It blew my mind. I couldn’t fucking speak.
Liliana went back to drawing—Skeletor? Damn you, Rubi—while I fought a slow-rising panic in my chest, the sharp ache I’d carried for months back with a vengeance. Man, I really was fucking crocked. Carlos was dead. Juana was safe. Liliana was drawing freaky pictures beside me. All my dreams had come true, so why did it hurt so much?
And why thefuckcouldn’t I catch my damn breath?
“Morning.” Embry’s voice came from the doorway, but he was in front of me before I could blink. He ruffled Liliana’s hair. “Rubi’s making your Papá a sandwich. Can you help him? He’s doing it wrong.”
My kid was as happy to see Embry as I was. Shebouncedoff the bed to get to him and gave him a hug that made my bruised bones ache in sympathy.
“Did he put cucumber in them again?”
“I don’t know, squid. But he said something about red sauce, so you need to hustle down there.”
Liliana tossed her Sharpie at me and skipped out of the room. It was so fucking normal my head spun off my shoulders.
I sat up, swinging my legs out of the bed and bracing my elbows on my knees. “Fuckfuckfuck.”
“Breathe,” Embry said from somewhere miles away. “She’s okay.”
“I know.”
“Then what is it?” Embry gripped my jaw, coaxing me to look at him, his stormy eyes for once a serene blue lagoon while a tornado blew through me. “Bad dreams?”
“No.” I brought my hands to my head. “I don’t know. I just—fuck!”Frustration exploded out of me. I smacked my head, making my ears ring, and I’d have smacked it a hundred times more if Embry hadn’t grabbed my hands.
“Stop. It’s okay.”
It wasn’t. It really fucking wasn’t. My daughter needed me, and for the first time in her life, I was here, but I was losing my mind. My heart raced, my lungs screamed for oxygen, and I couldn’t make it stop.
Embry said something.
Missed it.
I missedhim.“Em.”
“I’m here. Just opening the window.”
Cool air hit my face.
Then the bed dipped beside me.
Embry flicked on his Bluetooth speaker. A dubstep track he only tolerated when he was stoned to kingdom come filtered out, and he rubbed my back. “You know, you’ve got nothing you need to worry about right now except breathing.”
A strangled sound escaped me.
“It’s true. Juana’s asleep. Liliana’s with Rubi, and nothing else really matters.”
You matter. But Embry knew that. For every fucked-up thing in our lives, I’d never hidden that he was more than everything to me.
“I love you. You know that, right? You remember?”
My head jerked up of its own accord. “What?”
Embry brought my hand to his chest, splaying it over his heart. “I told you in the clinic, but you were pretty out of it, so I’m telling you again. I love you, and I’m sorry it took me so long to fucking say it.”
The buzzing in my ears eased off. Embry was wearing more clothes than me, a clean RK crew neck covering his skin. I reclaimed my hand, but only to slip it beneath the T-shirt.
I found his heartbeat again, and slowly—soslowly—my own began to find some fucking chill. I took a breath and it filled my lungs. “You love me, chaparrito?”
