Page 37 of Stoker's Serenity

“Shit, she knows how to pick ‘em, eh?” I ventured.

“Let’s just say, Ren has something like the absolute worst taste in men.”

“Good thing she didn’t really pick me, then, isn’t it?”

She raised an eyebrow as I reached for the passenger-side door handle of Serenity’s car.

“How does that work?” she asked.

I smiled and said, “I saw her first.”

She shut the driver’s side door and Serenity jumped slightly on the other side of the window glass. I opened up her door.

“Mm,” she muttered sleepily.

“Come on, baby. I’ve got you,” I murmured, plucking her beach bag off the passenger floorboard and slinging it over my shoulder. I leaned into the car and unbuckled her seatbelt as she frowned and looked around her surroundings in utter confusion.

Faith’s meds had hit her like an eighteen-wheeler and I was glad for it. She needed to sleep it off. I reached down and she leveraged herself to her feet, unsteady as all get-out. I held her to me and kissed her hair.

“Take your time.”

She pushed away from me and I let her go, swinging her car door shut when she was clear. She wrapped both of her slim arms around one of mine as we shuffled out of the detached garage she lived over and around the corner into the driveway.

“You good?” I asked quietly and got no verbal reply. Instead, she simply shook her head slowly back and forth.

Linny had the lights on and was standing at the door when we reached the top of the stairs.

“I’m going to grab my shit and make sure the garage is closed up,” she murmured and I tossed her a nod.

I sat Serenity on the edge of her neatly-made bed and slipped her thongs off her feet.

“How you doing, Orchid?” I asked her.

“I just want to lay down, sleep for like a thousand days.”

“Okay.” I nodded carefully and said, “Let’s get you tucked in. Where you keep your nightgowns?”

“I don’t.”

“Well, alright then. Let’s get you undressed and let you lie down.”

I helped her slowly out of her clothes for a second time and pulled back the blankets. She lay huddled on her side and I tucked her in, placing a kiss on her temple, even though I figured she was out and probably missed it. It was enough that I knew I’d done it.

Linny had returned up here and was eyeing me from the front door.

“You’re good with her,” she said, and I turned my head her direction.

“Thanks.”

“Come on outside and let’s talk.”

I chuckled and stood up from where I sat on the edge of the bed beside Serenity, trudging in my work boots across her hardwood floor. I’d thrown them on along with jeans and a tee the second I’d gotten home. Threw some other shit in my bag and had hustled out to my truck to find out what the fuck was going on.

I had an inside line with Linny here, and I wasn’t about to pass it up.

“Look, let me start off by saying that what you saw, the meltdown or whatever – that’s not usually Serenity. Ren doesn’t do that often, like at all. I haven’t seen her have a panic attack like that in –God… a while. Years at least.”

“What happened to her?” I asked, feigning innocence.

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