“You will.” He reaches over and presses the number for me, lifting my hand to my ear as the phone connects the call.
“Hey, you’ve reached Slade. I’m probably jumping out of a plane right now and freaking out my brother. But if you leave a message, I’ll call you back.”
Sullivan holds my gaze as the message ends. Emotion swirls in them as I end the call.
“He sounds just like you, only…” I swallow down the wordhappybefore it leaves my lips.
“Younger?” Sullivan quirks a brow, and that small, simple hint of himself shining through his grief is a lifeline I want to cling onto for dear life.
“Three minutes and fourteen seconds younger. Although Slade would talk about it like I was ancient compared to him some days. Especially because I didn’t share in his thrill around taking unnecessary risks.”
A rare, bittersweet smile forms on his lips before he frowns at the phone.
“I’ve paid my dead twin brother’s phone bill for almost three years, just so I can hear his voice and leave him messages he’ll never return.”
“Sullivan,” I breathe.
He stares back at me with shining eyes, his neck contracting like he’s trying to hold back the onslaught of thickness that comes to your throat before you cry.
“I don’t want to not hear his voice anymore,” he confesses quietly.
I reach for his hand and intertwine my fingers with his. The warmth of them brings back a rush of memories that I push down straight away. This isn’t about us right now.
“It’s okay if you need to call it. No one’s saying you shouldn’t. There is no right way to grieve. And you can trust me. I wouldnevertell anyone about this. You don’t need to worry about that.”
“Tate,” he murmurs with a sad smile. “That’s not why I didn’t tell you who I was calling.”
“It isn’t?”
“No.”
He strokes my hand with his thumb. Back and forth. Slow and gentle. Calm and in control.Barely.
I study his face. Study the deep frown lines that are backon his brow. Study the way his cheek clenches and his eyes pinch like it physically pains him to consider the words he’s about to say.
“Natasha left Molly on my doorstep with a note,” he says in a thick, measured voice. “And even though she walked away from her own daughter, I’ve spent every day terrified of the thought that she could come back and take her away again.”
I hold back my argument of him being her father and Natasha not being able to just walk back into Molly’s life and do that. Sullivan knows as well as I do that he has the means to protect Molly legally. But knowing it, and keeping the faith in it, are two different things.
Instead, I squeeze his hand in reassurance, and after a beat he squeezes mine back.
“I was terrified. It would keep me up at night, thinking of all the ways it could happen. As long as my family supported me, and I stayed strong, the chances were kept to a minimum. But then…”
“But then?”
He looks straight into my eyes. “Then I met you.”
“Me?”
“I haven’t been in a relationship since the day Molly came into my life and Claudia left it.”
“I don’t understand what that’s got to do with me.”
“It has everything to do with you.” He shakes his head. “For the first time Molly was at risk because I met someone who I didn’t want to lie to. I met someone who I allowed myself the indulgence of picturing a future with. I let myself imagine how you’d look the day we got married. I let myself dream about you taking my hand and putting it on your stomach so I could feelourbaby moving inside you. I let myself hope, Tate. I knew better, yet I still did it anyway. Everything I put you through as a result is my fault, because I wasselfish.”
“Are you saying you were lying to me? Sullivan…?” I press when he says nothing.
He blinks, fresh tears escaping from his lower lids.
