It’s been two days. Two fucking days.
Two days of the generator deciding when it felt like working. Two days of the heat cutting in and out. Two days of Bambi being simply Bambi.
Two. Fucking. Days.
And I couldn’t fucking think straight.
How had I gotten so far gone that fucking breathing in the same room as Bambi was a problem?
I glanced over at her. She sat beside me on the couch, her legs tucked beneath her, her notebook open in her lap. Her attention was fixed on the page, the little scrunch of her nose forming as her hand moved fluidly across it. She paused, brought the end of her pen to her lips, and nibbled absently on the cap.
Fuck.
I looked back at my laptop. I opened my inbox, forcing myself to concentrate on reading the email in front of me, but it was like trying to decipher hieroglyphics.
Bambi shifted beside me, her knee grazing my thigh, and the touch sent electricity racing through me.
Was the couch always this fucking small?
I shifted to the side just a hair. Just enough to give me some breathing room.
Except.
Bambi moved with me.
She stretched her arms above her head, her back arching slightly. Her shirt rode up just enough to reveal the soft curve of her waist. When she lowered her arms, the collar of her shirt slipped down, baring one shoulder and the faint swell of her breast beneath it.
My pulse knocked hard beneath my skin. God, this woman was going to be the end of me… and she wasn’t even doing anything.
I dragged my eyes away and shifted another inch to the right. I bit the inside of my cheek, trying like hell to regain even an ounce of fucking composure.
I closed my email and pulled up a spreadsheet but ultimately deemed getting any work done hopeless. Every scratch, every stroke of her pen, was a reminder that she was beside me.
It was unbearable.
I shifted for the third fucking time.
Bambi looked over at me, that damn pen in her mouth again, her brows creased together. “Are you okay?”
“Fine,” I said too quickly.
“You don’t seem fine.”
“Nope. Everything’s perfect.”
Just fucking perfect.
“You know what?” I shut my laptop. “Actually, I think some fresh air might be nice. How about a drive?”
Her notebook snapped shut and she jolted upright so quickly, my very clearly malfunctioning brain thought she was going to launch herself at me. My heart almost stopped.
“Yes! Oh please, can we, Graham?” she pleaded, as she got to her feet. “I am dying to get out of the house.”
You’re dying? I nearly said. How bout me?
I’ve been trying to keep my head screwed on straight for the last forty-eight hours. Every. Little. Thingshe did threatened to unravel me. I was beginning to feel like my brain had been hardwired to Bambi.
“Perfect,” I said. I set my laptop on the coffee table a little harder than I meant to and headed toward my room.
“Get changed. We leave in ten.”
I closed the door behind me and rested my forehead against the wood.
Jesus, Graham. Pull. Yourself. Together.
Ten minutes later, I was standing by the door, waiting for Bambi.
When she emerged from her bedroom, I nearly choked on my own breath. “What is that?”
“What is what?”
Her shirt—what used to be my shirt—had been cut across the middle, turning it into a crop top that exposed the smooth expanse of her stomach. Her sweatpants hung low on her hips, accentuating her hourglass frame, making the curve of her waist impossible to ignore.
“You are not wearing that,” I said firmly.
And not just for my own goddamn sanity, either. Every fucking member of the male species wouldn’t be able to keep their eyes off her.
The thought made something ugly claw at my chest.
“Graham,” she groaned, rolling her eyes.
“It’s thirty degrees outside, Bambi. You’re changing. Now.”
“I have nothing else to wear.”
“Like hell you don’t.”
She crossed her arms and glared at me. “Everything I own is yours, Graham.”
“So?”
“So! I can’t wear your clothes forever, Graham!” She rubbed her temple and closed her eyes, drawing in a deep breath.
“The only things that are truly mine are a single ratty sweater that doesn’t even fit me and an old pair of boots,” she said. “I just wanted something that felt like… mine.”
Her words landed like a punch to the gut. She was right. There wasn’t a single thing here that belonged to her. Her clothes. Her soap. Her shampoo. Everything. They were all mine.
All because I pulled her from her home without a second thought about what else she might need besides warmth and food.
And I knew by the look on her face that this wasn’t really just about a shirt.
It was about choice. Her choice. Her ability to choose something for herself.
I’d taken that away from her.
And the worst fucking part is that I knew exactly what it felt like to have someone make a choice for you while you had no say in it. Caroline had taken my choice away, too, and I resented her for it my entire life.
I’d done the same to Bambi.
I’d been no better than Caroline.
But I would be.
My trauma didn’t have to be Bambi’s. Fuck no. Bambi deserved better than that.
“Alright, then,” I said. “Let’s get you some new clothes.”
“You’re serious?”
“Yes.”
Bambi squealed and bounced on the tips of her toes.
“You’re still not wearing that,” I said. Some decisions were still mine. Whether she liked it or not.
She rolled her eyes, but as she turned toward her room, I caught the faint curve of a smile pulling at her lips. She returned a minute later wearing one of my sweatshirts and her leggings. Not a single trace of skin in sight.
I’ve gotta remember to throw away all the damn scissors, I thought as we headed outside.
As we pulled out onto the main road, the aftermath of the blizzard could be seen everywhere. Broken limbs hung haphazardly from trees. Power lines had been torn from their utility poles and tangled around them. Snowbanks towered at the edges of the pavement, left behind by the snowplows that had cleared the roads. A little while later, I pulled into the downtown shopping center.
“Woah,” Bambi said, looking out across the shopping center.
