Tae Me Home with You

Author's Note: This chapter doesn't have any steamy bits. The next one should get us back on track. :)

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Lawrence's night shift wasn't anything out of the ordinary, except for an odd text at 02:44. It just said: "ousstd yr aptamm"

He didn't recognise the number, so he didn't think much of it.

Probably someone drunk-texting the wrong number.

On his break, he let himself think about Joy again.

It had been twelve days since he'd left her the letter, and he already knew he wouldn't see her again. He couldn't say any more to her, or extend his apology any farther. He could only hope he'd given her some pleasure, and the memories weren't all bad.

She'd given him something beautiful that he could re-live in his mind forever. So, a little bit every day, he let himself indulge. To think about her lips saying those words she said to him in the cafe.

Take me home with you.

She would always be perfect in his memory.

~~~

Wind had blown branches onto the street, and Lawrence was grateful for the heat blasting through the AC as he drove home. But the roads were quiet now, and he soon pulled into the building's driveway.

He recognized her immediately, though he couldn't say how. She was nothing but a charcoal-grey lump, slumped against the wall beside the front doors.

Lawrence pulled into the guest parking, closer than his numbered spot, and went straight to her.

"Joy."

For a moment, he could only stare.

She was real.

On his doorstep.

"Hi." Her face was pale, but she smiled at him from her cinched-up hood.

How long has she been waiting?

"Come inside."

He unlocked the door, sensing his own excitement in the back of his mind. But he couldn't let himself feel it yet. And it was too cold to chat out here.

Why is she here? Why now?

It took her a moment to respond. "...Yeah."

He offered her a hand. She blinked and started moving inside the hoodie, which she'd somehow tucked her whole body into. Her movements were clumsy. Uncoordinated.

"I'm okay. Juss rellly tired."

"I'll carry you."

Joy put up no resistance as he scooped her up into his arms.

"Yer nodda monster."

"Of course I'm not. I'd have come home sooner if I knew you were here. Why didn't you--"

But of course, she

had

texted.

Her fingers must have been too cold to type. And that was hours ago.

He could feel only more cold through her clothes, and she wasn't shivering at all.

Not good.

"Joy, how long have you been out here?"

Her icy face pressed against his neck as he carried her inside. She answered with a sound he couldn't make out.

"How long?"

"Enny onelike, like you," she mumbled back.

~~~

Lawrence cared for Joy all through the morning, checking her temperature, refilling hot water bottles to tuck in along her ribs, and warming all the blankets he could find in the dryer, one after another.

He'd had to strip her naked to make sure she was dry, and the washing machine in the hallway closet had just played its little tune to tell him her clothes were clean. They'd go in the dryer after the next blanket.

She's warming up at the right rate. She should be okay.

But there was too much time to think, between each water bottle and blanket. Too many minutes to wonder about why she'd come. Why she hadn't gone home when she realised he wasn't here.

He'd found his letter in the front pouch of her hoodie, along with her phone. He'd plugged the phone in for her, and set her keys and bus pass next to it.

The letter wasn't scrunched into a ball or wrinkled. Only dented at the corners from traveling in her clothes.

Maybe the kid at the cafe didn't give it to her until tonight.

Anger rose in his chest at the thought. He wanted to press her about it, about everything. But this wasn't the time.

She'd started feeling the cold again, and was curling and whimpering. So small and helpless, bundled up in his bed.

Lawrence remembered how he'd resolved to be less gentle with her, before he'd come home to find her gone. And now here he was ladling soup into a cup. Checking the temperature with his own lips, to make sure he wouldn't hurt hers.

"Joy, sit up. Your body needs energy."

"Too cold." She had the blankets pulled in tightly around her shoulders.

He set the cup of soup down to pull her up, leaving the blankets around her and tucking more pillows behind her back.

"This will help." He picked up the cup again, and touched it to her lips.

She sipped it. Her eyes welled up.

"It's too hot?"

She shook her head. "It's-- you call me Joy, now."

"Yes."

How could he call her anything else but her name, if he couldn't lay claim to her?

"But I loved being your kitten."