Page 28 of Brutal for It
Finally, he sighs and presses his lips to my forehead. “Then rest. I’ll take care of everything.”
The words should comfort me. They always have. But now they twist in my chest until I can barely stand.
Because if he knew — if he knew where I’d been, what I’d done, what I woke up to — he wouldn’t be saying rest. He wouldn’t be looking at me with love.
He’d be looking at me with disgust.
He should be telling me to hit the road and don’t look back.
I turn into his chest, hide my face in his shirt, and let him hold me. He smells like leather, outdoors, and home. My throat tightens, tears threatening.
“I’m fine,” I whisper again, praying he believes it.
Because if he doesn’t, if he asks the wrong question, if he digs too deep — everything will shatter.
And I’m not ready to lose him. Not yet and really not ever.
Nine
Tommy Boy
Something’s off.
Hell, it’s been off for a week now.
Ever since I got back from that run, the woman I love has been slipping through my fingers like smoke.
At first, I told myself she was sick. She said it, after all. Pale, tired, not feeling good. But it’s been seven days, and my Jami doesn’t stay sick this long. Not without seeing Doc Kelly, not without letting me fuss over her until she throws a pillow at my head to shut me up.
This is different.
She doesn’t kiss me. Not on the lips, not even a quick peck on the cheek. She turns her head so it lands on her hair or her temple.
She doesn’t touch me in bed. No tangling her legs with mine, no curling against my chest, no hands roaming lazy over my skin while we drift. She lies stiff, like she’s trying to take up as little space as possible.
And the sex? Gone. It’s been two weeks since I’ve had her, since I’ve felt her body under mine, since I’ve heard my name in that broken whisper that makes me believe in every damn thing. I’m crawling out of my skin, not from the lack of release, but from the lack of being one with her.
Every night I ask, and every night she shuts me out.
“What’s wrong, Tiny?”
“Nothing, Tommy. I’m just tired.”
Bullshit.
I know her. I know every breath, every twitch, every shadow that crosses her face. She’s hurting. She’s drowning. And she won’t let me in.
It’s eating me alive.
Tonight, I come home from a site job with dust in my hair and sweat down my back. I’m already half-rehearsing the speech I’m gonna give her — gentle but firm, the one where I tell her I love her too much to keep circling each other like this.
But when I walk in the door, the air goes still.
The house smells like lemon cleaner, but underneath it, there’s that sharp tang of panic.
Her bags are by the door.
The green duffel. The black roller. Her purse sitting on top like a damn cherry on a sundae.
