Page 94 of Over & Out

Hopper takes a step toward me, and I suck in a breath, but he reaches past me to turn off the faucets.

“I’m going to displace a lot of water,” he explains. “You’ll displace a little more.”

“Hopper,” I croak, twisting the bottom of my shirt, pulling it down tight.

“Hey,” he says. He’s at full height again, and he reaches down to cup my jaw. “It’s okay if you don’t want to do this. Or if you just want to watch me.”

I’m the fair-skinned blusher, but to my shock, it’s Hopper whose cheeks turn pink at that. “I didn’t mean it like, sexually, just that I could get in the bath?—”

“Actually it sounds kind of hot,” I say. “Sexually.”

Hopper’s eyebrow lifts. Then he bends down andkisses me so softly and tenderly I feel like maybe,maybe, I can do this. Because Iwantto do this. That’s the part that’s scaring the shit out of me. I’ve never shown myself to anyone besides a medical professional.

But what did he say?Nothing about you will ever make me run.

I press my hands on his chest, needing some distance. “It’s okay,” I tell him. Or myself, I’m not sure. “I’m ready.”

I reach for my collar. Why did I choose to wear a button-down? It was constrictive when I was helping with the bike earlier, and my fingers fumble on the buttons now.

“Can I help?” Hopper husks.

I look up. He’s not trying to push me. He genuinely wants to make things easier for me. Because that’s him, isn’t it? Even when he was Hopper the Dick, he helped me. He helped me into my coat even when we were fighting. He opened doors for me and texted me when I forgot something at the beach house. He listened to me, always listened, when I was supposed to know nothing. He was always justtherefor me. And now? He dotes on me. It brings him joy to help me.I’m happy when you’re happy.

“Yes,” I say to him.Yes, you can help.

Just take care of me, Hopper. Don’t break me more than you’re already going to.

Chapter 31

Hopper

I’m in love with her. I already knew it, but it’s so clear now.

Chris stands before me naked, vulnerable, but with her chin proudly lifted, her back tall as she lets me look her over. And there it is, louder than that fucking gong.

I’m in love with you.

I open my mouth to say it, because my idiot heart wants so badly to tell her. Luckily I wrangle my brain to the front of the line to say a smarter thing first.

“Can I touch you?” I ask.

Chris’s brow furrows.

“I mean on your scar.”

“You want to feel it?”

I shake my head. “I want to touch you everywhere I think you’re beautiful, Chris. And that’s everywhere.”

Her bottom lip pulls into her teeth, her eyes glassy. She nods.

I press a kiss to her forehead. To her temple, to her chest. Then I drop low, my hands on her hips.

I never thought she was overreacting, even before I saw it. Even if it was the tiniest notch of scar tissue, I knew what it meant to her. I put it together. Her dad died in a fire. Her dad rescued her. This is a burn—one that represents so much more than singed flesh.

I kiss her hip first. One side—the one untouched by the flames. Then I kiss the other. The scar tissue is satiny soft, though her flesh is a mountain range of bumps and twists. The scarring covers the space from that hip all the way to her lower ribs. It stretches in a diagonal swath across her torso, a perfect stripe where the burning wood fell.

“It was a ceiling beam,” she says. “I was sleeping. If I’d been in a different position, I’d be dead.” She sucks in a breath. “He promised he’d quit drinking. He promised me. But he lied. He got drunk, and he fell asleep with a cigarette, and now this is all I have left of him.”

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