Page 54 of Trusting the Fall
“Don’t move,” he says, then he’s rushing out the back door.
I look down at my knees, where I can feel a stinging sensation. One has blood running down my shin, the other is only a little scuffed up.
Leif comes rushing back in with a first aid box in hand. He places it on the bench beside me, and I notice he’s still wearing that black beaded bracelet with the collection of gold letters.
I bite my lip as he pulls out some gauze to clean up the blood and then dabs some antiseptic solution over the grazed sections.
“What does your bracelet mean?” He looks at me before studying the beads around his wrist. The ones I love to fiddle with.
“Twenty-first birthday present from my sister.”
“Twenty-first? What the fuck?” I say in a panic.
No way can he be that good at commanding my orgasms at twenty-one. Besides, I’m only twenty-four. I can’t be entering my cougar phase yet.
He chuckles. “Relax, I’m twenty-seven. I’ve just never taken it off.” He continues to tend to my wounds with a delicate touch, focused on his tasks while I take him in with a more assessing eye.
Who is this guy that I’ve become so intimate with in so many ways but barely know in others?
“What do the letters stand for?”
“First letters of our names. Me, my twin sisters, Astrid and Thyra, and my cousin, Tristan. I was moving out of home around my twenty-first, so Ty made it so I didn’t forget them.”
I smile at the way he speaks with such love for his family. It’s been my mum and me my whole life. I didn’t have cousins, aunts or uncles.
My grandmother was around a lot, but she and my mother were often at odds. I think she always tried to encourage Mum to move past the hurt my dad caused with his lies, wounding her dignity and her heart.
It wasn’t a close, loving family like I suspect Leif had experienced.
“Are you the eldest?” I don’t know why I’m asking.
Don’t know why I’m trying to know more about him. I can’t help it. My mouth, head and heart are all fighting for dominance.
“I am. Astrid and Thyra are six years younger. Tristan moved in with us when he was fourteen. He’s two years younger than me.”
“Tristan?” My mind fixates on the name, knowing it’s familiar.
“The same Tristan that drew up your plans and recommended my business for your reno,” he says.
“Oh my god, he led me right to you. My biggest nightmare.” The fire has left my teasing words, leaving me smiling in the end, which Leif throws right back at me.
“He doesn’t have the same last name as you?” I ask.
“No, his mum and my dad are siblings, so he’s got his dad’s name. Not that the sperm donor earned it. He took off when Tristan was really young.”
“Hmm, I can relate to that.” He puts a butterfly strip over the worst cut, then covers it with a bandage before leaving a kiss on my knee.
The action has fireflies dancing in my belly, fluttering around and warming me with comfort.
“You were raised by a single mum?”
“Yeah, I don’t know my dad at all. I was a product of an affair, and he went back to his real life the second Mum shared the news. That was the start of her man-hating spree.”
Leif’s brows pinch, and I hate the way he’s looking at me. He’s trying to figure me out.
No. Not trying. He’s realising that’s the reason I push people away. Why I don’t let men get close.
All I’ve ever been told is men were liars and cheats. If I control the narrative, then I can’t get hurt. I can’t let them get close enough to break me if I always hold them at arm’s length. Only give them the opportunity to make me feel good. Nothing deep. Nothing personal. Nothing real.
