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The previous night was something of a blur. She’d fallen asleep hard and deep in the car at some point, so hard and so deep she wondered if, really, she’d passed out. The way she remembered doing only once before, three thousand miles to the west. It made something deep inside of her shake a bit to think it was Blue who had taken care of her in both instances.
And all the other times in between.
Last night—or early this morning—she’d had small, jumbled flashes. She’d had the impression of Blue’s parents’ backyard, so much like the one she’d played in as a child, across the street. Two faces in the doorway, staring out at them. But nothing more.
If there had been a conversation between Blue and the family he’d been avoiding all these years, she’d missed it.
Blue had carried Everly upstairs, all the way to the third floor without so much as a heavy breath. She’dnoticed that part. She’d vaguely noticed sloping ceilings all along the top floor of the house, divided up like a railroad apartment. One room led into the next, and Blue deposited her on the old twin bed in the bedroom at the farthest end.
“I’ll be in the sitting room,” he’d told her, which hadn’t made a whole lot of sense at the time. “It’s right down the hall. So is the bathroom, if you need it.”
And then he’d disappeared, leaving her in yet another guest room that felt entirely unused. Everly couldn’t tell if she was simply seeing patterns and circles everywhere she looked because she was tired or because they were there. She’d curled up on the bed, her mind racing as she decided what to do next. She’d start with a shower. Or maybe she’d go find Blue and have the necessary post-whatever-that-was conversation....
And then she got caught on the whatever-it-was for what felt like a long while. Until she’d fallen asleep—and then everything in her head had been fire. Glass shattering. Running, except this time, there was no getting away from the dark shadows that had followed her. All the alleys had led to higher flames and fewer chances to escape. All the fences had towered too high and, more, had been wreathed in barbed wire.
And it had stopped only when a big, rangy male form had climbed onto the narrow bed next to her.
“It’s okay,” Blue had said, his mouth against her ear.
And Everly had known it was him. Instantly. Even in the dark, even in a strange house, even torn apart by terrible dreams, she’d known him. She’d been surprised to find that her face was wet. With tears, she thought, though she didn’t remember crying. She didn’t care. She’dsimply curled up into Blue on that crowded but comfortable bed, let his heavy arms keep her safe, and drifted back to sleep.
And this time, she didn’t wake up until light streamed into the room from the curtainless windows and the air was stuffy and thick, reminding her it was still summer outside.
Everly sat up on the bed, then blinked around at her surroundings. She’d expected to see Blue, even though she’d known he wasn’t in the bed with her anymore before she’d opened her eyes. But he wasn’t in the room. There was nothing here with her but dust motes.
She was still fully dressed in the jeans and T-shirt she’d worn to flee her apartment, and she could smell the smoke on herself. Which had to mean anyone else would think she smelled like a mountain range’s worth of wildfires. She had no other clothes. No phone. Not one single thing from her life except the clothes on her back.
She sat there and let that sink in.
But it felt a lot like drowning, and Everly hated it when her throat started to feel thick. She padded over to the dormer windows to look out at the street she thought she knew so well. But she’d never seen it from this angle before.
It was one more way to drown, maybe. Sinking into a different perspective on a place she’d thought couldn’t possibly surprise her after all these years. The cherry tree in her parents’ front yard looked different from this angle. Smaller, when she remembered lying beneath it in those long-ago springtimes and marveling at how it took over the whole of the sky.
And there was something about the fact that she wasin Blue’s bedroom that got to her, right there in the place where she’d last seen him, all those years ago, when she’d been a little girl who hadn’t known the world could be scary. Not like this. It scratched at her. It made something deep in her belly turn over.
But she told herself she was just hungry.
She pushed open the bedroom door, and then stood there a moment. The next room in the railroad stack was really more of a hallway. There were clothes on portable racks, wrapped in heavy plastic and storage bags. Padded boxes that looked as if they contained wineglasses or china. A collection of old fans. The usual things people stored in their attics.
But she could hear Blue’s voice. She followed the sound, vaguely remembering what he’d said about sitting rooms and bathrooms. She found the bathroom through the next door, splashed cold water on her face, and then had to wipe her hands on her jeans when she realized there were no towels.
Somehow, she found that grounding.
Then she pushed through the door on the far wall into the last room. The stairs leading to the rest of the house were there, so she must have come up this way, but she hadn’t seen the daybed shoved against one wall, with an armchair across from it. There were bookshelves everywhere else, filled with old paperback science fiction and fantasy novels, as well as some of her favorite comic books.
And Blue was over by the windows, on the phone.
He turned as she came in. His dark gaze met hers.
And suddenly everything was electric. Bright and hot,skimming over her skin and settling deep inside her. Where she began to throb with longing.
For a moment she was back on that couch in her apartment and Blue was above her, inside her, surging in so deep she’d shaken apart from the inside out. She’d forgotten who she was and why she shouldn’t cling to him the way she had, as if he were the only solid thing in the universe. She’d been lost, so deliciously lost, and he’d brought them both home.
Thrusting deep inside her, changing everything—
Everly blinked, afraid she was swaying on her feet right there on the top floor of his childhood home. And felt herself flush hot and red in response, because of course she did.
Because she always did, especially around him.