Chapter 31: Thirty

“~Mason~!” Patricia finally managed to screech by the time I was halfway down the hall.

“I changed my mind,” I called over my shoulder, tugging the shirt on and not stopping, not even slowing down. “I love Reese, and she is the ~only~ person allowed to do that to me.”

I felt free as I yelled it, relieved I was finally breaking loose from this cage.

“But…” She raced after me. “I’ll call him. I swear to God, I’ll call him right now. Do you want your ~Reese~ to die? Is that it?”

“If anyone touches her, I’ll kill him. Then I’ll come back and I’ll kill ~you~.” I’d just reached the back door when I paused and glanced back. Making sure she knew I meant every word, I said, “Is that what ~you~ want, Patricia? Because that’s what I’d rather do than play your trite little games again. And I will. I’ll kill you first. I know just the place to hide your body where no one will ever find it.”

For my first death threat, I gotta say, it came out pretty damn badass. That might’ve been because I felt the words from the depths of my bones. In that moment, I’d rather strangle her to death than feel her creepy hands on my skin again. ~That~ was the kind of person she’d turned me into.

Her mouth fell open; I’d finally managed to shock her.

Good.

We were done here.

I left her house at a jog, hurrying to my own back door through the warm, muggy night.

That’s when reality took root. And shit, shit, shit. My knees began to tremble with the realization of what I’d just done. I’d just stood up to Patricia and ~spat~ in her face. “Holy shit,” I uttered in a shaky voice. Fear welled—what would I do if she went after Reese for this?

But how could I fuck her if I went back over there? I couldn’t, that’s just all there was to it. So, fuck no. I wasn’t going back over there. What was done was done, and I had to deal with the repercussions.

First order of business was a shower to remove the vile impression her touch had left on me. Then I had to get my mother home as soon as possible so she could stay with Sarah and I could track Reese down to make sure she wasn’t left alone, in case her ex showed up.

~Reese~.

God, what was I going to tell Reese? Or Teresa, or whoever she was. Maybe she’d be happy that I hadn’t slept with Patricia. She definitely hadn’t wanted me to. Or maybe she’d be pissed. What if she thought I didn’t care enough about her safety since I’d just left her exposed and in danger? What if she hated me? Or what if she forgave me yet was still scared out of her mind that he’d find her now? She’d gone to all the trouble of changing her name and moving halfway across the country to escape him. Of course she’d be freaked about the possibility that he might now find her…because of me.

What the fuck was I supposed to tell her…if she even opened her door to me in the first place?

I didn’t know. I honestly had no clue.

But then I realized I had to decide pretty damn quickly because as soon as I entered my own kitchen, there she was, sitting at the table, weeping openly.

I jerked to a halt, gaping at her. She looked crushed, and ~I’d ~caused that.

She stood up, holding herself, appearing nothing like the bright, confident, perky woman I’d come to know these past few months. “Are you… Is it done?” she asked hesitantly, blinking through her tears.

“Reese?” was all I could manage to say. “What’re you ~doing~ here?” I’d planned to track her down anyway, but I hadn’t practiced what to say yet.

“S-Sarah…” She hiccupped a sob, making me wince. “Sarah was home alone.”

I shook my head and realized I couldn’t tell her the truth. She was already upset, I didn’t want to pile more on her; I didn’t want her afraid and constantly worried about him showing up. And besides, it was best that she saw me like this, thinking I’d gone through with it, because this was my ultimate truth.

I was ~that~ guy, the one who’d taken money for sex. I could never change that. And she needed to see it, experience it fully. If we ever had a future together, she’d have to accept the fact of what I’d been. And this was the quickest, most brutal way to accomplish that.

“Christ.” I covered my face with both hands, a hoarse moan of agony bleeding from my lungs. This was the moment of truth. She’d leave me or accept it. It was the most frightening moment of my life, because I was certain I’d never see her again.

But instead of running off, what she did was trip forward as if seeking me for ~comfort~.

She thought I’d just fucked another woman and she was still coming to me. Patricia had just touched me with her vile hands and now ~Reese~ wanted to touch me. I couldn’t handle that. I didn’t deserve it.

I jerked back, glancing away guiltily. “Don’t. I’m not clean.”

She shuddered and sniffed, brokenhearted but tried to hug me again. I loved that as much as I wanted her to stop. She needed a good, clean boy who was worthy of her. Not me.

Holding up both hands, I hissed, “Stop! Jesus, Reese. This is why we’re supposed to be just friends. This is why…~God~ damn it!” I cupped her cheek in one hand, taking in her swollen, tear-stained eyes and red nose. I had destroyed her. “Look what I did to you. This is exactly what I wanted to avoid. I never wanted to hurt you. I would give anything to keep this from you.”

She clutched the front of my shirt frantically. “Then let me help you.”

“How?” I shook my head unable to see how we could ever fix any of this.

At first, she looked lost, as if our problems were too big to conquer, but then a mien of pure stubborn determination and steely resolve filled her expression.

