Page 6 of Apex of the Curve
“I don’t know…” she looked on the verge of tears again and I shook my head.
“Doesn’t matter,” I told her with a sniff and she looked back up at me, those clear green eyes of hers slaying me every time they met mine. “You’re safe, nothing happened to you last night. No one touched you but me, and only to get you cleaned up so I could put you to bed. I swear it.”
She swallowed hard, hesitated and finally said, “Thank you.”
“It’s no problem,” I reiterated. “I’ll get you your clothes. You get in the shower and I’ll leave ‘em right outside the door. Uh, keep the shirt – your sweater was marked ‘dry clean only’ and I put it in an oversized Ziploc until you could decide what you wanted to do with it.”
“Okay.” She nodded, wincing as she hit a rough patch in her hair, smoothing it behind her ears with her hands.
“Yeah, I couldn’t keep it out of your hair, sorry.”
“It’s no problem,” she said with a slight smile, and I gave her one back.
“What’s your name?” she asked as I got half way out the door.
I looked back over my shoulder and said, “I go by Fenris.”
“Yeah, but I mean your real name.”
I smiled and I knew it was a bit feral, but I couldn’t help it.
“Not to be alarming, but it’s the only name I need.”
“Okay,” she whispered, her eyes a bit wide.
I shut the door and went up the hall to get her clothes out of the dryer.
“What the fuck was that all about?” my dad groused when I got to the bottom of the stairs.
“No clue,” I said with a shrug. “She’s getting a shower.”
He grunted, slapped some scramble on a plate and set it in front of me at the breakfast bar. I slid into a seat and dug in, elbows to either side of my plate, taking a protective stance over my food. Some old habits die hard.
The squeaky tread on the stairs gave her away as she came down, and my dad and I were both stopped and looking to the mouth of the stairway when she peeked around the corner. She blushed, her hair, which had been full of body and a little wild before her shower, hung lank around her face, heavy with damp.
She put her hands in her back pockets, took a deep breath and emerged more fully into the room.
“Sorry, again, about earlier,” she said shakily, and I shook my head.
“It’s nothing.”
“Come and eat.” My dad echoed the dismissal of her apology and set out a plate for her.
“Oh, I’m not really that hungry—”
My dad snorted and cut her off, “I didn’t cook all this so his big ass could eat it all, now sit down.”
I smirked and shook my head. “Crotchety old bastard,” I muttered.
“You’re just like me, so shut the hell up, boy.”
My smirk turned to a grin and I didn’t say anything about it, just shoveled another bite of food into my mouth.
She slipped onto the stool beside mine, her face a study in beauty and confusion, and I tried not to stare. I didn’t know what her deal was, but clearly, she had some shit going on. I thought back on my sister and shifted slightly in discomfort.
I hadn’t pried back then. I should have, and by letting shit slide, I’d let her slide right into her grave. There wasn’t a day that went by that didn’t weigh on my soul. This chick right here, though? She wasn’t my sister. I didn’t even know her.
“Thank you,” she murmured softly as my pops put a plate in front of her.
