Caelyx caught my arm by the wrist, just before my fist smashed into his nose, staring down at me with an emotion I wasn’t even in the state of mind to identify. I froze, my mind going blissfully blank for the span of at least three heartbeats, an absolute dead silence filling the space around us, until I dissolved into tears again.
“It was me,” he said quickly, releasing my wrist and pulling me into his chest. “It was me. I’m the one who sent the guy to get your mom and take her to the rehab facility. I bought the house. It was all me.” His hand came up to cradle the back of my head, nudging my face into his shoulder. “I’m so sorry, Cupcake. I had no idea you’d be so upset. I thought you’d be happy. Please don’t cry.”
“I’m sorry,” I sobbed, wrapping my arms around him and holding him tight against me.Please don’t push me away like I’ve pushed you away.“I’m so sorry. I-I lied to you. I didn’t mean to.”
I heard a creak as Faulkner got up out of his chair, and felt him pass by us to exit the room. “Fix this,” he said sternly, presumably to Caelyx, before I heard the sound of the bedroom door closing behind him, shrouding us in privacy.
“I know everything,” Caelyx assured me softly, gently stroking my short locks of hair. “It’s okay. You don’t have to be sorry. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“I didn’t tell you, and I should have. I should have told you, but I didn’t know what to do.”
“You were fucking scared, Aspen. I know,” he promised firmly, a spark of temper lighting up the words. “If I’d known what he’d done, then I would have…” He stopped, letting his breath out in a slow shudder, like he could hardly contain his anger. “I wanted to kill him when I found out.”
When my brain finally processed and came to the conclusion that Caelyx’s anger wasn’t directed toward me, a tiny trickle of hope sprouted through all the bad feelings. I raised my head to stare up at him, unable to stop the pathetic little whimpers from bubbling out. I was sure I looked like a total mess. Red and blotchy, with gross swollen eyes.
“You’re not mad?”
“Not at you,” he clarified. “He and I already… We’re working it out. He will never, ever put you up to anything like that ever again. I promise.”
“I didn’t take it,” I blurted out, somewhat hysterically. “He tried to give me money to make me date you, and I told him I didn’t want it. I wouldn’t do that to you. Not even… Not even back then, before we were… Together.”
Despite the stormy look in his eyes, the corner of his handsome, sculpted mouth perked up just the tiniest bit.
“I know, Cupcake. I know you wouldn’t.” He dipped down a little, pressing his lips into my hair. “I wanted to tell you that I knew, but… I was planning the thing with your mom and I knew if you found out about that, you’d stop me and tell me you didn’t want it, so I thought it’d be better if we could just wait and get everything out in the open all at once. I didn’t know you were suffering so much. I’m sorry.”
He kissed my hair again, cupping under my chin to tilt up my face so he could kiss along my temples, then down my cheeks and across my nose. I knew my face was disgusting, sopping wet with hot, salty tears, but he acted like he didn’t even notice.
“I can’t believe you did that, Caelyx. How did you even…”
“I hounded Ren about it after you fell asleep on me that one night. I pretty much forced him to tell me, and he made me swear I wouldn’t rat him out, so you can’t say anything to him. I’m only telling you now because there can’t be any more secrets between us. None. Ever,” he said firmly, pulling back to stare into my eyes again. “Okay?”
“Yeah,” I agreed, reaching and swiping the back of my arm across my eyes. “I won’t hide anything else from you. I promise.”
“I won’t hide anything from you either,” he swore. “No more secrets.”
“Okay.” The relief of being in his arms again, knowing that he didn’t hate me and wasn’t going to dump me because I’d broken his trust, was so palpable I could have cried again.
It was quiet for a few seconds, with just the pitiful and intensely embarrassing sounds of my sniffles to break up the stretch.
“So… You love me,” he finally voiced. My breath huffed out, my stomach clenching for a brief moment. I’d never said it to any guy before. I’d never even been tempted.
“Obviously.”
“Obviously,” he repeated, his tiny smirk stretching into a wide, delighted grin. “It feels like I’ve been waiting a really long time for you to say that.”
“It hasn’t been a long time,” I argued. I wanted to look away from him, up at the ceiling or down at the floor, but I couldn’t. I was pinned, the intensity of his gaze sending shivers up my spine. “It’s only been, like, three months. I’m pretty sure I’m fucking insane for feeling like this.”
“You’re not insane,” he said, with all that familiarly gentle amusement in his eyes and voice. “I am so completely fucking in love with you. I’m so in love with you I can’t imagine not being with you. I don’t want to imagine it.”
“It’s too soon,” I said, even though he was echoing all my most secret thoughts.
“The time doesn’t matter. We just work, Aspen. I know it’s weird because we probably shouldn’t, but we just do. I would do anything to make you happy. That’s why I…”
“I know. You… You have no idea what it means to me. My mom is… I wanted to help her so badly, and I just couldn’t, and I thought she’d…”
“Shh,” he hushed me, stroking his fingers over my hair again. “It’s okay. You don’t have to worry about any of that now. My dad let me use some money from my trust fund to take care of it.He said that I’ve shown him I can be responsible, so he’s open to negotiating some things. And that was the most important thing to me. Making sure that you didn’t have to be stressed over that.”
“I love you,” I said again, surprised by how intense it was now that I was letting myself actually feel it. “You know, your life might be harder with me in it.”
