Out of Nowhere(76)

His expression is serious but he doesn’t seem angry. “Are you sure you didn’t mean them?”

I cast my mind back, desperately trying to remember everything I said. It’s hard after I spent two weeks shying away from every thought of them.

“What I said about Javier. I’m sorry for that. The rest… I guess I… I guess I probably did mean it, but I didn’t mean to say it so awful.”

Rafe nods and squeezes my shoulder. “Me too. I meant what I said, but I said it all wrong. I’m sorry for that. Let’s not worry about it right now. We’ll talk about it later. Okay?”

I nod, intensely relieved that there will be a later. Rafe leans in slowly, stroking my lips with his thumb. I kiss his thumb and his mouth goes all soft. He moves his thumb to brush my cheek and kisses me softly.

“Will you stay? Please. The funeral’s tomorrow morning. I just—” Fuck, I just really don’t want to be alone.

Rafe stands up, pulling me with him like I weigh nothing, and touches under my eyes. “Looks like you could use some sleep.”

He’s stripped down to his underwear before I realize I’m just standing by the bedroom door, staring at him. He’s like a luxury car: everything’s perfectly balanced, his lines are beautiful, powerful. He’s… he’s fucking beautiful.

“You coming in here?” he asks, lifting the covers.

I nod. “Lemme just brush my teeth.” I don’t want even the slightest taste of beer to linger if Rafe’s going to kiss me again.

In the bathroom, I risk a glance in the mirror. Dark circles are under my eyes, which look almost violet from the redness of crying, like an old bruise. There’s an actual bruise on my cheek from where Daniel hit me earlier. My hair is the longest it’s been since high school and it’s a mess. I’ve only seen myself with a buzz cut for so long. I look like a different person with it longer. Softer, maybe.

When I slide under the covers with Rafe, he plucks at my hood. “You’re sweating.”

I kick off my sweatpants and pull my sweatshirt over my head, feeling better when the cold air from the open window hits me. My landlord sets the heat way too high.

“You not been eating?” Rafe traces my collarbone with his finger.

“I dunno.”

His gaze immediately goes to the cuts on my chest and he runs a finger over them, jaw tight.

“It’s been bad,” he says, and I nod, closing my eyes. He leans over me and presses a kiss to the cuts on my chest. “Okay.”

He pushes the blanket all the way off so he can look at me. He runs a finger over the scratches Shelby left on my arm, and I throw my other arm over my eyes. There are warm kisses on my stomach and my hipbones. Hair brushing my thighs.

Looking down my body in the light from the window, I can see that he’s right. I have lost weight. My stomach muscles are almost cartoonishly defined and my hipbones jut unhealthily beneath them. The muscles of my thighs are tight, but my knees look knobby and too big. I’ve never liked the way I look, but at least I’ve always felt strong, ever since the summer before high school, when I started lifting weights. Now, though—god, I look a mess. I move to pull the covers up so Rafe doesn’t have to look at me.

He lets me pull them up, but he keeps a hand on my stomach, stroking gently. He kisses my cheek, then rolls onto his back next to me, relaxing into the mattress.

“Who hit you?”

“What? Oh. Daniel.” Rafe tenses. “I deserved it.”

He shakes his head but I guess he’s not going to fight me on that right now. I turn over and rest my cheek against his shoulder, wanting to absorb as much of his presence as I can before the inevitable moment when he leaves.

“I was terrible to him. I just—I don’t know why he makes me so mad. Even when he doesn’t do anything. He—I look at him and I….” I shake my head. “And he brought this guy. His boyfriend. They were standing there, in Pop’s living room. Like it was nothing. Like, now that he’s gone, Daniel can—fuck, I don’t know, man.”

Rafe runs his hand along my ribs. When he speaks his voice is gentle. “Maybe you get so mad at Daniel because he gets to have something you don’t.”

“I mean, his boyfriend’s handsome and all, in a lumberjack-y way, but you’re way hotter.”

I can feel Rafe’s smile. “I mean that Daniel gets to be honest about who he is and who he cares about to his brothers. He accepted the consequences of the truth and he told it anyway.” The words cut, but Rafe wraps his arm around me, pressing me against him, and kisses my temple. “I think sometimes the people we get angriest with are the ones who have the things we want the most.”