Tough Luck (A-List Security 1)

“Wait.” I grabbed his wrist, tugging him closer. “You can stay.”

“I don’t want to interrupt your alone time.” He sounded uncertain and maybe a little hurt, and that was on me.

“Stay,” I repeated. “Please.”

The please was hard for me, and maybe he knew that because his face softened in the pale moonlight.

“I can do that.” He let me pull him the rest of the way next to me. It was a tight fit, so I put an arm around him, gathering him close so we could share the blanket. He had a jacket on, some sort of soft hoodie, and I liked how it felt against my chilled body. Liked how he felt, warm and solid.

We sat there in not-alone silence, just breathing together, him tucked into my side. Took a while for me to realize he wasn’t going to speak. For all he could ramble a whole six-hour car ride, he seemed to sense this wasn’t a quiet that needed filling. No, I just needed him, right here beside me, gradually thawing me past numb simply by staying with me. My numbness gave way to feeling, an iceberg cut loose, and it was almost too much.

A strangled noise escaped my throat. “I don’t like this.”

“I know.” He leaned in, head falling to my shoulder. “It must have sucked for you.”

Oh, damn it. I really had screwed up if he thought that.

“Sucked? No, it was wonderful. I didn’t even know kissing could be like that.”

“Not the kissing.” He waved a hand. “The not being able to let yourself know yourself. That must have sucked.”

“Yeah.” I wasn’t sure I could have phrased it that accurately, but he was right. “It did suck. But I didn’t know it sucked, and maybe that’s the suckiest thing of all. To not have known what I was missing.”

“However you’re feeling about that—mad, sad, angry at me even. It’s all okay.”

“I couldn’t ever be mad at you.” I was a lot of things, most of which I couldn’t put a name to, but angry at him definitely wasn’t one of them.

“Good.” His tone was pleased. I couldn’t see his face, but the shift in his voice said he was likely smiling. “But for all the rest of it, it’s okay to take your time. Feel what you’re feeling.”

“You really could lead the yoga classes yourself.” I managed a croaky laugh. “I’m not sure what I feel, honestly. Mainly…lost. All that wasted time. And where do I go from here?”

Sure, I’d answered the big question, but now all the little now-what questions kept threatening to overwhelm me all over again.

“You don’t have to find answers tonight.” He reached up to hold my hand that was dangling by his shoulder. “And it wasn’t wasted time. You didn’t feel safe. Maybe you weren’t safe, not enough to let yourself know, not then.”

“Yeah. It wasn’t safe.” My voice broke. He wasn’t wrong that a great deal of this was likely self-protection. We hadn’t delved that deeply into my childhood, but every time I thought about how things could have gone for my younger self had I known this back then, cold sweat gathered at the base of my spine. Not in that house. Not in that particular town.

“But it is now. You’re safe with me. You have friends who aren’t going to care who you like kissing and who do care about you being happy. You’re safe now, Cash.” He squeezed my hand.

“Uh-huh.” I couldn’t even get a proper yeah out. My lip wobbled. I wasn’t the last time I’d cried. Definitely not since I’d heard big boys don’t cry a thousand times as a kid. But there was no mistaking the burn in my eyes.

“I cried my first night at rehab,” Daniel shared like the freaky mind reader he was. My breathing had likely given me away because I couldn’t seem to get a proper breath even as he continued, “I cried more that first week than the ten years prior. Saying those words the first time and meaning them. ‘Hi, I’m Danny Love, and I’m an addict.’ It gutted me even though it was true. Maybe because it was true.”

“Yes. That’s it. Exactly.” I squashed my eyes shut. Opened them. Finally managed a proper inhale. “How did you get so damn wise?”

He shrugged against me. “A lot of expensive therapy.”

“Fair.” I drifted off into silence, this one more companionable and less about me trying not to fall apart. Daniel was right. It was safe here. If I fell apart, at least I had the space to put myself back together. And he was giving me that space, sitting with me, holding my hand, head on my shoulder, us rocking back and forth in the swing.

“We should go inside,” he said at last on a yawn. “I’m gonna fall asleep on you in a second, and I think a number of old-west ghost stories start with people freezing on spring nights they expected to be warmer.”