Page 27 of True Sight (Nat. 20, #4)

He sighs and rolls his neck. “Yeah well, it wasn’t my first choice. I probably should have started going years ago but…I don’t know, I was too proud I guess. Too pig-headed.”

“So what forced your hand?”

“Weren’t we talking about you?” he mocks.

“Briefly but now we’re talking about you.” I tilt my head at him.

He exhales slowly. “Nothing ‘forced my hand,’ I was just tired of feeling like I did.”

“And how’s that?” I know I’m intruding but he seems open to talking for once and I want to know more about him.

“Like I was a burden to my friends,” he answers pointedly and I feel my heart sink. No one should ever feel that way. I know first hand.

“From what I know about your friends, they don’t sound like the kind of people who would think you’re a burden.” I reach over and touch his arm, giving it a comforting squeeze. His eyes stare at my hand for a moment but he doesn’t shift to move it away.

“I know that, but, I don’t know I was just getting in my head about it and with the nightmares, it was just too much.” He drops his head for a moment before looking back to me. “They’ve been my friends my entire life, they’re like my family.”

“Will you tell me about them?” I encourage, squeezing his arm again and smiling.

“So there’s three of them, but they’ve all found the loves of their lives over the last two years so now there’s six.

First, there’s Hank and Bailey. They got together two years ago after he came home from deployment and he instantly fell in love with her.

If you want two people who don’t have a mean bone in their body, it’s them.

Then Kolbi, he owns Sweetgrass Security, you should hire them for the studio.

” He points a finger at me seriously. “Well last year, he fell in love with Magnolia. They recently got married a few months back.”

“Oh, I love a good wedding,” he exclaims and I laugh at his excitement.

“And then there’s Malcolm. He’s with Ophelia. They got together at the end of last year and after a few bumps, figured it out and now co-run Butcher and Block which is this amazing restaurant on the other side of the bridge.”

“Sounds like quite the group.” When he smiles widely and I get a glimpse at what I know is his true smile, I nearly melt into a puddle.

“We really are.” He sighs, looking down at his feet again. “What about you? Tell me about your friends?”

“Erm, well, I don’t really have a lot of friends so to say.”

“What? A guy like you?” He sounds genuinely surprised at my confession.

“I mean, I have friends, but not a whole football team like you do. I have Ellie, who’s my best friend from London. She stumbled into my life a few years back and never left.”

“Ha, I have one of those too,” he barks. When I study him for a moment he continues. “Her name is Margaret. She’s actually best friends with Magnolia but we’ve become close. She’s a story for another time, continue.” He takes another bite of food and waits for me to speak.

“So there’s Ellie, like I mentioned, and then there’s Alex?—”

“She teaches at the studio,” he says, finishing my sentence for me.

“That’s right,” my voice perks up, a little shocked that he remembers.

“I look at your teaching schedules, I know who she is.”

“Are you keeping tabs on me, love?” I say jokingly.

“What if I am?” His eyes flick to me as the corner of his mouth tips up.

There’s a growing heat in my belly that if I don’t get control of will grow wildly out of control.

Our eyes are glued to one another, the glow of the candles warming the brown of his irises even more than they normally look.

I’m trying to find a way to respond when the largest boom of thunder followed by a deafening crack of lightning explodes outside.

I nearly jump into his lap out of fear, the surprise of the storm outside shaking me to my core.

“Shh, you’re okay, it’s just the storm. You’re safe, I’m here.” He has an arm around me and is shushing me, trying to calm my racing heart rate. Whether it is the storm or the way his arm feels around me that is causing the near fatal beats per minute I can’t tell.

“Why don’t we watch a movie or something? To distract from the storm?” he offers, tucking his chin down to speak to me. I haven’t let go of him yet and I’m silently hoping I’ll never have to.

“I don’t know how we would do that seeing as how we have no power and no Wi-Fi,” I remind him.

“Ahh, but sweets, you’re with me which means I have a way around that. Go and grab your computer. We’ll watch right here.”

I do what he says and grab my laptop, thankful I had left it plugged in all day.

When I come back, he pats the spot next to him on the couch, so I lower myself down and curl myself in next to him.

He takes my computer from me after I log in and connects it to his phone’s hotspot, allowing the machine to stream off his phone’s signal instead of Wi-Fi.

Then, he logs into Netflix and hands the laptop back to me.

“Alright, you pick out the movie. I picked last time, so now it’s your turn,” he directs, nodding towards the laptop before draping an arm on the back of the couch behind me.

Breathe, just breathe. I scroll through the options and pick out an old eighties movie I’ve never seen but looks fine enough.

I hand him the laptop to hold, lean over, and pull the blanket over our laps, trapping us both underneath it.

When he doesn’t pull away, I lean in and settle myself against his arm as he sets the laptop down between us and hits play.

The last thing I remember before falling asleep is the sound of an old laugh track and how he smells of aftershave and Old Spice.