Rescue Me: A Broken Boy Angsty Romance. (Hawthorn Hills Duet Book 4)

by Claire Raye

  I feel a sudden wave of anxiety at his words, as though maybe I’m not being fair by expecting Ruby to be my sounding board. As though she is somehow okay listening to all of my shit. How could she be? And how fucked up is it that I somehow think she will be?

  “Do you think I’m being unfair to her?” I eventually ask.

  Reid shrugs, squeezing once more before he lets go of my shoulder. “No,” he says, shaking his head. “But do you really want to risk going down that path?”

  I turn back to my food, picking at my fries as I turn his words over inside my head, trying to make sense of what he’s saying, of what I know to be true, even if I don’t want to admit it.

  “I know it sucks,” he says, breaking the silence. “But if it helps, I’ll come with you.”

  “Really?” I ask, my head shooting up.

  Reid gives me a wry smile. “Fuck man, it’s not like I’m not fucked up because of all of this, too.”

  Chapter Seven

  Ruby

  Sienna and I have been shopping for a few hours, but my head is not completely in it. I’m too busy worrying about what Caleb is doing and if he actually got moving after I left. I haven’t acknowledged that I know he’s been staying in bed and sleeping far too much. Discussing it with him is just as difficult as the discussion about the therapist.

  “You okay?” Sienna asks, stopping just outside the next store we were planning to go in. “You seem…I don’t know…distracted.”

  I want to scream at her that I am distracted and I don’t understand why she’s not. She’s far more relaxed about this than I thought she would be. Either that or she’s hiding it really well. I understand that she’s had to learn to cope with a lot of shit in her life, so maybe her way of dealing with it is to just act like it isn’t happening.

  “Yeah, I’m…” I start, but I’m tired of the lies. That’s what will only perpetuate this situation. It’s what’s allowing Caleb to keep hiding out in our bedroom. I think Sie, Reid and I really need to start to push things or Caleb will just end up going down this black hole he’s already circling.

  “You know what? No, I’m not okay,” I finally announce, my words come out quickly but leave me feeling less heavy. “I’m worried about Caleb. I’m worried about you and how you’re just sort of…whatever about the whole thing. He has a court hearing in like a week and his lawyer wants him to start seeing the therapist. I feel like I’m the only one who is like what the fuck.”

  I hate the way I sound. I sound judgmental and bitchy, as if I’m coming down on Sienna, which is not at all how I wanted this to go down. I guess this is what fear and anxiety sounds like when spoken out loud.

  Sienna doesn’t say anything for the next few seconds and my heart slams against my chest. I grew up in a family where you voiced your concerns and people cared about your wellbeing, but in Sienna and Caleb’s world, they only had each other. Not to mention navigating growing up without an adult figure to guide them. They always dealt with things as they came and found their way out by being tougher than the situation.

  Right now they’re fighting a losing battle on their own.

  She blinks a few times, tugging at her bottom lip with her teeth as I watch the tears well up in her eyes. What the fuck is wrong with me? Why would I have come at her like that?

  “I’m sorry,” I instantly say, looking around the crowded mall and realizing this is not the time or the place to have this conversation. We’re supposed to be Christmas shopping, our attempt to enjoy the holiday when we both know everything is caving in on us.

  Sienna shakes her head, her eyes wet and her mouth turned down. “Don’t be sorry. I have no idea how to handle any of this and I’m falling apart.” She now starts to cry. We’re standing in the middle of this damn mall and I’ve made Sienna cry. I’m a horrible friend. “I don’t want to lose him,” she whimpers, admitting her worst fear out loud.

  Sienna has lost so much already even if her mom and dad weren’t fully a part of her life, it still doesn’t discount both of them dying before she reached twenty-five. We don’t ever talk about what it was like to lose her mother at six years old, but I imagine the impact is too huge for her to even realize.

