I’m not sure if I’d be able to eat that much, but I need to try. I’m not going to find a solution when I can’t even fuel myselfproperly. My brain won’t work, and should I need it, my body won’t either.
“If you’re making them, I could try one.”
He goes to work making breakfast, the flex of his muscles along his spine exactly the distraction I was hoping for today.
Rest. Fun. Hope.
Because without hope?
I might as well lay down and get buried alive by my problems.
Hope is essential. And I’m going to create it. “I was thinking that today, we just chill. Do you have anything planned?”
RJ’s smile is bright. “Sugar, I’m all yours. Whatever you need, whatever you want, we’ll make it happen.”
I slide off the stool and round the island, squeezing him tight from behind. He twists so he can wrap his non-cooking arm around me, his lips pressing to the top of my head. “Thanks. For everything. For just being you,” I say.
His breath gets ragged for a second, and I’m certain that his anger is back, but it fades out quickly without a target. “I couldn’t be anyone else if I tried.”
“Which is exactly what I love about you.”
The words slip out before I can pull them back. But there’s no more of a reaction from RJ than a tightening of his arm around me. “When we’re done with breakfast, I have something for you,” he says instead, his voice raspy.
But instead of freaking out about being too much, too fast, my new icy apathy just knows that what I said was true. I love him. What he does with that information is his prerogative.
I could have died. Died without telling RJ and Jansen how much they mean to me; that I love them. And Walker, even after the stumbles we’ve had, that same love, it only gets stronger every time he shows he cares. Every time he opens up. Every time he cooks enough for an army or takes me out to museums or tells me about his dreams.
I’m done holding back. There’s no point. I’m all in. I have been for a while, even if I didn’t want to admit it to myself. Not wanting to feel vulnerable and notbeingvulnerable are two different things.
As long as I have a heart and people I love, I’ll always be vulnerable. But maybe I don’t have to feel that way, like a fawn in a clearing, the crack of a gun in the distance urging me to run.
Running hasn’t helped.
Maybe staying will.
Walker finds us curled up on the couch, my stomach full for the first time in weeks, my new key to RJ’s room warm in my pocket. He presses a kiss to my lips, and I want more. So much more. But first, this. Comfort. Support. Reveling in what I have. Then figuring out how to keep us all safe. All together.
A thump from above has me thinking about Trips.
I can’t trust him. Not the way he is right now. But I care about him, too. More than I wish I did.
He’s part of my hope, of the future I want for my strange little family.
There’s so much there, buried by circumstance and rage, but the pull, the comfort I feel in his presence, can’t be denied.
Only I don’t know how to get to the good. Not with the way things are right now. So for now, I can’t build him into this moment of security. For now, he can stay upstairs, doing who knows what while I seek comfort below.
“Do you two want breakfast?” Walker asks, pulling me from my thoughts.
“Already done. Not to your standards, but we both ate,” RJ says, the subtle emphasis on the ‘both’ making Walker’s face shine.
“Excellent. Then I’ll just fend for myself. Do we have plans today?”
“I just want to hang out with you guys,” I say.
“That sounds wonderful.” His hand on my cheek lights me up, just like his kiss, but he goes back to the kitchen, the banging of pans muted through the door.
I press a kiss to RJ’s bare chest, loving that I get to, the closeness still so new that I get butterflies. He’s tapping something out on his phone, his arm draped over my shoulders. It’s exactly what I imagine a Saturday morning with RJ would be like: quiet, calm, no need for words or action. And I love it.
