Before I could blink, I was on my back, the wind knocked out of me, with Izzy’s blue eyes shining down on me. After I caught my breath, I laughed out, “You dickhead. That wasn’t even the right move.”
Laz’s smiling face appeared over the top of Izzy, and he said, “Worth it to see you flat on your back.”
Izzy’s eyes widened, and I burst out laughing.
Laz covered up a laugh with his hand and muttered, “I meant because you got your ass kicked, not… not how that sounded!”
All three of us laughed, and I cherished the sound. Life had been absent of too many of Laz’s wonderful laughs lately. I’d gladly let Iz hand me my ass any time if it meant we’d get to hear that deep-belly laugh more often.
Laz let out a low whimper, and I sucked in a shaky breath. We were in the living room—where we’d been spending most of our time—and Laz had fallen asleep maybe an hour ago with his head on my lap. He’d been sleeping peacefully, but now, he was shaking and making all kinds of scared little noises that were breaking my heart.
“Laz,” I whispered. I didn’t want to get punched in the face again, but I also couldn’t stand the thought of him suffering through another nightmare. Every time he closed his eyes, he had one. It had gotten to the point where he didn’t want to sleep because he was more afraid of his nightmares than of facing anything in reality. Which was why he’d fallen asleep on the couch—he hadn’t gotten any sleep all week, so he was exhausted.
He’d been doing so much better lately. Laz was getting better; the training was helping. But that was only when he was awake. Sleep was a whole other issue.
He let out a low, long whine.
“Lazarus. It’s Raph. I need you to wake up, baby. Come back to me, Laz.”
Another whimper came out of him, and my heart felt like there was a vice wrapped around it.
“Wake up, baby. Wake up.” I ran my hand over his hair. “Come on, sweetheart, you need to wake up.”
Isiah came rushing out of the kitchen, spatula still in hand, saying, “Another nightmare?”
I nodded. “Yeah.”
“Fuck.”
“I know.”
As I tried waking him up again, Izzy disappeared inside the kitchen again only to return a moment later, spatula-free. He rushed over and touched Laz’s forearm with one hand, his other joining mine in Laz’s hair. He whispered sweet nothings into Laz’s ear, so I continued with my own sweet nothings. Izzy’s were probably putting mine to shame, but at least I was trying.
It seemed to take forever but was probably less than two minutes before Laz blinked awake. He took a look at his surroundings and let out a small whimper before turning his face into my stomach and burying it there as he cried.
I held him to me, worry etched in my heart, and exchanged a look with Iz before I buried my nose in Laz’s hair, pulling him even closer to me. Izzy started to get up, but I blindly reached for him and pulled him closer by his shirt. A second later, Izzy was wrapping us both in his arms, holding on tight.
Together, we let Laz fall apart, hoping our hold on him would help mend his broken pieces.
Chapter 23
Lazarus
I honestly didn’t know what I would’ve done if I hadn’t had Raph and Izzy with me this past month. I’d probably be an even worse mess than I was now. No probably about it. The only thing holding me together was the care and kindness of these two men.
Raph had been my rock the entire time, and Izzy had been my caretaker.
There had been so many times when I’d worried that I’d been taking advantage of them, but no matter what I’d said or done, they’d stuck by my side. They’d let me cry, let me rage, taught me how to fight back and better protect myself, held me when I needed to be held, given me space when I’d wanted it—not that it had gone well since I’d started to panic the moment they were out of sight. And they’d dealt with that, too. With the fact that I’d needed at least one of them—preferably both—within sight at all times, and usually needed them to be touching me in some way, at least touching me when we weren’t in motion at the gym. Everywhere else, at any given time, I’d needed one of them touching me. Strange, yes. But it seemed to help. Like I needed some physical reminder that they were really, truly there with me.
It helped a lot having them near. It was as if every one of their sweet touches and cuddles had helped seal a broken wound inside of me.
I wasn’t anywhere close to being whole yet, but with their help, I felt like maybe one day I would be.
“Laz? You ready, baby?”
Raph’s deep rumble drew my attention, and I offered a small smile. “Sorry, I was daydreaming.”
“That’s alright, love,” Raph said. Before I could question the new endearment, he asked, “Do you want to go inside?”
Taking one last breath for courage, I said, “Let’s get this over with.”
“You know we don’t have to do this today, right? We can go home and try again in a few days,” he said.
I shook my head. “I want to try it today.”
“Okay,” he whispered. “But we don’t have to stay all day.”
“Yeah, yeah. It’ll be fine.”
Not wanting to waste any more time standing outside, I fished my key out of my pocket, jammed it into the lock, and twisted. A moment later, Raph and I were walking inside my shop. It felt like coming home, and I was only sad that Izzy was missing this moment with us. He’d gone to run some errands. Since I hadn’t let either of them leave the house without me, our supplies were running really low.
We walked inside, and when the door slammed shut behind Raph, it made me jump. Raph apologized and rubbed my lower back. God, would I always be this jumpy from now on? I was fine at the gym, so why couldn’t I behave like that everywhere?
After leaning into Raph for a few seconds, he locked the door, and I walked the perimeter of my store. Then I moved through the aisles to get a sense of where everything was, what had been sold, what needed to have a lower price because it’d been sitting on the shelf for too long. Grady and Alaric had been doing a fantastic job, but I’d have to take better inventory later so I could catch up.
Once I was satisfied with the way the store appeared, I walked to the back to begin my opening up procedures. Raph didn’t follow me around like he was my shadow, but he did stay within my sight the entire time, and he asked if I needed his help.
Right before I went to turn on my open sign, Raph grabbed my hand and pulled me to a stop. Before I could utter a word, he stepped in with his arms around my waist and brushed our noses together. “You good?”
I smiled up at him. “Very good.”
His lips curved into a smile. “I’m glad.” He rested our foreheads together. “I just wanted to check on you, even though I know I said this already. If at any time you want to leave, you say the word, and I’ll escort you home, no big deal.”
“Thanks, Raph.”
He pecked my lips before releasing me and waving me on to my task. God, he made me want to climb him like a tree, even with just his closeness, the sexy beast that he was.