“So why aren’t you at work?” His eyes bore into me. “And why do you look like you were backed over by a semi truck?”
I started to pull back, but his hand gripped the back of my neck.
My eyes closed.
“There is a sadness in me, brutal and unparalleled,” I started to speak, and he pulled me face first into his chest. “It strikes at will, taking down others with reckless abandon.” I wrapped my arms around his middle. “If I were you, I’d walk away now.”
His hand fisted into the back of my hair, yanking my head backwards.
“I’ve got thick skin.” He looked down at me. “It won’t bleed against your broken pieces.”
The tears at bay came rolling in like the tide.
“Okay.”
“Good,” Maverick whispered. “Your dark place or mine, Princess?”
I closed my eyes.
“Mine,” I whispered back.
His hands moved under my ass, and when he lifted me, I wrapped my arms and legs around him.
Maverick carried us to the couch and sat down with me still straddling his lap.
He pulled my hair away from my face, holding it in one hand like a ponytail so I was forced to look at him, not bury my face in his neck.
“Show me your dark place, Princess.”
I closed my eyes, steadying a breath, and then opened them.
“I found him, you know,” I whispered. “Henry, his body… It was me.”
Maverick watched me with his black eyes.
Not in the way people gawked at tragedy, unable to tear their eyes from a train wreck.
He watched in the way that reminded me I didn’t need him, but he was there anyway.
He didn’t speak.
“My parents had been away on vacation in Arizona.” My voice cracked a little as the memories assaulted me. “I got up early. I couldn’t sleep.” I shook my head, thinking somehow my body must have known. “The door to his room was open, but he wasn’t there, so I called him.”
I winced.
“I always called Henry if I couldn’t find him,” I whispered. “He didn’t answer.” My hands had started to shake in my lap. “If he didn’t answer, he was usually on a bender, but most of the time, we found him or he came around after a few days when he’d ridden it out, but not this time.”
Maverick continued to watch him, his resolve never breaking, his lips never moving.
Just watching.
“I found him lying in the middle of our driveway.”
The tears came.
“I thought he was sleeping.”
My throat burned.
“I yelled at him.”
My lungs ached.
“When I rolled him over, his eyes were open.”
My stomach bottomed out.
“He was gone.”
I pressed the palms of my hands into the wall of Maverick’s chest.
“I gave him CPR until the ambulance arrived.”
I felt Maverick’s heart beat.
“The doctors said he overdosed. He was pronounced dead that day.”
He had a strong heartbeat.
“That day will be ten years ago this Sunday.”
My soul sighed.
“Every year, on the week before the anniversary of his death, I mourn him,” I whispered. “Alone.”
Maverick let my hair go and used both of his hands to wipe the tears from my cheeks.
He leaned in and kissed me.
It wasn’t soft.
It was hard in the way his kisses always were, possessive and claiming.
This one had an edge of something else, pride maybe, but I wasn’t sure.
When our mouths separated, I was breathless.
“You good?” he asked.
I nodded. “Yeah.”
“You eaten today? ‘Cause I can tell by your hair you ain’t showered in days.”
Smacking him on the shoulder, I hissed, “Jesus. Are you trying to make me cry?”
He fisted his one hand in my hair and tugged. “You still not scared of me?”
I growled.
“That’s what I figured.” His voice dipped to that dangerous low again. “You got thicker skin than you think you do, Princess.”
It was a compliment, I think, but he worded it like a challenge.
“Now, ass up and in the shower. You eat?”
I climbed off his lap and pointed to the coffee table. “What do you think?”
He laughed.
“Shower,” he grunted.
Flipping him the bird, I stomped down the hall and into my bedroom. Once he couldn’t see me, I lifted the front of my sweatshirt up to my nose and inhaled.
I stunk.
Pulling it over my head, I kicked off my sweatpants and showered.
It felt good.
Not better, but good.
I pulled on my Batman booty shorts and slid into my kimono. With my wet hair twisted into a bun, I wandered down the hall to find Maverick sitting on my couch, his boots on my coffee table, flicking through my Recently Watched on Netflix.
“You a sadist or something?”
He must have heard me.
“I like horror movies,” I said, pulling open the fridge.
He made a funny sound and I scowled into the appliance.
“What’s that sound for?” I quipped.
“Life scares the living daylights right out of you, but you like horror movies.” He laughed from across the room.
Slamming the fridge closed, I chucked an empty water bottle at the back of his head. “Asshole.”
He wasn’t wrong though.
“Quit bitchin’ and pick a movie,” he barked.