Page 14 of Knot So Sweet
The polite corrections regarding my clothes, my friends, my job. The way he'd touch my lower back in public, just hard enough to remind me he was in control. The gradual isolation happening so slowly I didn't notice until I was completely cut off from everyone who might have helped.
I draw the comforter up to my chin and try to focus on the positive. I'm clean. I'm warm. I have a locked door between me and the rest of the world.
Tomorrow I'll address my car situation. Find a way to pay for whatever's wrong with it. Get back on the road to Texas and Emma's couch and the fresh start I've been promising myself.
But tonight, I'm so tired my bones ache with it. My eyes keep trying to close despite the anxiety threading through my chest.
The bed is soft. More comfortable than anything I've slept on in months. Mark preferred firm mattresses. He said they were better for your back, though what he really meant was they were better for the kind of sex he liked, where he could pin me down and...
No. Not thinking about it.
I focus on the sounds outside instead. A car driving past. The distant hum of the bakery's refrigeration units. Normal sounds. Safe sounds.
Gradually, despite my fears, exhaustion wins.
My final coherent thought is a prayer to whatever deity might be listening: Please let tomorrow be better. Please let me figure this out. Please don't let these people be another mistake in a life full of them.
Then sleep takes me under, and for the first time in months, I don't dream about Mark's hands around my throat.
And despite everything, the fear, the uncertainty, the knowledge this can't last, I find myself hoping tomorrow might actually be brighter.
It's been so long since I let myself hope for anything.
But maybe, just maybe, it's time to try.
5
XADEN
This time of year, it’s cold, but predictable. Liam pulls his jacket tighter, muttering something about the weather that I don't quite catch. Garrick doesn't seem to notice the temperature at all, because he still has that glazed look in his eyes like someone just hit him with a particularly effective concussion grenade.
"So," I say, my breath misting in the frigid air as we walk toward the truck. "That was interesting."
Liam shoots me a look, because he knows me well enough to recognize when I'm fishing for information. When you live with someone for three years like we have, as a pack sharing everything from morning coffee to late-night conversations, you develop an almost telepathic understanding of each other's motivations. We've become this tight unit, and each of us knows how the others tick.
Garrick grunts and keeps walking, his hands shoved deep in his pockets like he's trying to physically contain whatever's happening inside his head.
"I mean," I continue, because apparently I have a strategic death wish tonight, "it's not every day we see Meredith Blackwell take in charity work."
"She'll pay rent," Garrick scoffs.
"Uh-huh." I unlock the truck and climb into the driver's seat, waiting for them to settle in before I start the engine. The pause gives me time to read the tension radiating from him. "And how exactly is a woman with no car and no money going to pay rent?"
Liam buckles his seatbelt, and Garrick stares out the passenger window like he's mapping escape routes. Which, knowing Garrick, he probably is.
I pull away from the curb and head toward the mountain road that leads to our place, letting the silence stretch long enough to make them uncomfortable. People reveal the most when they think you’re not really listening. Happens every time.
I catch Liam’s reflection in the rearview mirror. His jaw is tight, brow furrowed, staring at the bakery door like he's willing Violet to come back out wrapped in blankets and a goddamn emotional support team.
Huh. Our gentle giant doesn’t usually spare that kind of worry for anyone who walks on two legs. But tonight? He looks ready to hand-feed her soup and stand guard while she sleeps.
Interesting.
“Yeah,” I mutter. “It’s as if she’s learned how to brace for a blow while pretending not to flinch.”
I’ve seen that kind of conditioning before…deep muscle memory that doesn’t fade just because the threat’s gone.
Garrick's jaw ticks, but he stays quiet. He doesn't have to say a word. His scent tells the whole story: coffee turned bitter, wood sharpened into something restless and on edge.
