Three days. It's been three fucking days and my body already treats this as baseline.
I stare at the ceiling. I'm fucked.
She shifts in her sleep, making a soft sound in her throat, and her leg squeezes higher on my hip. The hem of my T-shirt rides up on her, baring a strip of skin across her waist. My thumb finds that strip and strokes across warm flesh. She hums, then burrows closer.
I watch her for a long minute. Relaxed mouth, faint crease between her brows that doesn't quite disappear even in sleep.
"Safe," I murmur into her hair, hand flat over her spine. I don't know if I'm promising her or myself.
The clock says barely seven. Courthouse at ten. Maggie texted last night that she and Frankie would come early to "handle the situation," which is female code for hair, makeup, and threatening me if I stress the bride.
Sloane needs sleep more than she needs my heartbeat under her ear, even if I'd let her stay like this all day.
Careful, Turner.
I slide my hand from her waist, easing her leg off my hip a fraction of an inch at a time. She makes a soft, unhappy noise and tightens her grip on the fabric. For a second I freeze, waiting for the panic flash in her eyes.
It doesn't come.
She sighs and rolls toward my side of the bed instead, one arm stretching across the sheet where my body was. My breath catches. I don't move until I'm sure she's still asleep.
I ease out of bed and stand there, an idiot, barefoot, watching her. My T-shirt hangs off one shoulder. Her sleep-mussed hair is over my pillow. Lips parted. A faint bruise at her throat where my mouth had been.
I bite down on the word mine before it gets out, scrub a hand over my face, and draw back.
Coffee. Food. I need tasks I know how to manage.
I walk out to the kitchen, pull a mug from the cabinet on muscle memory, then pull another on instinct. The coffee maker gurgles to life. I dig my phone out of last night's jeans and thumb the screen on.
Messages.
Maggie: We'll be there in 30. Don't let her eat trash. She needs real food and water, not caffeine and adrenaline, you heathen.
A smirk tugs at my mouth.
Frankie: Tell Sloane her curl stuff is in the bag from last night. Also tell her if she cries and ruins the eyeliner I'm about to do, I'll cry and I don't cry. Ever. This is a threat.
East: ?? Congrats, daddy.
I flip him off through the screen on principle.
Malachi: We're coming too.
Of course they are. The president doesn't miss his vice's wedding, even a courthouse one with no notice.
No text from Nash. Which is exactly how Nash says he'll be there.
The coffee finishes. I fill both mugs, black for me, mostly cream for her. Pull bacon from the fridge, lay it in the pan, crack eggs into another. The two mugs are on the counter as if they've always been there, and my hands won't stop shaking.
I'm midway through flipping bacon when a knock lands on the front door. Two sharp raps, one lighter one. Maggie. I check the hallway, bedroom door still closed, then open up.
Maggie stands there, a general about to rearrange my life. In jeans. A soft sweater. Her hair up. Eyes scanning. Beside her, Frankie balances a garment bag on one shoulder, the tote bag strap biting into her arm, makeup case hanging off her wrist.
"Morning." I hold the door wide.
"Move, Turner." Maggie breezes past, kissing my cheek. "Bride duty."
Frankie pauses in front of me, eyes sweeping my bare feet, rumpled cotton, messed up hair. "Aw," she says. "He's gone for her."
