“I’m sorry,” he says.
I can’t help but scrunch up my nose at him. He apologizes for a lot of shit that isn’t his fault, and I have no idea what this one is going to be.
“For what, doll?”
“I didn’t tell him. I didn’t tell him about us. Or me. Or anything, not really. I didn’t really stand up to him. I know I was supposed to finally stand up for myself for once and end this whole big thing or get closure or be real man or whatever, and I didn’t do any of it. I just let him hurt me, like always, and stayed scared. And then you had to save me.”
“Oh, my love,” I whisper, stroking soft fingers down his cheek and over his swollen lips. “Don’t ever think that again. Promise me. You weren’t weak because you didn’t have some giantconfrontation. If you’d made it any worse, he would have killed you. I didn’t need you to tell your father anything. I don’t needanythingfrom that man. Not one damn thing. The only thing I needed was for you to come home to me, which you did. Letting me save you was the strongest thing you could have done.”
His mouth makes a little pout at this, and it would be adorable if the context wasn’t so sad. I know my words aren’t landing. I know he can’t wrap his head around this idea that he didn’t need to be the man and stand up for himself.
He doesn’t get it.
I run my nose along the bridge of his while I run my fingers through his hair and tug it hard enough to get his attention.
“I’ll tell you every day if I need to, to get it through your fucking skull. Waking up, getting up, and living your life free from him. That’s what makes you strong. This isn’t a Hallmark movie. There’s no lesson at the end. You’re done. You just have to exist. And I will save you every day, over and over, as long as you need me to. You saved me enough times; I can repay the favor.”
His frown deepens, but his mouth parts like he’s trying to breathe my words into him and accept their meaning.
“I love you, Bambi.”
I can’t help but smile whenever he says that, still.
“I know, doll. And I will let you pillow princess your way right through the rest of our lives. You fucking earned it.”
I don’t give him the chance to object. I swallow all his words in another feverish kiss, and this time I don’t let either of us come up for air. As long as he lets me, I’m going to be in charge of letting him finally get all the peace that he deserves.
Tadhg.
Sav Alexander.
None of it matters, because he’ll always be my doll.
Epilogue
Three Months Later
Sav
Ican tell when he walks in before I look up. I can always tell. It’s like someone is smiling at me. There’s a sudden warmth in the room that I only feel when he’s around.
When I finish serving the drink I’m making—because Gunnar is finally letting me bartend sometimes now that he and Tobias are officially together, and he has someone else to help haul limes around—I search him out. He looks tired, because he just finished a double shift, and I know those always wreck him. I keep telling him to work less, but he’s a glutton for punishment.
His scrubs are dirty, and I shudder to think what fluids are on his skin, but I don’t care. Because he is smiling at me, and that warmth is the only thing in the world that matters right now.
“I told you I would make it in time to have a drink before you close,” he says as he collapses onto a stool.
Time freezes for a moment. Or maybe it doesn’t freeze, but it scatters in every direction, like a beam of light that’s been fragmented.
I want to kiss him.
He told me I don’t have to do anything that makes me uncomfortable. And even he likes to keep himself relatively buttoned up in public, because this is still a conservative area and it is what it is, as he put it. The Banna let me go like Father said they would, but the more extroverted I am with my ‘perversions’, the more likely rumors will get back to him and piss him off.
Not to mention, Gunnar, Tobias, and Kasia were originally introduced to Micah as my brother. I’ve explained the situation since then and they know we’re not really related, but still living together. If the sidelong looks I get from Kasia and deliberate silence I get from Gunnar is any indicator, they might suspect there’s something between us. But still, it feels awkward to just talk about myself like that and let them in on shit.
On the other hand, it’s not like I’m ashamed of Micah. He’s the only decent thing I’ve ever done.
Fuck it.
