“Let him do this for you, Syd.” I nudge her after him. “There’ll be plenty of time to bitch and moan and be in pain later.”
“Right.” She still looks shell-shocked, but I give her another nudge, and she hurries after him.
I allow myself one small smile, watching her hook her arm around him. Watching them lean into each other. She really could’ve done worse. And it’s about time I accepted that. Accepted that she’s not a kid anymore, and the ways she needs me—what she needs from me—has changed too.
As we reach the lobby, Avery stops, meets my gaze. “I sure hope you’re gonna skate hard tonight, Taylor.”
But before I can answer, something past him catches my attention. There’s a man standing in the background, looking at me with eyes like earth and stars melded together.
“Olli,” I breathe, and it’s like my frozen heart starts beating again.
“I’ll take Avery to the car,” Syd says, but I barely hear her over the thud of my own pulse in my ears.
Chapter 41
Olli
“Olli.”Nat’svoiceisa whisper. Beside him, Syd slips an arm around Avery and guides him towards the wall of automatic doors. But Nat has eyes only for me. “What are you doing here?”
“I . . . got worried,” I murmur, feeling suddenly uncertain. My hand ruffles the back of my hair. “Something was wrong, and I wasn’t sure—”
I thought you might need me, but I don’t have the balls to say that.
“Olli.” Nat’s at my side in an instant. His arm wraps across my shoulders, pulling me in so my head crashes into his chest.
And I don’t know if it’s the abruptness of the gesture, or the way his familiar scents hit me—sweet spice and cigarettes and a hint of winter wind—but I find myself fighting the urge to cry.
Goddamn, I needed this.
I breathe him in like a drowning man who’s broken the surface. “Nat.”
“How do you always know when I need you?” His breath whispers against my cheek, and those words make me want to come apart at all my seams all at once. But I’m not here for me. I’m here for him.
Also, we’re in the middle of an urgent care.
“I got this Nat Taylor sixth sense freaky thing.” I don’t want to put any space between us, but I also would rather not draw more attention, so I slip back a few inches. “Notto be a creep.”
He laughs, a fragile, faded sound, one that might break my heart, if I let it.
“You all right, Mouse?” I hold out the pack of cigarettes in the narrow space between us. “Maybe let’s go outside?”
He huffs out that broken laugh again, then snatches up the cigarettes with one hand, takes my fingers in the other. And he leads me right out into the brutal, biting cold.
Snow whips our faces as we stroll the sidewalk alongside the building. I swear people in Day River don’t feel the cold, but I guess it’s a nice privacy screen between us and the rest of the world.
Nat stops walking, turns, and then his arms are around me again. “Now that you’re here, I think I might be okay.”
His warm breath whispers against my skin, like a caress against that frigid air. And somehow, that tangle of warmth and honest vulnerability makes me feel soft and safe, like a ship docking in a safe harbor from the tumultuous storm, like coming home.
I press my fingers into the firm muscles of his back to pull him closer, and he melts against me. “Tell me what happened.”
He sighs, and to my dismay, extracts himself from my arms to flip open the pack of cigarettes and slide a lighter from his pocket.
And while he lights up, he tells me the story of his afternoon. He reclines against the wall of the urgent care building, and I nestle in next to him, shoulder to shoulder, like we’re keeping each other upright. Or maybe we’re simply sharing warmth in this ungodly cold.
“Damn,” I murmur as he pauses to inhale, exhale. “And I’ve just been emo-crying on the floor of the rink.”
“Really?” He turns wide eyes on me. “You want to talk about it?”
