Page 133 of Pulse Zero
I don’t touch him, just watch.
It’s been nearly half an hour since he passed out while I was cleaning him up, since he collapsed onto the mattress like his body finally gave out after holding itself together for too long. Since everything we didn’t finish seven years ago stopped being unfinished.
My gaze drags over him slowly, taking in every detail, committing it to memory all over again. His soft skin, his pretty lips, his green hair, the dusting of freckles across the bridge of his nose that’s so light they’re barely noticeable unless you’re looking up close. He has several more tattoos than he did years ago. There’s one on his back that I’ll have to get a better look at later. There’s also a geometric tattoo covering his left thigh that features a diagram of a wormhole, various mathematical symbols and equations, and a sketch-style drawing of the Death Star in the center. It seems just as fitting for him as the unicorn.
But it’s not the tattoos I’m paying attention to right now. It’sallof him. I’ve seen him before, plenty of times. In basements. In shadows. In my head. But this…
This is different.
This ismine.
I didn’t expect it to feel like this. Then again, I wasn’t surewhatI expected. I’ve been with women before, and I knew this would be different. And it was. But this didn’t feel like my first time with a man. It felt like my first time with Cason, period. It was messy and intense and unfiltered in a way that pulled something out of me I didn’t know was still there.
It felt like something that had been waiting too long to happen. Patiently, but desperately.
My hand moves before I think better of it, fingers brushing lightly along his arm, just enough to confirm he’s real. My shadows move too, checking with me, adding an extra layer to the blanket already covering him from the waist down.
He stirs, his nose scrunching before his eyes blink open, slow and heavy with sleep. It takes him a second to focus, his gaze landing on me. Then he grins.
“Wow,” he rasps, voice still wrecked. “That’s not creepy at all. Just watching me sleep like a serial killer.”
I grin back at him. “You talk in your sleep.”
His eyes narrow. “Lies.”
“Mostly insults.”
“That tracks.”
He shifts closer without hesitation, like it’s instinct now, like the space between us doesn’t exist anymore. His hand finds my chest, fingers splaying there as he studies me in a way that feels a little too aware for someone who just woke up. His palm is warm over my scar, the one from the gunshot that tore us apart. But it doesn’t hold power over us anymore. We’re back now.
“That was…” He trails off, but he doesn’t need to finish.
“I know,” I tell him, grabbing his wrist and brushing my thumb over his skin. “I felt it too.”
His eyes get a little misty but nowhere near as wet as they were before he fell asleep. Not that it bothered me. I may not have known that Cason’s feelings run as deep as they do, but I know now. Whether his feelings for me are syndrome born or something else entirely no longer matters. Whatever it is in him, it’s the same in me. And with the same depth comes the same damage it’s willing to do.
“Okay,” he says, taking a deep breath like he’s trying to keep himself from getting as emotional as before. “So we’ve established that we’re incredibly compatible and should probably never let each other out of sight again.”
“Agreed.”
A giant grin breaks out on his face like he’s gotten everything he’s ever wanted. Then even that breaks when reality comes crashing back down.
“Unfortunately,” he says, his grin fading, “we still have a massive problem.”
“Ah, yes.” What comes to mind isn’t what I assume he’s talking about, but it’s currently the problem I’d prefer to solve first. “The matter of who killed you, who fucking touched you. Who dared to end your life.”
“Technically, they didn’t end it. They just restarted it.”
“Technically, theirs won’t be restarted after I get a hold of them.”
Cason’s gaze dips down to where his hand is still on my chest, and he frowns. But it’s not humorous or dramatic or mischievous. It’s real.
“What?” I ask, my jaw still tight.
“It’s just…” His eyes stay down, and the crease between his brows deepens. “I guess I haven’t had much of a life ever since I tried to go back to it. I haven’t had real friends. The guys who helped me with this, they…” He scoffs as though he already feels ridiculous before even saying it. “It felt like they were the first friends I’ve had in years.”
When his gaze finds mine again, holding a kind of gravity I rarely see there, I already know my answer to what he’s going to say next.
