Page 45 of What's Left of Us

Picking her up, she stirs and settles into my chest as I walk around the couch and toward the bedroom. “Where…?”

“Shh. Go to sleep. You can have the bed.”

She stiffens as I lower her onto the mattress, her eyelids fluttering open to stare up at me. The second her gaze locks on mine, my heart clenches in my chest.

“I’ll take the couch,” I reassure her, ignoring the weird feeling taking over my ribcage. I get a good glimpse of her naked face, my eyes roaming over every dainty, feminine feature. From her full bottom lip to her long lashes that flutter as her eyelids close, I soak her in.

The woman lying here has been shaped by the choices made for her. And I can’t help but wonder if she’ll conform to them or figure out who she is without the people who’ve influenced her life.

But I want to help her figure it out.

Just as I’m closing the door behind me, I hear the quietest, “Linc?”

It stops me in my tracks.Linc.

I’ll be damned if the softly uttered word didn’t do some shit to my heart. “Yeah, Peaches?” My voice is raspy, so I clear it.

“Can you…?” She pauses, stirring. I can feel her eyes on me even though I can’t see them in the dark. “Can you lay with me for a while?”

She’s asking me to sleep in here with her?

As if she senses my hesitation, she whispers, “I think I’d sleep better.”

There’s only a moment of hesitation before I walk back into the bedroom and close the door behind me. I hate sleeping in pants, but I don’t dare remove my joggers. With her, layers probably aren’t a bad thing to mask how she makes me feel.

My fingers linger on the shirt I’m in. “I can’t sleep with a shirt on,” I tell her, tugging on the material.

“That’s okay.”

I pull it over my head and drape it on the floor beside me, crawling into bed. “Come here,” I coax, opening my arm for her to curl into.

She doesn’t hesitate, settling perfectly into the nook of my arm. I hear the softest inhale as she nestles into me, her body relaxing after only seconds.

I lean my cheek on top of her head and close my eyes, listening to the steady sound of her breathing before sleepiness greets me. Then I press my lips against the crown of her skull,hug her closer to me, and find myself thinking,I could get used to this.

*

Two weeks goby of grueling days being physically and mentally tested. Eight people leave the academy. They say a third of us will be gone before we even reach the halfway point.

When Friday comes around, I’m bone-deep exhausted. Stressed. Pushed to my limit. I don’t blame the people who decided that moving forward wasn’t worth it. It’s not an easy process, but that’s why they put us through it. State troopers need to be ready for anything—at their breaking point so they can learn how to control and move past it.

I’d like to think my time in the military prepared me for the bullshit I deal with five days a week, but that doesn’t mean I’m not glad to go home when Friday afternoon rolls around. In fact, being in the car driving almost two hours back to my apartment is the first time I can breathe easier.

Especially knowing that I have a warm body to fall asleep next to like I did the last two weekends. It’d been unexpected but welcome. I didn’t cross any boundaries, made sure to keep my morning wood far away from her when I woke up, and simply enjoyed being able to cuddle someone again.

When I pull up to the apartment, there’s an eagerness to my walk that wasn’t there earlier when I dragged my sorry, sore ass off the campus. Opening the door, I stop when I see the absolute mess covering the kitchen. There are dirty dishes everywhere, flour coating the counters, and an equal amount of flour caked to the girl standing in front of a tray of what looks like black hockey pucks.

Kicking the door closed, I drop my things on the couch and walk over to where Georgia holds out a plate to me with a timid smile.

“Hey, you,” I greet, stopping myself short from bending over and pressing a chaste kiss to her cheek.

Boundaries,I remind myself.

I pick up one of the cookies and take a bite, but my smile quickly fades. I gag from the strong salty, burnt taste and spit it out into my hand no matter how hard I try swallowing it. “Is that…?” I search the mess of ingredients on the counter and see the canister of salt. “Did you use salt instead of sugar in these, Peaches?”

Georgia frowns, examining the plate and then the counter where the line of ingredients is. “I don’t think so?” It sounds more like a question than an answer, so I nod with an amused grin and toss the cookie back onto the plate.

“I really appreciate what you tried to do,” I say honestly, fighting a smile. “But those are…I don’t know a nice way to put it. Those aren’t edible, sweetheart.”

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