“Do you want to be clean?” she asked, wiping her wet eyes and metaphorically pulling on her get-to-work panties to fix what was broken.

I loved her tenacity, but honestly I saw no way to get around what I’d done; I had become a male escort long before I’d met her, and ~that’s~ what had destroyed any future we could ever have.

But I said, “Yes,” anyway, because I still had some hope inside me, praying that she might want to stay with my after all this.

“Then I’ll clean you,” she answered on a smart nod as if it were as simple as that.

She took my hand and led me to the back bathroom, the one where the doorknob was still broken because I’d never gotten around to fixing it.

But that didn’t deter her either. She merely shut the door, closing us into the snug bathroom alone together, and then she picked up the wire toilet paper bin only to plunk it in front of the door, just under the knob to keep it shut.

I blinked, stunned by her ingenuity. “What a good idea,” I murmured in a daze. “Why hadn’t I ever thought to do that?”

She looked up and actually smiled. “Because you need me around to show you the right way.”

A truer sentence had never been spoken. I’d needed her around in order to get a different perspective on things, a fresh outlook. She probably could’ve gotten me out of all kinds of shit I’d gotten myself tangled in, come up with escape plans that had never even occurred to me.

Wincing, I wished I’d gone to her with more problems instead of trying to fix them all in my own stupid, bumbling way.

“I should’ve listened to you,” I croaked. “I shouldn’t have gone over there. I shouldn’t have—”

“Shh.” Nodding to me as if asking me to trust her, she reached for my shirt and slowly began to draw it up. “No more regrets. What’s done is done, and we’re not going to think about it again.”

I lifted my arms for her, trusting her implicitly, even as I asked, “What’re you doing?”

“I’m giving you a shower. I told you I was going to clean you, and—”

She cut off abruptly, staring at my chest as she exposed it, her gaze wide with horror.

“What?” Frowning, I looked down to see the hickey Patricia had given me, the red spot still bright and swollen on my upper right pec. Gagging at the sight, I slapped my hand over it to hide it as I looked up at Reese.

I wanted to tell her it was okay, nothing more than this had happened, but by this point, would she even believe me? She’d just stared at a very real piece of evidence that said something most definitely had happened.

God, had I just lost my chance to tell her the truth?

Panic overwhelmed me. I turned away and dropped to my knees, emptying my stomach into the toilet. As my guts heaved, Reese filled a cup of water for me and she silently handed it over as soon as I sat back on my haunches, finished. In her other hand, she held a toothbrush with toothpaste on it.

She was seriously a goddess.

“Thank you,” I mumbled humbly.

As I rinsed and brushed my teeth, holding my arm over the hickey the entire time to hide it, Reese murmured, “I’ll get your shower water warm.”

I glanced at her as she opened the shower stall door.

“Are you really going to stay in here while I shower?” I asked, blinking at her.

She started the water. “I said I was going to clean you.”

Water splattered her arms as she adjusted the temperature.

Not wanting her to leave, anyway, I shrugged and dropped my pants. Then I stepped out of my jockey shorts.

Once she was satisfied with her shower preparations, she met my gaze, looking straight into my eyes. Her gaze never once strayed down. “I suppose I can let you do this part by yourself.”

I studied her eyes, not sure what was happening here, what she was thinking, what she needed from me. She was being nice—too nice. I didn’t deserve it. But I found that it was the only thing ~I~ needed right now. Maybe, for her own reasons, she needed it too.

I nodded my thanks and stepped into the shower, shutting the door and immediately setting to work scrubbing my right pec clean.

I cleaned everything Patricia had touched about five times, and everything else twice. By the time I finished and turned the water off, opening the door, Reese was sitting on the closed toilet seat, waiting with a change of clean clothes for me.

I blinked at her as she handed me a towel.

Maybe she was in shock. I don’t know, but this oddly sweet, and almost subservient, behavior was beginning to concern me. Just how much had I broken her?

“Thank you,” I murmured again, taking the towel and briskly drying myself. Then I wrapped the terry cloth around my waist. Meanwhile, Reese sat back down and lifted her feet up onto the seat with her so she could hug her knees to her chest and gently rock herself back and forth.

“I feel like ~I’m~ the one who had to do that with her,” she said, biting her lip as she looked up at me with big, worried eyes. “Like she tore down the most basic part of me and left the rest abused and cast off. I feel worthless and cheap, and…and used.”

Pulling my boxer briefs on under the towel, I nodded. “Yeah, that pretty much covers what it does to you.”

She shuddered and began to cry again. “And you’re ~okay~ with that?”

God, why was I doing this to her? I just wanted it to stop. Covering my face with my hand, I rasped, “Reese. I’m sor—”

“Don’t you dare apologize,” she scolded, tears streaming down her face. “~I’m~ the one who did this to you. It’s my fault you went through this.”

~What?!~

“No. ~God~, no. You didn’t. Nothing was your fault.”

Maybe I should just tell her.

I should definitely tell her.

Kneeling in front of her, I got down on her level to confess everything, but when she looked at me, the first thing she focused on was that damn hickey, reminding me there was no reason for her to actually believe me if I tried to say nothing had happened. ~Fuck~.

