Chapter Forty-Two

Okay, Now Dan is Really Feeling Things

Dan

When I peered out my window for the fiftieth time and finally saw Rafe's car in his driveway, my pulse leaped and a huge grin stretched my mouth.

I'd already showered and eaten some dinner, so I was ready to head over immediately. Honestly, I'd just been sitting around waiting for him to get home so I could see him. I'd called my momma to pass the time and see how my parents were doing, but he'd been gone a fair bit longer than I'd expected, so after the call I'd ended up wandering aimlessly through my house like a lost puppy.

I turned off all the lights before grabbing my keys and leaving. I was hoping he'd let me stay over again tonight. He'd given me a spare toothbrush to use this morning, and that was all I needed.

It was strangely nice to have something as simple as a toothbrush of my own at his place. Something weird had happened to my chest when I'd placed it in the cup beside his earlier.

I strode quickly from my house to his, hoping Mrs. Tupper across the street wasn't peering out her windows. I'd politely declined when she'd knocked on my door the other day and asked me again about dinner with her granddaughter, but I didn't think that would stop her.

My lip curled at the thought of it. I didn't want to date her granddaughter. Besides, Rafe and I had agreed not to sleep with other people. Even if we hadn't, the idea of doing it—with anyone else, not just Mrs. Tupper's granddaughter—made me feel a little ill.

Which was not something I'd experienced before.

After bounding up the steps of Rafe's front porch, I knocked on the front door. I was already smiling at the thought of spending the evening with him. Maybe we could watch a movie or something before we went to bed. Or he probably hadn't eaten dinner yet—I could cook for him. I was a shit cook, but I could slap something half-decent together. It was the thought that counted, right?

My grin widened when I heard footsteps approaching on the other side of the door, my belly jumping with anticipation of seeing him, even though it'd only been a few hours since I last had.

Then my whole body locked up when he opened the door and I saw his face.

He was hurt.

There was a bruise starting to bloom in the corner of his right eye, and he was holding a bloody tissue under his nose.

"What happened?" My voice was hoarse with a unique kind of panic, one I'd never felt before, as it tightened my chest. "Are you okay?"

He nodded, sounding stuffy when he said, "I'm fine."

"What happened?" I urged again, striding into the house and carefully cupping his face. When he pulled the bloody tissue away and I saw dried blood under his nose, crusting around his medusa piercing, I swallowed thickly past the sudden lump in my throat.

He huffed with wry amusement. "Weirdly, not much."

"What do you mean?" I asked quickly, my brows pulling low into a heavy frown. I smoothed my thumb over his jaw, not wanting to touch him anywhere that might hurt.

He rolled his eyes then winced. "I mean, I guess technically I got mugged, but it was—"

"What?" This time, my voice came out in almost a growl. My whole body tensed up as fury like I'd never felt before made my blood boil in my veins.

Someone had mugged Rafe. And hurt him.

For the first time in my life, I felt truly capable of committing murder.

"It's fine. I'm fine," he said again, looking a little surprised because I was almost vibrating with anger at this point, my face tight with it. "It was Frank and Beans."

My eyes snapped to his in shock. Then I started to get even fucking angrier. "What?" I growled again in a seething voice.

He huffed. "They did a piss-poor job, so nothing even really happened."

"Then how the fuck do you have a black eye and a bloody nose?" I gritted out through clenched teeth.

"Beans launched himself at me off a dumpster and clipped me in the face with his elbow." He shrugged a little. "I don't even think he actually meant to hurt me. I mean, I have no idea what he was doing, but—"

"I'm going to fucking kill them."

He blinked in surprise. "Dan, I'm fine. They didn't even take anything. Well, except a pack of gum." He snorted. "And their ‘gun' was actually a fucking hot dog."

My hands dropped from his face as they clenched into shaking fists. "They held you at fucking gunpoint ?"

"No, no, that's what I'm saying. It was just a hot dog."

"But they pretended they had a fucking gun ?" I was getting a little loud, because I'd never felt this kind of rage before and I didn't know what to do with it.

