Page 74 of Unbound
I wouldn't have stopped him. Every point where our bodies connected—his chest against my back, his thigh brushing mine, the palm splayed across my ribs like he could will warmth into me through sheer stubbornness—felt like the only thing keeping me from dissolving into the cold early morning. I pressed closer, shameless, my fingers twisting into his sweatshirt. The fabric was damp from my clutching grip during the car ride, when I'd clung to him so tightly the seatbelt warning had chimed the whole way home. I hadn't cared. Couldn't make myself let go. Every shuddering breath I'd taken had been full of his scent—leather and bergamot and safety—and when he'd murmured "nearly there" against my temple, I'd felt the rumble of it in his chest like a second heartbeat.
Now he guided me inside, his body a sheltering wall between me and the world as the living room's warmth rushed over us. I stumbled on the threshold—not from the limp, but because the sudden safety made my legs forget how to hold me. Adrian caught me effortlessly, his arm sliding down to cinch around my waist. For one dizzying second, my forehead dropped to his shoulder. His free hand came up, cupping the back of my neck through the clammy fabric of my jacket. Not guiding. Just holding. Claiming.
"Easy, take it one step at a time," he murmured. His lips brushed my ear—accidental or intentional, I didn't know, but the spark of it raced down my spine nevertheless. "We're home."
For a frozen second after we entered, no one moved. I stood there, dripping on the floor, wrapped in Adrian's jacket like a piece of lost luggage, my phone buzzing incessantly in his hand.Dad. Mom. Dad. Dad.The vibrations were a frantic, distant heartbeat of their rage. Then, the fragile silence shattered into a storm of voices.
"Oh, hell no," Phoenix exclaimed, vaulting off the couch. "Adrian, what did theydoto him?"
"Don't just stand there, he's freezing!" It was Diana, a whirlwind of motion. "Phoenix, get the blue blanket! Andrew, put the kettle on!"
Her voice was a sharp command cutting through the fog in my head. A moment later, a massive, ridiculously soft blanket was being draped over me as I was practically carried onto the couch. The world was a blur of frantic energy. Phoenix was pacing, ranting about glitter bombs being thrown through open windows in my parents' home. Andrew was shouting back about legal statutes from the kitchen. It wasn't anger directed at me. It wasn't judgment. It was a bizarre, overwhelming, cacophonous wall of protection.
And it was all for me.
My throat felt thick. All my life, distress was met with cold silence, a slammed door, a whispered prayer for my corrupted soul. This... this was the opposite of silence.
Through the noise, a figure detached from the armchair. Sam moved with an unnerving quietness, a stark contrast to the room's frantic energy. They went to the kitchen and returned with a simple glass of water, holding it out to me.
I looked up at their face. Their expression was unreadable, but their eyes were steady. There was no pity in them, just a flat, knowing calm. It was the calm of someone who had stood on a similar cliff edge.
"Drink," they said, their voice low but clear, cutting through everything. "You're safe here, Jesse."
The sound of my name, said so plainly, anchored me. I took the glass and drank the cool water in it. The smell of melting butter was starting to fill the air. Adrian was kneeling in front of me, his eyes blocking out the chaos. He gave my hand a squeeze that said,I know it's a lot, just hold on.
He started to say something, but his eyes flickered up, past me. He stood. "I'm taking him upstairs—he needs rest," he announced to the room. Before I could protest, Adrian's arms hooked under my knees and back, lifting me against his chest with surprising ease. A startled noise escaped me as my face flushed hot, my hands instinctively curling into his shirt collar. The room erupted in whistles and dramatic sighs, but I barely registered them—not when Adrian's breath tickled my temple, not when I could feel the steady, reassuring thud of his heartbeat through his ribs.
"Relax," he murmured, just for me. His voice rumbled where my shoulder pressed against his chest. "I've got you."
And God help me, I believed him. My head found the hollow between his shoulder and neck as he carried me toward the stairs, the world narrowing to the warmth of his arms. My earlier blush deepened when his grip shifted slightly, his fingers flexing against my thigh in an absent, possessive squeeze. No one had ever held me like this—not just with strength, but withcertainty, as if my weight in his arms was exactly where I belonged.
Behind us, Diana brandished a spatula at Phoenix’s theatrical swooning, and I caught Sam's dry observation—"Make him a grilled cheese. He'll eat that"—before the steps creaked beneath us, swallowing Adrian's quiet chuckle.
ADRIAN
The moment we stepped inside, I knew I’d thrown a live grenade into our living room. I felt Jesse trembling under my arm, saw the wild, vacant look in his eyes as he stared at my friends. His phone, clutched in my hand, was vibrating non-stop.Each buzz was a phantom punch.
I watched Phoenix go from zero to a hundred, watched Diana go into full mother-hen-battle-mode. I could see Jesse flinch at their sudden movements, at the sheer volume of it all. They were building a fortress of noise and love around him, but he looked like a man who thought the walls were about to fall on him.
Sam was the first one to get it right. They brought him water,spoke his name, and gave him an anchor in the storm. I saw a flicker of awareness return to Jesse’s eyes. He was here, present, but hanging on by a thread. The chaos downstairs could wait. He needed silence. He needed a sanctuary.
"I'm taking him upstairs," I announced, adjusting my grip beneath his knees. He curled tighter against my chest instinctively, his breath hitching as I shifted him slightly higher, his hands fisting in my shirt like he expected me to let go. In another world, this moment would have been everything—his weight in my arms, his body pressed against mine, the way he clung to me like I was the only solid thing in his world. I would have teased him about it, savoured the blush on his cheeks, maybe even kissed him just to hear that startled little sound he made when I caught him off guard.
But now, all I felt was the fragility of him trembling against me, the way his breaths came too fast, too shallow. My stomach churned at the thought of what he’d been through to end up here, what he’d risked. He felt so small like this, so broken, and I hated it. Hated that this was how I got to hold him for the first time. I tightened my grip unconsciously, as if I could shield him from the world just by holding him close.
I carried him through the chaos, my focus narrowed to the warmth of him shivering against me, the way his nose pressed into the hollow of my throat like he was memorizing my pulse. I bypassed the spare room completely—that was for guests, for temporary things. Jesse wasn’t temporary, not to me. The door to my bedroom creaked as I shouldered it open. My space was messy—law books stacked haphazardly on the dresser, a t-shirt draped over the chair, the sheets unmade from where I'd bolted upright at his text. But it smelled like me, like safety, and when his breathing finally slowed as I crossed the threshold, I knew I’d made the right choice.
"Yours," he murmured against my chest as I lowered him carefully onto the mattress where he sat upright on the edge, my arms reluctant to let go even when he was safely deposited. His fingers lingered against my collarbones for a heartbeat too long before falling away. I wanted to stay there, to climb into the bed beside him and pull him close until the shaking stopped, until the haunted look in his eyes faded. But the sounds from downstairs—the low hum of voices, the clatter of dishes—reminded me that this wasn’t over. Not yet.
I finally turned off his buzzing phone without asking and set it on the dresser. "You don't have to read those. Not tonight. Not ever, if you don't want to."
That's when he finally broke down. The thread snapped. I was on my knees in front of him instantly, my hands on his. He cried, his whole body shaking with sobs that seemed to come from somewhere deeper than grief, a place where years of pain had been carefully stored away.
"I don't know what I'm doing," he whispered against my hands, his voice raw. "I don't know how to do this."
"You don't have to know right now," I said, my own voice thick. I sat on the bed beside him and pulled him against my side. "We'll figure it out together, I promise."
He leaned into me, boneless with exhaustion and relief. After a long time, the desperate sobs quieted into shuddering breaths.
