Page 203 of Tell Me Pucking Lies

Revan kisses my forehead. “Get some sleep.”

“Will you stay?” I ask, meaning all of them.

“Yeah, Tiger,” Koa answers from the foot of the bed. “We’ll stay.”

I close my eyes, surrounded by them, and for the first time since I pulled that trigger, I feel something other than emptiness.

I feel held.

Even if they don’t want to share.

Even if this is complicated and messy and probably doomed.

For tonight, I’m theirs.

And they’re mine.

All three of them.

49

Lexi

Iwake up to gray light filtering through unfamiliar curtains and the smell of coffee that’s been sitting too long on the warmer. For a disorienting second, I don’t remember where I am—the bed’s too firm, the sheets smell wrong, and there’s a weight across my waist that makes me freeze.

Then it comes back in fragments.

The warehouse. The gun. Gilbert’s body hitting the floor. The hotel room with rain and blood and too many hands. The drive back to campus in the very early morning hours, all of us silent and shell-shocked.

Koa’s dorm.

That’s where I am now. In his bed, fully clothed except for my shoes, with his arm draped over my middle like even in sleep he’s trying to keep me from disappearing.

I turn my head carefully, not wanting to wake him. His face is inches from mine on the pillow, and in the gray dawn light I cancatalog every injury. The swelling has gone down, but the bruises are spectacular now—deep purple around his left eye, yellowish-green along his jaw. There’s a cut on his cheekbone that should probably have stitches but won’t get them, and his lip is still split down the center.

He looks like he went to war.

I guess we all did.

My own body aches in places that have nothing to do with sex. There’s a bruise on my hip from where I hit the ground. My wrists still show faint marks from the ropes at the warehouse, even though that was days ago now. Everything hurts in a dull, persistent way that reminds me I’m alive even when I don’t want to be.

I try to ease out from under his arm without waking him, but the moment I shift, his eyes open. They’re bloodshot, unfocused for a second before they sharpen on my face.

“Hey,” he says, voice rough with sleep and damage.

“Hey.” I stay still, not sure if I’m allowed to move yet.

He doesn’t let go of me. Just adjusts his grip, pulling me closer instead of releasing me. “What time is it?”

I glance at the clock on his nightstand—one of those old-school digital ones with red numbers. “Almost seven.”

“You sleep?”

“Some.” A lie. I maybe got an hour, and those were filled with dreams of blood and gunshots and Gilbert’s eyes staring at nothing.

Koa studies my face like he can see the lie written there. Probably can. “You need to eat something.”

“I’m fine.”