"Dan." Rafe rested his hand on my chest, directly over my furiously pounding heart. "Seriously, I'm fine. Nothing really happened. They didn't know what they were doing."

"And that makes it fine ?" I snarled. "They tried to fucking mug you. They hurt you." Stiff with anger, I turned and reached for the door handle. "I'm going to find those shitheads. Right fucking now."

"No," Rafe said quickly, grabbing my arm. "There's no need. Seriously. It's not as bad as the nosebleed makes it look." He chuckled, wiping under his nose. "It just started bleeding again when I got in. I was the weird kid at school who always got nosebleeds in class for no reason."

Some of the anger drained from me as I stared at him, my chest tightening unbearably. The lump returned to my throat, making it hard to swallow.

"Rafe," I croaked, the intense urge to march right out and track those two assholes down warring with a sudden, desperate need to wrap him in my arms and keep him close. Never let him get hurt again.

I couldn't stand it. I was usually so calm and chilled, never all that quick to anger and not easily ruffled, but my emotions were in turmoil. He did seem mostly fine, but the dried blood under his nose made him look so vulnerable. It was doing something to me, making me want to destroy everything just to keep him safe.

Swallowing, I stepped forward and wrapped my arms around him, ducking my head to bury my face in his neck. I squeezed my eyes shut as I breathed in his familiar scent.

How could anyone hurt him?

"Seriously, I'm fine," he repeated for what felt like the tenth time, smoothing his hand up my back. "It was nothing compared to what they did to you."

No, it wasn't. It was so much worse. Because they'd done it to him.

Throat bobbing, I lifted my head and gently cupped his cheek on the uninjured side of his face. The backs of my eyes were burning a little, so I blinked fast.

"Are you okay?" I croaked.

He huffed and smiled at me, reaching up to teasingly pinch my chin. "Don't make me say it again."

"You should sit down," I said worriedly, taking his hand and leading him into the living room. "I'll get some ice for your eye."

"There's a bag on the counter," he told me. "I was icing it when my nose started bleeding again. But I don't think it'll even turn into a real shiner."

My hand tightened on his when the anger surged again, but I forced myself to remain outwardly calm as I grabbed a blanket and covered him with it the moment he sat on the couch. He chuckled but didn't comment, sniffing as he crumpled the bloody tissue in his fist.

I took it from him and went into the kitchen to throw it out and grab the ice bag. He was still sniffing when I returned to the living room, and my heart lurched when I saw fresh blood trickling from his nose.

"Kitten, your nose is bleeding again," I said hoarsely, hating the sight of it. Dropping the bag on the coffee table, I hurriedly lifted the hem of my shirt and stepped closer. "Here, use this."

He laughed and tilted his head away. "You don't need to ruin your shirt. I'll just go get another tissue."

"I'll get it." I rushed out before he could move, almost tripping as I ran back into the kitchen to grab a paper towel. While in there, I filled a glass with water for him too, and as I walked quickly back into the living room, I asked, "Do you need food? I can make you something."

"Uh, I haven't had dinner yet, but you don't need to make me anything." He smiled up at me as he took the glass and tissue, twisting up the latter to push it gingerly into his bleeding nostril.

"I'll make you something," I insisted, then hesitated. I didn't really want to make him feel worse with my terrible cooking. "Or I'll order you something. What do you want? Tell me."

Rafe chuckled and leaned forward to set down the glass. "There's some leftover pasta in the fridge. I'll have that in a little bit."

"I'll heat it up for you." I turned for the kitchen, but he snagged my hand.

"No, I'm okay for now." He smiled up at me. "Just sit down."

Reluctantly, I perched beside him, right on the edge of the couch cushion. My knee started bouncing as I clasped my hands together and squeezed my fingers tight, the rage that had still been simmering starting to swell again.

I was going to find them.

And… I didn't know what. Could I beat someone up? I'd never done it before. Not for real—not outside of rehearsed wrestling matches or fake, scripted beef for the audience.

