Concern hadn’t been what he’d been aiming for. He hadn’t been aiming for anything really, except honesty when he’d said it. “This is nothing really,” he continued, his mouth stupidly betraying his desire to not concern her more than he already had. “I was a mess the first time around. Lost so much weight I swear I could count my own ribs.” He forgot sometimes that Rae had enough grit in her own life to recognize things that weren’t sparkling clean.
“Yeah, I know that.” He had inadvertently tested the limits of his friendship with Regan and Brandon and realized that they gave more of a damn that he would have thought. He knew that they had his back, but he’d never thought they’d fucking camp out with him through withdrawal and just taking everything in stride. “Got myself my own fucking set of cop brothers. Funny if you think about it.” The criminal with a set of cops. He was rambling though, not a trait he usually had, but it looked like Rae had worn off on him a little bit.
And when he got a Look it was pretty hard not to smile right back in response, but instead of smiling he settled on an expression that was a little more neutral, one that most people wouldn’t have been able to figure out what it really meant. But Rae wasn’t most people. The question jarred him out of his own thoughts and he shook his head. “Nothing violent. Not for a few days,” he answered. “Mostly just a lot of yelling and whining.” As much as he didn’t want to admit that last bit, he had done a fair amount of whining at Reg and Brandon about anything from the temperature to how they were ruining his fucking life.
He nodded. “This place has the best views,” he said, and yeah, he’d wanted to do some reminiscing too. “You can chalk it up to whatever you want, babe. Fate or whatever.” He didn’t always buy into the ‘everything happens of reason’ belief, but he did think it was kind of telling that they’d both gone here.
“You don’t owe me an apology,” he argued, eyes serious. “I’ve been just as fucking selfish as you. Fuck, it was my selfishness that landed us here.” He wanted to take the blame for that. It was his relapse, his selfish actions that had separated them to begin with. He brushed a thumb over her cheekbone, remembering to be gentle. That was the worst of it in the beginning, remembering to concentrate on keeping the super strength under control too. One of the reasons he’d wanted Rae away, because even if she was almost invincible, almost wasn’t completely. She could have limits, and he hadn’t wanted to find them. “I’m the only when that gets to make apologies here.”
He laughed a little with her, but was quick to reply with, “You need to know why I did it too, babe. It had nothing to do with wanting to be away from you. But I just couldn’t have you around, and worry about what I could do to you.” Brandon and Regan had been better suited to weather that than Rae, as much as it hurt to not have her there. “I love you, so damn much it fucking hurt to not see you.” One more hurt on top of all the physical ones.
He should have expected that. Had been expecting that a little bit, actually. But he wasn’t completely sure that Rae would bring it up. And he knew that she’d said he could think about it, but he’d thought about it a little in the last couple of days already. “Maybe. But just you, not EJ, and one of the guys has to be around too,” he replied. “Just in case.” She was able to get through to him in a way that his friends couldn’t, but his personality and actions were so up and down, he didn’t trust himself completely with just her, and he hoped that she would understand that. He was a long ways from being out of the woods.
Returning the kiss, he smiled against her mouth. “I’m working on it,” he told her. “I’m fucking co-dependent because of you,” he added without even a trace of regret. “Fucking best thing to happen to me.”
“Got lots of reason to apologize,” he countered. “But agreeing to disagree is going to be the way to go, babe.” Dropping his arms and reaching for her hand instead, tugging her gently towards the bench she’d been on when he had shown up. The walk around the compound and up to the roof had made him more tired than he’d realized. “Sit with me?” he asked her.