“You’ve never been here?”
“No, never. We didn’t really have the budget to shop at places like this.” She let out a huff. “We could hardly afford the bare essentials as it was. Food and rent. That’s what mattered.”
And drugs.
She didn’t have to say it for me to know that was where her mind had gone.
My grip tightened around the wheel. I’d seen Caroline’s statements after she was admitted. Later, when I’d met with the bank about the apartment, I’d learned just how far behind they really were. They’d been lucky they weren’t evicted.
Bambi had been doing what she could, working shifts at a sketchy diner just to keep them afloat, but Caroline had burned though nearly every dollar on getting high.
Anger flared in my chest at the thought of everything Bambi had been forced to go through because Caroline couldn’t keep her shit together. It was a parent’s job to take care of their children, not the other fucking way around.
I blew out a slow breath, forcing the thought aside. I didn’t need Caroline taking up space in my head right now. This trip was about Bambi.
I pulled the truck into a parking spot and killed the ignition. “Well, come on then.” I smiled. “Let’s get you something that’s not mine.”
Bambi chuckled and climbed from the truck.
“I didn’t not like wearing your clothes, you know,” she said softly.
I almost lost my footing as I rounded the truck. She really shouldn’t be saying things like that. It did something funny to my chest.
“I didn’t not like seeing you in them,” I replied.
Fuck. I shouldn’t be saying things like that.
I glanced away, shoved my hands in my pockets and started heading for the main entrance.
“So, where to first?” I asked.
“I wouldn’t know,” she shrugged.
“Pick any store you want, Bambi. Or all of them. We don’t leave until we find something you like.”
“Okay,” she smiled. Then, of course, she made a beeline for the single brightest store in the entire shopping center. I almost needed to shield my eyes from the obscene number of bright lights and polished chrome. It was enough to give a man a migraine that would last a week.
Turns out Bambi agreed.
“We need to leave,” she said not five minutes later, squinting up at me.
I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing as she grabbed my arm and all but dragged me from the store.
“Not into chrome these days?”
She glared up at me. “You’re not funny. That store was awful.”
“Yes, I am,” I countered. “But no, that was pretty bad.”
“You pick the next one,” she said.
“Alright,” I chuckled, and steered us toward a more understated store with an appropriate amount of lighting.
I followed Bambi through the aisles as she browsed, watching her pick up item after item, scrunch her nose at it, and set it back down.
“This store is for old people, Graham.” She held up an atrocious floral blouse and shook it at me. “I’m twenty-four. Not eighty.”
“I don’t know,” I teased. “I think this shade of blue would really—ow!”
“Don’t make me punch you again,” she warned, biting back a smile.
The next few stores were more of the same. In the two stores after that, Bambi spent more time looking at price tags than she did the clothes themselves.
“Bambi.” I said after she’d scoffed for the tenth time.
“Yeah?”
I stepped beside her and took the item from her hand. “Stop worrying about what the price tag says.”
“Graham, I—”
“It’s fine. I promise.”
Bambi pulled her bottom lip between her teeth and looked away.
I wished there was something more I could say, something more I could do, to help her understand that how she’d lived in the past wasn’t how she had to live now. That she was allowed to want things for herself. That she deserved them. No matter the cost.
“I don’t give a shit about the money, Bambi. What I do give a shit about is that you find something you like.”
Slowly, her eyes lifted to meet mine.
“Okay,” she said quietly.
Bambi continued to browse the store, skimming her fingers over cotton shirts, denim shorts, and silky dresses. Every so often, she would reach for a price tag before catching herself.
We had almost made a full circle of the store when she stopped short in front of a mannequin. It was wearing a fuzzy pink sweater with silver buttons running down the center.
She ran her fingers down the sleeves, then over the buttons.
“Can I?” she asked, looking at me over her shoulder.
I smiled. “Go on.”
She carefully pulled the sweater off the mannequin, almost as if she were scared she’d ruin it.
Bambi disappeared into a dressing room, and a moment later, the curtains slid open and she stepped out.
She walked to the three-sided mirror and turned in a slow circle. When she came to a stop, she smoothed her hands over the front, her smile widening.
Her eyes met mine in the mirror. “What do you think?”
The sweater fit snug against her, emphasizing the narrow curve of her waist and the low neckline offered a glimpse of the soft shadow between her breasts.
“It’s perfect,” I said. “It’s yours.”
No questions asked. It would be the easiest one hundred-and-fifty dollars I’d ever spent. I’d buy every pink fucking sweater in the country if it meant I got to see her smile like that again.
Bambi beamed at me, and I swear to God, it was like… I don’t know. Like her whole goddamn aura brightened. Like she was glowing from the inside out.
Seeing her like that… that was addicting. And fuck if I didn’t want more of that.
Bambi was in front of me in three strides, and before I could blink, she was pressed against my chest, her arms wrapped tightly around my neck.
“Thankyouthankyouthankyou,” she squealed in my ear.
I stood there, too stunned to move for a split second, before my arms wound around her.
“You’re welcome.”
Fuck it. I’ll buy her every pink sweatshirt in the goddamn world.
An hour later, Bambi and I returned to the cottage with so many shopping bags I was already considering buying her a bigger dresser.
While she worked on putting away her new things, I finished up some of the work I hadn’t been able to earlier.
A soft giggle drifted down the hall and my hands stilled over my keyboard.
I smiled to myself. Yeah, I liked the sound of that.
The Feral Bookster 