Page 61 of The Bones in the Yard

“Tell me?”

I felt him take a deep breath, then sigh heavily.

I almost pressed him, then decided that would be an asshole thing to do, and I was trying really hard not to be an asshole around Taavi. Especially nottoTaavi. So I waited, gently stroking his back, although I honestly wasn’t sure how much I was comforting him versus reassuring myself. Because I really didn’t want what was wrong with Taavi to be me.

But I was a little afraid it was. Okay, more than a little.

I wasn’t sure what I could have done this time tobethe problem, but it wouldn’t be the first time I’d been a dickhead and not known it.

“I didn’t know when you were coming back,” he said softly.

“Did you want me to take longer?” I asked, my throat tight.

“No.” I felt him shake his head again, and the fingers of his good hand tightened in the back of my t-shirt. “I—I want you here. As long as you can. Or want to.”

I tightened my arms a little. “There is nowhere else I’d rather be.” It was trite, it was cheesy as fuck, and it was completely true.

“I hate this,” he whispered after a few breaths of silence. “I hate being the victim. Being weak. Being broken.”

I continued stroking his hair, the strands soft against the pads of my fingers. I wasn’t quite sure what to say, because while he might have a broken arm and be covered in bruises, it was pretty clear to me that he was far from weak or a victim—well, okay, in the literal sense, yes, he was a victim. He’d been attacked. But he wasn’t playing at victimhood. And he wasn’t weak.

“Taavi, you arenotweak,” I finally said out loud.

He sighed against my chest. “Then why is it always me?” he asked softly.

“Do you remember the MFM riots?” I asked him, softly.

He let out a huff. “Do you really think I willeverforget that?”

I shrugged, and Taavi leaned back, looking up at my face with his brown eye, his head tilted to the right, the palm of his good hand resting on my chest. I liked the warmth of it through my shirt.

“Val, you could have died.”

I couldn’t quite tell what emotion ran underneath his words, whether exasperation or worry or… I honestly wasn’t sure. I did know that the thought of Taavi being hit by that fucking truck made me feel all sorts of things, none of them particularly pleasant. I didn’t expect he felt quite the same thing… but part of me hoped it was at least along the same lines.

Then again, he’d been pissed enough at me when I’d left for that riot that he’d taken a shit on my kitchen floor, so maybe not.

“It was my job,” I murmured, tucking that wayward strand of hair back behind his ear.

“They tried to kill you, Val.”

I nodded. “They did,” I agreed. “But that comes with the job.”

He frowned at me. “They didn’t try to kill you because you’re a cop,” he pointed out.

I knew that, of course. Just like I knew that the dickweeds who had chased down Taavi in their truck had probably done it because they suspected he was a shifter. Or a shifter-sympathizer. If I’d been with him, they’d likely have just as merrily tried to run me down.

“Did the men in the truck…” I paused, trying to find a way to ask the question that wasn’t assholish or callous.

“They followed me from the parking lot at the AAYC. I’d gone over to play with some of the kids—a basketball game.” His fingers rubbed absently over my t-shirt. “I noticed them almost right away, but if I’d lost them, they’d just go back, and the kids…”

Fucking hell. Of course he’d known they were there, and of course he’d let them follow him to keep the fucking kids safe, because that was the kind of goddamn selfless shit that Taavi would absolutely pull.

The kind that ended up going over the hood of a goddamn truck so that some kid didn’t have to.

If it had been me, I’d have been a confrontational asshole, and if they’d had a shotgun in that truck—which had about fifty-fifty odds in the state of Virginia—I might well have gotten myself killed. Or I’d have managed to bullshit my way out of it, and it wouldn’t have been the first time.

I did that shit because it was my job. Or it used to be, anyway. Taavi did it because he thought of other people first.

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