“Where does it hurt?” I ask softly.
Her wide eyes fill with tears. “Everywhere,” she whispers. “I thought he loved me.” Tears slip from her eyes and roll down her cheeks, mingling with the smears of blood.
“Colton did this?” Tension shoots up my spine, and my fists clench at my sides. “He hurt you?”
Ellie blinks at me, as if trying to understand my anger. She touches her cheek, wincing when her fingers skim over the wound. “I’m stupid. I fell.”
“You’re not stupid.”
“I back-pedaled down a set of stairs and landed on the sidewalk.”
The anger boiling my blood cools a notch and I nod, reaching for Jake’s chef’s coat and wrapping it around her shoulders. I find the first-aid kit and pull out some sterile cleansing pads for her face. “Explain, please.”
“Colt said he was going to meet Grant for a drink, and he left.”
I frown. “Grant Watson? He’s in Cincinnati this weekend.”
“It was a lie, obviously.” She lifts her chin, her brave face making me want to throw a punch at Colton all over again. “I woke up a couple of hours later and he still wasn’t home. He wasn’t replying to my texts, so I went looking for him.”
“This might sting.” I carefully lift the cloth to her face, and she hisses when it touches her cheek. “Sorry.”
“He was at the Tiffany Hotel.”
Frowning, I pull the cloth away. “Why?”
“With Molly. I saw them through the window.”
What a fucking idiot. He has Ellie in his bed, and he sneaks out to go to Molly’s hotel room. “What did he say?”
She shakes her head. “He didn’t know I was there. I fell off the porch, and then he texted to say he was staying at Jake’s.”
We turn to the stairs at the back of the kitchen that lead to Jake’s apartment above the bar. We both know he’s not up there, and most likely doesn’t plan to be.
“He was never going to marry me,” she whispers. The words shake, delivered on a trail of heartache. “I think that’s why he’s been pulling away the last couple of months. I’ve been dropping hints, and he . . .”
She closes her eyes, and since I don’t know what to say, I return to cleaning up her wound, wiping away the blood before applying antibiotic ointment and bandaging to the cut on her forehead.
“How’s that?” I ask.
She nods. “Good. Thank you. I’m okay.” But her occasional trembling turns into full-body shaking, and I step between her legs and pull her against my chest. She clings to my shirt.
“Let me take you home.”
She shakes her head. “I don’t want to go home.”
“You can stay here. Jake’s at Ava’s. He won’t care.”
“A little ironic,” she whispers.
I nod. “I guess it is.” Releasing her, I step back. “Come on. I’ll find you some dry clothes upstairs.” I lead the way to the stairwell at the back of the kitchen, aware of her behind me with every step.
Over the years, Jake has slowly turned the utilitarian loft above the bar into a nice one-bedroom apartment. It’s got that industrial look to it, with the rebar spindles around the stairwell and the exposed brick walls, but it’s still warm and feels like a home. He redid the kitchen last summer, swapping out the aging white appliances with stainless-steel models, and installing a big island between the kitchen and living area.
She follows me into Jake’s bedroom, watching as I open a drawer and pull out one of Jake’s T-shirts. He’s been slowly moving his stuff into Ava’s, so there’s not much here. A stack of Jackson Brews shirts and a couple of pairs of jeans. I pull open the other drawers, just in case Ava has clothes tucked away, but come up empty. I consider grabbing a pair of his boxers out of the top drawer but stop myself. Imagining Ellie in my brother’s T-shirt with nothing beneath it is bad enough. I’ll be damned if she’s going to wear his boxers too.
“Help yourself to the bathroom,” I say, handing her the T-shirt. “A bath might warm you up.”
As if on cue, she shivers. “That’s a good idea.”
“If you want, I can throw your clothes in the dryer for you while you’re in the tub so you have something dry for the morning.”
She stares at the floor. “Thank you, Levi.”
“Of course.” I step closer and press a kiss to the top of her head. “I’ll text Jake that you’re here, and lock the door on my way out. Call me in the morning?”
She grabs my arm before I can go far. “I don’t want to be alone. Stay with me? Please?”
I freeze, and for a few seconds, air refuses to enter my lungs. Stay with me.
Ellie looks up at me with her big blue eyes, her hand tightening on my wrist. Her wet hair curls into ringlets around her face, defying whatever she does to straighten it when it’s dry. Her T-shirt clings to her, giving me a clear view of her hard nipples beneath the cotton. She isn’t asking for anything more than company, but I’ve wanted to touch this woman from the first day we met, and resisting her tonight might be harder than ever. Because tonight, for the first time since before I laid eyes on her, Colton’s let her go.
I nod. “Sure.”
Her lips part and her eyes flare hot. She saw me looking. She liked me looking.
Both of us sleeping here tonight might be a terrible idea.
Our eyes lock for a beat too long, and she’s the first to look away. “I think I’ll take a bath,” she says. She walks past me, out of the bedroom and into the bathroom just down the hall.
When she’s gone, I lean my head against the wall and close my eyes. She wants company in the apartment. Not in bed.
I’m probably breaking every fucking rule in the bro code manual by even staying here, but I don’t care. Colton fucked up, and he’s going to lose Ellie as a result. I’ve kept my distance for two and a half years out of respect for my friend, but he lost that respect the second he hurt her.
The old pipes squeak, and I hear the bath running.
“Levi?” she calls. “Do you just want me to leave my wet clothes outside the bathroom?”
No. Leave them in the bathroom and give me an excuse to see you naked in the tub. Or better yet, leave them on and let me peel them off you. “That’d be great.”
I wait in the bedroom and listen for the sounds of the bathroom door opening and closing again before going to the hallway to retrieve the neat stack of wet clothes. I take them to Jake’s laundry closet next to the kitchen, but when I open the dryer, I realize the shirt has blood on it. I dump a little stain gel on the spots and toss it into the washing machine, then unfold the jeans to inspect them for blood.
A pair of panties falls to the floor. Dark purple. Lace.
“Fuck me,” I mutter, leaning over to pick them up.
I throw everything into the wash without further perusal. I thought staring at her nipples through the wet T-shirt was low. I’d rather not hit full-on creep status by staring at her panties. Or imagining her sliding them off her hips.
I dump laundry detergent in the machine and close the lid to start it.
The pipes squeak again as the water in the bathroom is turned off, and I listen too hard for the swish of water in the tub. I squeeze my eyes shut and give myself ten seconds to think about Ellie naked in the water, ten seconds to remember how perfect her tight nipples looked under her wet T-shirt, and ten seconds to think about the heat in her eyes before she walked away.
Then I open the closet to find some sheets and a blanket so I can sleep on the couch.
Ellie
Jake’s bathtub is an old claw-foot beast he wanted to get rid of when he remodeled the place. Ava told him doing so would offend the bathroom gods, so he reluctantly kept it and took out an old closet to add a walk-in shower on the other side of the bathroom. At this moment, I’m grateful for Ava’s judgment and my resulting bubbly soak in this tub. I can’t imagine any medicine better for a broken heart.