Despite everything, a soft, watery laugh escaped me.
My eyes stung a little. I didn’t even know why, but they welled anyway. I gave him a tiny shrug because this latest interruption didn’t matter. None of them mattered.
“I’m not going anywhere.”
He stilled. Then slowly, deliberately, he lifted my hand between us. “Promise?” he asked.
The word wasn’t playful or teasing. No, it showed me just how vulnerable and open to me he was and I couldn’t refuse to give him what he wanted. I wouldn’t leave. Not now.
Not wanting to try and say all of that, I just nodded and answered in one single oath. “Promise.”
He held my gaze another second, searching my face like he was cataloging the truth of it. Then he bent his head and pressed a slow kiss to my palm.
Lingering there for a moment, he warmed my skin with his breath and closed his eyes like it was a benediction. When his phone continued to ring, he let me go and stepped back enough to pull it out of his pocket.
Staring at the screen briefly, he flexed his jaw and then answered it. “Yeah?”
As braced as he seemed to be for whoever was calling, he didn’t let go of my hand and when I tangled my fingers with his he pulled me to him and I leaned into him.
“I’m here,” he said and while I knew he wasn’t saying it to me directly, I still wrapped the words around me like a hug.
Yes, he was here. So was I.
We’d figure the rest of it out.
Chapter
Thirty-One
COOP
“Nope,” Jake said around a mouthful of pizza. “I’m still stuck on the fact that your moms had a UFC cage match and it looks like a photo shoot from Architectural Digest down there.”
The game room looked exactly like it always did.
Leather sectional. Low lighting. Massive TV paused mid–football game. When Jeremy let us in downstairs, however, I’d seen zero evidence of shattered glass or wreckageanywhere.
Jeremy was a miracle worker.
I leaned back on the couch, pizza untouched on my plate, and stared at Archie across the coffee table.
He wasn’t eating either. Frankie sat beside him. Not on him. Not tucked under his arm. Just… beside him.
Close enough that their knees touched. It was subtle, and more than a little deliberate. Archie took the seat next to her but she hadn’t moved away. She also bumped his knee as often as he did hers. There was an easiness between them that had been missing before. If I hadn’t been sure of it by where they chose to sit, the fact he was playing with her hair almost absently clinched it.
From the way Jake shifted his attention repeatedly from them to his food told me he’d clocked it too. Clocked it and had no idea how to react to it. That made two of us. The move to Archie’s house had bugged me because I hated that she was so far away. Now… I had a feeling that more than just her location had changed.
“So,” Bubba said evenly, folding his slice in half. “In summary, despite what your mother told Archie’s dad, you’re not siblings.”
Archie’s mouth curved faintly. “No.”
“No.” Frankie huffed, then folded her arms as if assaulted by a sudden chill.
I didn’t realize how tight my chest had been until it loosened.Notsiblings. They’d been holding that little bomb to their chests since when exactly? Disliking the fact she’d been wrestling with something this damn deep—hell that both of them had been wrestling with this—and we hadn’t known was a bitter pill.
At the same time, I was relievedforthem. Because I really didn’t want to unpack what that would’ve meant for how Archie felt about her.
Jake leaned forward, elbows on his knees. The concentrated frown on his face reflected my own internal feelings on this matter. Becausewhat the actual fuck…
