“I’m sorry, Tor.” Riggs scratched the back of his head and sniffled, shaking his head like he was fighting off tears.
I rubbed my hand over the top of his thigh and took a drink of my wine. It was maybe the worst red blend I’d ever had in my life, but I didn’t know what I’d been expecting in a place like this. Maybe Hunter was onto something with the vodka sodas he loved so much. I imagined it was harder to mess that up.
“You had your own shit going on.”
“Yeah, but you were still…you were like a brother to me too, and I just…”
“It’s fine, Riggs. I didn’t come here looking for an apology.”
“What then?” he asked.
“I don’t know.” Toren frowned into his whiskey. “I just didn’t want to be alone.”
CHAPTER 34
RIGGS
Smith had stayed at the bar for two rounds, then he kissed my temple and told me and Toren he was calling it a night. When I moved to leave with him, he gently shoved me back down into the booth, a move so opposite the way I knew him, and part of the reason I stayed was because of how much it had caught me off-guard.
I ended up staying at the bar with Toren until closing. He’d had too much to drink to drive back to his hotel, and I didn’t want him dealing with a rideshare at two-thirty in the morning, so he walked back to the shop with me and I made him a bed on the couch. I left the lights on for him, knowing he was going to inspect my home before making the decision to settle in for the night. Knowing he would look for bits and pieces of his brother, confident he would recognize them all.
I found Smith in the bedroom, propped up against the headboard with one hand bent behind his head, the other holding his phone. The room was dark, save for the light from Ev’s bedside lamp and the bright flash of Smith’s phone screen. He glanced up at me when I closed the door quietly behind me, setting his phone down on his leg.
“Hey.”
“Hi.” I shrugged out of my jacket and shed the rest of my clothes, crawling into bed wearing nothing more than my briefs.
Smith moved his phone out of the way and opened his arms to me, and I didn’t need to be asked twice to rest my cheek against his chest. His heart beat up against my ear, and he folded me up in his arms like they were designed to hold me.
“Judging by the fact Toren is on the couch, I assume the rest of the night went well?” he asked.
“It went well.” I kissed his chest, slid back a little and kissed his armpit.
Before Smith, kissing had never done much for me. Sex hadn’t really done much for me. It still didn’t, but there was something I was learning to appreciate about the intimacy of kissing, and intimacy did mean something to me. Smith being happy and secure in a relationship with me also meant something, and if the kisses cost me nothing…what was the harm in it?
“I’m glad.”
Smith didn’t say anything more, and neither did I. He drew long lines down the slope of my back and over the swell of my arms, and I tried to relax and breathe into the feel of him. There was no intent in his touch other than to offer me comfort, which I realized I’d been missing since Ev died. I’d been so isolated in my grief, that even though I’d been moving forward in life, I was also at a standstill. It wasn’t until I walked us both into that bathroom stall at Rapture that I’d put myself into drive, and even then I didn’t realize how far behind I’d fallen until I started moving.
“Do you miss him?” Smith asked quietly, fingers still drawing shapes across my skin.
“Every day.”
He made a pleased sound. “I want you to meet Marshall.”
“Just him?”
“Apart from the rest of them,” Smith said. “I…I am the way I am because of him, and I didn’t like that for a while. I tried to run away from it.”
“Hence the tattoo.”
He laughed softly. “Hence the tattoo, but it’s come to my attention recently that I’ve maybe been too hard on him and maybe been a little unfair to him.”
I turned slightly onto my stomach and propped my chin just above Smith’s nipple. He moved his hand off my back and tucked some hair that had fallen out of my braid behind my ear. I knocked my head into his hand, and he pushed me back, a small smile flashing across his face.
“I don’t think you could be unfair to anybody.”
“I love that you think that.”
