Page 64 of Saving the Rain (Crimson Ridge #4)

H is footsteps sound different tonight. Before I’ve even opened the door I can already tell that this isn’t Kayce bounding up with takeout to spend a night together.

When I wrench the door open, light spills out onto the small landing at the top of the stairs.

Red-rimmed eyes. Mouth turned down. Jaw tight.

He’s carrying a box that I immediately take from his hands and put it down before it tumbles to the floor.

“I need you.” The words come out in a cracked whisper, and I barely catch him as Kayce slumps into my arms.

“Hey, I’ve got you.” I swallow hard, arms banded around him.

We stay right there, with Kayce buried in the crook of my neck.

Emotion ripples off him, thick and heavy, as he winds his fists tightly into the back of my shirt.

Tension fills each one of his muscles, it’s almost like hugging a block of concrete at first, he’s rigid from head to toe.

“You’re safe.” My mouth moves against his hair.

Fuck knows what happened between him texting me and stumbling through the door.

A multitude of possibilities fly around my mind.

Did something happen at the Hog? To be honest, I know he trusts himself and doesn’t mind being around other people drinking, but I can’t help feeling uneasy on his behalf.

Or, even worse, did he run into someone, try to maybe come out to them and they weren’t supportive?

Fuck. If that’s the case, I’m gonna have to use every bit of self-restraint I can muster not to go do something reckless.

“Wanna come inside?” After a few minutes, sensing the moment his muscles unclench gradually, his body sags into mine. Those ragged breaths he draws begin to ease a little, and he nods against my shoulder.

Kayce clears his throat, but his voice is strained. “Sorry.”

“I don’t see anything that needs apologizing for.” I squeeze him a little tighter, before easing back. “Unless that box doesn’t contain dinner like you promised.” Cupping his nape, I softly bump our foreheads together.

That makes his lips twitch a little, even if his face is still contorted with the impact of the shock he’s evidently suffered.

“You’re such an asshole.” He shakes his head and lets his hands slide up to rest at the back of my neck, holding me there for a few more seconds.

On a deep inhale, he squeezes his eyes shut, and those fingers I’ll gladly have on me any time of day or night play against my skin.

It’s almost as if he’s testing to check I’m really here before carefully releasing that breath.

“Tell me something I don’t know.” Lifting my chin, I drop a kiss onto his brow and really fucking wish he wasn’t going through something so distressing.

The way I want to be able to lift those hurts, to carry his pain, to be the one who can take the blows on his behalf.

“I’ve got those shitty slasher movies you wanted to watch loaded up, but if you don’t feel?—”

“Sounds perfect.” Kayce cuts me off and gives me the kind of smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. It’s the hollow expression you compel your face to twist into when your mind is anything but a good place to be.

We make our way inside with the food and quietly go through the motions of getting settled on the tiny couch.

I’m not gonna bother him about talking. I know how hard it can be to open up, especially when it doesn’t come naturally to speak about the heavy stuff.

So, if the only thing I can do is be here by his side, even if it’s gnawing away inside me to know what’s wrong, I’ll be right here for the second he finally finds the words.

It’s not until we’ve eaten and we’re in the lull between finishing the first movie and starting the sequel, that he tucks himself into my side.

I drag him closer, making sure I can lie back and have his head resting on my chest. The opening credits roll on the screen of my laptop, and I thread my fingers of one hand through his, with the other I sift my touch through his strands of hair.

When he speaks, it’s right over my heart. His voice is low, measured, as if he’s been silently rehearsing what to say this whole time.

“My mom overdosed.”

I squeeze his fingers tighter. Shit . He told me they spoke occasionally, but I didn’t even think they had much of a relationship, if at all—not after all these years, with her being so far away.

“The hospital contacted me as I was on my way over.” Kayce’s muscles ease just a little bit more with each word. It’s like the act of finally allowing them past his lips gives him the ability to sink a bit deeper into the way we’re lying together.

We can stay exactly like this all night if he needs to.

I’d do anything to bring him a sense of relief or calm.

“How is she?” With my hand still threaded in his hair, I continue softly stroking over his crown.

“They’ll keep her in for observation for the next couple of days.” His voice cracks a little before he swallows heavily, and I feel his throat work as it dips against my torso. “It’s all my fault.”

Kayce keeps his face turned away from mine, but I tighten my hold on him. “Well, I know that’s not true.”

“You don’t know how much of a fucking terrible person I am.

” His head shakes ever so slightly from side to side.

“It is my fault. I was the one who sent her money. She kept bugging me, and eventually, I just dumped money in her account because I wanted to shut her up and stop harassing me... now look at what I’ve done. ”

God, I hate the way he’s so quick to blame himself for her addiction.

“Firstly, giving your mom money isn’t the same as handing her pills.” I run my thumb in slow circles over his palm. “Secondly, did she tell you that’s what she wanted the money for?”

He doesn’t answer. There’s nothing but the sound of the movie fading into the background now, and my heart thudding slowly. I hope he can hear it. I hope Kayce can hear that surety that he’s not alone in this.

“But what if I caused her to do it?”

My chest tightens, hearing all that pain in his voice. He’s trying so hard to disguise it, to not let a single crack show as to how much this is fucking killing him on the inside.

“Did she owe money again?” I ask.

His head tilts in a subtle nod.

