Page 26 of Erik

“I assumed the smaller piles of clothes we—"

“No.” Narrowed eyes met mine as I wrapped my arms around myself, bunching up his t-shirt under my breasts, and I shook my head a little harder than necessary. “I like this shirt.”

“Ah, okay. You should put some underwear on, at least.” The awkwardness in his voice infected the atmosphere, and Erik rubbed the back of his neck before pointing a thumb at the door. “I’ll make some coffee. It’s almost six a.m., so if we want to leave by eight, we should get movin’.”

“Okay.” Shuffling out to shut the door behind him, Erik left in his bed, and I fisted his shirt to bring it to me nose and inhale. My eyelids fluttered closed, his smell wafting up into my brain to calm all my terrible thoughts, and I held my breath for a long moment.

Erik really was a hero— not just an American hero, but when I needed him, he came. He beat back all the monsters, not only the ones who beat against the outside of my head but the inner ones, too. Sitting back on my heels, I slumped a little as worry slowly infected my abdomen.

There were so many things I had to say, still. So many revelations. So many reasons the voluntarily expose that would make any man run away with reasonable disgust.

My eyes stung, and I laid back down to cover myself with the comforter before that first, brave tear trekked the wasteland that was my face. My chest tightened at how overwhelmingly huge my mountain of problems was now that I wasn’t ignoring it.

And I was gonna lose Erik when he climbed too close to the top.

27

Natasha

“Is something wrong?” Glancing up from pushing around eggs on my plate, I nodded firmly, and Erik’s brows furrowed as questions blossomed in his gaze. “Do you want to tell me?”

“I’m not nervous. I thought it’d be more . . . daunting. Um, I don’t like sitting in the front seat, so . . . ” Trailing off, I shimmied a piece of bacon to the center of the plate, and he pursed his lips thoughtfully. “I’m sorry. I know you’re notthem, but it’s not you, Erik, not really.”

“Righting wrongs is something I do a lot.” Erik smiled warmly, and my heart sputtered when he touched the back of my free hand. “It’s not such a mystery. You sit in the front when Illya drives. You sit in the back and still hold the door handle.”

My lips twitched in a sad, ugly, tiny smile, and I set down my fork as my appetite fled completely. A black blotch spread across my chest, and Erik sat back a little as his full attention laid firmly on me. Propping my elbow on the table, I held my chin on my palm as I thought on that observation.

“This guy used to take me to the grocery store. We gotrealfood. I would buy produce, not fried shit in bags or cans of overly processed dye. It was awesome. It wasn’t like my mom ever ate, so I knew it’d just be me and Valerie. It was never more than two hundred dollars, and in Dallas, that’s how much the hookers cost. So, we got a couple weeks of food, and for, what, twenty minutes of my time in the front seat of a car parked behind the store. At the time, it was worth it.”

“Is that how you learned to cook? You had to do it all?” I nodded, humming softly, and Erik’s jaw ticked as his eyes brightened. “Valerie didn’t cook?”

“No. I mean, she made mac-n-cheese and hotdogs and stuff, but she . . . she hated doing chores. She always said she was too tired, too busy, too whatever. She was going to her friend’s and didn’t want to get her shirt wet. There were always reasons, so I stopped asking and did it myself. She was such a brat until . . . ” The confessions seemed never-ending, and I frowned under furrowed brows. “Our mom did something. She must’ve pissed someone off, because they grabbed us and held us hostage for six days. We were there in separate rooms, and everything I did, everything I endured, it was all for nothing. I’d ask her to do something, and she did it, pouting and dragging her feet.”

“Is that when you started lecturing her about safety?” Nodding again, I gulped down the dense lump in my throat, and the crease between Erik’s brow deepened. “You didn’t leave until you were sixteen, though.”

“Sixteen is when Valerie and I both had jobs— she worked part-time and I worked full-time second and third shift. We made enough money and I convinced my sister she needed to get above low A’s in school to get a scholarship to an art school for computerized imagery. Job opportunity, right.” Hallowing my cheeks to puff out my lips, I scrunched up my nose before shaking my head a little. My wrist started to ache from the angle, but I ignored it as Erik frowned deeper, darker. “Anyway, I kept going to those guys. We needed money because Mom was useless. I didn’t trust her not to spend it on drugs, so I had to do it all myself.”

