Keep Her Safe(54)

“Do you have any?”

“I can buy some.”

“No point adding extra stops. You need to be here when my mom wakes up. We’ll only get a small window of time where she’ll feel up to talking.” I grab one of the towels off the rack. “Hold him down for me.”

With a heavy sigh, Noah reaches over his head and pulls his T-shirt off, tossing it on the counter.

Leaving me staring at his bare chest. “What the hell are you doing? I said hold him down, not get in with him!”

“You think he’s gonna be calm about this? That shirt is all I have left.”

“Fine, whatever.” I peel my eyes away, feeling my face burn as I recall a naked Noah in this very spot yesterday. “Cy, come here!” I whistle.

The mangy dog trots into the bathroom, oblivious.

“I hope Vilma was wrong about the rabies,” I mutter, lifting him in.

With a soft curse, Noah kneels beside me and seizes Cyclops’s wiry body. Cyclops lets out a low growl as he squirms, and Noah’s arms cord with tension.

“Quiet. Unless you want to go back to the Hollow alone,” I warn in a sharp voice.

As wild as the dog is, Cyclops stops growling, as if he understands.

The combination of water and soap releases a putrid smell of soot, wet dog, and things we’re probably better off not identifying. “Oh, God.”

“Yeah,” Noah agrees with a grimace.

I try not to breathe through my nose, shifting my gaze away. It skates to Noah’s bare shoulder beside me, to the thin silver lines decorating the muscular contours. How a dog Cyclops’s size could fit its jaws around that shoulder is hard to believe, but I’ve now seen how scrawny Noah was when he was little.

And yet Noah’s here to help me, unhappy, but with barely a complaint.

“Thank you.”

“If the little asshole is gonna make my bed his, then I don’t have much choice, do I?”

“Thank you, for getting him out of there.” I feel like I’ve been saying those two words to Noah a lot lately, and yet not nearly enough.

His eyes land on mine. They’re all the more striking up close, a kaleidoscope of blues that draw me in like a cool pool on a blistering-hot day. “Your neighbor makes me nervous, too. She basically forced me.”

“The ninety-year-old shrunken woman who might break with a strong wind and doesn’t speak English forced you? How exactly did that go down?”

His mouth curves into a playful smirk. “She’s persuasive.”

“I’ll bet.” I picture Vilma going head-to-head with a guy Noah’s size and can’t help but chuckle at the mental image. “Anyway . . . He would have been a goner if they had caught him. So, thanks.”

Noah’s gaze drifts to my lips. “I figured that would bother you.” His voice is softer, deeper, and it stirs something inside me.

“Yeah, it would have.” It would have more than bothered me. If Noah had sat there and let it happen, I doubt I would have forgiven him, regardless of his childhood stray trauma.

Cyclops starts squirming.

“He is one filthy animal.” Noah’s nose crinkles at the blackened water as he holds on tight.

“This is probably his first bath . . . ever.” I laugh as I scrub the dog’s neck and back, unable to avoid Noah’s hands. Quietly reveling in the feel of them beneath my own. “Here—I need to rinse him.” I pull the plug and get the handheld sprayer.

Noah manages to hold him down for another ten seconds before he snarls and twists his body to snap at Noah’s wrist. With a curse, Noah scrambles away, falling onto his back. Allowing Cyclops to leap out of the tub, knocking me over in his mad, soaking-wet dash out of the bathroom.

I lose my balance and tumble on top of a sprawled-out Noah.

“Well, that was fun,” he mutters, his head falling back to thump against the tile.

“Did he get you?” I’m hyperaware of how smooth and hot Noah’s bare skin feels against my hands as he inspects his wrist.

“He didn’t break my skin. It was a warning . . .” He sighs. “I swear to God, Gracie. It’s never-ending with you, isn’t it?”

I don’t know why, but that makes me burst out laughing—a deep sound rising from my belly, until my whole body is shaking. I should be peeling myself off him but I can’t move—I’m laughing too hard.

He peers up at me, an unreadable expression on his face.

“What?” My heart starts pounding in my chest.

“Nothing, I just . . .” His words drift, and I can see that he’s changed his mind about what he was going to say. “I was trying to decide who’s dirtier now—you or your stray dog.”

I elbow him in the ribs as I roll off.



* * *



“You have to eat, Mom.” I set the container of chicken broth on the nightstand next to her.

She dismisses it with a pinched nose. “Everything is making me nauseous. Even that pizza . . .” She has some color in her face again, at least, but I know that she’s not exaggerating. At least she’s in that happy lull, though, after the harshest of the drug’s effects have worn off, but before the heroin withdrawal symptoms come back with a vengeance.

Noah’s immediately on his feet and closing the door to his adjoining room, where the offending smell permeates the air. “Gracie’s right. You need to put something besides all this medication into your body. That’s why you have no energy.”