Page 63 of Protected

Reaching out with both hands, he grips my sleeping bag and pulls it—and me with it—closer to him. Then he positions my body so he’s spooning me. I hug one of his forearms to my chest with a pleased sigh.

That vague heaviness still sits in my gut, but I definitely feel better wrapped in Deck’s body like this.

It’s intimate, despite the fact that we’re lying in the open air around dozens of others and that my sleeping bag is between us.

Deck frees his hand enough to spell letters out on his hand.You okay?

“Yes,” I murmur very softly. I don’t want to wake anyone else up. “I don’t know why I’m even awake.”

Worried?

“N-no. I don’t think so.”

Upset.

This time the spelled-out word isn’t a question. It’s a statement. He somehow knows about the heaviness I’m experiencing.

“I’m not really upset. I’m… I don’t know.”

What?

I blow out a breath. I should have known he wouldn’t let it go even if it’s simply a stray, passing feeling.

“Restless or something,” I finally say. “Like something isn’t quite settled.” It’s the best I can come up with to describe my current state of mind.

What needs settled?

“I don’t even know.” I can tell he’s going to pursue the question, so I turn over to face him. “I mean it. Don’t youever have weird temporary feelings that trouble you for a little while and then go away?”

He shakes his head.Something triggers them.

“I guess.”

I don’t know what else to say, what will satisfy Deck enough to let go of this topic.

Because the truth is, as we’ve been talking, the emotions have crystalized into an identifiable recognition.

And Deck is right. It is something specific that’s triggered the weight in my gut that woke me from sleep. Thereissomething unsettled inside me that I need to be addressed.

Him.

Us.

We started fucking with the understanding that it was casual between us—no drama, no messiness that might become a problem to the group dynamic—but the way we’ve been together from the beginning doesn’t feel casual.

At all.

I know he cares about me as much as I care about him, but something new has entered the relationship since the other night in the storage unit when we reconciled after our fight and he opened up about his past trauma.

This relationship has never been perfectly safe for me because of the possible consequences of it ending, but now it’s more dangerous than it ever was before.

My heart might never recover from losing him.

But it’s too much. Too much to ask. Too much to expect. Too much to demand so early in any relationshipand particularly one that was defined from the beginning as casual.

I should say something. Admit my feelings and ask about his. Define the nebulous tension that’s started to swirl around me.

That’s what a sensible, mature person would do.

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