Page 34 of The Spice Play

The three little dots popped up, showing me she was typing, and then quickly disappeared.

Me:Nelly?

Nelly:Can you come downstairs?

That… was odd. Not only had she never come into the house this late before, she hadn’t actively sought me out in over a week, and even then, it wasn’t like this between us.

Me:Come up here. My knee is killing me and the stairs make it worse.

Nelly:Are you sure?

Me:My room isn’t off-limits, Nell.

Not a moment later, light footsteps padded across the hall, coming to a stop outside my door. I could feel her hesitation, could tell she wasn’t sure what to do — she waited for what felt like forever there, the shadow of her feet obvious beneath the door. I pausedSurvivor.

Me:It’s not locked, you know.

Me:Just open it.

The handle turned, and I watched with bated breath as her form appeared in the open doorway.

Fuck.

Red, puffy eyes looked directly at me, her two braids on either side of her face a mess, her oversized shirt hanging limply around her full figure. I was more than used to an upset five-year-old bursting into my room in the middle of the night, but there was something unnerving about a twenty-five-year-old who had clearly been crying, doing the same thing.

“Fuck. What’s wrong?” I asked, pushing myself a little more upright and wincing from the pain in my knee.

She shut the door behind her but stayed beside it, one hand wrapping around her upper arm. “I’m sorry.” She sniffled, and I moved, shoving the ice pack off my knee and swinging my legs over the side of the bed. It didn’t matter that I was in my boxers and a shirt — something was clearly wrong if she’d gone this far.

“Nelly,” I said, limping around the edge of the bed. She held up a single hand, and I stopped, not wanting to push her on whatever this was.

“I’m sorry, I just…” She released her arm and wiped beneath her eyes with her thumbs, the red around them spreading to her cheeks and deepening her light brown skin. “I feel awful about what happened at the rink earlier. I shouldn’t have come. It just made extra trouble for you.”

I blinked at her, her words causing an overwhelming, sudden confusion. She felt bad about it because of what it meant forme? “Christ, Nell, don’t fucking apologize for that,” I mumbled, taking one hobbled step toward her.

“Maybe Dani should take him from now?—”

“Stop,” I insisted. “The only person who should have any consequence or limitations put on them for that is Bryan. Not you.”

She tucked her lower lip between her teeth as she looked up at me, the silence falling for just a few seconds. “It wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t come,” she said softly.

“That doesn’t matter. I wanted you there. Both of you.” I extended a hand toward her, offering it, hoping she’d take it. “Come here. Sit down.”

“On yourbed?”

I rolled my eyes at her and waggled my fingers. “Yes, on my bed.”

Hesitantly, she reached out her hand, wrapping her fingers around my palm. I pulled her gently toward the bed, my knee screaming at me as I turned and watched her sink down onto the mattress.

Get her to lay back.

I banished the thought as I stood in front of her, leaning on the pole of the four-poster bed to take some weight off my knee. “Bryan is a piece of shit, and I’m sorry he said what he said to you. But it is not your fault, and I need you to understand that, both for your mental well-being and because I’ll need you at the rink more and more fairly soon. Okay?”

Her throat worked on a swallow as she looked up at me. The confidence I’d seen in her when it came to Matty seemed to waver in front of me, and I wished I could read her mind, wished I could see exactly what was happening in there and piece it together like a puzzle.

“Nelly.”

“Okay,” she whispered.

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