by Alisha Watts
Skylar looked away in the hopes that he wouldn’t be able to tell that she was crying. “How could you ask me that? I’m not that kind of person.”
“How am I supposed to know you aren’t? You’re with this Grayson guy and you’ve known him for how long?”
“I thought I knew him,” she said, but Steve was too irate with her to hear how lost she sounded.
“Well, was it worth hurting Chris’s feelings?”
“No,” she said, hunching in on herself further.
“And now you’re, what, going to call this guy and tell him that you just changed your mind?”
“No, I can’t!”
“Why not?” he demanded hotly.
“Because I’m scared!”
“Scared of what?”
The silence that met him was disturbing enough to break him out of his anger to realize that her tears were legitimately fearful rather than the fake tears that he was expecting from her. “Hey, what is it you’re so scared of?” he asked again, softly this time. “Does he hurt you?”
Skylar started to shake her head and then slowly nodded. “Nothing bad, just a few bruises here or there.”
Steve stared at her for a long moment and then put a hand on her shoulder. “I think you need to talk to someone. Like, the police, a therapist, Chris. Don’t even answer your phone again, just change your number and let the law handle phasing him out of your life, okay? And if you don’t feel safe, my buddies and I can put on some leather and hang out on our bikes outside your house for a while. I bet that would make him think twice about coming over to bother you.”
“I can’t tell Chris! He’ll worry, and it’s not his problem.”
“Not his... Skylar. Chris is whatever the bookworm nerd equivalent is to head over heels in love with you. He wants the world for you, and with that comes everything about you. You’re good and you’re bad. Heck, I knew that when I started dating Anna, and she’s got more bad than good in her.”
“I heard that!”
Steve grinned. “Just checking to see if you’re listening, honey. Anyway, what I’m trying to say is, if you can’t trust Chris with what’s bothering you now then how will you learn to really trust him with your heart? The road to finding the person that you want to spend the rest of your life with is usually not marked with signs and arrows. You kind of have to forge your own path through it.”
“What?”
“I’m just saying, if you’d just let go and let God then maybe this all would have fallen together much more smoothly.”
“If you’re trying to be Shakespeare, dear, then you’re failing miserably,” Anna said as she joined them once more.
“I’m trying to speak her language! She’s the one that started waxing poetics about eye meeting magic... stuff.”
Skylar couldn’t help but laugh at Steve’s bumbling attempts. “I can see why you’re Chris’s best friend. You have a good heart.”
“It’s buried in there somewhere. That’s why I try to keep him around,” Anna retorted with a wink.
Steve rolled his eyes dramatically and pulled Anna to sit in his lap. “The things I put up with here, I’m telling you. I can’t even lecture damsels in distress without getting a talking to. If anything else, this woman keeps me honest.” Anna gave him a look and Steve started guiltily. “Speaking of, I’m sorry if my prying hurt your feelings, Skylar. I just want what’s best for Chris.”
“I do, too, so I can’t really blame you for that. Thank you for making sure he’s safe with me, it helps me know how to handle this.”
~~~
Chris pulled up to Steve’s apartment and slung his helmet over the handlebars of the bike before bolting up the stairs. He probably would have wanted a shower before showing up here, ordinarily, and he probably should have shaved last time he had had the chance to. None of that mattered at the moment. Skylar was waiting for him and one of Steve’s later texts had warned that there was some sort of trouble. He didn’t know what sort of trouble required a call to the police but he didn’t like any of the implications.
It felt like an eternity between the time that he knocked and when Steve answered the door to let him in. There was Skylar, sitting in the rumpled scrubs and hoodie she’d been wearing from work, her makeup all but gone since she’d apparently been wiping away tears with the pile of tissues sitting in a grocery bag next to her.
She had never been more beautiful to him than in that moment. Not because of how she looked, but because of the way that she looked up at him when she realized he was in the room.
He wasn’t sure he’d ever seen her move as quickly before as she all but launched herself into his arms. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I should have told you. I should have told you everything,” she cried.
Chris closed his eyes and focused on the feel of her as he held her back. She was soft in his arms and yet was holding onto him with such strength. He could spend a lifetime getting to know what she did to make that scent cling to her hair, and he vowed to himself as he kissed her forehead and soothingly pet her back that he would do just that. “It’s okay, we’ll figure it out. We’ll figure it all out, alright? Just breathe.”
“I’m trying, it’s just hard.”
“I know,” he said, thinking of his father and the trip he’d just come back from. He’d thought that he’d come to terms with his dad’s death before but it wasn’t until he had been gone for a few weeks before he’d truly felt at peace with it. “Sometimes these things take time.”
She looked up at him from beneath her lashes. “Do you think we’ll have that kind of time?”
He smiled softly and tucked a stray hair behind her ear. “Skylar Barnes, if I have anything to say about it, we’ll have all the time in the world.” Chris leaned in and kissed her, unable to quell the thrill of excitement he felt at the hesitant way that she pressed back against him. His hands ceased their absent petting in favor of keeping her still and close but he loosened his hold when Skylar gasped. “What is it?”
She looked up at him wonderingly and smiled. “You’d let me go,” she observed, seeming mystified by this.
Chris’s gaze sharpened but he chose not to ask yet. There was time enough to ask what had happened with Grayson to make her so nervous. “If you wanted me to.”
“Never,” she said as she tightened her hold on him and kissed him once more. “I always want to stay like this.”
“That would be awkward since this is our living room.”
“Shut up, Steve,” Chris said dismissively, thoroughly content to mostly ignore his friend in favor of gazing adoringly at Skylar. “You know what she meant.”
“Yeah, but- ouch, Anna!”
Skylar giggled and rested her forehead on Chris’s so she could watch him adoringly. “I meant what I said earlier. I think I’ve loved you all along, I just didn’t want to get hurt.”
“And I didn’t want you to think that I didn’t love you because I had so much work. I care too much to let you feel abandoned, and you always seemed so hurt when other boys missed a date. As absent-minded as I can be...”
“I think I can manage not to be offended that you like books.”
“Are you sure? Because he really- Anna, stop!”
“Well, if you’d be a gentleman... oh, never mind, come on,” she said as she dragged him into another room.
Chris’s gaze turned apologetic. “He can be a bit much.”
“You know my friends. I’m used to getting a bit much from them.”
“And from me?”
“I think I can handle whatever you throw at me.”
“Challenge accepted,” he purred as he kissed her gently once more.
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