart, but he hadn’t broken her. Hadn’t destroyed her.

Until she’d found him in the middle of an anxiety attack.

He’d wrecked her with the fear in his eyes and the way he’d trusted her to take care of him. And when he’d taken a hold of her wrist and asked her to stay, she hadn’t been able to refuse him.

He’d needed her.

That was even better than him wanting her.

They’d laid on their backs on his bed side-by-side, his fingers wrapped lightly around her wrist as they’d both drifted off sleep.

But when she woke up, she was gripped in an all-too familiar terror. Even when she realized who the man sleeping soundly beside her was, that she was safe with him, the sudden onslaught of memories had left her reeling. Shaken.

Desperate to flee.

“Good morning.”

The sudden, unexpected greeting was cheerful. The voice bright. Feminine.

Tabitha jerked to a stop. Squeezed her eyes and, despite not believing in hopes, dreams, or prayers, sent a combination of them into the word with a murmured, “Please let them be passing by.”

She opened her eyes and saw a young woman pushing a bike up the sidewalk.

A tall, beautiful young woman wearing a sweatshirt, cutoffs and flip-flops, her auburn hair pulled back into a long ponytail, her face clean of makeup.

Tabitha laid a hand over her churning stomach. Her mind spun. She needed to think. The worst thing she could do was jump to conclusions. There were plenty of reasons why this girl was here, at Miles’s house, alone. Reasons that were reasonable.

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