Page 8 of Bad Decisions

“Can I help with cleaning up?” I ask. She brushes me off, saying she’ll do it later. I watch her move around the kitchen with restless energy. Probably trying to hide her emotions from me again. She shouldn’t bother because I catch every one of them as they flicker across her beautiful face. Sorrow. Concentration. Love. Amusement. A kaleidoscope of emotions I’ve witnessed in one morning alone.

She bends to reach into the cupboard under the sink, and I turn away to look out the window, trying not to notice how perfectly her black yoga pants stretch over her peachy ass. I’d love to curl my hands around those curvy hips, dig my fingers into her soft flesh, and dive deeply into her sweetness.

Lost in my fantasies, I don’t notice Jewel standing in front of me until she drops a roll of large plastic bags on the counter with a thud. “Here are some bags to pack them into.”

What? Ah, that’s right, the clothes. Yes, that’s what I’m meant to be doing, helping her, not thinking about all the ways I’d like to fuck her.

I stand and pick up the roll; then, turning toward her father’s room, I tell her I’ll see her when I’m finished.

About an hour later, I’ve cleared the closet and drawers of all personal items, filling two bags with clothes, and I’m standing in the doorway of her tiny bedroom. Jewel is sitting on the floor with her back to me, her head bent, looking at something in her hand. I can just imagine her as a little girl sitting there in a sea of pink, playing happily. I imagine that’s where she learned to be so self-contained and independent, playing contentedly by herself. I know she doesn’t like to ask for help, but there’s something about her that tugs at a deep-seated desire in me to be the person she wants to lean on.

After clearing my throat first, I announce, “I’m done.”

She twists to look up at me, blinking. “What?” She was a million miles away, and I just dragged her back to now. “Oh, that was quick.”

Intrigued to know what she was so wrapped up in, I ask, “What have you got there?”

She lifts the pink sparkly box that was sitting in her lap, hidden from my view. “This. My box of medals and ribbons that I won as a child.”

“Can I see?”

She nods, and I shift farther into the room, taking a seat on the end of the single bed. She remains on the floor, moving around until her back rests against the bed frame beside my legs. She holds up a small trophy to me.

“I won this in my first competitive gymnastics tournament when I was eight. I started when I was six and competed up until I was fifteen. I got too big.” She smirks at me.

I laugh, taking it from her hand for a closer look. “I get it, you don’t like being called tiny.” She smiles at me, her glossy brown hair falling around her shoulders. She’s so close that if I moved my knee a couple of inches to the side, it would tumble over me too. Instead, I focus my attention on the wording on the tarnished bronze plaque attached to the trophy in my hand. “What was your favorite discipline in gymnastics?”

“Ooh, listen to you, using all the correct terminology.”

A laugh bursts from me. “My sister did it for a few years. Not me, I was too big too. And I have zero flexibility.” I hand the trophy back to her, and she carefully places it back in the box on what looks like a bed of blue ribbons.

I stand, reaching my hand down to help her up. Her small, delicate one is swallowed up in mine, and though I don’t say it this time, I think it. She’s tiny but perfect in every way that calls to all my protective, alpha-male instincts.

When she’s standing beside me, she stretches her arms high above her head before rolling her shoulders. “Are you feeling a bit sore? I know you’re the expert, but I can give a good massage when needed.”

Ducking her head, she tries to hide one of her cute blushes. “I’m good for now.” For someone who’s a straight talker with no artifices, the frequent blushes that pinken her cheeks are always surprising and damn cute.

She turns, still smiling, and I follow her along the hallway to the door of her father’s room. At the threshold, she stumbles to a stop. All the joy from moments ago disappears from her face, as if someone just extinguished the light within her.

Two large bags sit near the doorway, filled with neatly folded clothes, but that’s not where her gaze lands. It’s on the bed. Her arms wrap tightly around her stomach like she might fall apart if she doesn’t hang on. I’d stripped the bedding and placed it folded at the end of the bare mattress. Maybe I should have asked her first.

“Jewel?”

She turns to look up at me, and a single tear slips over her high cheekbone to run freely down to her chin. It punches me in the gut, nearly bringing me to my knees. I reach out to her and, with the back of my finger, wipe away the wet track left behind.

When her body remains frozen before me, my hand drops back to my side. “Talk to me, sweetheart,” I plead, wishing there was some way I could take away her sadness, even though I know that’s not possible. No one can do that.

She blinks several times before murmuring, “Sorry … it’s just a shock seeing all traces of my father gone.”

A few more tears escape down her cheeks, and instead of brushing them away this time, I pull her into my chest, holding the back of her head when she buries her face in my T-shirt. Her fingers grasp and twist at the sides of the fabric as she tries to gather up her usually strong defensive walls once again.

She stays like that only for a couple of minutes, certainly no longer, before she lifts her head and murmurs another apology. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

“Hey, it’s okay,” I tell her, and my fingers thread into her hair.

She doesn’t look up, her eyes remaining fixed on my chest instead. “I made your T-shirt wet,” she says, and her hand rubs across the damp patch like somehow that might make it disappear.

I bring my hand up to rest over hers, holding it against my chest. “It’s okay. I’m just glad I could be here for you.”