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Echoes of Silence

Dax

Saturday, June 10 th

7:32 a.m.

I want to be someone who doesn’t give a fuck.

But I’m not.

I give too many fucks. And all of them have everything to do with the sleeping beauty lying next to me. Her reaction to what happened last night replays in my mind. I ache to reach out and brush the hair from her face, but I don’t want to wake her.

After waking with a kink in my neck, I scooped her up and carried her onto the sofa, settling behind her, just in case. I didn’t want her to wake up and think I broke my promise. There’s not much room, and my left arm is asleep, but this is better than the entry. I open and close my fist, trying to get the tingling sensation to go away as her chest lifts and falls in a steady rhythm.

Her eyelids twitch, and her bottom lip starts to quiver. I’m finding it harder and harder not to touch her. I want to comfort her, but I don’t know if she’ll let me.

“You are the best thing I’ve ever waited for,” I whisper, knowing I’m only strong enough to speak my mind when she’s asleep and can’t hear me. I let the urge to brush her hair off her face take over. When my fingers graze her cheek, she starts to stir.

I close my eyes and try to temper my breathing, so she doesn’t know I’m awake.

She re-situates herself and rolls out from under the weight of my arm. Her fingers trace across my hand, causing the hairs to stand on end. The urge to open my eyes to see if she’s staring at me is almost too much, but I don’t let myself cave.

There’s a rustling as she slips out from under my arm and stands. Hesitant footsteps pad across the floor and disappear as she makes her way down the hall, closing a door. I sit and peek out of the living room, searching in the direction where she disappeared. A thud hits something down the hall, and I’m on my feet and standing outside the closed door within seconds. I lift my hand to knock, but the sound of what I assume to be her slides down from the other side. Muffled sobs fill my ears.

I picture her slumped on the floor, head in her hands, crying. I need to hold her, but the fact that she left my side and hid behind the door proves she needs time alone. The idea of her wanting to deal with this without me makes sense, and I hate that I can’t do anything about it.

Her sobs lessen into sniffles and dissipate until there’s no sound. It’s quiet from inside the room for what feels like an eternity. And I can’t take it anymore.

I roll my knuckles across the door, the cautious sound echoing through the space.

“Just a minute,” she says as she scrapes herself off the floor, flushes the toilet, and turns on the sink.

I creep to the stairs, settling on the bottom step to wait.

“Hey,” she says, her voice hoarse. Her eyes are bloodshot, but she gives me a reticent cautious smile as she sits beside me on the step, dropping her chin into her palm. “How’d you sleep?”

She doesn’t mention what happened in the bathroom or how she woke in my arms. And I oblige. I don’t want to make things awkward. It’s too bad the silence between us doesn’t get the memo.

“Best sleep of my life.” I clear my throat and crack my neck. I brush a hand against her arm, blurring the hypothetical line I’m not supposed to cross. A pale glow sweeps over her cheeks, and I grin. I drop my chin to rest on her shoulder and peck her forehead.

“You hungry?” she asks as she stands, creating some space between us, and I get a shy smile.

“Starving.” I pull out my phone to place an order and am reminded of the texts I got while she was in the bathroom.

Liam: Where are you? Are you alive?

I send a singular reply:

Me: I can explain everything

“Shit,” she mutters, darting to her feet. “You stayed here.”

“You asked me not to leave,” I say, setting the phone beside me on the step.

“Oh, my god.” She shakes her head, her hair whipping around her face. Her voice quivers as she glances over her shoulder at her front door.

I stand and stretch, and she turns to face me. Her eyes dart to the skin peeking from under my T-shirt.

“Eyes up here.” I use two fingers to point at her eyes and back to my own. “Let’s grab a coffee.” Her bottom lip trembles as she stares at the door, and I immediately want to take back what I suggested. I close the distance between us and cup her face. “Or we can stay in. I understand if you don’t want to go out there.”

She swallows. “I need out.”

“I get it, but are you okay?” I have to focus to keep my eyes from straying to the door. This is a lot for anyone to cope with. She’s definitely not weak, but she’s fragile, and I don’t want to see her break.

“Can we not talk about it?” She wraps her hands around my wrists and glances at me, her dark lashes damp. She drops her hands and rolls her eyes, stepping around me. I smirk to myself. I’ll let it slide this time. She goes up a couple of steps as I turn to watch her. “I’ll be down after a shower. Let’s grab a coffee.”

“Hey.”

“What?” She stops a couple of steps from the top but doesn’t turn. Her shoulders tense, and she drops her ear in my direction.

“You’re not alone.”

