Page 74 of Defect
It was time to start my day.
…
I walked into the studio and immediately lit a bundle of sage. I walked around the main areas waving smoke into the corners then I sat behind my desk to look at emails. I couldn’t stop thinking about Ezra though. Normally, he beat me to the studio in the morning if we didn’t spend the night together. He was nowhere to be found.
I stared at my phone and finally gave in, tapping his name in my messages.
Me: Hey. Are you okay?
In the Reiki room, a loud ding sounded. I frowned and stood up, following the noise. I pulled my phone out and sent Ezra another text.
Me: Ezra?
I heard the ding again.
I pushed the Reiki room door open and found all six-foot-six inches of Ezra Fredericks asleep on the floor with his phone by his head. I rested my hands on my hips and shook my head at him. I couldn’t help smiling though. At least he was safe.
I dropped to the floor beside him and stroked the top of his head gently. His eyes opened slowly. He took my face in and sat up quickly. “I uh…”
“Ezra, did you sleep here last night?” I pulled my feet into the center of my body and let my knees fall to the side. He was silent for a few moments. His brown eyes danced around my face like he was drinking me in first thing in the morning instead of his usual cup of tea.
“Yeah, I did. I couldn’t go home and you were pissed at me so I didn’t want to be in your house.” He shrugged his broad shoulders and rested against the massage table. “I needed to be alone, Solo.”
“I get it.”
More silence.
“You’re still mad at me aren’t you?” His voice gripped my core and refused to let go. I inched closer to him on the floor until our legs rubbed against each other.
“I’m not mad at you. I shouldn’t have been mad at you in the first place.” I slid my palm against his and the crackle between us jumped to life. Ezra lowered his brows and wet his lips with his tongue.
“Wait…are you apologizing?” He reached over and touched a springy lock of my hair.
“I am. I’m sorry, Ezra. I should have let you deal with everything the way you needed to. I was being pushy because I can’t stand to see you hurting.” When I slid my hand along his jawline, I felt the prickly scratch of stubble growing there. “I can’t stand tofeelyou hurting, Ezra. I can feel it right here.” I took his hand and placed it over my heart. He slid his fingers up my collarbones to my throat then pulled me against his mouth.
I’d never missed someone so fucking much overnight before. I exhaled and inhaled just to breathe his atmosphere. “I know when you’re hurting.” His voice vibrated my lips in the gentlest way. “You’re worried about me. You’re worried about Malachi. You feel helpless.” He kissed me before I could respond.
Warm salty tears splashed on the backs of my hands. Ezra kissed their salt trail then found his way back to my lips. “I can feel you too, baby.” I climbed in his lap, wrapped my limbs around his muscular middle and kissed behind his ear.
“Ezra, you’re entitled to your own way of handling things. Don’t ever feel like you’re wrong for wanting to do things your way.”
“I’m struggling with that because when I see you upset I want to make it better regardless of who’s right or wrong.”
“You can’t be like that. I don’t want you to be like that. I want you to know when you’re right and to be able to stand in that. I hate that your mother took that away from you during all this.”
“Me too. I’m all fucked up. I feel like if I wasn’t broken before…now I definitely am. She really screwed my head up and I don’t know what’s real anymore.”
“I hate that.” I had to pull back and let him go through the motions though. They were his motions. His journey. Amaris was right. I couldn’t fix him. I had to let him fix himself.
“Even though I know my mother turned into some evil bitch after the accident I guess a part of me thought it was her way of grieving and that she’d come out of it. I’m trying so hard to wrap my head around the fact that she lied to me on purpose to keep me close. I’m trying to wrap my mind around my mother paying some motherfuckers to jump me so she could teach me a lesson about listening to her. It explains why she showed up to the hospital so quickly when I know fucking well I didn’t call her.” Ezra leaned his head against the leg of the table and stared at the ceiling. Intricate metallic paintings of mandalas stared back at him.
“I can’t imagine having to cope with something so huge, Ezra. I don’t even know what to say to make it better but…what she did was fucked up. It was awful and wrong and she should be ashamed.”
“But I can guarantee she’s not one fucking bit ashamed of what she’s done. Somehow she’s going to spin this to make it seem like she’s protecting me from something.” I rolled my eyes and rested my forehead against his.
“Ezra, let me make you breakfast. Let me rub your back and shoulders. Let me make you some tea, okay?” I kissed his lips once, twice, three times.
“Okay.” He gripped my ass one good time before I got up and went to make him a bowl of oatmeal with strawberries, blueberries, and raspberries. I kept a small stash of fruit in a mini-fridge under my desk. I kept oatmeal and raw sugar in a small plastic bin on top of the fridge.
