He doesn’t respond right away, so I inquire more specifically, “Are you scared?”
His answer comes quick. “Yeah.”
“Of the storm?” I probe, my forehead pivoting against his torso until my temple is level with his heart.
“No.”
He’s scared of me, of whatever the hell is happening between us. I know this, I know exactly what he’s implying because I feel the same way, but I still ask. “What are you afraid of, Parker?”
A deep sigh hits the top of my head, shaky and agitated. Parker’s arms still hang loose at his sides, refusing to hold me back, refusing to give in. “Don’t make me answer that.”
I cling tighter, and he doesn’t pull away.
He doesn’t pull away, and I know that means something.
I drop the question because he’s not ready, and truthfully, I’m not ready either. Instead, I close my eyes, squeezing them shut, as the screeching wind echoes through the darkness, causing a fearful gasp to escape my lips. The house rattles around us, my skin vibrates, my throat burns, so I just keep holding him, tighter and tighter, until my arms are fully wrapped around his waist. “Tell me a story,” I tender, needing a distraction, needing to hear his voice. It’s so dark in here—I have to know that I’m not alone.
Parker falters for a moment, heaving in a breath and letting it out into my hair. “What kind of story?”
The wind roars, the windows clamor, the shutters clap, and the sirens sing loud, all trying to outplay the racket of our frazzled hearts and cluttered minds.
I never much cared for the dark, but right now, it feels like a friend.
Nuzzling in closer, I whisper into his t-shirt, “Tell me your story.”
—SIXTEEN—
“Tell me your story.”
She’s wrapped around me like I’m her favorite fucking blanket, and it’s the only thing keeping me from spiraling back in time and returning to that closet. To that prison.
It sounds like there’s a freight train on the other side of the door, but she is louder—her presence, her breaths beating against my chest in sporadic bursts, her pulse vibrating beneath my skin, the goddamn feel of her arms clutching my waist, so delicate and fragile, yet so, so loud.
She’s louder than the voice inside my head screaming at me to resist, to push her away and get the fuck out of here, tornado be damned.
She’s even louder than my inherent fear of dark, enclosed spaces.
Yeah, Melody is louder… and I’m paralyzed by every decibel, by every deafening note.
Inhaling sharply, I reply, “You don’t want to hear my story. It’s not a nice story.”
“That doesn’t mean it doesn’t deserve to be told,” she whispers back.
My eyes squeeze shut, as if that will somehow make her disappear.
This is just pretend.
This is just the darkness fucking with my head like it always has.
I hate the dark, I really do, and I know that sounds weak and pathetic, considering I’m a grown ass man. But this kind of darkness, the kind where you can’t even see your own hand in front of your face, takes me right back to that closet when I was five years old, all alone and scared shitless.
All I had were ghosts to keep me company.
All I had was Zephyr.
And now I have her.
Tipping my head back, I blow out a hard breath, then inhale deep through my nose. I do it again and again, closing my eyes and trying to center myself before I unravel.
Melody must notice my tension, my mounting panic, because her hands unlink from behind me and glide up my chest, gripping the material of my t-shirt between two fists. “Are you okay?”
“Fine,” I force out, shoving her hands away and sliding them back down to my hips.
I don’t want her touching me there.
Melody fiddles with the beltloops as she drops her head, forehead pressed to my front. “Talk to me.”
“No.”
“You’re shaking.”
Shit, am I?
Stupid, traitorous body. My hands ball into fists on either side of me as my teeth gnash together, and I grit out, “I don’t like the dark.”
I wait for her reaction, her imminent pity. Laughter, maybe. I don’t really know what to expect because I’ve never shared that with anyone before, but I can’t imagine anything but ridicule.
She surprises me, though. She’s always surprising me.
“I don’t like it either,” Melody responds softly, her index finger tracing the hemline of my pants. “But it’s not so bad with you here.”
The whooshing sound grows closer, and the house rattles around us, causing me to stumble, my balance off-kilter due to the surmounting anxiety. My back hits the wall beside us, and I take her with me, instinctually wrapping my arms around her and tugging her further against my chest.
Melody lets out some kind of breathy moan, maybe a gasp, but I’m not sure if it’s out of fear or because we’re fully entangled with one another now, and my fingers have somehow crawled their way up to her hair, weaving through the strands and fisting gently.
My panic seems to ebb the moment she’s in my arms—the moment I give in and hold her back. She’s chipping away at my brick walls, and her sunny rays of light are seeping through the cracks, trying to bring me warmth.
Fucking hell, what is she doing to me?
I slide my back down the wall, and she goes with me, until we hit the tiled floor together and Melody straddles my lap, her knees caging me in. My right hand is still knotted in her hair, while the other curves around her back, and even though I can’t see shit, I know we’re face-to-face by the way her warm breath skims my lips with each arduous exhale.
I want to blame the raging storm—I want to say it’s the threat outside that feels greater than the threat of her, therefore, justifying the way I’m letting her cling to me.
Justifying the way I’m clinging right back.
Only… there was no threat yesterday when I let her touch me—when I let her take my hand between her palms and drag a lazy finger across the creases, like she was carving herself into me somehow. Branding me with sunshine.
There was no danger earlier today when some sort of fucked-up possessive feeling shot through me like a drug, and I felt the need to stake some sort of claim over her.
It’s maddening.
It’s confusing, nonsensical, and fucking maddening how I hate everything she stands for, everything she represents, and yet… I don’t hate her at all.
“You’re not shaking anymore.” Melody’s voice infiltrates my dark musings as she continues to invade me. She continues to trespass. “My father used to tell me that the dark is the very best secret-keeper. The things we say in the dark never have to leave it.”
Her cheek dips back to my chest, her words muffled by my shirt, and the fine hairs on her head tickle my nose as I inhale a shuddering breath. Thoroughly entwined and swallowed by darkness, reckless thoughts spill out of me. “When I was a kid… some real bad shit happened to me. I spent a lot of time in the dark, and it fucked with my head. Played tricks on me.”
I feel her head lift slowly from my chest, her eyes searching for me through the thick shroud of darkness, trying to see me.