My Cheyenne.

Was this fast? Yes. Hell yes.

Was there stuff I needed to unravel? Fuck yes.

Was I walking? Not a chance.

Then she stopped swimming, did a flip in the water, and stood at the edge. She had tossed her clothes after two laps, so I’d watched her swim the entire time in only her bra and panties and my dick was hard the entire fucking time, but it wasn’t the time for that. She stood, water dripping down from her, and she just stared at me. She didn’t hide herself. Her hair was slicked back. Her hands went to her side as she rose out of the pool.

Still standing tall. Straight. Her hands never left her side. Her eyes didn’t waver either.

She was waiting.

To see what my reaction would be, I suppose.

I stood up and Jesus, I had no fucking idea what I was going to do, but I said somehow, “Ready for bed?”

A tired smile appeared—or maybe that was relief—and her top lip lifted. “Yes.”19CheyenneI woke the next morning, and I froze.

I remembered everything. Everything. And holy Moses, I freaked yesterday. He actually saw it all, but on the Cheyenne Scale, that one hadn’t been bad. Swimming it out of me helped, but I was tired, and my body ached. I hadn’t swum in a really long time, and my body was revolting against the coping mechanism I’d chosen to calm the chaos.

A body shifted on the bed beside me, and I closed my eyes before turning over. Looking.

He was waiting for me. Head on his pillow, turned toward me, and he grinned. “Morning.”

I wanted to die. “Morning.”

His eyes softened. “How are you feeling?”

I shrugged. “It is what it is.”

Those same eyes darkened. “What does that mean?”

I had to put an end to this. I sat up, swinging my feet down, and noticing my tank top, I grabbed for it. It’d been dried and was folded on a chair by the bed. My pants just underneath it. I had stripped everything off in the bathroom and tugged one of his shirts on.

He did my laundry for me.

Oh, man. That was really sweet of him.

Sweet. Fuck.

I really had to end this now. I would be doing him a favor in the long run.

I pulled my top on, and reached for my pants. When I had one leg inside, he said from behind me, “Why am I getting a weird feeling here?”

I almost scoffed.

Because he was intuitive?

I only murmured, putting my second leg in, “Because you’re smart.”

“What does that mean?” He’d dropped his tone a whole octave lower. I heard him standing, felt the bed move. “You need to tell me. You need to talk to me.”

I stood, pulling my pants up and zipped them up, buttoning them. Shoes?

A strangled cough came from him, then, “They’re on the bed.”

I looked. He’d just put them there for me, straightening and standing back. His eyes were hooded. His face was granite.

That hurt. I knew it was me doing this, but he would thank me later.

“You’re running? Only this time I’m awake and witnessing it.”

He said it with such contempt, but he didn’t get it. He did not get this.

I grabbed my sandals, letting them plop one by one on the floor as I put my feet into them. I owed him an explanation, he heard about my freak-outs, and he witnessed the beginning of one last night, but that look—I’ll never forget how utterly helpless he looked when I was in the water.

He didn’t think I saw him, but I did. He never moved from his spot, and the longer I swam, the longer he stayed. Some might start falling in love with that, if they hadn’t been, or if they weren’t freaking out about losing their mind.

Some.

Not me.

Because I was guarded.

Because I had to be guarded.

For him.

Not me.

I was doing this for him.

And again, I was not falling in love with him, or realizing I had always been, or—nope. That wasn’t me. That wasn’t this mental case.

“I’m not a charity case for you.”

He actually flinched. “Who the fuck said you were?”

“I know guys. I know sometimes they want to save the girl, and you’re looking at me. You’re seeing how messed up I am, but I’m not just temporarily messed up, this isn’t a once-a-month, hormonal thing.” I pointed to my head. “All this is because I don’t have the right neurotransmitters working up there. It’s the same as someone getting cancer or arthritis. My brain is sick, and the problem with that shit is that I’m battling my own brain every day, every minute, every second, every fucking year of my life. This doesn’t get magically fixed. They don’t know enough about it to fix it. I can’t have back surgery, and voila, I’m all good. It’s not like that. You’re thinking you’re all in now, but you aren’t. Trust me.”