My mouth fell open. “You think?”
What would that even mean? Would she stay here with them? It would certainly mean I could actually talk to someone.
“I do.” He leaned against the bathroom mirror. “We all need to try to go to bed.”
He was right. I lifted an eyebrow. “Do you think you’ll be able to do that, because I’m not sure I can sleep.”
Phoenix shook his head, slowly. “No. I need to go back to the Hamptons.”
I blinked. Okay. That was an abrupt shift. “You do?”
“Yes. Will you go with me?” He chewed on his fingernail.
I swallowed. “Wherever you go, I go. That’s the deal right?”
Phoenix tugged me to him. “Yes, but I didn’t live up to my end of that deal. You were alone and hurting without me.”
I closed my eyes, pressing my forehead against his shoulder. “You had your own pain to face, and I wasn’t with you.”
“You know it’s not the same thing.” He sighed. “So yes, you’ll come with me. I’m going to assume my brothers will. I’ll officially ask, but they’ll say yes. Honestly, I think Barrett is about two seconds from exploding being here. And none of us have gotten to deal with our grandmother’s death. I need some space from my parents, too. Even this kinder, gentler parent thing they are doing. It’s too much. We can’t undo all of the years of what has been because they suddenly got… affectionate.”
I supposed that was true. I might never really understand the intricacies of their familial relationships. Not ever. I might get close, but I hadn’t lived it myself.
He rocked me back and forth as a sound reached me from outside of the room. Finally, I spoke again. “I don’t ever want it to be tit for tat with us, quid pro quo or whatever. Maybe they’ll be some times when I do more for you guys or you guys do more for me.” I suspected it was the latter most of the time. “But we’re not keeping track. Okay?”
He nodded. “You know, or maybe you don’t know, that one of the things that I struggle with is feeling worthy. I lived when the others didn’t, and I spent the next years really drugged up and out of it. One of the things that I was running away from was the feeling of not being worthy. Worthlessness. I mean, why do I get to live this life anyway? Why do I get to have everything when so many people struggle? I’m not special. Anyway, add to that the not dying thing and I… I just struggle with it. So I want to make sure I’m living up to your love. Living up to the end of our unspoken bargain of getting to be yours and have you as mine.”
I squeezed him tighter. “No. I hadn’t understood that. Not at all. Not even a little bit.” My voice hitched. “You are so worthy. You are beyond worthy. You are everything that is good in the world.”
He kissed my temple. “I think you might be the only person in the world who would say that or think that. Come on. Bedtime. There are no good conversations to have after midnight.”
That was probably true.
There was noise in the bedroom. Someone had climbed into bed. I pulled back from Phoenix.
“Leave in the morning?”
“Maybe by lunch. I’ll get Kit to get the plane.”
Okay. That sounded fine. That was right. They had a plane. I couldn’t really remember it, but they must have brought me in it. “Your granny had to drive to New Orleans and fly from there. It was hours of driving .”
He put his arm around me, and we walked toward the door. “That might be fun under other circumstances, and I’m being totally selfish, but I want to get there so I can see what I need to see.”
“Which is what?”
He visibly swallowed. “Where they held me.”
It was Julian who was in bed, and he sat up, leaning on the back of his elbows, some of his brown hair falling into his eyes. He needed a haircut. “Are we going to the Hamptons?”
“Unless there is a reason not to, and frankly, after today, I’m in a get-the-fuck-out-of-dodge kind of a mood.”
I climbed in next to Julian who rolled me against his side. Phoenix climbed in behind me and wrapped his arms around my waist.
“You don’t want to stay here and wait it out?” Julian stared at the ceiling.
“I just remembered what I’ve been not able to think about for years. I want to go see it for myself. And yes I want to run away. I’m admitting that.”
Julian nodded. “Okay, we’ll run away with you. Where you go we go. That’s the motto we all live by.” He yawned.
