Nowhere but Here (Thunder Road 1)

Guess it is, but it feels wrong to switch the conversation to me after Emily declared something so huge. “Does Eli know?”

“No. Only a few people do. The media and the police never released how the body was found, just that it was. You don’t have to look at me like that.”

“Like what?”

“As if I’m going to go spastic like I did at the funeral home. That was a special circumstance. I hate the dark and the woods so the worst that will happen is that I’ll stay up until the sun rises.”

My world narrows in on Emily. “How many nights have you slept through since you’ve been here?”

She rubs eyes that are plagued by dark circles and exhaustion. “Probably as many as you have sleeping outside my window.”

Fuck this. I stretch past her and pull down the blanket. “Lie down and get some sleep.”

“It’s been a crazy night.” She draws her knees in closer to keep from touching me, but it’s a twin bed and I fill the entire mattress on my own. “I thought I was watching Olivia die and the woods are practically covering us and it’s after four so the sun will rise soon. I’ll be okay. If you’re tired, it won’t bother me if you go to sleep.”

“I’ll stay with you while you sleep.” I prop myself onto my elbow on my side to watch her reaction. “Will that help?”

She fixates on her thumbnail. “It doesn’t work that way. It’s as if there’s a monster under my bed and as long as I keep my eyes open, then it won’t escape and attack me.”

“I’ll take on your monsters,” I tease, but I’m dead serious.

Paint that was on her nails before is stripped away as she mulls over my offer. “When I was trapped, I screamed for hours and nobody came. Eventually, I curled myself into a ball next to the feet and stared at the body. If I watched it then it couldn’t hurt me so I stayed up and stared. Even when it was pitch black.”

Emily goes silent and I feel like an asshole for every bad comment I made.

“Do you know why I joined the Girl Scouts?” she asks.

“Because you like cookies?”

That earns me a short-lived smile. “Because I wanted to see the world. Experience new and different things.”

“Think you got more than you bargained for.” It’s a joke. A bad one, but it’s my attempt to lighten her mood.

She laughs, but it has a bitter edge. “You could say that.”

Emily absently scratches at her arms. I immediately snag her fingers and gently tug until her body drops next to mine. Keeping her fingers, I brush my other hand along the angry welt forming on the inside of her arm. “Do you notice when this happens?”

“Usually not until the hives are huge. I started getting them after, well...after that night.”

Emily blinks several times as she rests her head on my pillow. It’ll absorb her scent and the thought pleases me more than it should. It’s time to let Emily go and roll out of bed.

Because I promised, I’ll stay with her, but it needs to be at a distance of five feet. But I don’t move. Instead, I keep massaging the smooth skin of her inner arm.

“I hate new,” she confesses. “I despise different. I like calm and mundane and routine. Snowflake is none of those things. It’s been chaos and change and unpredictable. This town frightens me, which probably is a huge joke to you. I can’t imagine one thing scaring you.”

You scare me. “I liked both of my jobs.”

“What?” Emily readjusts her head on the pillow and I enjoy the sight of her in my bed so much that space in my jeans becomes an issue.

“You asked what I liked to do. I liked both my jobs. This is my first summer in years not lifeguarding. Even when I start working for the security company, I’ll continue to ref football. Chevy and I are considering coaching a fall team. I know it sounds stupid, but I’d like to do something with disabled kids. It’s a big county, but not large enough for there to be resources for them like there are in Louisville or Nashville. So they sit on the sidelines a lot. Doesn’t seem fair.”

“That doesn’t sound stupid,” she says.

I say nothing and I’m not sure how I feel that I spilled so easily to Emily.

“So you enjoy being around kids?” she presses.

Never thought too much about it. We’re still holding hands and I wonder if Emily notices. Her skin is soft. Warm. I bet she feels this way everywhere and not just the areas I’ve explored: her mouth, her neck, her arms. I also bet she’s a vision with her shirt off.