Page 123 of Jaded

I’ve been acting on instinct since I entered this room, like some other magnetic force pulls me, guides my actions and words. So I don’t think. I stand, walk to the bottom of the bed, and climb on top. He doesn’t move as I slink softly up. Doesn’t protest as I pull back the covers and slide in behind him.

“You don’t need to be strong.” I wrap my arm around his bare torso and pull him against me. “I’m here. You don’t have to be anything right now. Let me be strong for you.”

“I’ll be okay.” He softens against me, his words a murmur. “It won’t . . . it won’t last. I just . . . can’t fight the sadness today.”

“That’s okay. You don’t have to.” I pull him closer, so our bodies meld together. So his bare back presses to my chest and his curls whisper against my cheek. So his backside, covered only by boxers, nestles against my groin and our legs tangle and it’s at once the most intimate thing I’ve ever experienced and the least sensual.

Maybe that’s why I whisper the words. “Never stop haunting me, Olli James.”

When his body trembles against mine, I realize he’s crying. So softly I can’t hear it, so softly it’s just the shake of his shoulders that lets me know anything’s changed. But he’s crying, he’s breaking, shattering, and there’s nothing I can do for him. Nothing I can do to hold back the dark.

I start humming, giving him a buffer of sound so he doesn’t have to choke back on the tears, so he can come apart entirely and maybe then we can put him back together. And when I arrive at the chorus, I sing, low and soft and sweet, a song just for him, for us.

His song.

Our song.

I didn’t want the world to see my true colors

The true darkness of my soul

But here I am, enveloped in Olli’s darkness, holding him like I’m holding him together, holding us together.

He comes apart in my arms as I sing. Crying, the sound ripping ragged from his throat, his body juddering against mine, and I keep singing, keep holding him, holding us, together in the dark.

I don’t know who falls asleep first.

Chapter 30

Nat

IwakewithOlliJames in my arms.

I don’t know what time it is; the room’s dark, save for a thin band of light leaking around the curtains, but a quick glance at my watch tells me it’s early afternoon. Syd’ll still be in school, Jerry covering for me at work. Good.

I don’t want to move. I just want to lie here, breathing in the soft, slightly flowery smell of the shampoo lingering in his curls, feeling the warmth and softness of his skin against my hand, my cheek. Tracking the soft rise and fall of his breath beneath my arm.

Peace.

This is peace.

It’s warmth and softness and comfort. It’s where I’m meant to be and I don’t want to move, don’t want to shatter this perfect, beautiful moment of him and me, us, enveloped in darkness and blankets.

But like he senses my wakefulness, he stirs, and his head tilts down to study the—admittedly very identifiable—hand wrapped around him. He traces my hand up to my rumpled sleeve. And he groans. “Well, this isn’t how I expected to wake up with you.”

I almost choke on my surprise. And relief. Because it’s his voice, Olli’s voice, the voice of my little ghost. My own voice shakes when I find it. “Well, it’s not how I imagined waking up in your bed.”

“Oh? You’ve imagined it?” He tips his head up towards me so I catch the corner of his brown eye. Sparkling, but subdued. “Tell me more?”

“Did you imagine it?” I bite down on my smile, study him. On the surface, he seems likeOlli, but his voice is still quiet, strained, his eyes lined, darkened with exhaustion.

Still he plays at normalcy.

“Imagine it? Only like four bajillion times.” He huffs a sigh, and his eyes focus on the ceiling. “There was definitely not a sweatshirt in any of them. Even the weird ones.”

I laugh, a fluttering sound of surprise and relief and lingering concern, maybe fear. An odd twist of softness and sharp angles, ease and anxiety. “Olli . . . are you . . . okay?”

“I will be,” he says, smile fading, so he looks truly tired. Bone-deep tired. “I bounce back pretty quick. My therapist says it’s not normal, but I’ve always been like this. Kinda . . . roller-coastery. All speed or no speed, you know?”

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