Page 60 of The Sharpest Edges

“Ain’t gotta be sorry,” he says softly. “I do something you don’t like?”

She pulls herself up, leaning back into the arm of the sofa, her legs up to her chest and her arms wrapped around her middle, the space between them like a canyon instead of a cushion.

“No, it’s me, it’s always me.” She runs a hand through her hair, trying and failing to calm her nerves and quiet her trembles. “I saw him instead of you and I panicked. It’s crazy, right? He’s dead, I know he’s dead. I know he isn’t here.”

It takes Dean a moment to reply, and she’s about to babble on in horrific detail about the flashback she relived in an effort to explain herself, but then his expression goes soft and one slow hand reaches out to land over her knee. “We don’t have to do anything tonight.”

Her eyes flicker to his crotch. “But it’s not fair to you, and I still want to, I just…”

She has been so conditioned, for so many years, to think only of his interests, to worry only about his pleasure, his emotions, his reactions. She may be fully aware that the man across from her is not John, but that doesn’t mean she’s any fucking good at retraining herself into behaving like it, not in moments like this when it’s so simple to fall back on old habits and fear that she hasn’t tended to his needs.

How long will it take before she can ignore the instinct to apologize and cower? How does she become someone else? How does she grapple with the knowledge that despite herprogress she isnotsomeone else just yet…

“Any time I’m with you I’m lucky. That’s all there is to it.” He pauses. “Don’t get stuck on what’s fair, we’re not keeping score.”

He’s willing to do whatever she needs, whether that’s leaving her alone or holding her close and her heart breaks a little bit. Despite her mind being completely fucked up, her body still wants him and she can still feel her arousal mixed with fresh adrenaline thumping steadily in her groin, reminding her how badly she needed him only a minute ago. It’s more than a little confusing, but she doesn’t trust herself to act on it anymore. Even if she can get past this moment, the mood is already different and her reaction has put a significant damper on his own willingness. He is already softening.

He grabs his boxers while she ponders the question, pulling them on.

She doesn’t want him to go. The thought of him walking out the door right now and leaving her to overthink this alone makes her shiver.

“Stay,” she whispers, her forehead creased with worry and her mouth a thin line.

He lets out a relieved breath, moving to sit beside her again and opening his arms for her to join him.

She doesn’t hesitate before crawling over and pressing herself along his body, one of her legs over his, her chest snug along his ribs, and her nose fitting into the curve of his neck.

“I didn’t think it would happen again because I’ve been fine the last couple of times. I’ll get better. Won’t be like this forever.” There’s a part of her that’s terrified he might get sick of this one day, and she’s only too ready to reassure him that she won’t always be such a hassle.

He deserves better than her doubt, but the demons in her mind tell her awful lies, reminding her that everyone’s patience has a limit and she needs to be careful how far she pushes him. They prompt all her apologies even when she’s fully aware they aren’t required.

Dean tightens his hold on her as he begins a story she knows won’t have a happy ending.

“When I was a kid, thirteen maybe fourteen, Boone had just left for the army. Left me alone with our old man in that shitty trailer. For a while, it was okay. I thought maybe…maybe this time he’s just gonna get too wasted every damn day to remember he’s got another kid. That he’d leave me be now that I was getting bigger.” He sighs, continuing a long stroke from her tailbone to her shoulders and back down again. “Then we ran outta food, and I asked him for money to get milk and eggs or whatever the fuck else. He flew outta that chair so fast, like he was just waiting on me to say something. Anything. Grabbed me by the back of the neck and threw me into the wall, drug me down to the floor, and pinned me there while he stripped my shirt off, yelling about how I was just a leach eating his money.”

She’s known he earned his scars in horrific ways but to hear an actual account of how is something she wasn’t prepared for and hot tears pool in the corners of her eyes, threatening to spill.

“…and then it started stormin’. Real loud, big claps of thunder. Shook the whole house, and it felt like he was hittin’ me with that belt every time it boomed outside. Every time it rains now when I hear that thunder, my back aches again. Can feel it under my skin like them scars were put there yesterday. It’s been decades, but the right combo of shit happens and I’mon that floor again with my old man hurtin’ me. Right back there.”

She wants to say that she’s sorry for what happened to him. That he didn’t deserve it and she can’t understand how anyone, let alone a parent, could hurt their child, but she can’t find the words and they die on her tongue. She nuzzles further into his arms instead, stroking an open hand over his chest and pressing a teary kiss to his skin with her lips.

“Not the same thing as what you went through, I know it’s not, but I know how it is to think you got past something and then it’s back again. Nothing wrong with you ‘cause of that. Not a damn thing. Some days it rains and others it doesn’t.”

This man is an anomaly. Denied affection, beaten and scarred, yet he’s retained a kindness that even his father couldn’t torture out of him. She may not have had a good marriage, but she had parents that loved her. She had friends who did too and Charlotte who taught her how to love in a whole new way.

As far as she knows, Dean hasn’t experienced even the smallest glimmer of love on a regular basis, except for a brother who likely cares but is shit at showing it, and a mother Ava hasn’t asked about. She could have been worse than his father, better, or somewhere in between, but something tells her the odds aren’t good. That’s a story for another day, not something she wants to dredge up now when he’s only showing her his wounds to help hers heal.

“It rained for me tonight.” She sniffs, feeling his lips press to her forehead.

“I know.”

They rest there for a few long, drawn-out moments, his hand never stopping its soothing rhythm against her back until hisvoice changes from whisper soft to something almost teasing, in an attempt to lighten her mood that hits the mark.

“Hey, we got that showing tomorrow, the house with the red roof. If that one’s a bust too it’ll be a toss-up between the bad-smell house and the haunted mansion. Wanna flip a coin?”

She snorts, smiling in spite of herself, grateful for a change in subject to something far less heavy. “Stop. You aren’t living in either of those places. Red roof house will be the one, I can feel it. No weird smells, no possessed dolls, no coin flipping required.”

“We’ll see about that.” He turns up the volume on the TV, settling in with her while they watch a late-night talk show, curled up on the sofa together, soaking up all the comfort they can get until they both drift off.

---