Page 12 of Dark As Coal

I learned to never touch the back of Coal’s neck.

There was only one time I was truly afraid of Coal.

He had pinned me to the bed, wrapped his hands around my throat, and growled in my face, showing the side of himself the whole world sees, but one I’ve never seen before.

And there, in my face, he had snarled out, “You ever touch the back of my neck again, I’ll snap your pretty fucking neck.”

I looked back at Asher and asked, “Get everyone out of here?”

He looked at Coal, then back at me, “If you were anyone else, I’d tell you to fuck off and get to safety.”

I smiled, and then once he had everyone out of there, I walked over to Coal.

Slowly.

The moment I made it to reaching distance, I stopped.

And waited.

And waited.

And waited.

However, the darkness in his eyes didn’t lighten at the sight of me like it usually did.

I wanted to see those mesmerizing, steel-colored gray eyes.

Therefore, I pulled my teacher’s voice out of my hat and tried something different.

Softly I whispered, “I before e except after c and e before n in chicken.”

When that didn’t resonate with him, I smiled, and then in the same tone I had used I said, “When b, e, and c, come racing after u, s, and e, always look for a between c and u because a is shaped like the biggest man bear and it will always protect the smallest ones.”

Nothing changed, nothing.

Until I watched moments later, the tenseness in his shoulders started to soften.

And at the sound of that rough, dark, damaged voice, I heard one word, “Soulshine.”

I closed my eyes, wanting to let the sound of his voice calling me that name wash through me.

My eyes opened slowly when I felt my body being pulled into his hard one, and as my face pressed into his chest, I asked, “What do you need?”

Against my hair, his raspy voice said two words, just two, “Your touch.”

I used to wonder why he craved my touch so much, but after I spent that first night beside him in bed, I never wondered why again.

We didn’t speak about that night.

Not about the nightmare he had woken up from.

Not about the location of his hand around my throat when he came to.

Nor about the slaps to his face, I had given him, trying to wake him up and loosen his hold.

Not about the tears he shed into my oversized t-shirt.

And definitely not about the way he had said he was sorry to a little boy.

---