Page 60 of The Heart Shot
For a moment, I could only stand there, glaring at the door, hands flexing at my sides. How dare he speak to Elsie like that? How dareanyonespeak to her like that? My heart pounded beneath my skin, the need to yell at that awful man for belittling her made me feel prickly and hot.
I focused on my breathing, trying to calm myself. I didn’t want Elsie to see my anger and be afraid of me, or for me to remind her of that puny man who had insulted her. After a solid thirty seconds, my muscles relaxed, my fury under control.
At last, I turned to face Elsie, who stood watching me. Her face was pale, her caramel eyes wide. She trembled from head to toe.
“Elsie…” I wanted nothing more than to pull her into my arms, to show her that I would never treat her in such a horrendous way. I wanted to make her feel on top of the world, not the size of a bug. I wanted to fuel that spark in her, not extinguish it.
I crossed the room, intending to wrap her in my arms until her trembling subsided, but she blinked, that hazy expression disappearing before she took off down the short hallway. A door closed a moment later, followed by the click of a lock echoing through the house.
I tried to be kind and give her some time alone in the bathroom. If she wanted to talk about what happened, she would have already emerged and walked straight into my arms, where I desperately wanted her to be right now. As much as I wanted to know what she was thinking, I wasn’t about to force her. I would wait patiently…or die trying.
My brain ping-ponged back and forth between the encounter with Benjamin and the kiss that had happened moments before.
That kiss…
Mind-blowing. Earth-shattering. Knee-wobbling.
Though it had been years since I had kissed anyone, I had never experienced anything like that before. That whole romantic notion of seeing fireworks with a first kiss? No, this was more like an atomic bomb going off. Or a volcano erupting.
It was powerful.
It was everything.
I wanted to do it again.
After twenty minutes, anxiety needled its way out of my skin. I had cleared the table, washed the dishes—by hand, so it took up more time—and tidied the living room, even though it was already clean. There was nothing left to do but sit on the couch, twiddling my thumbs. Luna had followed Elsie into the bathroom, eliminating the one thing that could offer a distraction.
The clock ticked on the mantel. Surely twenty minutes was enough time, right? I couldn’t take the silence anymore, couldn’t take knowing she was sad and alone when I had the power to change it. My feet thumped against the wood floor as I went down the hall to the bathroom, giving two soft knocks on the door.
“Elsie?” I asked. “Are you all right?”
Silence greeted me before I heard her sniffle, then a weak “yeah” filtered through the barrier between us. That sniffle was my undoing. I needed to help her, to hold her,anythingto show her that she didn’t deserve to be treated like that.
She was safe with me, and I needed her to believe it.
“Can I come in?”
A grunt followed by the lock clicking and the knob twisting had the door swinging open. Despite the seriousness of the moment, I had to bite my cheek to hold back a laugh at the sight of Luna, all seventy-five pounds of her, sprawled across Elsie’s lap. Elsie’s face was buried in Luna’s soft coat, who looked up at me with big eyes that said, “Fix this.”
I’m going to try, Luna girl.
I knelt and leaned against the wall, the tile hard and unforgiving beneath my knees. The bathroom was small, so it was a tight fit with the three of us taking up the entire floor.
My hand settled on her back, rubbing in circles. “Are you okay?”
Elsie’s face was tear streaked, her eyes and nose red as she turned to look at me. The sight of her tears made my heart crack in two, and I fought the urge to chase down that loser and make sure he could never make her cry again. She shrugged, punctuating the movement with another sniffle.
“I’m here if you want to talk about it,” I offered. “Or, if you don’t want to talk about it, I’m still here.” Fresh tears filled her eyes, prompting me to add, “I’m sorry about my neighbor. The way he spoke to you was unacceptable.” I paused, glancing at her out of the corner of my eye. “You guys seemed to know each other.”
Elsie huffed a breath, and gave Luna a kiss on the head, who then gave her a slimy tongue to the cheek in response. I wasn’t sure what I wanted her response to be. There was history between them, that much was obvious, but to what extent?
Elsie blew out a long breath before giving a single nod. “Ben is my ex.”
“Huh. Small world.” What were the chances that Elsie’s ex would be my neighbor? “How long were you guys together?”
She hesitated, running her fingers through Luna’s fur. “Four years.”
I let out a low whistle. “That’s a long time.”