“Then, if anything, you helped her more than she deserved by trying to fix a different problem in her life, one that she brought on herself.”

He stays quiet for a moment before speaking. “I can’t be responsible for her forever... I feel like it’s always one step forward and two back. She makes it seem like I can’t ever get away from her shitty decisions.”

Now, more than ever before, I just want to take him away from all of this.

Before he arrived, I’d been pacing up and down my kitchen, bursting to share the news with him—something entirely new for me to want to do.

A glimmer of hopefulness lit me from the inside.

I had wanted to greet him the second he walked in that door with a surprise.

But now’s not the time, he’s not in the right headspace to even think about it.

But one thing I do know is that Kayce deserves to know a life where he’s not haunted by his mom’s demons. She’s an adult, she’s had decades to get help, refusing all the opportunities presented to her.

He’s been a better son than most would ever bother to be.

“She’s got medical help right now. Being in the hospital is the best place for her.

” Running my palm down his arm, it’s hard not to be taken right back to a time so many years ago.

A flood of memories of our strangely intertwined past in that poisonous house.

Two toxic fucking people who should never have gotten married and who certainly fed each other’s addictions.

“What happens when they discharge her, and inevitably, she goes back to old habits? What do I do the next time she starts calling?”

I lean forward off the couch a little so that I can drag his hand to my mouth and brush my lips over the pads of his fingertips.

“We just take it one day at a time. And I’m right here with you.”

Sleep comes restlessly for Kayce. When he does fall into a patch of heavier breathing, and his limbs droop, it’s only for short stretches at a time.

Keeping him curled against my chest, I lie there in the dark holding him, listening to his shallow breathing. I’ve never been much good at sleeping, there are too many corners of my mind that lurk waiting for the moment when my guard drops.

Although having Kayce next to me, I’ve found more and more nights have been dreamless. Waking up almost with a start to realize that I’ve slept for hours undisturbed.

Maybe that’s why I feel like I need to watch him, to make sure he actually gets some rest—or if not, I want to be here if he’s awake and struggling with the intrusive thoughts laying siege at two a.m.

He turns into me a fraction more, his fingers pressing firmer into my bare chest, and I hear a small hum of a noise in the back of his throat.

It’s so faint, but my heart stills, trying to figure out what might be causing him to cry out in his sleep.

The next second it comes a little stronger, but still muffled. A wordless plea.

Jesus. I’m no stranger to the horrors the mind can conjure up at night. I’ve spent years waking up in cold sweats and thrashing so hard the sheets dislodge off the mattress.

I shift my weight a little, not sure whether he’ll settle back into a deeper sleep, or wake up.

Kayce’s body jerks, and he makes a grunting, guttural noise. His head lifts off my chest when he startles out of the dream. It takes him a moment, head swiveling around as he must be coming back to the here and now, then blows out a breath before sinking back down.

“Are you ok?” Keeping my voice low, I watch carefully as he nods and then readjusts to nuzzle closer.

My entire fucking heart is ready to explode when he immediately places a kiss against my chest. The first thing he does when waking up from a bad dream is to curl into me.

To feel safe enough to give me that. If I didn’t already know that I’ve got both feet in this thing with him, that just sealed it for me.

I love being at his side. I love being the person he can turn to.

I’m in love with him.

Kayce rubs at his eyes, then makes a sleepy noise that vibrates into me. “Yeah. Just crappy memories coming back.”

“I’m right here. Try to get some more sleep.”

He sighs. “You were in my dream, too.”

“I was?”

“It was more of a memory really. A night you didn’t think I was awake... you didn’t know that I heard you outside my door.” His words are punctuated by a yawn, and he twines our legs together.

My mind ransacks through times that I’ve tried so damn hard to forget—a lot of them have been eliminated, hardly a foggy recollection anymore. It’s like my brain has taken a whiteboard eraser to so many pieces of my past, swiping things away and leaving a blank nothingness where they used to be.

“It was a time when you blocked the door. I could hear you refusing to let your dad in that end of the house because he was drunk and mad.” His voice is thick with sleep.

“It was like he was right there. All the horrible shit he was slurring about me. That I was just a skinny little runt. A piece of shit who would end up a whoring little bastard. Just like his momma, he was saying it over and over.” He shivers against me, a brief tremor rolling through his muscles, even though it’s toasty warm in here.

“Just a dream.” There’s a rock lodged in the back of my throat that I struggle to swallow down.

“You never knew I found you sleeping on the floor outside my bedroom the day after that.” Kayce sighs, words dragging a little slower over his tongue as sleep starts to reach for him again.

“When I asked you about it, you said it was just because you’d been out with friends.

That you’d had too much to drink, so you crashed out and didn’t make it to your room. ”

My heart thuds harder. I can remember slumping to the ground that night in front of his door, with a bruise forming around my eye as I stayed there on guard for hour after hour.

“I knew you were lying.” His next yawn makes the words elongate, as he starts to drift off.

Stroking his spine, I reveal the raw truth, freeing it into the darkness—not caring if he’ll hear me or if he’s already asleep.

Because it’s the fierce reality, and it’s been that way since long before I cared about Kayce in the manner I do now.

Back then I did it for entirely different reasons, but now those words feel even more powerful with the depth of my feelings for him sneaking up on me.

“I’ll always be here to protect you.”