Page 1 of The Rut in the Road

1

He wantedto keep him safe. Safe from everyone who had hurt him. From anyone who might want to hurt him. From anyone who could accidentally hurt him.

He realized this was borderline ridiculous. He couldn’t very well wrap Rayn in a bubble or blanket or his arms and just keep anything from ever hurting him. Rayn was going to paper cut his fingers and touch hot things and stub his toes from time to time, whether he liked it or not.

But he still wanted to. His impulse was to do everything himself—to make sure he held the doors, that he stood at Rayn’s elbow so he wouldn’t trip on a curb or crack in the sidewalk…

Okay, it was completely ridiculous.

He couldn’t possibly protect Rayn from every sort of pain or discomfort. It would be impossible to even try, and Rayn would probably resent him if he did.

But he so desperately wanted to make sure that Rayn was safe.

It was a little alarming just how much.

I had awakened,sun streaming through the window beside my mattress on the floor, my hand resting on the cool empty sheets beside me and the thoughts that remained in them. I was alone in bed, although I hadn’t been when I’d fallen asleep. I drew in a long breath, and noticed that my tiny apartment smelled like bacon.

I didn’t even own bacon. I’d, in fact, never once made bacon in this apartment. Or in my life, for that matter. I’d eaten bacon, obviously, just never cooked it myself.

I sat up, rubbing the sleep from my eyes, registering that not only could I smell bacon, but I could hear music—upbeat pop music.

Those were not things that normally happened in my apartment in the mornings.

I dragged myself off the mattress, padded barefoot in my sweatpants and t-shirt out into the main living area, where I registered the soft sound of low humming, the voice belonging to a baritone.

Raj.

He’d stayed over before—the first time after we’d gone to a double-feature at the drive-in and we’d gotten back to Richmond at two in the morning—but he always got up and left first thing in the morning. Sometimes I’d wake up when he kissed my cheek, sometimes I wouldn’t, but he always put a note on my kitchen table thanking me for letting him stay.

I was used to waking up to the thoughts he’d left in the sheets—usually along the same lines of wanting to keep me safe. Sometimes from specific things, sometimes in general.

Sometimes he thought about protecting me from himself, although those didn’t generally make much sense to me, since I never once got the sense that he wanted to cause me any sort of harm. Nor had he ever done anything that suggested he might become violent—at least not with me. I knew he was capable ofit, that sometimes his job even required it, but he was always gentle with me, as though he thought I might bruise or break at anything but the slightest touch.

I was used to his thoughts in my bed and on my door knobs, but this was the first time I’d awakened to find him still in the apartment.

I found that I liked having him here when I woke up.

“Good morning,” he called, not bothering to step out of the small kitchen.

I walked up to the doorway, staring.

He was frying bacon, his back to me. He had on the jeans he’d worn the night before and the button-down, but the shirt was open, and when he turned, it revealed an expanse of dark chestnut skin and a tiny smattering of darker hairs just above the button on his fly.

I swallowed. “Good morning,” I repeated, once my throat was lubricated enough to make sound.

He smiled. “Hungry?”

“Where’d you get bacon?” I asked.

“The store,” came his amused-sounding response. “I hope you don’t mind that I borrowed your keys—I used a paper towel so that I didn’t actually touch them.” He grimaced. “I think I managed not to touch them.”

Then I noticed that he was wearing a pair of leather driving gloves. Trying to keep his thoughts from imprinting on the objects in my apartment. It was kind. Considerate.

Also pretty unnecessary. Not only was I getting better at avoiding reading thoughts from casual contact, I actually kind of liked getting flashes of Raj’s thoughts, at least when they were positive.

“I don’t—I don’t mind if you touch things,” I told him, my cheeks flushing.

He looked over at me, his expression surprised. “You don’t?”