Page 55 of Four Times Saved

"Well, I had to do something when I couldn't sleep. Like asking the Women's Shelter if they had any recommendations, contacting the real estate agent about that house on the private island I told you about, sourcing therapists for Lily..." I listed.

"Hold on, you picked out Lily's therapist for her too?" He interrupted me, gulping down his coffee.

With the judgment across his face, I reddened. "Am I overstepping? I just want everything to be taken care of for her."

"Yeah." He cleared his throat and straightened up. "But let's try not to overwhelm her. What's up with you, huh?"

At the thought that I could be overwhelming her when all I wanted to do was the opposite and alleviate all her worries, my chest constricted and my breath was strangled within me. "What do you mean?"

"Ethan..." He narrowed his eyes with a slight tilt of his lips. "You're spazzing out. I think you're even shaking, man."

He brought my attention to the buzz beneath my skin I wasn't aware of before. My mind had been so preoccupied with everything else that I was no longer a part of my body. And as he said that, forcing me to become aware of my body, the trembling took me over and I shattered, surprised by my outburst of tears.

"Hey, bro!" Matt jumped up from where he was sitting across the room and pulled me into a hug. "It's okay. It's okay. I feel it too. Scared. Guilty." He hit the nail on the head.

Forcing the tears back into my body was a feat as I pulled back out of his arms and dashed my hand across my face. "If we hadn't left her alone..." I cleared my throat, not wanting to add to his own burden. "If I hadn't..." My words failed me. "I don't know why I'm making this about me. She's the one who had to live through it." I sniffed, clenching my fists and gritting my teeth. "Because I left."

Matt tightened and at his silence, I raised my head to find his eyes red and his face damp with his own tears. "Look, we can't dwell on us leaving. It was stupid, yeah, when we saw how just a few weeks before, her father had strolled into the house like he owned it. But we changed the locks, we waited, we had security cameras, how were we to know that he'd come back?"

"We should've known." I cleared my throat with the anger still ever present at the thought of her fucking father.

Tight-shouldered, tight-lipped and swallowing a breath, Matt hissed. "Yeah, maybe we fucked up. We should've been able to leave her after a few weeks in her house, trusting that she'd be okay. She should've been able to have her safety without her psycho father threatening her life, in an ideal situation. But we should've known better than to leave her alone."

He stalked away from me.

"Anyway, we can't dwell on what we should've done. She's back now. She's safe." He took a breath, letting that truth comfort him. "And she's shaken. Yes, she'll need therapy. But she'll find her therapist on her own time."

"Yeah." My lungs burned through my back. "I just want to do something right. But I'm making this about me again."

Matt exhaled, throwing a hand in the air and falling back into the sofa. "No, look. I've been reading up on trauma and how it affects people. Yes, she's the one whose life was in danger and she needs all the support she can get right now. But we also experienced our own trauma at the thought of losing her. We all probably have that sense of..."

"Things being unresolved?" I suggested.

"Yeah." He nodded. "Like it's not over yet. As if there's something more we could've done. Still. I don't know. I think we could use some therapy too, man. Matter of fact, let me see that list of yours." He stuck his hand out for my phone.

Turning my screen back on, I was met with the picture of the private island again. "So does that mean I should give up on this fantasy, then?" I handed the phone to him.

"Well, she did say she was open to something more permanent with us," he said. "And this is nice."

"So, you're still up for chipping in to help me buy this?" I asked.

"As if you need my help." He scoffed. "But hell yeah, I want to feel useful too. It's far away from Durham though, you think she'll go for it?"

"Go for what?" Lily's voice joined us in the living room and my heart jumped in reaction.

Turning around, I found her swinging her sexy narrow hips over toward us in a change of pajamas. "You weren't wearing that when you went to bed last night." I smiled, putting away my worries for now. I had more important things to focus on, like how tempting her legs looked, how bright her eyes were and how wide that smile was on her face, like gold shooting off the sun.

"Well, I had quite the eventful morning." She tipped on her toes when she reached me, wrapping her arms around my waist and moving in for a kiss.

"Is that so?" Matt asked, rising up from the chair.

She grinned, turning to him too.

"Yeah." She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him. "I missed you both. Don't tell me you're tired of me already."

She reached around and pulled my hand toward her, wrapping it around her midsection, so that I was resting up against her ass. I grinned at her suggestiveness as she pulled Matt in by his shirt. I dropped a kiss on her neck and she shivered. Matt kissed her lips.

"Never, babe." I hardened against her. "But we were discussing plans for the future."

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