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“Just to sleep,” Johnny added, voice strained. “Okay?”

“Okay.”

“Okay.” Nodding to himself, he reached a hand behind his head and pulled both his hoodie and T-shirt off.

I was glad of the darkness in this moment because I knew my cheeks were glowing bright red at the sight of him. He was so beautiful it hurt to look.

All finely carved muscles and toned flesh…

“I’m not getting any ideas, I promise,” he told me as he pushed his sweatpants down and stepped out of them, leaving him standing in a pair of fitted boxers that were pitched at the front. “I just can’t sleep in my clothes or I’ll turn into a furnace.”

“O-okay.” He wasn’t going to get any complaints from me. “I understand.”

Riveted to the spot, I watched as he grabbed both his phone and the blanket and then climbed awkwardly onto the couch, wincing with every stiff movement until he was lying on his side against the back of the couch with the blanket covering up to his waist.

“You coming?” he asked, holding the blanket with one hand and patting the space in front of him with the other.

Gingerly, I lowered myself down to lie with my back to him.

Johnny switched off the torch on his phone and tossed it on the floor before draping the blanket around our bodies. “Relax,” he whispered, pulling me closer with the hand he had tucked under me. “We’re just sleeping.” He wrapped his other arm around me then, enveloping me in the tightest cocoon. “You’re safe.” I felt his lips brush against the back of my head and a shiver rolled through my body. “I promise.”

I curled both of my hands around his forearm and just held on to him, absorbing the feel of his body aligned with mine. The strength of him, his smell, his touch, the sound of his breathing… I devoured every second of this moment and locked it away in a treasure time capsule in the back of my mind, keeping it safe with all the others and praying I would have more to add to it. “Don’t let go, okay?”

“I won’t,” he promised, tightening his hold on me.

I knew I was going to be in trouble tomorrow. When I got home, it would be to stony-faced expressions and heated lectures, but tonight I couldn’t find it in my heart to care.

Johnny trailed his hand over my side, back and forth, over and over, his touch featherlight. “How did it feel?” he asked, lips brushing against my earlobe as he spoke. His fingers lingered on my side. “That day?”

I knew exactly what he was referring to: that day in the kitchen. “Um…” I closed my eyes and thought long and hard before I responded. “It felt…unfair.”

“Unfair?”

I gave a small nod and tightened my hold on him. “Because I thought it was over and I wasn’t ready for it to be.”

“It?”

“My life.”

He sucked in a sharp breath. “It’s not over, Shannon.”

“No.” I clenched my eyes shut and battled down a surge of sadness, knowing in my heart that we were thinking two opposite things. “It’s not.”

“I’m sorry this happened to you,” he whispered. “I know that doesn’t mean shit, and it’s probably the worst thing I could say to a person in your situation, but I am.” He buried his face in my neck and whispered, “I am so fucking sorry that you were given those people as parents.”

A traitorous tear slipped down my cheek, followed by another and then another after that. “I thought about you when it was happening,” I confessed, biting down on my lip so hard I felt the familiar metallic taste in my mouth.

“Me?”

Nodding, I wiped my tearstained cheek against his forearm. “I knew what was happening to me, I knew I couldn’t stop it, so I just thought up my happiest memory and clung to it.”

“What was it?”

“You and me,” I whispered, shivering. “Those things you said to me at the hospital. All those other times, too. I conjured you up in my mind and I concentrated on your face. I imagined your voice in my head and just kept you there—in my mind. Talking to me. Keeping me calm. Making me feel”—my breath hitched and I had to take a steadying breath before finishing—“safe.”

“Jesus, Shannon,” he choked out, gripping me even tighter. “You’ll never know how badly I wish I had been there.”

Silence fell around us then, but it wasn’t strained or tense.

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