Before & After - Nazarea Andrews Page 0,32
his lips. “Do you want me to?”
I laugh, and step back. Because I’m a little terrified about how much I really don’t want him to.
“Come on,” he says, handing me the crutches and pacing me up to the door. I kinda love the way he’s so carefully attentive, his hand on the small of my back to brace me as I make my way up the three stairs to the front door before he swings it open.
The house is messy—not terribly surprising considering that I’ve been in the hospital. And it’s huge. I glance at Rike. “Did we live here alone?”
“No. It was originally a house with an apartment, and we thought it’d be perfect for us. The apartment has a small kitchen, so when we want privacy, we just go upstairs. And your studio is in the garage loft. Scott and I keep most of our shit in the garage, and that’s where he’ll practice with the band when they’re just fucking around. Lindsay works downtown, so she didn’t get an office, but we all have our space. And when we don’t want the space, we’re together.”
His eyes are bright and almost stupid happy as he talks about it and I can see it, can picture the life he’s painting out.
“Where is our room?” I ask, softly.
His eyebrows go up, and he points toward the back of the house.
“Do you want to see it?” The question is soft and very vulnerable.
“No,” I say. “Not today.” He nods and steps into the large kitchen. Pulls a bowl of soup from the fridge and starts heating it, and pouring us both tea. He’s efficient and brisk in his movements, a graceful poetry in motion doing something so simple and mundane.
But there is nothing simple or mundane about Rike. He’s gorgeous, with his shaggy black hair and the beard that is growing on me. The tattoos curving on his long, strong arms and licking across the skin over his fingers.
He’s everything I never expected to want, but this feels familiar. He’s who I chose. This unconventional, beautifully confusing life.
Scott and Lindsay.
They are the life I chose.
“How did we get here?” I whisper, and Rike’s gaze snags mine. I shake my head, helplessly. “This isn’t what I pictured, Rike. This is nothing like I imagined my life. And I understand that it’s what I chose. But I don’t remember, and I can’t reconcile it.” His expression falls, and I make a tiny noise, reaching for him. “I am trying, Rike. I just—it’s a lot.”
“I know,” he whispers. “I want to help, but I don’t know how. I don’t know how to give you the space you need when all I want is to bring you home.”
I reach for him and catch his hand, twisting our fingers together. He stares at our fingers, until the microwave dings and it jerks both of us out of our thoughts.
The soup and crusty bread he brings out is delicious, creamy potato broth with a spicy sausage. But the tension between us strings tight and uncomfortable, and it makes my stomach twist, until I finally put the food down.
Rike is waiting, because as soon as I stop eating, he shifts, gathering the bowls and taking them to the sink.
“There’s some stuff in your office. I think you should look at it. Will you come upstairs with me?”
I nod, and he grins, shifting over to me and lifting me up from the chair.
“What are you doing?” I breathe out as he cradles me against his chest.
His eyes are so close, so blue I could get lost in them, and I have to look down, because I can’t get lost. Not yet. Not until I’ve found myself.
“Stairs, sweetheart. I’ll carry you up.”
The loft is captivating. Half-finished canvases sit on easels, a sketch and tiny cut piece of papers waiting to be assembled cover a large table, and sculptures clutter a corner in various states of finish. A stained glass window filters light in, beautiful and ethereal, and I feel like I’m in a church. Like this is where I am supposed to worship, and where everything is right. Rike sets me on a deep red leather chaise lounge in a corner of bookshelves and I shiver. The table next to the chaise holds a notebook.
He follows my gaze. “You wrote constantly. Sometimes it was things you’d share with me or Linds, but it was usually just for yourself, and it was incessant.”
“Do you think that reading the journals could help