  “We aren’t going to lose him,” I say, reassuringly, even if I don’t know if it’s true. All I know is I can’t lose him either and I’m going to fight like hell to get him to realize we all support him and we all need him.

  Sienna swipes at her eyes, smearing her mascara a little and it makes me smile. This is the last place we should be. We should be at home with Caleb, all of us. We should be telling him how much we need him to get better and how much we love him. We should be sharing with him our fears and helping him find a way to slowly get better.

  “Let’s go home,” I say, linking arms with Sienna.

  She sniffs a little, her head leaning over to rest on my shoulder as we walk toward the exit.

  When we arrive back home, I park my car in the alley, but neither Sie or I get out immediately. The air between us feels filled with worry, bouncing between us and resting heavy on my heart. Every day that passes feels like weeks, minutes tick by feeling like hours, endless hours of worry and stress. But even as I think this, I know it’s so much worse for her. Without Caleb I’m not sure Sie would survive.

  “How do you want to handle this?” I ask, the words shaky and weak. We need to have an intervention. We’re twenty-two years old and we’re dealing with something that most people never have to deal with in their lifetime. It’s more than Sienna should ever have to deal with, and I can’t help but wonder when the hell she’s going to catch a break.

  “I think we just need to explain how we’re feeling,” she replies, her eyes focused out the windshield, never looking over at me. “Maybe I should tell him…” She stalls out, not wanting to admit out loud she’s worried about him taking his own life. Her only experience with something like this was her mother and that’s how things ended in that case.

  “We’re all going to be uncomfortable. This isn’t the time to beat around the bush or only share half-truths,” I say, attempting to encourage Sie to share her thoughts and feelings. “We have to be brutally honest with him.” I let out a hard sigh, thinking back to mine and Caleb’s conversation this morning. “I tried to come down on him this morning, but I don’t think it worked. I don’t want to argue with him. It feels like it makes everything worse and then I feel like shit too.”

  Sie nods now, her eyes looking up as if she’s thinking about what to say to him. I don’t think we need a script or even a plan for that matter. We all just need Caleb to know we’re on his side and we want him to get better.

  “Do you think Reid had any luck?” I now ask, knowing he was planning to get Caleb out of the house today.

  “Fuck, I hope so. Caleb is stubborn as hell, but if anyone can get through to him it’s Reid. Their relationship is so…” Sie trails off again, looking out the side window now and I catch the sound of her breath being pulled in raggedly. She’s crying again, but this time I’m joining her.

  “Their relationship is so fucking solid. Reid would never let anything happen to Caleb,” she says, her words coming out in a plea of desperation, almost like she’s willing Reid to fix all of this. “I can’t even think about where we’d be if Reid hadn’t…” Again she stops, her words catching in her throat, trapped by a sob she’s holding in.

  All I can do is nod in agreement, trying to find the words to help her through this, but I have nothing. I might be new to this little family, but it doesn’t mean I’m not fully invested. I fell in love with Caleb the day I met him, which I never thought would happen. I never believed in that sort of thing. Soulmates and finding the one person you’re supposed to be with, but I’ll be damned if it didn’t happen with Caleb. The universe created this little life for me when Sie and I were placed together by the freshman dorm lottery. It was all part of a grand plan that would find me falling in love with her brother.

  This is on all of us
now.

  “We should go inside. The boys are going to see us sitting out here and wonder what the hell we’re doing,” I tell Sienna and she smiles a little.

  “We probably do look like weirdos hanging out in the car in the alley.”

  She opens the door now and walks to the back of my SUV to grab what we did purchase out of the trunk. We were able to grab a few random things for Reid and Caleb while we were shopping and we both have some pretty big gifts waiting at home that we bought earlier.

  With the bags in hand, we make our way to the back door. Sie stops, taking in a deep breath as she looks over her shoulder at me. I smile, encouraging her on and knowing this is what we need to do to set things on the right path. If Caleb thinks we’re giving up, he may too. We have to stay on him. We have to keep talking no matter how uncomfortable it makes us feel.

