His fingers had been working on the tangle on my right hip, but at my words, they stopped.
I kept talking. “I have enough money put away from my modeling days that I’m pretty set. I can afford to be choosy. I can afford to be myself.” A shrug. “Sorry, apparently I’m feeling very life coach-like today. I just mean that—”
“I think what you said is exactly why you will be successful in this industry, Eden,” he murmured. “It’s why I’ve liked you so much from the beginning. You’re you, always. Sometimes that’s gentle and sweet, sometimes that’s vulnerable, sometimes that’s tough and fiery. But it’s always real. No pretense. No shields—”
I snorted. “Oh, I’ve got shields, Damon. I think you, for one, can speak to how thick they are.”
“Armor isn’t the same as a shield.”
That made me shake my head. “That doesn’t make any sense.”
He sighed, tugging up the tangle of fabric before moving to work on my left side, but he stepped around to my front as he did so, chocolate eyes coming up to meet my green ones.
Mint chocolate chip.
The perfect combination of ice cream. Maybe it could be perfect in us—
“I say that armor and shields are different because shields are raised to ward danger off. They’re strong and heavy and can only be held up for a limited amount of time,” he said, freeing an inch of the fabric. “But armor is different. It’s donned and worn through battle. It’s heavy like a shield, but it’s not easy to lay down. Knights had people to help them take it off.”
I sucked in a breath.
He shifted slightly, chest inches from mine, head bent, eyes locked on the tangle, but the angle meant that his mouth was very close to mine. “Armor needs help to be removed,” he said softly, “but that help has to be earned, to be provided by someone the knight trusts. A shield, they can let fall to the ground without assistance.”
“Are you saying I have a shield or armor?” I asked, and yes, it was breathless.
But Damon wasn’t breathing steady either.
“I’m saying you have both,” he murmured. “But that you’ve never been afraid to lay down your shield, to take those blows . . . because your armor is so strong, nothing can touch that inner core of you.”
My breath rattled out between my lips, my heart pounding as I absorbed the words, absorbed the truth to them. Part of me had always been willing or able to make that bodily sacrifice, just to protect the sliver of hope that better things were ahead that had managed to persist deep inside my heart. I had sacrificed my body when my husband hurt me, when my parents used an outdated and horrible law to marry me off.
Then I’d sacrificed my body to make money, to provide myself a future. I’d dropped the shield a lot, the fear of using my body as fodder having long faded away as the necessity to eat and have a safe place to live ruled. But all the while, the armor surrounding that hope got stronger and heavier.
Damon succeeded in freeing the last tangle, tugging the fabric up, helping me slip it over my arms and onto my shoulders. He hadn’t spoken as I’d been lost in thought, more proof that he knew me, had come to know me over many years.
He slipped around to my back, smoothing the dress before tugging the zipper up, still quiet, still working it out.
“You seem to be able to get underneath it.”
His fingers had been between my shoulder blades, still clutching the tag at the top of the zipper, but my words made him freeze.
“What?”
A sharp whip of a word.
I turned, knocking his hands away in the process. “You, Damon. You’ve taken years to earn my trust. You’ve been patient and kind and my friend.” I cupped his cheek. “It’s why you’re under my armor.”
“Your friend?”
My breath caught.
That was a loaded question. One I couldn’t answer. I might have survived something horrible. I might have realized that Damon was there, deep inside, but I realized in that moment, that I still had hope, and it was safely tucked away.
To expose it to the elements, even if those elements included someone like Damon, was too much, too soon.
“Yeah,” I whispered. “Your friend.”
I think that if I hadn’t been facing him, hadn’t been so close, hadn’t been staring directly into his eyes, I would have missed it. I wouldn’t have seen the hope in his eyes wither and die, wouldn’t have felt my own hope, locked up so tightly, pulse in sympathetic pain.
But then he smiled and stepped back, my hand cupping his cheek falling to my side. “All set,” he said. “I’ll get our pizza ready so you can eat before your call time.”
One more searching look, one more moment of his eyes filled with disappointment before he turned and started to walk back to the front of the trailer.
“Damon?”
He paused, glanced back over his shoulder.
I bit my lip, wanting to say so many things but not knowing how. “Um . . . thanks.” A beat. “Thanks for being my friend.”
“No problem, sweet—” He shook his head. “No problem, Eden. I’ll always want to be your friend.”
Sweetheart.
He’d bitten back a sweetheart.
That hurt almost as much as him saying he wanted to be my friend.
And yet, I had no one to blame but myself.
Damn.
Nine
Damon
Friends.
Fuck.
I tossed pizza onto the plates, my fingertips burning from having touched her skin, my hands aching from having resisted the urge to tug her close to my body, my mouth watering from the desire to slant my lips across hers.
But friends.
But . . . not giving up.
Remember?
I sighed, shoved down the disappointment that came from being called a friend, even after all the effort I’d put into being something more, and reminded myself that I’d promised patience and perseverance.
She was worth it.
I’d find a way through all that heavy
