She is still, avoiding my eyes. "I’m going with Graham tonight. To his ex’s.”
My first instinct is to say hell no. But it’s not my call. And I can’t take that away from her. “Am I allowed to not be happy about this?” I ask cautiously.
She smiles warmly. “Yes, you can be not happy.”
“Can I ask why you have to go?” My hands are useless again. Helpless to protect those I care about.
“Because he’s my best friend. And I don’t want him to face this alone.”
“Doesn’t he have any big, bodybuilder friends? Maybe friends with dogs with bad attitudes and a penchant for testicles?”
She laughs. “The bodybuilder friend is the problem.”
I drag my hand over my face. I want to beg her to let me go. Beg her to let me stand between her and her friend and the hurt they’re potentially facing tonight. But I can’t.
Because there is crushing impotence blocking my throat. “Shit.”
I want. For the first time since coming home from the war, I want something other than to escape into Friday night fights at the bar.
And I have no idea what to do with the need rising inside me and drawing me slowly back toward the world of the living.
She slips from her chair into my lap, threading her arms around my neck. “Thank you,” she whispers against my mouth.
“For what?” I nudge her lips with my own. I am starving for her. Her taste. Her touch. The feel of her breath mingling with mine.
“Not stopping me from doing this.”
I lift both brows. “I didn’t realize I have veto power.” I tip my chin. “Do I?”
She smiles and it is warm and filled with a thousand unsaid things. “Not really. But it means a lot to me that you won’t try to stop me from being there for Graham tonight.”
I cup her cheek, craving the softness of her skin, drawing on the strength at the core of this beautiful woman. “I don’t like it. But there is one thing I understand and that’s the need to be there for the people that matter.”
Because I can do nothing more, I kiss her. Offering her all the things I lack the strength to say.
Hoping that I can keep a lid on my fear. That I can keep it contained and keep it from ruining everything good that has slowly started building between us.
Chapter 17
Abby
"Are you sure you want to do this?"
Graham is fidgeting. And Graham isn't really a fidgeter by nature. He's a little manic sometimes, but he's never nervous and unsure of himself.
And right now, I feel nothing but angry at the man who did this to him.
"This is stupid," he says quietly. "I can replace everything I left there."
"I hear a ‘but’ in there." I'm nervous, but I won't let him see it. I’m here for moral support and I can’t do that if I’m panicking. I won’t screw this up.
He's been there for me since I got here. I'm not going to let him down.
"The only thing that matters is my dad's watch," Graham says. He glances over at me. "When I came out to my parents, I was so f*ck
ing scared. My mom…she refused to believe she didn't have something to do with it." He made a rude noise. "Like she somehow failed as a parent and made me gay."
"That's pretty shitty." There's no good response. What can you say to someone when his parents have turned their backs on him?
"It would have been devastating if not for my dad. He just looked at me and said he didn't care so long as I was happy."
"Wow." I suddenly, bitterly, miss my own dad. I don't remember much of him, but part of me wants to believe he'd be the kind of man who would love me no matter who I brought home.
"I didn't have time to get it before I left after Todd hit me."
I squeeze his hand. "Then we're going to get it back."
He doesn't look so sure and honestly, neither am I. I don't have any idea how to do this.
I can't hear the sound of our feet on the floor over the pounding of my heart in my ears.
I am eleven years old and all I can see are the dirty combat boots at the edge of my vision. I am hiding in the dark once more, cowering and afraid of the violence that tried so hard to end me. All because I couldn’t stop arguing with my mom about my hair.
Graham doesn't know. Otherwise, I'm certain he wouldn't have agreed to let me come with him.
But these are my issues, not his. And I am tired of letting my fear define me.
I thread my fingers with his as he knocks on the door. Muffled music ends abruptly.
I don't know what I was expecting, but Todd isn't really what I imagined. When Graham said vegan bodybuilding, somehow I had this image of an ugly, small man with too many food issues.
Instead, Todd is perfection. He's a beautiful man with perfectly toned arms and a jaw that could crack glass.
It's the beauty that hides violence.
Todd looks between Graham and me then focuses entirely on Graham. The bruise on Graham’s face is still there. Less swollen and angry but still a mark on my friend.
"Really, Graham? You've got to come here with a girl? What kind of a man are you?"