“And you said you’d had them before?”
I pushed back a little bit and looked up at him. “Did you just fuck me into oblivion so that you could ask me questions about my anxiety?”
“That wasn’t my intention, no, but it doesn’t sound like a terrible plan now that you mention it.”
I kept looking at him, trying to figure out exactly how I felt about what was happening between us, and then I was laughing softly. He was right. I was exhausted, even more now than I had been an hour before, and I was relaxed.
“Most of the people I surrounded myself with after his death kind of figured out that his name was a trigger for me. Talking about him at all was a trigger. So, for a while no one talked about him, including me. Then I moved here and no one knows about him so no one asks about him. I think about him all the time, but I’m used to that. I wasn’t prepared to hear someone mention him so casually.”
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, kissing my temple.
“It’s not your fault, and there’s really nothing to be sorry for. I should be able to talk about him. I want to talk about him, at least, I think I do. But then, if I’m caught off guard, I guess it backfires on me.”
We were both quiet for a moment, his hand still running up and down my arm, his lips still resting against my skin.
“He’s part of the reason I fell in love with you.” Never before had words affected me the way those words had. “I knew I wanted to get to know you, more so after hearing your story and meeting your brother, the way you took care of him, the way you protected him, but I was a goner after that first time I came to your house and had pizza. You think you were so blessed to have him in your life, and you were, but he had someone smiling down on him when he got you as a sister.”
I rolled fully into him, burying my face in his chest, trying hard not to break down and sob. I didn’t want to cry anymore. I wanted to smile more than I cried. I wanted to laugh more than I frowned. So, with tears in my eyes, I lifted my face and looked up at Riot, saying, “There’s not one person on this planet I need more than you. I can get through anything if I know you’re beside me.”
“Lucky for you I don’t ever plan on going anywhere.”
Days passed and we fell into a beautifully comfortable routine. Riot stayed at my house at night and in the mornings we drove to work together. We’d meet at the coffee shop during our lunch break and then our evenings were either spent apart for work reasons, or exploring LA together.
Riot texted his sister daily and she stuck to her “just fine” story, but couldn’t give him a date for when she was going back to work, which only fueled his fire. She told him she was staying with their parents for the time being. This worried him, but I tried to calm him by reasoning with him that it was better she was with family if she were actually pregnant. He would usually grumble inaudibly and remain grumpy for a little while until I found a way to pull him out of his funk.
Riot was at work late Saturday night shooting a night scene, which left me all alone at my apartment for an evening. Like I believed most girls did when their boyfriends were away, I was pampering myself. I had a masque on my face and I was soaking in my tub, enjoying the relaxing music playing from my phone.
My calm was harshly interrupted by my phone vibrating against the porcelain of my bathtub. I saw Ella’s name and quickly answered and turned on the speaker.
“Fella!” I said with a smile.
“Hey, Kal. Haven’t heard from you in a while, so I thought I’d give you a call. You sound happy, and also like you’re standing at the end of a tunnel.”
I laughed. “I’m in the tub and you’re on speaker because I’ve got goop all over my face.”
“Sounds awesome,” she said wistfully, and then I heard stupidly cute baby noises coming from her end of the phone. “I’m lucky if I can take more than five minutes in the shower before Mattie starts crying. And then she cries, and then I leak, and it’s just counterproductive.”
I couldn’t help but stifle a laugh, but I tried to be sympathetic. “I’m sorry.”
“No, it’s okay, just a tiny mom complaint. But it’s true, you sound happy.”
Suddenly it occurred to me that I’d spent the better part of two weeks with Riot and hadn’t told her yet.
“Yeah, about that…”
“Spill, woman,” she demanded.
“Riot and I are together.”
She was silent for a moment and I wasn’t sure if it was good silence or bad.
“Okay… and?”
“And things are good.” I offered. I knew between her and Megan, Ella was definitely the more even-keeled sister, but she was literally giving me nothing.