“We’ll get through it,” Smith said next, and I didn’t know if he was talking about us or his brothers, but either way, I chose to believe him.
CHAPTER 33
SMITH
Riggs held it together until he finished his appointment with Greg. He cleaned his station, and followed me up to the apartment. Once the door was closed behind him and the separation was there, the facade around him finally started to crack. First, it was a frustrated hand through his hair, a snapped hair tie, his head against the wall. Then it was a trembling breath, a breathy sigh, and nervous hands.
I’d already changed out of the hoodie. It wasn’t something I felt wrong wearing. It was the same one he’d put on me the night I got my first tattoo and one we’d both worn multiple times since then. It was a little too small for him, a little too big for me, and it had the comfort and smell of something that had lived a long and loved life. Knowing it belonged to Riggs’s husband, I believed that to be even more true than I had before.
When I made it back to the front of the apartment, Riggs was on the floor. His back against the wall with his knees bent, his elbows resting on top of them and his arms outstretched. He’d dropped his head into the crook of his upper arms, hair fanning out all around him.
“Hey,” I said, sitting down beside him and stretching out my legs.
“Hey. Sorry.”
“I don’t know what you’re apologizing for.”
“For Toren,” Riggs grumbled. “The things he said.”
“He didn’t say anything unfair.” I tentatively settled my hand on the middle of Riggs’s back and dragged my fingers in a swooping circle across his shoulders.
“He was hurtful.”
Toren’s accusation about my relationship with Riggs had been abrasive and biting, but not unfair. It had come from a place of hurt, a place I was familiar with. He was older than me, but Toren reminded me of how I’d been as a teenager coming into the Covington house. I’d been brimming with so much misdirected anger, and I didn’t know where to put it. Marshall, even though he didn’t live there anymore, had taken the brunt of it on his chin, and he’d done so in stride. It was the easy way he handled me and my moods that had gotten me through the first few years. He’d probably gotten Finn and Hunter through my first few years as well. Life had been lonely, and I imagined Toren knew that feeling very well, having lost not just a brother but a twin.
“Everyone says hurtful things when they’re hurt.” I swallowed hard. I needed to talk to Marshall, I realized. Man to man, without Hunter and Finn there. Not because the things I wanted to say didn’t involve them, but because Marshall needed to hear it directly from me. I’d been very unfair to him, and I hadn’t even realized it until I’d watched Toren treat Riggs the same way.
“Did you get along with Toren? When your husband was alive?” I asked.
Riggs raised his head, let it drop against the door. His eyes were closed, but the strain around his mouth was evident. I’d never seen him so distraught, and even still he held himself together, answering me with a slow nod.
“When did you stop getting along with him?”
“Never, really.” Riggs opened his eyes and stared across the room at the wall. “I was…we were all very lost in our own grief, and it’s so thick, you know?”
I thought of losing my mother, knowing she was still alive but didn’t want me. “I know.”
“I couldn’t see him anymore. Couldn’t see anything that wasn’t my own loss.”
“You didn’t do anything wrong.” I dragged my fingers over his forearm, tracing some of the dark outlines of one of his tattoos. “You were both grieving something huge. Something that affected each of you differently.”
“Yeah, but I understand how it looks like I’ve moved on.”
I didn’t know what to say to that, and I didn’t need to. Someone in heavy boots bounded up the stairs and knocked hard on the door.
“That guy’s back,” Merrick said through the wood.
“Thanks. Tell him I’ll be right there.” As he said the words, Riggs shook my hand off his arm and pushed up to his feet. I stayed seated on the floor, watching him brush himself off and get himself together. He went into the bathroom for a new hair tie, and after he’d redone his usual loose braid, he helped me to my feet. Riggs rubbed his hands up and down the outside of my arms, eyes scanning my face.
“I haven’t moved on,” he whispered, taking my face into his hands and sliding his thumbs across my cheekbones. He held my head steady, making it impossible to look anywhere besides right at him. “But I am moving forward.”
“That’s all you can do.” I bit the inside of my cheek, the difference in the meaning stark. “Maybe Toren hasn’t done either.”
Riggs gave me a sad smile and kissed the corner of my mouth.
There was something to be said about seeing this version of him compared to the one I’d first met and fallen in love with. Riggs was a strong man either way, but I’d never seen him doubt himself. I’d never watched him move with anything less than complete certainty and focus. Knowing Toren was downstairs was like seeing Riggs on a tightrope he’d never been trained to walk.
“I know you were with other people,” I reminded him. “Even if it wasn’t your husband, I know I’m not the first person you’ve loved. There’s nothing you can say to me or to him that will shake my understanding of your feelings for me. So, please don’t worry about that.”
