Page 57 of Protected

He swallows visibly.Too late. Gang there. In house. Ifight. Too many. They hold me down.He’s shaking violently, trying to breathe through the surge of emotion. He rubs at his face until he can continue.Make me watch. Laugh.

Tears stream down my face and won’t stop. “Oh Deck.”

After that, no more to say.

There’s nothing I can say either, so I wrap my arms around him and hug him instead. Both of us are shaking, but only I am crying. That’s okay. I can cry for both of us.

I can do that for him.

When I’ve finally stopped crying and he’s grown still, he eases me up so we can see each other again.You want me to talk?

“No!” I shake my head and wipe at my nose. “No! If you ever feel ready to start talking again, that would be fine. I’ll help you if I can. But don’t you ever do it just for me. I told you before. I like you exactly as you are. The man who doesn’t speak is the only one I’ve known. He’s the person I care about.” I sniff and peer at him through a couple of stray tears. “You believe me, right?”

He nods. His expression breaks briefly, but then he pulls me into his arms again.

We eventually lie down and turn off the light, but we don’t stop holding each other. There’s nothing more we need to say.

20

The next morning,as we’re packing up to leave just after dawn, I’m in a good mood. I’m actually humming as I give the food stored in the rear Jeep a quick inventory.

I haven’t forgotten that Logan asked me to keep my eye on it, so I’m planning to do it every morning.

I’m still humming an old girl-power pop song, slightly off-key, when a voice comes from behind me. “You need any help?”

I stiffen from surprise and then from immediate reluctance, but I manage to hide it as I turn back to smile mildly at Trisha. “No. I think I’ve finished it. Thanks.”

“You sure?” She’s giving me her most saccharine look. I wish it wouldn’t grate on me so much. She’s doing nothing particularly aggressive right now. She’s been actively avoiding Deck since that conversation I overheard, so she appears to have gotten the point that he’s not susceptible to her charms.

“Yeah. I just need to redo the fruit. It’s a lot lower than it should be, and Logan asked me to keep track of it.”

“Okay.” Trisha doesn’t walk away as I expect. She leans against the back of the Jeep and watches as I start adding up the cans of fruit.

It’s still too low as I get toward the end. We used some twice for meals in the past week, but that’s not enough to make the dent in the numbers that’s evident since my last inventory.

Private snacking is against the rules. No one should try to sneak food on their own because the consequence would be banishment from the group.

I’m about to count the cans again when Trisha says, “My mom used to always feed me canned fruit cocktail as a kid. I hated everything except the cherries.”

I give a startled laugh, not expecting Trisha to share something that feels so real. “Yeah. We never had it at home, but my grandma would serve canned fruit salad. It wasn’t my favorite either.”

“It’s funny how things feel different now. Canned fruit is one of the best things we’ve got.”

“I know.” I sigh and turn toward her, folding my legs to get more comfortable in the back of the Jeep. “I keep trying to remember what fresh fruit tastes like, and it’s just… gone.”

“For me too. Where did you grow up?”

I’m still surprised but also pleased that she’s actually showing any sort of interest in me as a person. Maybe she’s the kind of person who takes a while to warm up, and now that she’s giving up her campaign to snag a guy,she’s able to interact more naturally. “A small town in western Tennessee. What about you?”

“I’m from a small town in Tennessee too. After high school I moved to Nashville, determined to make it in country music.”

“Oh really? You sing?”

“Yeah. I sing and play the guitar.”

“You should do a song the next time Micah gets out his guitar. I’m sure everyone would be glad to hear you.”

“Maybe. That feels like a lifetime ago to me.” She pauses, staring at the cluster of storage units behind us. “It’s easier not to put yourself back there.”

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