  But when she opens the door, there is Christmas music playing and the house smells like cinnamon and cloves.

  Now when she looks back over her shoulder at me, her face is all narrowed eyes and furrowed brows and I laugh out loud.

  “What the hell are they doing?” Sie whispers, and I shake my head, eyes wide and just as confused as she is.

  While Caleb likes to cook, he hasn’t done much of anything since his arrest. We’re lucky if he gets out of bed, let alone cooks a meal. I call it a good day if he’s awake when I get back from a run or whatever.

  We walk in and the first thing we see is Caleb at the stove, and through the doorway to the living room is Reid putting up a Christmas tree.

  It smells like winter in our house and the only thing that’s missing is snow. Growing up in Lake Tahoe I was used to having a white Christmas along with the smell of fresh cut pine trees and newly fallen snow. Since moving to Hawthorn, I have to admit I miss it a little, but walking into this makes it almost feel like…home.

  Sienna doesn’t say a word, she drops the bags in the mudroom and bolts to where Caleb is stirring a pot of something on the stove. She hugs him from behind, her arms wrapping around his waist and crushing him with her weight.

  “I love you!” she yells out before skipping over to where Reid is fighting a losing battle with a string of lights and I hear Caleb call out after her, echoing her sentiments.

  I’m still standing in the doorway, my eyes focused on Caleb as he looks over at me. He looks so good, so healthy and happy, but I know that this isn’t over. It’s just a good day. One that we can only hope begins to outweigh the bad ones.

  But something has changed. There’s a light in his eyes that hasn’t been there since everything happened in the alley and I can feel the tears pool in my eyes when he calls me over with a tip of his head. There is so much up and down, so much worry and fear mixed with happiness and passion, and I want to run to him and throw my arms around him and never let go.

  Before I can reach him, he takes a step toward me, his hand wrapping around the back of my neck and pulling me to him.

  “Come here, my beautiful girl,” he murmurs, and his words send my body into a tailspin. They make my heart drum in my chest, fast and hard. They make my legs feel weak and my hands beg to grab at him.

  This morning he felt so far away from me, like he was trying so hard but still failing. I wasn’t certain we’d ever find our way back to what we had in the beginning, but the Caleb standing in front of me right now is the man I fell in love with. And even though this is one day out of thousands, one good day, I will take all the bad ones too, just so I can find this.

  He leans down, his lips brushing against mine as he kisses his way to my neck. I fist my hands in his shirt, holding onto him, never wanting him to pull away.

  His nose nuzzles into the crook of my neck; his hand slides down my back and rests on my ass. I love the way his large frame looms over my tiny body. Next to him I feel so small but so safe, as if his body is covering mine.

  “I love you, Ruby,” he whispers. His words paint me slowly, covering every inch and I feel them within me, stronger than anything I’ve ever felt in my life.

  He needs me and I need him.

  “I love you, Caleb,” I tell him, pushing far more meaning into three such simple words. They’re laced with hope and future, promise and trust. I want him to feel everything I feel for him, everything that burns inside me and will extinguish should we ever find ourselves apart.

  “I’m going to start seeing the therapist,” he now says without an ounce of struggle to get the words out. “I called today.”

  I try to pull back to look at him, but he holds me tighter, not wanting me to see his face, but I can feel the trail of warm tears dot my neck.

  And we say nothing more, just holding each other in a moment we know changes everything.

  Chapter Eight

  Caleb

  Ruby rolls over, her hand sliding onto my chest, her fingers brushing against my skin, sending a shiver down my spine. “Are you awake because you’re excited it’s Christmas?” Her voice is soft, barely audible, almost as though she isn’t entirely sure I am awake.

  But I am and I can’t stop the grin as I wrap my arm around her shoulders and pull her closer. “I’m awake because you’re lying beside me,” I whisper, my hand on top of hers as I gently move it from my chest, beneath the covers and lower so she can feel just how awake I really am.