“I’m sorry.” Snatching the shirt she’d picked out for me, I jerked it on, and she immediately reached for me, clutched the cloth as if it were her lifeline.

I yanked her off the toilet and sat there myself so I could tug her back down onto my lap where I wrapped my arms around her.

“It’s okay,” I assured her. “I swear to you, Reese. It wasn’t that bad. I didn’t even finish. As soon as she was done, I—”

“~I don’t want details~,” she screeched, horrified.

Okay. Good; I didn’t want to lie anymore, anyway. I had stupidly thought making it merely sound like a quickie round would soften the horror for her, but I had a feeling we’d reached a point where nothing I had to say about it now would help her. Not even the truth.

“I’m sorry,” I repeated. I tried to move back, give her space, but she only sobbed more and jerked me right back against her.

“It’s going to be okay.” I kissed her hair and stroked the damp strands that were currently not their usual silken-soft straightness but tangled and mussed.

She barked out an incredulous laugh. “~Okay~? I am so far from okay right now, I don’t even remember what okay feels like.”

Dammit. I buried my face against her neck and inhaled her sweet pea scent. “I can’t tell you how sorry I am. I can’t…I can’t… Why the hell did you ~stay~? You shouldn’t have stayed to see this.”

“I don’t know. I couldn’t leave.” She burrowed closer. “Don’t make me leave.”

“Never.” I caressed her cheek with the backs of my fingers. “Tell me what to do. I’ll do it. I swear. Just tell me how to make this better.”

“It’s already done.” She fell lax against me as if drained. “The only thing left to do now is to adjust and accept. Either that or lose you forever, and that’s not even an option.”

“Are you sure?” I asked softly. “It’d probably be a lot less of a headache for you.”

She just looked at me. “I don’t care. Losing you would feel like losing a limb. You’ve become, like, a part of me.”

God, how had I gotten lucky enough to meet this girl? She was my entire world.

I tucked my face into her hair, inhaling more sweet pea to convince myself this was real, it was really happening, and Reese was mine. She thought I’d done the worst thing possible, and she had still stayed.

“I thought I loved you enough that my feelings could protect you,” I confessed. “I thought I could keep you from being hurt. Damn it, I was so sure I could spit in her face and end it for good.” But spitting on Patricia hadn’t ended shit. Our misery was still going, never ending. “I was so stupid and cocky. And you got ~hurt~ because of it.”

“No.” She stroked my arm soothingly, way more understanding than she should be. “You ~did~ protect me. You kept her from contacting Jeremy. You ~saved~ me.”

Except I hadn’t done that either. Sniffing out my guilt and promising to do anything I had to in order to keep her safe, I kissed her hair.

“Come on.” Keeping her tucked snug in my arms, I stood and carried her out of the bathroom, down the hall, and to my room. After setting her down on my mattress, I pulled the sheets up over her and then kissed her forehead platonically before crawling in beside her.

We lay face-to-face, just watching each other. The dark room was backlit from the hall light that spilled in over her face. She was pale and wilted, her eyes huge and glassy, like a trauma survivor who needed to get her bearings straight before she could even process what had happened.

I started talking, hoping to distract her. I’m not even sure what I said, but I know I told her about how I’d gotten into the business and what it had done to me. It felt as if she just needed something simple to bring her back to the present, even if it was merely hearing the sound of my voice to ground her.

She blinked occasionally, watching me and listening. I have no idea if my words penetrated her brain, but they seemed to do the trick of calming her because she sniffed out a sad smile and wiped the tears off her face for the first time since lying down when I said, “I can’t regret it, though. If I’d never accepted her offer that afternoon, I wouldn’t have started my clientele at the Country Club. I never would’ve made enough money to feel like I could go to college. And I never would’ve met ~you~.”

“I don’t think I’m worth it,” she admitted in a hollow voice.

I could only chuckle, knowing the exact opposite was true: ~I ~was the one who wasn’t worth it. “Trust me. You’re ~more~ than worth it.” I kissed her nose and sighed. “Okay, so I spilled my soul to you. Your turn.” I traced the scar on the back of her neck. “Will you tell me about this?”

“She pretty much covered it all,” Reese admitted, closing her eyes. “There’s not much left to tell.”

“I want to hear it anyway,” I encouraged softly. “I want to hear it from ~you~.”

So she told me her story, which really was pretty much exactly as Patricia had described it—making me upset that Patricia had been so intrusive into Reese’s life to learn so much—and I pulled her close, kissing her hair.

“I’ll do whatever I can to keep him from hurting you again.”

“I know,” she said with so much certainty that the guilt for not sleeping with Patricia to protect her mounted.

She was so damn trusting as she rested her cheek on my chest and stroked my arm. I kept my arms wrapped securely around her, not about to let go. Ever.

We lay there like that, unspeaking, just holding each other. Eventually, her breathing evened out and her limbs went lax against me. I kissed her hair, squeezing my eyes closed.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered, and I continued to hold her until I fell asleep too.