Page 98 of Saving Sparrow
I pushed off the wall a little too quickly, hoping to evade any attack. A sharp pain shot up my side, nearly blinding me. I flung an arm out, using the same wall as leverage to keep myself from hitting the floor.
Sparrow backed away. “I…” He peered down at his hands. Had he been about to hit me? He spun away from me, bowing his head as though he were ashamed of himself.
I wanted to tell him he didn’t have to be, that I understood, that it wasn’t easy to go against what you’d been born to be. I didn’t tell him any of that, though. I allowed him to work through whatever he needed to on his own, knowing we were still miles away from him letting me console him. If he ever would.
“It’s Wednesday,” he whispered. “I’m going to clean downstairs today. The west end of the house.”
I looked around. The place was spotless. The house was old and in need of repairs, but other than the side of the house where the basement door was, he kept the place clean. He was clearly obsessive about cleanliness, so the fact that any part of the house went untouched spoke volumes about how triggering that area must have been for him.
“You gotta get the keys.”Joshua’s urgent words came back to me.
It didn’t escape me that he’d told me what day it was. Another apology, perhaps. The only kind he seemed capable of. I knew the timeandthe day now. Who would’ve known something so simple could mean the world to me? But it wasn’t simple, and I wouldn’t take the ability to track time for granted ever again.
Sparrow had given me something else, too, and I didn’t believe for one second it was accidental. He’d given me a peek into his system.
“What else do you do on Wednesdays?”
Sparrow glanced over his shoulder at me, gaze falling to the hand holding my ribcage. “If needed, I plow the snow in the front yard.”
“Maybe I can help,” I offered, noticing it had stopped snowing outside.
Sparrow gave me his full attention then. The complete weight of his stare, the breadth of his chest, the width of his shoulders, and the full measure of his height… It all rose and expanded. “Are you trying to manipulate me? Do you think I’m weak enough to fall for your tricks? That I’d let you escape?” He shook from the effort it took not to lash out at me.
I dropped my hand to my side, not wanting my injuries to be the reason he held himself in check. I wanted him not to hurt me because he cared, because he knew hurting me was wrong.
Sparrow loved Elliott, and whether he was ready to admit it or not, he knew Elliott loved me. I wasn’t stupid. It was that love—the one he had for Elliott, and the one Elliott had for me—that made Sparrow feel guilty. But until he let go of the fear that he’d somehow fail Elliott again, he’d always default to violence. Better safe than sorry.
“I’m not trying to trick you, Sparrow. And I think you know by now I’m not going anywhere.”
“You say that as if it’s up to you,” he challenged, his voice calm and steady.
“You let me walk around freely in here.” I opened my arms, gesturing to the kitchen and beyond.
“Within reason.” His words sounded like a reminder and a warning. “Letting you roam aroundinsideis completely different from letting you loose outside.”
“There’s more for me to discover in here,” I pointed out, making the bad decision to highlight that fact. I needed him to let me help him, though. I needed him to let me in. “And like you said, if I try to get away, the cold and dark will kill me first.”
Sparrow stared me down with those beautiful blue eyes of his. I missed the days when that gaze watched me with arousal instead of cold calculation, with love and awe instead of suspicion.
“Will you let me help you?” I whispered. “Clean and plow?”
“Maybe,” he gritted out grudgingly before breezing out of the kitchen.
Turns out Sparrow didn’t do well with help. He went back over every surface I cleaned and nearly popped a blood vessel when I wiped down a window with Windex.
“I told you, that’s for the countertops, not the windows!”He’d broken into a sweat as he then scrubbed the window down with white vinegar.
We stood at the locked front door now, our coats and boots on as Sparrow watched me with indecision. “I have a snowblower. It doesn’t require two people.”
“A snowblower won’t get all that snow out of the way. There’s gotta be over three feet of it out there. You’ll have to shovel some of that first.”
“I can do it on my own.”
“I can help.”
“I don’t need your help,” he retorted. “You’ll only get in my way.”
“I promise I won’t. I won’t even work in the same area as you.”
