Page 50 of Yours to Keep
CJ steps closer, closing the distance between us until our chests almost touch. His presence is massive, steady, an immovable wall.
“He’s not going to touch you, Eli,” CJ says, his voice steady as iron. “And he sure as hell isn’t getting through me.”
“You don’t know what he’s capable of…”
“I don’t need to,” CJ interrupts softly, his touch burning hot as his hands gently steady my trembling arms. “You aren’t alone anymore, Eli. He might have found you, but he has to go through me to get to you.”
The sheer certainty in his voice lands hard. My throat closes up with raw emotion. Terrified that bringing this threat to his doorstep will make him regret having me here, I try to pull back.
But the second CJ steps back, I follow him instinctively, leaning forward until my forehead rests against his chest. I breathe him in, cedar, salt, amber.
CJ lets out a low, quiet exhale, his hand finding the small of my back and pulling me flush against him. He presses a soft, lingering kiss to the top of my head.
“I’ve got you, Baby Boy,” he murmurs into my hair.
Believing him feels like stepping off a cliff and trusting he’ll catch me.
At the end of the day, he waits so we can walk home together, and I don’t argue. For the first time in years, I stop carrying the terror alone and let someone else share the weight.
11
CJ
A week has passed since Deck and I talked in my office. A dull pressure settles beneath my ribs, the kind that doesn’t fade no matter how many times I breathe through it.
Eli has agreed to stay with me for as long as he wants, and I’m grateful for it.
The thought of him leaving, of disappearing to wherever he’d planned to go, twists something inside me. My stomach tightens. The idea of him gone hits harder than it should, sharp enough to make my breath catch.
I want him here. With me.
Close enough that I know he’s safe.
I’m sitting in my office reading the same report for the tenth time, but my mind keeps drifting back to this morning. To Eli. He had another nightmare last night.
His screams had torn me out of sleep, raw and jagged, the kind that hit straight in the chest. My pulse spiked so hard itrattled my teeth. I’d heard his nightmares before, weeks of them, but this one was different. This one sounded like something breaking.
I stood outside his bedroom, listening to him cry behind the door. I knew the pattern by now, knew he’d fall into silence eventually, knew he hated being woken from it. But knowing didn’t make it easier. Every part of me wanted to go in, shake him awake, pull him out of whatever hell had its hands on him. I wanted to tell him he was safe, that he wasn’t alone, that I wasn’t going anywhere.
But wanting and acting aren’t the same thing.
Knowing Adrian was in Campbell River made every scream feel like a physical alarm bell. My hand hovered over the doorknob, fingers trembling with the urge to cross a line I wasn’t sure he’d let me cross. Not because it was our first week, because it wasn’t. Because the longer he stayed, the harder it became to pretend I didn’t feel this… pull. And if I went in now, I wasn’t sure I could hide it.
So I forced myself to step back. To turn around. To walk away from the door even though every instinct screamed at me not to.
I lay in bed staring into the dark, listening to his screams echo down the hallway long after they’d stopped. And the worst part wasn’t that I couldn’t help him.
It was that I wanted to, more than I should.
My chest ached with every echo. I couldn’t shut it out. Couldn’t stop replaying it.
A knock on the door cuts through the memory, and I glance up from the report I’ve been pretending to read for the last twenty minutes.
“Come in.”
The door opens slowly. Eli peeks around it. “Hey.”
My pulse does something stupid. “Hey.”
