Page 70 of Between Brothers

Chapter 29

Hayley

He took me home, held my hand and waited until I was safe in a warm bath in my studio’s bathroom before he stepped out into the studio itself and made his phone calls. It was awkward, listening to him. I could tell he wasn’t comfortable with speaking. While I couldn’t make out what he was saying, the cadence of his voice was halting with one word answers punctuated with long swaths of his boot heels clonking back and forth along the polished cement as he paced.

Finally there was a long silence where I imagined him letting out a gusty sigh, his head back as far as it would go as he tried to work through easing the tension riding his posture. When he came back into the bathroom, it was without his jacket and cut, and without his phone. He sat down on the closed lid of the toilet and reached out, chasing a stray lock of my hair behind my ear where it’d escaped my bun.

“How you doing?” he asked and I sniffed.

“Scared.”

“They can’t hurt you now, little one.”

“No, not for me,” I said scrubbing my face with damp hands. “For Cell.”

He nodded in understanding and sighed, “I get you. Cell’s gonna be fine, though. He’ll be arraigned in the morning, and bail won’t be a problem.”

“What if there’s a trial? I mean, he didn’t do anything!”

Blue shook his head, “There won’t be. This’ll all be plead out. It’s how it works. With luck it’ll be a misdemeanor and some community service, no jail time.”

“You really think so?” I asked, desperate to believe him. He smiled but it wasn’t terribly convincing.

“Yeah, I really do.”

He pulled the washcloth down from the towel bar and dipped it into the water, raising it to my shoulders and swiping it gently across my back where it was exposed above the waterline, warming me as I hugged my knees and shivered, but not from any actual cold.

“Will you stay with me tonight?” I asked.

“You know I will.”

I nodded and let him console me the way that only Blue could, with gentle touches and soft kisses along my skin, kneading tense muscles with just the right amount of pressure until they gave up all their secrets. He let me stay in the bath until my fingers were pruned and the water had grown tepid and I was still reluctant to get out.

I liked the closeness of the tub and bathroom. I felt shattered, and it was like the close space held the broken pieces together while Blue worked to fuse them into a whole that was more beautiful than it had been before… like I did with my glass and my windows.

“I love you, and I’m sorry this happened to you,” he murmured while I stood in ankle deep water, the only sounds in the small space the water draining and his hands rubbing me briskly through the towel, drying my skin.

“I love you, too… and I’m sorry it happened to you, too. That Cell is in jail… I feel like it’s all my fault.” Blue shook his head and pulled me tight against his chest, kissing the top of my hair.

“Not your fault. Not at all… not Cell’s fault either. I told you, if he liked you, you’d never be safer. That’s what I meant.”

“It was terrifying, seeing him like that.”

“Yeah.”

Silence between us, but then again, there was really nothing to say. I put my arms around Blue and held tightly to him, taking shelter against his hard body and he was right… I felt safe. Safe from any kind of harm coming from any direction and that was an empowering feeling.

I looked up at him and felt a measure of calm return to me and he asked me, “Are you tired?”

I nodded, “I really am.”

“You sound surprised.”

“I sort of am… I mean, I feel like I should be wired and wide awake.”

He chuckled, “Wait until you actually lay down.”

“You want to sleep here or in the house?”

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