“Come again?” I asked her, surprised.
A cute little blush formed on her cheeks as she shrugged. “Turns out I have a little bit of a Hotshot attitude inside of me that likes to come out when someone dares to threaten those I love.” She smiled and my heart started racing again. “And I loveyou, Rhea.”
“God,” I cried, tipping my head back as tears burned my eyes, overwhelmed by how the day had gone.
She leaned up until she was right in front of my face, hands on both sides of my head, tipping it down to face her head on. “I won’t overwhelm you with it, but I didn’t want another minute to go by without you knowing that I do.” She smiled. “I love you so much that I turn into a freaking wild raccoon when you are introuble, and I try to claw the eyes out of anyone who dares to get too close to me.”
I laughed, a teary-eyed, overwhelmed, slightly manic laugh of disbelief and incredible wonder as I sat with the two people I loved with my entire self, unworthy of their love. But I had it.
And it was up to me to make sure that I spent as long as they’d have me, earning it.
“I love you too, Marigold James. With everything inside of me.” I grabbed her hands on my face and kissed each of them, crying stupid tears I would deny the existence of tomorrow as she leaned in and took my lips in a scorching hot kiss that told me exactly how she was looking forward to showing me her feelings.
My sweet, gentle, little hippie lover with a sex drive that was hotter than any inferno I’d ever walked into before.
And my strong, steady, dominant golden boy who held us both in his powerful embrace as we collided together like fire and gas right there in his lap.
“Thank you both for being here, for me and with me.” I said, taking a deep breath against Goldie’s lips as Tanner’s hands found their grip on my waist. “And for loving me.”
The room was ice cold.Or maybe that was from my nerves. I gladly would have walked into an inferno with or without gear on to break through the freeze happening within me.
I hated how it felt to go numb. I hated how it reminded me of how I coped years ago when I went to the fire academy, alone and heartbroken, instead of to New York City with the love of my life.
Granted now, I could look back and realize she wasn’t for me after all. And I didn’t actually love her. You can’t love someone who doesn’t even know your true self.
And she didn’t know me.
But I had been heartbroken, nonetheless. And when I went off to the fire academy instead of New York with her, I had been so fucking numb inside. I made it through the entire academy and got my first paid position at a fire station, without feeling anything at all.
Now, that same familiar feeling was trying to take root, to wrap around my heart and squeeze it hard enough to just—stop.
Stop everything.
Maybe it was a coping mechanism.
Maybe it was a flaw of mine.
I didn’t know. I just knew I didn’t want to be numb.
“Rhea Dalton.” A lady called from a large set of double doors down the hallway. “You may come in now.”
Goldie squeezed my hand, and Tanner slid his warm palm over my spine, helping me stand from the marble bench in the courthouse lobby. I was walking back into the same courtroom that I had faced two days ago, where people decided the fates of individuals like me every single day.
Normally, I felt a strong conviction in my belief in the legal system. I saw the inner workings of it every single day. I saw how hard the different pieces worked together to find justice and prove right from wrong. Yet I was sitting on the wrong side of that process, and I couldn’t wrap my head around it or get my footing.
I felt like I was being tossed in a washing machine, and I couldn’t find the handle to open the door to get out.
“We’ll be right here,” Lucas, Tanner’s brother, said confidently from the bench at his brother’s side.
I had never met Lucas before today, but I liked him already. I mean, it would be hard not to when he was so similar to the man that I loved, just a few years older.
“And I’m not leaving your side this time,” Goldie said, clutching my hand in hers like it was her lifeline. “I will keep my mouth shut, but I’m not standing in this hall while you face this down again.”
I gave her a soft smile, nodding to Jasper and Thomas, sitting on the bench on Goldie’s other side, and then across the hall to where Elliot and his husband Travis sat, silently lending me their support.
No one in the building knew what it meant to me to have them all here, holding space for me,with me, while I faced this.
And I’d probably never be able to tell them in a way that made sense. I wasn’t very good with words like that.