A tiny smile plays at the corner of her mouth. “I’m fine.” Her voice cracks on the last word, and she completes her climb, disappearing around the corner.

She turns on the shower but doesn’t close the door. I follow after her, dialing Liam as I take a seat on the top step.

“Please tell me that whatever kept you out all night has nothing to do with what’s on the news,” Liam answers, his voice heavy with sleep. He clears his throat and coughs. “Sorry ‘bout that.”

“I wish I could.” I yawn, cracking my neck from side to side.

The thumping I associate with Liam and his soccer ball stops for a second before he replies. “Shit.”

“She’s okay.”

“What are you talking about?” He breaks out in a fit of dry coughs and clears his throat.

“Brighton,” I say between his coughs. I figured he would have put two-and-two together, and the idea of spelling it out has my insides twisting into a knot.

“Ah.” Running water fills the background before Liam starts gulping.

“She didn’t want to be alone.”

“She called you?” His words get cut off when he starts coughing. “For what?”

I shake my head, remember he can’t see my answer through the phone, and reply, “I was picking her up. Dinner, Yogi’s, remember?”

“What? Why?”

“To grab something to eat.”

He swallows and humphs under his breath. “Wow. I knew it. You have no problem fucking everything up.”

“Liam, I—”

“I’m not mad. It’s nothing less than what I expected.”

“Shut up for a minute. I’m at her house because I stayed the night.”

“Yeah, I don’t care.”

“Not like that. The doctor was her neighbor, one of her friends from work.”

The other end of the phone goes silent.

“She’s shaken up, but she didn’t want to be alone. I came over to tell her that things between us would never work out,” I say, giving him a minute to process.

“You wouldn’t be in this situation if you had listened to me.”

“I know.” But I am, and there’s no going back.

It takes a couple of seconds for Liam to ask, but I figured it would come out eventually. “Is she okay?”

I pull the phone from my ear and listen to the spray of the shower. “I don’t know.”

“Seeing the news took me back to that night, all the cops, finding Mom and Dad. That’s a lot for anyone. Make sure she’s okay.”

“I will,” I say before I hang up. I don’t want to get into it. I don’t want to think about it. But now that Liam mentioned it, it hits me like a ton of bricks. My reaction to the cop lights, the officers—everything last night—a flood of memories fills my mind.

And I want her to know all of it.

I go to the top stair, the sound of the shower still echoing from the bathroom. I glance around the corner, walk down the hall, and stop outside the door, watching. It’s only open a crack, but it’s enough.

The streaming water flows over Brighton’s crumpled form, fully dressed, head buried against her forearm as her body shakes.

I barge into the bathroom and yank open the steam-covered door as she lifts her head and lets out a heart-wrenching sob. I drop onto my hands and knees as I pull her into my arms. She burrows against my chest, her body trembling against me. Her tiny hands grab fistfuls of my soaked T-shirt as she buries her face against me.

“I got you,” I say as I wipe the sopping strands of hair from her face.

“Dax.” My name on her lips is a plea forced from circumstance, and I want to do everything I can to take her pain. But I don’t know how. She traces a finger along the droplets of water cascading down my neck and turns, climbing into my lap to face me. Her eyes search my face, falling to my mouth before they close, and she drops her forehead against mine.

Knowing what I’m about to do will set things into motion and that we won’t be able to come back from it only causes a moment of hesitation. But it’s long enough for the decision to be taken out of my hands.

Our eyes meet, and in that second, words become unnecessary. Brighton’s upper lip grazes against mine, soft and tentative at first. A question more than an answer. Her lips are warm and plush, and the world tilts, everything else fading away until there’s nothing but the two of us.

The tension between us over the past few weeks culminates in a rush of fumbling hands as her lips crash into mine in a frantic, almost desperate tangle—exploring, tasting, claiming. Her fingers thread through my hair, pulling me closer as she deepens the kiss, becoming more confident, more insistent.

She presses my back into the tile, each touch igniting sparks along my skin. She arches into me, and every one of my nerve endings alights with sensation. Her hands grip my shirt, pulling me closer as if trying to merge our bodies into one. Time seems to stretch and blur, the pressure of her mouth on mine igniting a spark that spreads through me like wildfire.

Her mouth stays on mine as if she is trying to pour every unspoken emotion, every hidden longing, into this single moment. It’s messy and imperfect, lips and teeth colliding in a rush, leaving me breathless and dizzy with need.