I looked over at Rafe and watched him carefully pull the tissue out of his nostril and peer down at it to see how much his nose was still bleeding. My jaw clenched so hard I thought my teeth would shatter.

Yeah. I was pretty sure I had it in me to beat the shit out of them.

"Want to watch a movie?" Rafe asked, unaware that I was silently seething with fury. "I saw the trailer for a new rom com I thought you'd like the other day. I wrote the name of it down on my phone so I wouldn't forget."

My heart squeezed tight, making it hard to breathe for a second.

Seriously, how could anyone ever hurt him? He was just… He was so…

My throat grew a little clogged when I remembered that I'd hurt him before. Not intentionally, but I had. When I took off right after the first time we fooled around. How could I have been such an asshole to him?

Remembering it kind of made me want to cry, even though he was fine now. We were fine. We were great.

What the fuck was wrong with me?

Realising I hadn't answered him, I nodded and croaked, "Sure. Sounds nice."

"Are you going to sit back?" he asked, sounding amused. "Maybe get comfortable?"

I stiffly leaned back, my knee still bouncing until Rafe chuckled and rested his hand on it. He shuffled closer, curling his legs up under the blanket, and kissed my cheek. My throat grew clogged once more, and I swallowed convulsively.

"I'm fine," he said yet again, still sounding amused. "Relax."

I exhaled slowly and tried to do just that, wrapping my arm around him and tugging him into my side as he draped the blanket over my lap. He grabbed the remote and quickly found the movie he'd mentioned, resting his head on my shoulder after hitting play.

I stared at the screen with unseeing eyes, still tense. I wasn't taking in the movie as it started, too busy silently trying to come up with a plan. Maybe Holt would give me Frank and Beans' address. I doubted it, but I could ask.

I knew a gargoyle who was a PI. Maybe I could ask him to start looking for them. But that would take too long. I didn't want to wait.

I could stake out the street Fauntastic Foods was on. That had to be where they'd mugged him—I'd spoken to Rafe on the phone while he was still in there, and he'd said he was coming home straight after. I wasn't good at sitting around and doing nothing, but something told me I'd be perfectly fine waiting as long as needed until I saw them. Whether it had been an accident or not, they'd hurt Rafe, and trying to mug him definitely hadn't been a fucking accident.

I mulled over my options, gradually relaxing as the decision to track them down cemented in my brain and made it feel like I could do something to help. I mean, logically I knew it would achieve nothing, but I was still going to fucking do it.

I forced my shoulders to relax as I pressed my lips to the top of Rafe's head and breathed him in. Right now, I was with him. I wasn't going to waste these moments thinking about those two assholes. It could wait until tomorrow.

Eventually, we ended up lying down, with Rafe curled up into my side and his head on my chest. He slipped his hand under my shirt and rested it on my stomach, growing lax on top of me as we watched the movie.

I sensed him fall asleep midway through, his breaths evening out as his body relaxed fully. My chest squeezed unbearably tight again as I combed my fingers through his hair, savouring the feel of him against me.

He'd kept saying he was fine, but it had to have been scary when he thought they had a gun. The thought of him scared and alone somewhere without me there to protect him made my eyes burn again. I held him tighter, pressing my nose and mouth against the top of his head, breathing him in.

I wanted this, I realised in a rush that made my heart pound heavily. Not just sex. This. The other stuff. With him.

I wanted to hold him like this all the time. I wanted to fall asleep with him every night. I wanted to see him laugh and smile, knowing I was the one who'd made him happy. I wanted to do boring shit together, like go grocery shopping and complain about work and bicker over whose turn it was to empty the dishwasher.

Oh god. I was becoming… monogamous .

Vince would never let me live this down.

But when Rafe shifted a little in his sleep, letting out a tiny sound and sliding his hand higher under my shirt to rest on my chest, I realised I didn't care. I didn't give a single fuck if Vince teased me about it for years.

I wanted Rafe. Only Rafe.

Mrs. Tupper had been right. I was ready to settle down, now that I'd found the right person.

He was mine.