I frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Do you feel alive?” he repeated. “When you’re with me, are you scared?”
“No.”
“What about when you’re with Hatch?”
I squared my shoulders. “No.”
“Any of my brothers?”
“Buzz is a little scary,” I admitted.
“Buzz is supposed to be. But he’d die for you, beautiful. They all would.” He cocked his head. “So, I’ll ask again. Do you feel alive? Because what you were doin’ before wasn’t living. It was existing. It was shoving what happened to you down deep, so you didn’t have to face it. Now you’re facing it and it’s freaking you out, but you’re safe and you know it. You’re also enjoying the fuck outta life and I’ll bet that’s scaring you, too.”
I wrinkled my nose. “You don’t actually know that.”
“Of course I do.” He slid back in the chair. “Because I feel the same way.”
“Oh, really?”
“Yeah. You’re makin’ me face shit I wasn’t ready to, and I’ve been reactin’ badly to that. Not my finest hour, and I’m gonna need to make amends. But I can’t do that until you forgive me first.”
“I’m the one who walked out on you,” I reminded him.
“Yeah, but I pushed you to do that, honey.”
“I think we’ve been pushing each other to do things that probably aren’t healthy,” I conceded.
“Probably.”
“But I didn’t push you to do that.” I pointed to his leg. “And you really need to get back in and get it re-casted.”
He dragged his hands down his face. “I need to ride.”
“If you don’t get a cast back on that leg, you might lose it and then you’ll never ride again, so how about you don’t be an idiot and take care of it?”
“Come here,” he said, holding his hand out to me.
“Gio, you need—”
“Baby, come here.”
I crossed my arms. “Not until you promise me you’re going to get your leg back in a cast.”
He smirked. “Fizzy. Come. Here.”
“Promise me,” I demanded.
“Waverly,” he bit out.
“I will go there when you promise me you’ll get that leg back in a cast.”
He stared me down for a few seconds before letting out a long, dramatic, albeit manly, sigh. “Yeah, baby, I’ll go get my leg back in the cast.”
I closed the distance between us, and he tugged me onto his lap, sliding his hand to my neck. “Missed you.”
“Missed you too,” I rasped, leaning down to kiss him. “I’m sorry I bailed.”