When she finally pulls away, her breaths are ragged, and the world around us slowly comes back into focus. Her lips are swollen, skin flushed. She wipes the back of her hand across her mouth, giving me a look of hunger and awe. The air around us crackles with strain as we sit there, caught in the aftershock of what we’ve done. Everything feels different as if that single kiss has forever altered the foundation of what we’re building.

I stand and pull her with me, sweeping her up into my arms. She pushes the shower lever off as I shove through the door and carry her down the hall, leaving puddles of water in our wake. I stop at the door to a room where an enormous bed dominates one wall, covered by a thick, white comforter and an assortment of neutral-colored pillows. I set her on the mattress and plop onto it next to her, all thoughts of spilling my guts to her replaced with the longing to taste her again.

She covers her eyes with her hand, her cheeks turning my favorite shade of red.

And.

It.

Is.

Everything.

“I need to change out of this.”

“I’m not leaving you alone. I’ll close my eyes,” I lie, not wanting to take my eyes off her.

She throws her legs over the side of the bed. “That is not an option.” She points toward the door. “Get a towel. You’re soaked.”

I lean onto my elbow and catch another glimpse of her before I turn my head, indicating I’m gonna look away. I stare at her nightstand and take inventory of her things. Book. Water. “I’m not looking.” ChapStick. Pen. Napkin.

I lean onto my elbow to confirm.

Grin.

Turn to face her.

She stands with a scowl, one arm pointing at the exit. “Out.”

I grab the pillow from behind me and cover my face. “I’m not looking, swear. And I won’t peek.”

She kept the napkin.

“I don’t trust you.”

“I’m good at keeping my word.” I wave one hand around in the air, pressing the other to the pillow to show I’m keeping my promise.

There is a scuffling of something and the sound of her tip-toeing out of her room.

A couple of minutes later, she drops onto the bed and shakes me. “Let’s go.”

“Don’t be so violent.” I pull the pillow from my face and whack her with it. The heated moment from the shower forgotten.

She rolls her eyes.

I’m gonna let this one slide too. She has no idea what it does to me. And how hard it’s getting for me to resist.

She clenches her jaw. “I’ve lost my appetite.”

There’s a pair of shoes beside her on the floor and socks in her hand.

I admire the perfect sway of her denim-clad hips as she makes her way to the door, enjoying the idea of not feeling guilty about watching her.

“After you,” she says, breaking my trance as she sweeps her hand toward the stairs.

I bound off the bed and onto the landing. “You need to eat.”

“And you should go home, change out of your wet clothes.”

“After I get you food.”

She bounds down the stairs, shoes in hand, and drops onto the bottom step before slipping them on.

When I don’t join her, she glances over her shoulder to find me. “Are you coming?”

“Not ye—”

She cuts me off. “Don’t say it.”

“Say what?”

She rolls her eyes. Again. And I have to remind myself this is neither the time nor the place.

“Brighton?” I take the stairs slowly and watch as her lips tighten with annoyance.

“What?” She stands and places a hand on her hip.

“That’s bad for your health.”

“What is?” A V creases between her brows.

I take the last step and close the distance between us, my chest inches away from hers. I lift her chin, directing her lips toward mine, and she tenses when I lean in and whisper against her mouth, “Rolling your eyes.”

“Grow up.” If she wants to flirt to distract herself from whatever she’s feeling, I’m here for it. She shoves against my chest, creating way more space between us than I’m comfortable with. “Has anyone ever told you how annoying you are?”

“Liam does, all the time.”

She pulls open the door and turns, her damp hair flying over her shoulder. She freezes. Her chest rises and falls with short, rasping breaths. She covers her face with both hands.

“Hey, it’s okay. I got you.” I take her hand in mine, pull her back into the foyer, and wrap my arms around her as I turn her to face away from the open door.

She starts gasping for air. I run my hand over the back of her head. Her body tremors, and she crumples in my arms. I guide her back to the stairs, setting her on the bottom step. Her eyes are vacant. She wraps her arms around her belly and rocks back and forth while shaking her head and murmuring, “No, no, no.”

I crouch to look her in the eyes. “Take a deep breath in. Hey, look at me,” I say, brushing her hair out of her face. “Now out. You need water?”

She doesn’t respond.

I don’t know what to do, what to say. I hate not knowing how to react or how to get her to answer. “We can grab something on the way to my apartment. I don’t want to leave you here alone.”

She pauses for a second but doesn’t answer. I can tell she’s listening to me, no longer focused on what’s happening outside. Her eyes widen, and she pulls her bottom lip between her teeth. I can tell it’s taking everything in her not to break down. She stares at me like she wants to say something but changes her mind.

I clear my throat and smile at her. Something about this feels like the right time. “Can I tell you something?”