And I’m going to protect him and his sister for the rest of our lives.
“I’ll always come for you.” I reach out and palm the back of his head, bringing our foreheads together. “Always. You got that?”
“Yeah,” he says. “I think I do.”
All three of us have tears in our eyes when I pull away.
We were well on our way to becoming a family before today, but now? We’ve been forged into something solid and unbreakable.
They’re mine, now. And I’ll always protect them.
fifty-six
LOGAN
We orderedgreasy burgers and milkshakes after everyone took long showers. I put on a comedy, and we sat around the couches eating, but I’m not sure any of us caught even half of the plot. We were all too stuck in our heads.
“I’m gonna go to bed,” Reed says with a yawn a little before ten.
“Okay, Reedy.” Blair rises with him and pulls him into a tight hug that lasts longer than he’d probably allow if it had been a normal day. “I love you.”
“Love you too, Blair-Bear.” Reed looks at me, a little unsure.
The kid wants a hug? No way in hell am I going to deny him. I push off the couch and squeeze him tight. “Love you, Reed. I’m glad you’re here.”
“Love you too,” he replies, voice cracking. “Don’t make it weird.”
Laughing, I let him go and watch him amble down the hall and into the room that’s now his. When I turn, I find Blair watching me. Her beautiful brown eyes are warm and filled withan emotion I’ll never tire of seeing. Love. Her face is soft with it, luminous, despite her exhaustion.
Extending a hand, I offer her my palm. “Come on, angel.”
She laces her fingers with mine without hesitation and lets me lead her down the hall and into my bedroom. Our bedroom, now. When the door shuts with a softsnick, I drop her hand so I can wrap my arms around her.
Tremors vibrate through my muscles as the events of the day finally catch up with me. I’ve done my best to hold it together for everyone, especially Reed, but here in the quiet, all the fear, the stress, the sheer fucking heaviness of the day is crushing.
“Logan?” Blair’s fingers skim over my back as she rubs reassuring circles over my taut muscles. “What’s wrong?”
“We’d just painted everything.”
She’s silent for a beat. “What?”
“Your apartment. We’d just painted everything.” My throat is so tight, it’s a struggle to get the words out. It’s difficult to get airin, and I work to suck in as many lungfuls as I can. But it’s not enough. “And all of your things are ruined. What if they can’t salvage any of your parents’ things? Your photos…”
My grip on Blair tightens, but if it hurts, she doesn’t let it show. “Things can be replaced.”
“No. No, some things can’t be.” I’m practically gasping for air now and the room is starting to swim. Blair lurches beneath my weight when my legs buckle, and we both go down, sinking to our knees on the floor beside the door to my room. “Sometimes you lose things and they’re just gone.”
“Oh, babe.” Blair crawls into my lap, wrapping her arms around my neck. It brings us nose to nose, and those stunning, earthen eyes of hers see everything. “You’re not going to lose me. Or Reed.”
A sob tears its way out of my throat. “I almost did.”
“But you got to us in time. You were there. You were there, and you got us out.” She presses kisses to my face. My forehead, my cheeks, my eyelids. “And now we’re here, where we belong, and we’re not going anywhere.”
“Promise?” My voice cracks on the word, and I tighten my arms around her to hold the pieces of myself together.
“Logan,” she says, her palms coming up to cup my face, her expression so open and genuine, “I promise. I’m yours.Weare yours. We’re not going anywhere. I love you.” Her lips twitch before pulling up in the corners. “If a crazy stalker who wanted to kill me couldn’t scare me away, I don’t think anything you could do will.”
“She almost took you from me,” I whisper. My fingers seek out the hem of her shirt and slip beneath it. I need to feel her warm skin. I need to remind myself that she’s here, she’s safe, and she’s whole.
