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“She’s sleeping in my bed.” Drew walks into the kitchen, finding most of us there.
Tristan stands at the patio doors looking out over the city. He is in his own head right now. I get up from the island and, with my hands in my pockets, I walk over to him.
“Hey,” I say as I stand next to him. I am not even sure he hears me until he offers me a grunt. “Look, Evans, you didn’t hurt her.” He doesn’t respond to me. “She had a flashback. Something we did triggered it. And there is no way to know what happened to trigger it. She will have to tell us when she is ready, so we know what not to do.”
“She was fine, until I went to go fuck her.” He wipes a hand down his face.
“She also had my cock in her mouth and Kayce was helping her head go down on it. Drew had just finished eating her pussy. We could have just all overstimulated her,” I try to assure him.
He doesn’t say anything for a moment, and then he takes a sip of his beer. “I’m supposed to protect her,” he mumbles.
“And you did. Man, you stopped the minute I held up my hand before I even called anything out to stop. You, I am sure, felt her tense.” He nods at my words. “So you were protecting her. You didn’t continue.”
“She was so frightened. She was scared that one night, but this? This was different. This came from the depths of her mind. And whatever it was scared the fucking shit out of her. What the hell is haunting her?” He throws back the rest of his beer. “She has ghosts we can’t see.”
I let out a sigh. “That’s the thing about ghosts: they are invisible except to the person who sees them. Her ghosts are in her head, and until she lets us in, until the trust is there, we have to be patient.”
He lets out a hum and continues to look out over the Vegas Valley. I am sure he’s trying to think of ways to fix this. Fix her.
That’s the thing, though. Until she lets us into her head, until she lets us see those ghosts, we are fighting blind. All we can do is wait for her to fall so we can catch her before she hits bottom.
I mean, there are four of us. Well, five if Cameron gets his shit together. All of us should be able to be that support she needs to get through this and let us in on whatever happened to cause her this trauma.
And I thought we were making headway, but tonight was too much for her. We shouldn’t have gone into that sex club. That was too much. We should have insisted that we go back to the room we had booked at the club.
Another thought hits me. She mentioned she saw her friend. Ronnie, I think her name was. Maybe if we find her friend, we can help get her to open up or at least make her feel like she’s not surrounded by testosterone all day long. Maybe we should bring Phoenix in and get her to spend more girl time with her.
I run a hand through my hair. I need to be honest with myself. None of this is probably even going to come close tohelping. I turn and look at the guys talking in the kitchen. Tristan, I am sure, has made his way up to Drew’s bed to watch over her.
At the end of the day, she needs to come clean and talk to us. Let us help her get the help she needs. And I don’t know if she will ever feel safe enough for that. And why should she?
So far, there has been no one in her life whom she’s been able to truly trust.
And that’s why she keeps her ghosts locked up tight. Because she doesn’t know what will happen if she lets them loose. She doesn’t know whom she can trust with them. She would rather just disappear and never have to face it all again.
Become a ghost herself.
Chapter Thirty
RAELYN
“You sure youdon’t want to come to the game tonight?” Kayce asks as he finishes cooking up some food for me.
The guys have been up my ass for the last week since the club debacle. I haven’t told any of them about it, and I don’t plan on it. I’m fucking broken.
But I do have a plan.
I have a plan to get out of here. To head back to New York. To try and find my life before all of this happened. Because I don’t need to be a problem in their lives anymore.
I overheard Cameron and Drew having it out yesterday before they left for a game. Cameron found out about what happened at the club and began berating Drew for falling for my “golden pussy”. That he walked right into my trap to get a comfy life of anything I wanted with a rich cock to do my bidding. Or some shit like that.
I don’t want a fucking penny. I don’t want to be anyone’s burden.
If I can find Ronnie, sell this phone and some of the clothes they bought me, I can get enough money for a bus ticket back to New York. But I need to find Ronnie, which is no easy feat. But Idid see her at the club, so I know she goes there. So maybe I can get lucky with her being there again.
Right now, I just need space from the guys. They hover over me. Kayce is constantly cooking for me. Drew is always checking in on me. Tristan just stares at me, watching every move I make. And Asher is always asking how I’m feeling.
The only one who doesn’t give a shit is Cam.