Page 16 of Tangled Hearts (Mended Hearts #4)

Placing a hand on his back, I shake him gently. He jerks awake, gasping loudly and flinching away from me in what looks like fear. Does he… He thinks I’m going to hurt him? Pain lances through me as I start to pull my hand away.

Green eyes peek at me from behind dark lashes. “Oh, it’s you,” Eli sighs, relaxing back into the couch. “Hand’s warm.” He hums, closing his eyes.

Relief pours over me so quickly that I almost fall off the couch. “Yeah, just me,” I whisper. “Can you sit up for me?” Eli yawns, then shakes his head. Okay, then. He wiggles back and forth, then huffs a little. “Why are you huffing at me?”

He huffs again. “Rub my back.”

This has bad idea written all fucking over it, but my hand is moving before I can stop myself. Eli hums again, his entire body relaxing under my touch. For a few minutes, I don’t say anything. Mostly because the warmth of his back under my palm is shorting out my brain. “Eli?”

“Yeah?”

“Can you sit up for a second? I need to talk to you.”

He shifts a bit, stretching his legs out. “Can’t you talk like this?” He sounds a little mumbly, like he’s half-asleep. It shouldn’t be cute. It shouldn’t have my brain fraying around the edges. It shouldn’t have my heart racing.

It does.

“I’m afraid not.” I need to stop touching him. Like right now. I pull my hand back with a deep breath, and he pops an eye open, peeking at me .

He sits up, rubbing his eyes. “Fine.” Ah, there’s the snark I’ve so missed. He blinks a few times, looking around in confusion. I see the exact moment his brain comes back online. He stiffens, his eyes flying to mine. “Fuck. I’m sorry. I—”

I cut him off. “Shh. You’re fine. It’s okay.” I try to smile.

He groans, squeezing his eyes closed. “Stop smiling.”

The smile slides right off my face. When he opens his eyes again, he looks awake and alert. I clear my throat, placing my hands in my lap, trying to put up a mask of indifference. “I just wanted to make sure you’re okay.”

He looks at me like I’m stupid. “You woke me up to ask if I was okay. Clearly, I was. I was asleep .”

“I’m aware, but outside of sleeping, are you okay?”

His nose scrunches. “What do you mean?”

“You’re not wearing makeup anymore,” I blurt out, unable to keep the words inside any longer.

Confusion mars his features. “I don’t always wear makeup.”

“But…” He did. For the whole first week I was here.

“Sometimes I do,” he says, with a shrug. “Sometimes I can’t be bothered to fuck with it.”

“It’s not my fault?”

Eli blinks at me. “What? Why would it be your fault?”

“I’ve basically overtaken your home. You lock yourself in the bedroom. Holden’s worried. Julian’s worried. I’m worried.” I shouldn’t have added that last part.

Something complicated happens to his face, and I’m just sure I’m about to get an earful. It’s no less than I deserve. “You’re… worried about me?”

“Of course I’m worried about you.” Oh shit, that came out way more intense than I meant for it to .

Eli shakes his head slowly. “You didn’t do anything wrong. I just get this way sometimes. Icky and sad or whatever. Don’t stress about it.”

I’m definitely going to stress about it. I mean, holy fuck, I just lied to my brother because I was so stressed about it. “If it’s too much for you to handle with me being here, I can go back to the hotel.”

“Fuck no,” Eli says, eyes widening. “I definitely don’t want that.”

I nod. “Okay. I’ve been looking for a place. To buy or rent. I promise I’ll be out of your hair soon.”

Eli turns a glare on me. “What?” he snaps. “Is living with me really that fucking bad for you?”

I have to bite the inside of my cheek hard to keep from smiling. He’s so fucking cute when he gets all bratty with me. “No. Is living with me bad? You weren’t all sad or icky until I moved in.”

“Do you want me to tell you it’s your fault? Would that make you feel better?”

My chest tightens. “Not really, no. But if it’s the truth, then yes, I want you to tell me.”

He sighs, slumping against the couch. “It’s complicated.”

Fuck.

I lean back, unable to look at him anymore. We sit in relative silence. The TV is on, but he’s got it turned down so low you can barely hear it. After a few minutes, he lets out a frustrated sigh. “Can I lay on your shoulder?”

My heart jumps into my throat. “Yeah.”

A heartbeat later, his head is resting against my shoulder, the strawberry scent of his shampoo filling my nostrils. I want to bury my face in his hair and inhale. I won’t, but God, do I want to.

“Thank you,” he whispers, but my throat is far too tight to speak, so I don’t.

It doesn’t matter because he seems content to fill the silence himself.

“I was abused by my bio dad until I was fourteen.” The words make my stomach drop.

I wasn’t expecting that at all. Although, I guess I should have, given how much Safe Haven means to him.

“My dads don’t know the extent. I think Roman has an idea, but no one outside of my therapist knows.

I lived in filth. I didn’t even have a bed. ”

“I’m so sorry, Eli.”

“I don’t need sympathy,” he snaps. “I’m just telling you. Anyway, it fucked me up. And then I met Roman at The Hart Foundation. He saved my life. And then Holden saved it again.”

Julian’s words echo in my mind. But especially to Holden.

“I understand,” I say, even though I don’t really at all.

“I like you, and I’m fine with you staying here. I want you to. I thought I’d enjoy the company. I hate being alone.” The whispered confession has my heart aching. “But I don’t know. You just keep avoiding me. It puts me in a not-great headspace.”

He thinks I’m avoiding him? In what fucking world? “I’m not avoiding you.”

He snorts. “Sure.”

It’s not worth arguing over, not when a solution is so fucking easy. If Eli wants companionship, I can definitely do that. Easily. Well, maybe not easily, but I can do it. “Then how about I stop avoiding you?”

He sits up, settling sleepy eyes on mine. “So you admit it, then. You have been avoiding me.”

“Not intentionally, but I don’t want to make you feel bad. Not even a little. So if you want company? Easy. Done.”

There’s a hopeful spark in his eyes. “Really?”

I nod rapidly. “Really.”

A slow smile spreads across his face, devastating and fucking breathtaking. “Will you make breakfast with me in the morning? ”

“Definitely.”

He nods, almost to himself, and settles beside me again, his head finding its way back to my shoulder. “I should probably go to bed,” he says, but he doesn’t move, and I don’t ask him to.