Page 17 of Dreadful

I tilt my head from one side to the other, loosening the tension in my neck. “He kind of looks familiar. Why?”

Bishop doesn’t answer right away. He stares at the floor, drags a hand through his hair, and when he finally speaks his voice has dropped half a register. “I don’t know. Something about tonight just—” He stops and shakes his head.

I cross the room and put a hand on his shoulder. “We’ll figure it out.” It’s what he used to say to me, back when I still needed someone to say it. “We always do.”

He nods once, jaw tight, and leaves without another word.

After Bishop leaves, I don’t move right away. I stand there, looking at nothing in particular like I expect to catalogue differences. But I don’t find any.

The shower shuts off.

By the time she comes out of the bathroom, I've stretched out across the bed with my hands behind my head, dressed in only sweatpants, staring at the ceiling.

“You good?”

“Yeah.” Steam follows her into the room.

My favorite old band tee hangs off one shoulder, the hem sitting mid-thigh, the fabric darkened where her wet hair has dripped down the front of it. The damp fabric clings to the curve of her tits, and even though I know this is not the right time for it, I can’t stop my body from reacting to the sight of her like this.

I swallow roughly, keeping my gaze on her.

She stops at the foot of the bed. Her teeth find her bottom lip. “You sure this is okay?”

“We’ve shared a bed before, Bells.”

The reminder floats around the spinning ceiling fan above us, a soft breeze rustling my hair.

I wonder if she remembers the last time we shared a bed as vividly as I do. If she replays the memory with her hand as often too.

“I remember.” The bathroom light catches the flush along her cheekbones.

“Is your arm okay?”

She hovers her hand over the sleeve of my shirt. “Yeah, that stuff works so well. It was just a graze anyway.”

“Good.” I’d patched up enough of us with that stuff to know it would hold. And if it didn’t, my bathroom kit had more. Fuck, this house has a kit in every bathroom. The garage one’s the size of a toolbox. I pat the mattress beside me. “Climb up, baby girl.”

Bellamy climbs into bed beside me. The mattress dips. She pulls the sheet up and tucks it under her arm, and then neither of us moves. The ceiling fan turns and cicadas sing in the backyard.

After a moment, she exhales slowly, deliberately. “You're not going to ask me what happened?”

I feel her looking at me before I turn my head. “Do you want me to?”

She doesn’t answer right away. Her fingers find the edge of the sheet and fold it back, then smooth it flat again. “No.”

I fucking know I’m going to regret asking her, but it’s like I can’t stop myself. “If my brothers were here, would you answer their questions?”

Bellamy exhales again. “Rafe was there.”

“Gage then,” I press.

She doesn’t answer. Instead, she reaches up and pushes a damp strand of hair off her cheek. “I’m tired, Cruz.” She rolls onto her side facing the wall, drawing her knees up until she’s small and curved away from me.

I drag my hand over my face. The question hangs in the air between us, unanswered verbally but answered in all the ways that matter.

I fix my eyes on the ceiling fan and go over the night’s events. I should be building something out of all of it—angles, contingencies, the shape of what we’re walking into. But Bellamy’s breathing slows beside me, and then slows again, and my thoughts keep losing the thread of themselves somewhere in the sound of it. The sheet rustles once. The cicadas outside fill the silence she leaves behind.

I don’t realize I’ve drifted until I’m back in that motel room—the particular slant of cheap light across her collarbone, the way she’d looked at me like she used to.