How the fuck did I get in here?
I wake to the soft light of morning spilling through my window and the warmth of my blankets cocooning me. My head feels heavy, my eyes are going to fall out of their sockets, my body’s drained, and I feel like I barely existed inside my skin last night.
I blink against the sunlight, disoriented. Trying to piece it all together.
The last thing I remember is sitting on the couch downstairs, my chest caving in, my hands shaking, the feel of pins and needles radiating throughout my body, and my mind spiraling into that suffocating darkness.
The kind of darkness that always fucking wins.
A brief flash of Carter comes crawling back to memory.
His hands were on my face, wiping away my tears. His voice, low and patient, pulling me back from the edge one breath at a time. His gruff exterior was nowhere to be found last night, and seeing this soft side of him shifted my perception of him.
Carter Hayes isn’t just some broody, stubborn cowboywith a short temper and a sharp tongue. There are layers to him.
Complicated, messy, beautiful layers he guards like a man who’s been burned before.
I know being here with me, dealing with this chaos, isn’t what he signed up for. I know this isn’t easy for him. But the way he stayed and held me together when I was falling apart tells me more about his character than any of his walls ever could.
I sit up slowly, the blanket slips from my shoulders and pools around my waist.
And that’s when I see him, asleep.
Right there, on the floor beside my bed.
Sucking in a quiet gasp, my heart catches painfully in my chest. He’s sprawled out, one arm bent behind his head, and his entire body stretched out carelessly, like he passed out from sheer exhaustion.
His tattoos are stark against his skin in the morning light, black and white ink painting his arms and chest in sharp lines. The only hint of color is that damn rose on his pec, the one I caught a glimpse of before, half-hidden in the shadows. Now, in the soft glow of the morning, it stands out vivid and haunting.
A scar he chose to wear in ink.
Always loved.
My curiosity gets the best of me, sending my brain into overdrive. I silently scoff to myself, probably for some ex-bitch who didn’t deserve him. My pulse stutters at the sight of him, sprawled out and unguarded, his chest rising and falling in slow, even breaths.
What the fuck is he doing here?
I can’t stop staring at him—at how the early light catches the edges of his tattoos, how his hair falls messily across hisforehead, and how my heart twists painfully in my chest just looking at him.
Last night…
Hestayed.
He didn’t stay out of obligation; no one asked him to. He stayed—because he wanted to.
I should be annoyed. I should be humiliated that he saw me like that, but I’m not.
All I feel is something dangerously close to safe, and that fucking terrifies me more than anything.
Hours have passed,and he’s still dead asleep. It’s the weekend, so I figure this is his time to rest and recuperate.
Thank god for me.
I could be a bitch and start blaring my music at full volume, scream-singing the lyrics just to wake him up, but for once, I decide to play nice.
Shocker.
Rolling onto my side, I grab my phone from the nightstand and thumb through my messages. I send a text to my girls, updating them on everything. Well, almost everything. I leave out the part about Carter at the bar—the way he grabbed that guy, the way he looked at me like I was the only thing that mattered—because I don’t need the running commentary from them right now. Especially when my head is already a fucking mess.
