Page 20 of The Saint

I turned, leaving the room, and grabbed clothes out of her dresser. It was hardly difficult. Nothing about her style had changed in the five years she’d been gone. Top drawer, underwear and socks, all neatly folded and sorted by color. Second drawer, t-shirts. Short sleeves on the right, long on the left. Third drawer, pants.

By the time I was back at the bathroom door, she was standing in the doorway on one leg. And the anger that emanated from her could be felt like a fire on my skin.

“Put these on,” I told her, shoving her dry clothes across the threshold and into her arms. “Let me know when you’re done and I can help you back to the other room.”

Those flattened lips did little to hide the resignation in her eyes. She stepped back and, for the second time that day, I had a door slammed in my face.

Leaving her to stew, I went back through her apartment in search of a few things she would need. Then I stopped in the hall bath, changing into the gym shorts and t-shirt I had stashed in my bag. They were slightly damp from the rain, but not soaked. Nothing that would harm the furniture if I stayed.

By the time I got back to Jael’s room, she was sitting on the corner of the bed, eyes downcast like it pained her to be reliant on anyone else.

“Come on, let’s get you to the other room.”

She didn’t voice her objections, but they were there in every hard muscle of her body. When she was seated on the corner of the couch with the slight Jael-sized divot, I grabbed the ice pack and first-aid kit off the kitchen counter. I pulled her ankle into my lap as I sat on the edge of the coffee table and wrapped it up.

“Here,” I told her when I was done, handing her the ice pack. “You’ll want to ice it and keep it raised. Try to stay off it for the rest of the day.”

“You sound like Zee,” she muttered quietly, one corner of her lips turned up.

At his name, all the pain that’d been plaguing me for the past week came slamming home. I gripped my shoulder and tried not to groan.

“Are you… okay?” Jael asked, those jade green eyes almost looking like she might care.

I was pretty sure that wasn’t the case.

Not anymore.

“Fine.” I pushed off the table and away from her. It was all too real. Her smell, the sight of her. Sitting in her space as if she’d never been gone.

“Rolly.” Jael put her foot on the floor and scooted to the edge of the couch, though she didn’t get up. Her ice pack nearly knocked over the glass of water I’d set on the side table for her as she tossed it aside. “Thank you. For helping me. And… I’m sorry.”

“Sorry for what?” My voice came out hard and sharp, the sound foreign to my ears. But I couldn’t take it back, even if I wanted to.

Jael tipped her chin up, her stoicism shining through. “For leaving. For not contacting you.” She swallowed, her throat working, but her eyes unmoving. “That picture you drew—”

“That stopped being my concern when you left me to go to another country, David.”

“Would you stop calling me that?” she snapped.

“It’s your name—”

“But you’re saying it like it’s a weapon!” Green, the color of moss, stared back at me. Her face paled as if the thunderstorm had followed her indoors, and she shook as if it were hovering over her head.

In my damp clothes, with my bare feet free of these soaked shoes I’d worn on the way here, I moved to the chair closest to the door and took a seat. She dropped her gaze to the floor, and I could practically see the darkness swirling in her head.

There was a story there in that darkness. Something torturing her that I’d never seen before.

Five years ago, she’d cut me out of her life without a word.

Now, it was time for her to talk.

6

JAEL

My brain felt like it was short circuiting. Rolly was here. In my apartment. Staring at me with those heavy-lidded eyes that made him look like he was half asleep.

The same way he’d looked at me the day I’d left, his body between my legs, my breast aching where his mouth had been attached a moment before.