Page 32 of Princess of Thieves

I close my mouth. He has a point.

“You should be sleeping,” he says after a beat.

“I know,” I say. He’s right. I take another sip of water and look at the bed. It’s big and soft and a lot of things that the floor isn’t.

I take a step toward it, then pause. I pivot, look at LJ, and hold out a hand. “Come with me,” I say, my voice trembling.

LJ just stares at me, and for a moment, I wonder if I’ve crossed a line, said something inappropriate.

“With you?” he asks.

I nod. “Just to sleep,” I say haltingly. “I can’t let you sleep on the floor of your own apartment, and I know you won’t let me sleep on the floor either.”

“You’re goddamn right,” LJ says. He lets out a long, considered sigh and stares at his hands. He gives his head a little shake as he stands up. He doesn’t say anything more but walks to the bed alongside me.

We get in wordlessly—me back where I was on the left side, and him on the right, on top of the covers. I scoot down and put my head on the pillow, but LJ doesn’t. Instead, he sits with his legs stretched out in front of him, crossed at the ankles, and his back against the wall that serves as his headboard. For a moment, we stay like that—me on my back with my hands on my chest, staring at the ceiling, and him looking straight ahead.

“Thank you,” I say at last.

“For what?”

“For bringing me here and getting me out of there,” I reply. “I don’t think I would have left that alley if you hadn’t shown up. I wasn’t going to go with the rest of them.”

LJ snorts. “I’d fucking hope not.”

“But I didn’t have anywhere else to go,” I rush on, “and you probably knew that, so...” I bite my lip. “Thanks for being insistent, I guess.”

Even though I can’t see him, I feel like I can hear him smiling. “Sometimes a princess just needs to be told what’s best for her,” he says. “Even one as smart as you are.”

I don’t know what it is about that sentence that sets me off. The pet name, the hint of humor, the sly compliment to my intelligence. But whatever it is, it tips the scales, and I feel a tear trickle down my cheek.

“You were always watching out for me,” I say, my throat feeling thick. “Even when I didn’t know it. Even when I was kind of a bitch to you and—”

“Don’t,” LJ says. “You don’t need to rehash the whole thing.”

“But I do,” I say. “I don’t think I ever would have gotten the chance to say thank you otherwise. Not if I’d made it out of there.”

I pause, gathering my thoughts. “I probably would have just moved on without a second thought, shoved everything into the black hole of trauma in my past, you know?”

I hear LJ nod against the pillow. “I wouldn’t have,” he says softly.

I smear away the tear, leaving a salty streak on my skin. “What?” I ask.

“I wouldn’t have moved on.”

The words send a plume of emotion too deep and real to comprehend down my chest and into my gut.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean I missed you, Maren,” he says. “I knew you had to go. I was glad you got out of here, but I missed having you around. Seeing you, hearing you rattle around in the garage down there, listening to the shit you’d say and how fucking funny you could be without even realizing it. And then...”

He pauses.

“I missed you badly, Maren,” he says, his voice almost cracking. “I guess all of us did, but fuck the other guys. To be honest, I was worried, and they were worried, but it was different. I could barely fucking sleep, not knowing whether you were safe or not, and I couldn’t look any of those bastards in the eye. None of them realized how good they had it with you. None of them realized how goddamn lucky they were to get to...”

He trails off, and I feel his weight shift subtly on the mattress.

I roll to my side, my heart stuttering in my chest. I look at him, though I can barely see his face through the dimness.

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