I go down.
My phone is in my pocket and the missed call from Griffin is still on it and I haven’t looked at it again.
I don’t have to.
Chapter twenty-seven
Nova
Theeditorcallsthreetimes. I don’t answer. I go to his house instead.
Brick is at the door when I get there. Looks at me like he’s been timing it. He follows me in, weaving between my legs, tail curling around my calf.
“Hey. Missed you too.”
He leads me to the couch.
I have a spot.
I sit in it.
Aurora and Aiden are still there from the celebration. Aurora with her shoes off and her feet tucked under her, Aiden with his arm around her looking like a man who just won the ConferenceFinal and is approximately thirty seconds from falling asleep sitting up.
“She’s staying,” Aurora says when I walk in.
“I’m staying,” I confirm.
“Good.” She doesn’t move. “I wasn’t leaving until you got here.”
Aiden looks at the ceiling. “She’s been saying that for forty minutes.”
“I meant it for forty minutes.”
Jax comes out of the kitchen with a coffee and puts it on the counter next to me at the right temperature without saying anything about it. I take it. Brick relocates to my lap. Aurora looks at all of this and says nothing because she doesn’t have to — her face is doing every bit of it for her.
I drink my coffee.
Aiden falls asleep sitting up within ten minutes. We don’t acknowledge it. Aurora talks about the baby, about the city, about Brody crying in the locker room. Jax says three words total and they’re all correct. I sit on his couch with his cat and his coffee and listen to his sister talk and think — when did this become the most comfortable room I’ve ever been in.
I don’t say that out loud.
They leave an hour later.
Aurora yawning so dramatically that Aiden physically picks up her shoes, hands them to her, and steers her toward the door with the patience of a man who has done this many times before.
“Text me,” she says to me over her shoulder.
“It’s midnight.”
“Tomorrow then. Early.”
“Aurora.”
“Fine. Before noon.” Aiden gets her through the door. She leans back in one more time. “I’m so happy for you.” Then she’s gone.
The door closes.
Just Jax and me and Brick and the quiet.
