Valorous(5)

“Can I get you anything?”

She shakes her head. “Will you… Can you…”

“What, honey? Anything.”

“Will you hold me?” Her voice breaks on a sob. “Please?”

“There’s nothing else in this world I’d rather do.” I’m thankful—and humbled—that she still wants me close to her after the mess I’ve made of things. I strip off my shirt and drop my jeans into a pile on the floor and crawl into bed with her.

Releasing an anguished moan, she turns into my embrace, pressing her face into my chest.

Tears fill my eyes and spill down my face. I can’t bear her pain. It’s as if someone is sticking a knife straight through my heart. “It’s okay, baby. I’m right here, and everything is going to be okay. I promise.”

I run my hand over her back, which is covered by my bulky robe. Her shoulders shake with the power of her sobs. “Everyone will know,” she says so softly I almost don’t hear her. “The whole world will know what happened to me.”

“And they’ll know you survived and thrived in spite of it. They’ll know that part, too.”

“I didn’t want anyone to know. I didn’t want you to know.”

“Baby, nothing could ever change the way I feel about you. If anything, I love you even more than I did this morning, and I wouldn’t have thought that was possible.”

“It’s humiliating.”

“Remember what you said to me once? That it took years of therapy to be able to realize this was done to you? It wasn’t your fault? Same thing now. You didn’t do this. Someone else did, and we’re going to make him pay. I promise you that.”

“What will it matter if he pays? Everyone will still know. You’ll know.”

“Natalie, sweetheart, it doesn’t change anything for me. I’d still choose you a thousand times. A million times.”

She burrows her face into the nook between my neck and shoulder, and I hold her as close as I possibly can. We stay that way, her sobs gentling, until we hear a telltale yip from the hallway.

“Fluff!”

The excitement I hear in her voice fills me with hope. “Stay right here. I’ll get her for you.” I kiss her forehead and get up from the bed, taking a minute to pull on my jeans before I open the door to Leah and Addie, who are about to knock.

Fluff sees me and shows me the ten teeth she has left in her fourteen-year-old mouth.

“Fluff,” Natalie says. “Come to Mama.”

The little white ball of fur bolts into my room and onto my bed, where she’s reunited with Natalie.

“Thanks, Leah.” Natalie’s roommate is trying not to stare at my bare chest.

“Um, sure. Could I see Nat? Just for a minute?”

“Of course. Go on in.” I step aside to let her enter the room.

“You have a dog in your bed,” Addie says, going for a bit of levity.

“So it seems.” A herd of elephants can invade my bedroom if that will make Natalie happy. “And isn’t it just my luck that Fluff is immune to my many charms?”

Addie suppresses a laugh. “So you’ve finally encountered the one female on earth who isn’t bowled over by Flynn Godfrey?”

“So it seems. She actually bit me and drew blood the day I met Natalie.”

“I might’ve heard about that.”

“Hayden’s been telling tales out of school again, huh?”

“I’ll never reveal my sources.”

My best friend and business partner is crazy about Addie, not that he’ll ever admit it to himself or to her. I suspect the attraction runs both ways, but Addie doesn’t talk about him to me, and I don’t ask.

I run my fingers through my hair repeatedly until I’m certain it has to be standing straight up. “Tell me what to do here, Addie. I’m at a total loss.”

“Just be there for her. She needs to know nothing has changed for you because of what happened today.”

“I’ve told her that already. I don’t know if she believes me.”

“Keep telling her until there can be no doubt.”

“I never expected to feel this way about anyone.”

Addie smiles at my confession. “It happens to the best of us.”

“I can’t lose her over this. I just can’t.”

“You won’t. When the dust settles, and it will, she’ll remember that you were with her through it all. That’ll matter.”