Page 61 of The Inquirer

“Thank you for today,” she said as she leaned against me. “I mean it, Bradyn. You being here is important, but you taking care of me…” She turned her face into my arm, but I didn’t need to see her expression to know how hard it was for her to admit any of this. “I can’t tell you how long it’s been since anyone’s taken care of me.”

I had to restrain myself from doing something stupid, like telling her that I’d always take care of her if she let me. That we could take the dynamic that we’d touched on a couple times and move it from sex into real life. Not like a ‘call me master and walk behind me’ sort of thing, but more like her letting me take care of her whenever she needed it.

She was twenty-six, and she’d been on her own since that first night Art came into her room and drove a wedge between her and the rest of her family. That was fifteen years of never having anyone else to lean on, never being able to completely trust another person.

This wasn’t the time to try to scale the walls she’d build up.

I could, however, offer her this one thing. I leaned over and kissed the top of her head. “Whatever you need.”

I reached out with my free hand to open the door for us both, and we made our way to the elevator and then up to our room. The quiet between us was a pleasant one. Not sexually charged, but more like a level of comfortable that we hadn’t had before. Something that made me feel like, even though we hadn’t put a label on what we were to each other, we were really together, a couple.

The two of us chatted about the things we’d seen today, how good the food had been, what time our flight left tomorrow. What we didn’t talk about was sex. In fact, the thought barely crossed my mind, even as we got into the same bed.

I was a straight man, so of course, I noticed how cute she was in her shorts and teddy bear t-shirt, but when she curled her body to match mine, all I could think of was how good she felt in my arms. How right.

I wanted this every night, and the thought didn’t scare me as much as it should have.

Twenty-Six

Nyx

Falling asleep next to someone I hadn’t just fucked was strange, and waking up next to that same person was even weirder. Not bad weird, though. I liked it. I liked having Bradyn next to me, his body warm and comfortable. I liked the weight of his arm across my body and the steady thud of his heart under my ear.

I’d liked all of it so much that I was still thinking about it on the flight from Rochester to New York.

“Are you sure you’re okay with me staying at your place?” Bradyn asked as we walked through JFK. “I don’t have a problem getting a hotel room.”

“No, I want you to stay with me.” I glanced at him and added, “If you’re okay with it. I mean, I won’t be offended if you’d rather stay in a hotel.”

He laughed. “Nope. I’m looking forward to seeing where you live.”

I flushed, strangely pleased. I’d never considered bringing a guy into my home, but then again, I’d never had a relationship like this with anyone else. The only thing that worried me was knowing that he’d come from money.

My apartment wasn’t some rattrap or anything like that, but it was definitely not what he’d been used to most of his life. Sure, he lived in a cabin on a horse ranch now, but for all I knew, he thought of it more like a temporary vacation home. I was proud of my place, and if he didn’t like it…I wasn’t sure how well I’d take it.

But I wasn’t going to think about that. No assumptions. The same Bradyn who’d bailed me out of jail was the same one whose parents’ house was probably bigger than the entire floor my apartment was on. And he was the same man who’d allowed himself to be disinherited rather than compromise his principles.

Since we had luggage, we took a cab instead of the subway, but thanks to traffic, it wasn’t any quicker. I had to admit, though, that I was glad to not be packed into a subway car with my stuff. That would’ve been a pain in the ass.

“Here we are,” the driver said as he pulled over in front of my building.

I paid for the ride while Bradyn got the bags – a compromise we’d worked out on the way over – and then we went inside.

“This is my office.” I gestured for him to follow me. “And the stairs to my apartment are right back this way.”

When I went into the apartment, I flipped on the light and carried my bag back to my bedroom, hoping the short distance would help take care of the nerves I couldn’t quite get rid of.

He was looking at a couple pictures when I came back out, his bag on the floor next to the door. “How old are you in this one?”

I came over to his side and looked where he was pointing, even though I already knew which picture he was asking about. The connection that had drawn me to him in Georgia kept getting stronger, and I just wanted to be near him.

“I’m eighteen there.” I tried to see my younger self the way he would see me, not the way I saw myself.

Isis had taken this picture a couple days after I’d moved in with Kaimi and Rose. I was the same height back then as I was now, but not quite as curvy. I hadn’t been starved in juvie, but for a lot of reasons, I’d been a little underweight.

The t-shirt and jeans I’d been wearing were from a thrift store, and neither of them really fit me that well, which didn’t help how I looked. I’d kept my hair short while I’d been in juvie, both because it’d been easier to take care of and because it was one less thing another girl could grab in a fight. I didn’t really look younger though, I didn’t think. It was the eyes. They hadn’t been innocent for a long time.

“Is it a bad thing if I say you look younger now?” Bradyn glanced at me, his eyes twinkling.

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