Page 72 of Ricochet
Moving carefully so I don’t wake him, I slide off the bed. It’s easy to find the bathroom in his one-bedroom apartment. After I take care of business, I head back to his room to see him stirring. The moment his eyes open, they’re on me.
“Are you okay?” Worry laces his voice as he raises himself up on his elbows.
Rolling my eyes, I climb back into the bed beside him. “I’m fine. You really need to stop doing that.”
“Doing what?”
“Worrying about me. I’m not as fragile as you might think.”
“I’m sorry,” he says on a sigh. “I don’t think you’re fragile. And I don’t mean to treat you like that. It’s just a habit I guess. I’m kind of…”
Settling onto my side next to him, I prop my head in my hand. “Protective?”
He rolls over to face me, and a low growl rumbles in his chest. “Very.”
I grin as I stare into his face that’s mostly covered in shadow. “You know you’re going to have to keep that in check on the ice, right? I’m pretty good at avoiding the boards and the other guys’ sticks, but we’ve only played two games. We have a whole season ahead of us, and none of us are going to skate away unscathed.”
“You better learn to skate even faster than you already do then.”
I laugh, but I don’t think he’s joking. “Seriously, Stone. We can’t afford for you to spend the entire season in the sin bin or on the bench. Or, you know, in jail.”
“I won’t make any promises.”
Opening my mouth to argue more, I’m interrupted before I can get a word out.
“I need to ask you a question.”
My body tenses but only briefly before I remember I’msafe.
“That day in the locker room a couple weeks ago, when you told me to stop…”
He trails off, so I nod to let him know I remember.
“Was your mind…backthere? I only ask because I feel like you should know that’s normal.”
My mouth is suddenly dry. “Normal?”
“Don’t get me wrong. Very little about you is normal.”
I let out a quiet laugh. I can’t exactly argue with that.
“There are some sexual assault survivors who feel guilty, like it was their fault.” His face hardens when he adds, “Which is the most untrue thing in the world, by the way. But it’s normal for them to think that. When they think they deserved it, they tend to not draw boundaries for themselves and end up in situations that may be similar because they think theystilldeserve it. You don’t have to answer my question, if that’s what it was. I just need you to know that’s not what it was for me. I fucked up that day, but I’ll never fuck up again.”
I reach for his hand that’s lying on the sheets between us and link our fingers together. I can tell it’s eating at him, and I don’t want it to. Maybe he’s right on some level, but rationally, I know he wasn’t forcing himself on me.
“You have to stop beating yourself up over every little thing.”
“It’snotlittle.” There’s a hard determination in his voice and the way he squeezes my hand. “There willalwaysbe a boundary between us no matter how many times we fuck. That boundary is your safe word. I’ll always respect it, Callum. I just need to make sure you know that your trust in me when it comes to that isn’t misplaced.”
So not only did the boy obsessed with death find himself a serial killer, but that same boy who carries around trauma found himself a consent king.
Murder good, rape bad.
“You’re perfect,” I whisper.
He lifts both our hands and presses his lips to the back of mine. “So are you.”
“My turn to ask a question that you also don’t have to answer. How do you know all that?”