Page 64 of Like a Hurricane

“There’s a mess,” She breathes.

I just chuckle and pick up a sponge and some soap. Lathering it up, I begin to swipe it over her skin, careful as I place it between her legs to wash away the blood. And when that’s done, I guide her out the shower, wrapping her in a warm towel.

“Go lay down, I’ll be there in a moment.”

With a dreamy kind of smile on her face, she kisses me and goes into the bedroom, leaving me to wash myself quickly and join her.

She’s laying in the bed on her side, her hands cradling under her cheek as she watches me.

“Thank you,” She whispers.

“What for?” I cock my head.

“Everything, Everett. For protecting me. For helping me.”

I kneel on the bed and lean down, tenderly moving a strand of dark hair from her face. “Always, princess, though I kinda miss you trying to kill me.”

She grins, a full smile that shows her pearly white teeth and puts a pretty sparkle in her stormy eyes.

When I lay down beside her, she curls into my chest, her hand settling over my heart.

“What happens when this is all over?” She whispers.

The light I’d left on gives the room a cozy kind of glow. The snow has stayed away, and it’s started to melt, though I doubt it will stay away for long.

“What do you want to happen?” I ask.

I hold my breath waiting for her answer, praying it would match mine. There was no way I could leave her.

“I’m so confused,” She admits. “And I feel guilty.”

“What about?”

“I want to stay,” she whispers as if saying it out loud would be too much, too real.

“Here?”

Arryn nods, and her throat bobs against me as she swallows. “But staying means abandoning everything from before. The hotel, my sister…”

“But what about you?” I ask.

She shrugs, “I don’t know.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” I tell her, “Whatever choice you make, I’ll follow you.”

“There’s those stalking tendencies,” she teases but it falls flat.

“I mean it, princess. I will follow you to the end of the earth and beyond if you so asked me to.”

Chapter Thirty-one

Three days had passed since we came down from the cabin in the woods. It hadn’t taken long to fall into a rhythm with these people and it was so easy too. Maya and I walked in the morning while we took Harper to school, and then we stopped at Ruthie’s for coffee and Vanessa joined us.

I barely know Vanessa, and yet I felt a kind of friendship with her blooming that hadn’t occurred for me before. Suzy was different, I loved her like a sister, but that friendship started because I paid her, this one, it was starting from me simply being well...me.

I hold little Ethan in my arms, he’s only just turned two and the cutest little bundle I’ve ever met. He’s currently pulling on a strand of my hair with one hand, one of Ruthie’s oat cookies in the other, crumbs stuck to his chin and cheeks.

Vanessa hadn’t mentioned anything about Ethan’s father, and I hadn’t asked since it was none of my business, but I had a feeling it was a sore subject for her anyway.

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