“It’s always you, isn’t it, Natasha?”

“The qualities of a leader.” Tilting my head at him, I inhaled a deep, stabilizing breath as Erik’s eyebrow twitched. “And you’re a follower.”

“Protectorsounds a lot better. A queen always needs one.” Scoffing lightly even as fire licked up my neck, I tore my eyes off him to stare at my plate. “Ah, come on, Natasha. That was a good one. Anyway, you know, Natasha, you’ve never lied to me. Is it because I’m too dense to see an ulterior motive?”

“You’re a bleeding heart, Erik. You don’t think a good enough lie is capable of being a lie. If it’s believable, it should be believed. Even the outrageous with plausible explanations, you don’t second guess genuineness if it’s mimicked well enough.”

Smiling faintly, I picked up my fork again to stab a piece of egg as Erik’s eyes narrowed on me. He didn’t looked particularly put out by my words, and I licked my lips heavily. “I like that about you. It’s . . . it’s pure. It’sbright, and Iwantit. Everything I’ve said to you could be a lie, but it’s a sob story and plausible and because of what you’ve seen, you’re inclined to believe it because you love when people start bad and get better.”

“You can’t fake the breaks, though, and that’s what started this, isn’t it? At CVS, you were breaking, and I fucked up with the jacket, but the rest . . . I don’t lie, and you, you cover up, you don’t lie.” Stroking my hand with his thumb, Erik sighed softly as he scratched his jaw thoughtfully. “You’re avoiding the question, Natasha.”

“I don’t think you’re dense, Erik. Everyone chooses what facts to accept and what to ignore based on personal experience. You—" Pointing at him with my fork, I inhaled deeply as I slumped a little in my seat. “You don’t acknowledge the fact that, to avoid trouble or punishment, the automatic reaction is to lie. You don’t acknowledge that I had sex for money, because I did it for my sister. Just like you, I put myself through unspeakable horrors for someone else, someone innocent. I murdered my own mother, but it’s palatable because of the negligence— because when it all comes down to it, it’s her fault.”

“You still haven’t answered my question, Natasha. You turned it around on me to avoid it. You gave me a tiny bit of what really worried you and steered the conversation somewhere else. I took interrogation classes, you know.” Sucking my bottom lip between my teeth, I ducked my head even as Erik smiled encouragingly and squeezed my hand gently. “Like I said, you cover up. You’re really good at it, too. The thing is, I care abouteverythingyou say. So every time you cover up, it uncovers something else more.”

“Yeah, I’m not . . . I mean, the back seat is . . . maybe it can be fixed. Maybe it can’t. There’s gonna be hours, days in the car. So, why am I not nervous? I . . . I’m gonna meet yourparentsand yoursiblings, and I’m not nervous. I’m going to leave everything behind, and I’m not anxious. I . . . ” Trailing off as my tongue dried, I rubbed my knees under the table as heat slithered up my neck. “I’m wearing your clothes, and I like it. It took me, I don’t know, I was twenty-four when I realized that I didn’t feel disgusting putting on my own clothes . . . before work, after work, after a shower . . . and that was when I realized it, not when it started happening.”

“Maybe, all that psychology you just tried to use on me is exactly the answer you didn’t want to admit to yourself, and it just so happened to apply to me.”Maybe Erik’s not as dense about some things.“Natasha, you don’t have to validate anything by being nervous, or excited, or anxious, or uncomfortable. If you want to wear my shirts, you should.” My cheek twitched as guilt clogged my throat, and I ducked my head as Erik continued to stroke the back of my hand. A tightness gripped my chest, and he stood up to round the table and kneel by my chair. “Hey.”

Cupping my chin very slowly, very obviously, Erik lifted my gaze to his, and my vision blurred as the last few minutes caught up with me. My nose heated, and I rolled my lips between my teeth to stop them from trembling. Gingerly, his fingers curled against my cheek, and apprehension skittered up and down my spine as determination knit his brows.