  Ruby giggles, tucking her face into my neck as her fingers slip into my boxers and circle around me, making me groan. I feel her lips against my skin as she kisses a path up to my ear and my eyes fall closed as I savor the moment and the way she’s making me feel.

  “So it’s not because you’re excited about your Christmas presents then?”

  I smile. “I already have everything I need,” I murmur, turning my head and capturing her mouth with mine.

  Ruby lets out a soft sigh as I kiss her, almost as though she’s relieved this is happening. I feel her body molding into mine as she kisses me back and slowly starts to stroke me. It feels like forever since we’ve done this, since we’ve been this close, and I’ve missed it so much.

  But after everything that happened, being with her like this wasn’t something I felt like I was allowed to have. I wanted her, desperately, but I also knew I’d ruined things with the way I’d acted, with all the ways I’ve fucked things up.

  “Caleb,” she groans, her grip on me tightening.

  I smile against her mouth as I roll us over so my body is covering hers. She shoves my boxers down, wriggling beneath me as she now slips her panties down her legs. I pull her hand from between us, linking our fingers together as I lift our joined hands to my mouth and kiss the back of hers. Ruby’s eyes open as she looks up at me.

  “I’ve missed you,” I tell her, my voice low.

  She tilts her head a little as though confused. “I’m right here.”

  I smile, brushing my lips against hers. “I know, but I haven’t been.” She whimpers, pulling me closer as I fall between her legs and slowly push inside her. “I promise I’m going to change, Ruby,” I tell her. “I want to fix this.”

  “I know you do.”

  My hands slide her tank over her head as we move together slowly. Everything about it and us and this, all feels so incredibly different. Not just because of what’s happened or how many days we’ve gone without being together like this, but also because of the things we’ve said to each other, the confession I made to her when she came home from shopping last night.

  It had been scary as hell to admit it. I don’t feel like I deserve any of this. But I know I owe it to her to start being honest, to start trying to get better without destroying what we have.

  “I love you,” I whisper against her lips, not giving her a chance to respond as I deepen the kiss, my hips moving against hers in long, slow thrusts.

  She moans beneath me, her fingers digging into my back as she holds me close, her legs wrapping around my body as she pushes her hips up to meet mine. It feels intense and heady and so fucking good. I never want it to end.

  “Caleb
,” she whispers, her voice husky and low.

  I can tell she’s close. I can feel it in the way she clings to me, tightening around me as she deepens our kisses, desperately seeking more. I push harder, deepening my strokes, pushing her closer and closer to the edge until she can’t take any more and she’s calling out my name and coming.

  It’s the trigger I need for my own release, my arms framing her face as my mouth falls to her neck and I groan out her name, pushing into her one last time as I come hard.

  She holds me against her, neither of us letting go of each other as we both come down from the high of being together again. I can feel her ragged breaths against my neck, her pounding heart against my chest as her fingers slowly move up and down my spine.

  “That was amazing,” she eventually says, her words a breathless whisper in the quietness of her room.

  I lift my head until our eyes meet and I see the easy smile on her face that is so fucking sexy, I already want more of her. “It’s always amazing with you.”

  Ruby blushes and it’s fucking adorable. “Sweet talker,” she teases, pinching my ass.

  I chuckle, keeping her with me as I roll onto my back so she’s now lying on top of me. She pulls back a little, propping herself up as her eyes search my face, that easy smile still there.

  “Today is a good day,” she states, her thumb tracing across my brow and then my lower lip.

  I smile, kissing the end of her thumb. “Today is.”

  We’d talked for hours last night after we’d come to bed, after my admission that I would go and see the therapist. After my confession of falling in love with her, too. It had all felt somehow easier in the darkness of her room with just the two of us.

  But I know no matter how badly I want this to be over, that us talking like that isn’t a therapy session. This is my relationship and it’s important to me. Ruby is important to me and Reid is right, I don’t want to fuck it up.