Page 202 of Bona Fide

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“Move over.”It’s a whisper, so faint and snug, brushing along my ear as I shift under a soft surface. It doesn’t wait for me to respond but moves my legs before a body eases its way between me and whatever my back is resting on.

Cracking my eyes open, it’s dark, streams of moonlight illuminating a small crack through the curtains of the family room of Camp David.

My body begins to shoot up but a large hand lands on my stomach, gently laying me back down on the couch that I know I fell asleep on.

“Go back to sleep.” My head jerks to the voice, I’m beyond familiar with it. Dreamed about it for the past year and still madly in love with how deep it sounds. His body sandwiches between the back of the couch and me, pulling me into his chest and positioning his head above mine.

And doesn’t say another word.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were on your way?” He wraps his arm tighter around my middle and forces me to lie back down with him.

“My number is blocked, remember?”

Shit, right.

“I forgot.” His fingers splay over my belly button and over the waistband of my shorts, letting the tips dip underneath the fabric.

He doesn’t respond, but I hear his deep inhale in my hair and feel the way his body relaxes along with mine.

“Go back to sleep.”

“Can I ask you how you are?” My tone and body are weak—fragile for him because I wish I could lighten his load somehow. And vulnerable because his body is making mine come to life with how close he is to me.

It won’t stop buzzing and humming at being pressed up against him like old times. His scent surrounding me in a comfortable aura of peace in our reality that is violent and cruel.

“No,” he deadpans, then after a few seconds, says, “I’m fine, Sox.”

My body breaks into a faithless sob. It slips by so quickly from the depths of somewhere that I don’t have time to stop it.

Sox, how fucking stupid of a nickname and how simple those times made me feel. He was the hidden and counterfeit thing I needed to make days go by. To not worry about Mama’s cancer coming back or Marty arriving home safely.

He was everything—lie or not—Yank was my getaway.

He was my fucking safe place.

Wade’s hand reaches over to cup my cheek, pulling my face to his. “Why are you crying?”

“I...I—fucking hate you and this,” I choke out. “I don’t want this.” His thumb brushes away the trail of one of my tears.

“I know.”

“You’re not okay. You are broken and battered, and I’m some of the reasons why. I know I am.”

“You are. But it doesn’t change anything.”

“It changes everything,” I whisper-snap. “I want you to hate me. You have to. I don’t want you to care for me anymore. You’re holding on, tell me to fuck off and let me go. I want you to be a normal man with pricked pride and think that I’m some evil-ass bitch who did some petty-ass...I destroyed you. On purpose.”

My words are for the both of us. We both need them repeated over and over again like a child because we don’t want to listen to what we can’t have.

“And I lied to you,” he counters. “On purpose.”

I shake my head. “It’s not the same.”

“It isthe same. Your involvement with me triggered too much. You wouldn’t be where you are if it wasn’t for me, Shelton. It made you pull an evil, dark side of you out and—”

“Stop. Stop defending me.”

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