“I wish I never had to.”
She slides up my body, my fingers slipping under the elastic of her sports bra, locked against her back. She traces my jaw with her nose, her lips pressing under my ear in a barely present brush. “I miss them too.”
She pulls back, those dark eyes taking in information written across my face that I don’t even know I’m communicating, reading what I think about her confession.
I spent a year simply staying away. Two months of being the only shitty option available to her, never clarifying that if this gets better, if her plan comes off without a hitch, that I want a place by her side permanently.
That I’m willing to share that space with three other men.
I never thought that it would work for me. I thought I was too greedy, too demanding, too protective to trust the person I care about the most with anybody but myself. But she’s shown me how it would work right from the start. She hands out care like it’s candy at a parade, her touches, her laughter, her attention all sprinkled with joy and intention. Meanwhile, I’ve helped her build the family she wants, even when I thought I wanted nothing to do with it, even when I wanted nothing besides her.
We’re a team. A family—the kind I’ve only ever felt with my sister, but so much more than that. I’m not responsible for them, not the way I am for Mattie. We’re all equals, able to hold each other up when one of us falls. We’re something special. And this girl took us from being good at what we do, good for each other, and pushed us right to the cusp of greatness.
Alone, all I can do is shout into a world that doesn’t even listen to the depth of my pain. Together, I can share it, ease the burden, grow with her, with my found brothers, into a strong net woven from our frayed ends. “Thank you,” I say, my thoughts needing form as day fades to night outside the windows.
She lifts a brow, the silence of this place sinking into her bones the longer she’s here.
“For helping me learn how much I care,” I explain.
Her lips press into a line as she blinks repeatedly.
I tuck her head under my chin, finally wrapping my arms around her, holding her close. “If we get out of this, is there a place for me? With you?”
Her answer comes almost before I’ve finished my question. “Of course. There always was, Trips. You just had to decide you wanted it.”
“I do. I want it. Not just a business with all of us as tools to be deployed depending on the situation. I want a family, a real one, with you at the center.”
I can feel her swallow, her breath a little shallow. “Then that’s exactly what we’ll have,” she whispers. “A five-person family.”
“The five of us, a family,” I agree.
Chapter 19
RJ
Walker appears beside me a block from Jansen’s hideout, both of us having taken winding routes to lose our tail. We slip into the back of the house, the scent of fresh plasterboard making me sneeze. Setting down the bag of food he brought, Walker shakes his head. “That smells like construction. Do we trust Jansen with construction?”
“Better construction than most anything else he could get into.”
He huffs out his agreement, Emma walking into the kitchen, Fluffington trailing her. He gives us a solid yowl of greeting before hopping up onto the counter to inspect the food. Emma reaches for him, but Walker gives the cat a scratch behind the ears, and the big cat purrs before leaping onto his shoulders. He winces as the cat gets comfortable becoming the world’s heaviest, fluffiest scarf, Emma letting it go.
“Did you get the hair dye?” she asks, already digging into the bags.
“Are you sure about this?” I ask, eyeing her barely pink-tinged hair.
Walker slaps an arm against my side. “Don’t you trust my judgment?”
“It’s not that, it’s just…”
Emma saves me. “It’ll be a change. But if it lets me leave here more often than once a week, I’ll take it. So, where are we doing this?”
Jansen bounces in, his energy almost back to normal, even if there are still deep shadows under his eyes. And besides the call from Emma a few nights ago about whether she should be worried about Jansen climbing up on the roof, we haven’t had any major issues with him. “Are we doing this?”
“Areyousure?” I ask, this being so far from what he’s used to that I’m worried it’ll start a new meltdown.
“Dude, I need to get out of here. One more day, and I’m going to be putting holes in the walls instead of patching them.”
Walker picks up the other bag, scratching Fluffington behind an ear. “Alright then. Which flooring are we happy to ruin?”
