Page 59 of Tied

“Ty… why…”

“Shit,” I say. “I’m sorry.” I gently touch her arm. “Don’t be scared… I just wanted to surprise you.” I don’t know all her triggers yet—I have to learn them as I step on them, which causes a lot of moments just like this one. I hold the bag out to her. “This is for you.”

She takes the bag from me, her hand shaking slightly, and it sucks that this girl can’t even be given a gift without worrying it’s something that’s going to hurt her. I vow to change that.

“What is it?” she asks.

“Look inside. I promise you’ll like it.”

Nervously, she opens the bag and pulls out the two throw blankets in their plastic zippered cases. Her small, skeptical smile turns into a huge, excited one.

“You got me magic blankets?” she squeals, pulling one out of its plastic and holding it against her body, feeling its softness. “Oh my God,” she practically moans. “It’s so soft.”

“One for here, and one for you to take home.”

She yanks out the other and hugs them both to her, sparking my jealous streak.What do I have to do to be hugged like that?“They’re so soft. I love them. Did you… did you go out and buy these?”

I nod. “Yeah.”

“Wow.” Realization sinks into her expression.She gets me. Without question.

“Yeah.”

She looks up into my eyes. “Thank you so much,” she says softly, and before I realize what she’s doing, her hand is on my arm, and she’s going up on her tiptoes, and she kisses my cheek. Not the pretty half that’s not hiding behind my long hair.No. She presses her soft, perfect lips right over my scarred cheek and then hovers there for a moment.

Lavender vanilla perfume fills the air around me.

The room spins.

Our eyes meet and hold as she slowly settles back down on the flats of her feet. I want to kiss her, but I don’t. I think she finally wants me to, but I still don’t. I take a deep breath, bracing myself for rejection. “It’s warmer today.” I swallow, hoping it will clear the rasp a bit, but it never does. “Maybe we could take a walk out back, sit in the leaves, and talk. We’ll bring the fuzzy beasts with us.”

Her silvery eyes blink rapidly, like pages flipping through a book. Confusion, excitement, and a tinge of alluring fear and anticipation reveal themselves with every sweep of her lids. I can feel myself tumbling into an abyss filled with long kisses, breathless sighs, rose petals, and primal thrusts.

“Can we bring the blanket?” she asks.

Not at all what I was expecting. But everything I was hoping for.

Thank you, powers that fucking be.

“We can bring anything that’ll make you happy.” Anything but the purple backpack. My gut tells me she’s gotta let that go. Soon.

“Just you, Poppy, Boomer, and this blanket will make me happy.” Our eyes lock, unfaltering, hypnotizing each other, planting subtle hints and suggestions in just the right places in our minds and hearts. I can almost believe this girl could love me, scars, damage, ugliness and all.

And oh, how ferociously I would love her back if given the chance.

It’s unseasonably warm, and all traces of the snowstorm we had a few weeks ago have vanished. As we walk along the path stemming from what is mostly my backyard, I take a chance and reach for her hand, and hers slides into mine willingly, our fingers interlocking perfectly. Poppy and Boomer race ahead of us, comeback to check on us, and race back down the path again. Holly laughs as Boomer jumps over Poppy’s back, letting out his crazy happy squeal in midair before he lands in a pile of old leaves and burrows his face into it, peeking out at us.

“He’s so funny,” she says. “Was he like that as a baby, too?”

“Yes. He always makes me laugh. I guess I kinda need it.”

“How long have you had him?”

“About four years.”

“Poppy seems to really like him. I’m not sure if Poppy has ever been around another animal, or why he sounds funny. I don’t know where the bad man got him from.”

She always refers to him as “the bad man,” and I wonder if she knows that his real name was Donald J. Loughlin, that he was a forty-two-year-old middle school teacher who drove a four-door Toyota, that he had a wife, two kids, and a beagle. He had no criminal record and no history of drug or alcohol use, but he had quite the hidden collection of porn featuring little girls and anime dolls.

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