The rain woke me the next morning, globes of water pattering lightly against the glass dome of the observatory. Sully was still asleep. His feet were sticking out of the bottom of the sheets, still on the floor where we’d collapsed into unconsciousness. His bare ass was sticking out of the covers, too, and I couldn’t help myself. I sat up carefully and allowed myself a long moment to admire him in his sleep. He looked less restless than he did when awake, but his brow was still furrowed, as if he were still plagued with the weight of his burdens in his dreams. I lightly stroked my fingers over that creased area between his eyebrows, and they eased, all but disappearing.
“Damn you, Sully Fletcher,” I whispered. “Damn you all to hell.” Quickly I got up and got dressed, trying not to disturb him. I was fully clothed about to tiptoe my way down the spiral staircase when his voice stopped me.
“Lang, wait.”
Crap. I turned, and Sully was sitting up in the confusion of sheets, chest bare, light shining down on him through the huge windows overhead. He had a frown on his face, but his eyes were soft. Not angry. Just slightly disappointed, perhaps. “This isn’t going to work for me,” he said.
“What isn’t?”
“You sneaking off in the early hours of the morning, fully intending not to come back. Right?”
I looked down at my feet.
“Lang?” He sighed heavily, rubbing his face in his hands. When he looked up at me, I could see the hard set in his eyes. “I want to meet them,” he said. I jerked, not sure I’d heard properly. Did he mean Connor and Amie? He couldn’t, surely. Not after being so violently apposed to the idea in the first place. “That’s what all this is about, isn’t it? You don’t want to get too involved with me because of the children?” he continued.
“I don’t want to get too involved with you because I have to go soon, and I don’t want to be a shell of a person when I get back to L.A., Sully. I thought you wanted to keep this simple, too.”
He blew out a frustrated breath, bowing his head. “Maybe that’s what I wanted. At first. But now... I don’t know. Would it be the worst thing in the world if I wanted more?”
“I didn’t think you were capable. That’s what you said.”
“I don’t even know if I am. But I want to find out.”
I shook my head slowly. “Sully, I can’t risk hurting the children, confusing them, purely so we can figure out if we’re meant to be together or not. It wouldn’t be fair.”
“I don’t just want to meet them because of us,” he said quickly. “When I saw Connor up on that stage the other night…” He sighed, glancing down at his interlinked hands. “I wanted to come and find you when it was all over then. It was like looking back in time, back to when Ronan and I were little. I couldn’t believe it. And Amie. She’s so small. So perfect. Seeing her actually terrified me. Neither Ronan nor I ever did anything to deserve such a perfect little girl. I felt so protective over both of them that it felt like I’d run head first into a brick wall. I couldn’t fucking handle it. But then over the days that followed…I don’t know. I couldn’t stop thinking about them. So I made them the presents. I saw you guys all playing in the snow yesterday morning, and…” He shook his head, refusing to look at me. “I thought, I’m meant to be a part of that. I don’t know how I fit into it, but I know that I do somehow.” Rubbing the back of his neck with one hand, he looked like he was fighting for the right thing to say and coming up short. “So, it’s not just about you, Lang. It’s them, too. Do you understand? I’m not promising anything. I’m not saying I’m gonna take them or anything. I just…want to meet them.”
I was a lot of things all at once: Excited. Overjoyed. Anxious. Protective. Could the children take meeting Sully without being completely overwhelmed? It was a lot to take in. Ronan and Magda had never mentioned Sully to either of the children. They had no idea their father had a twin brother. The resemblance was going to freak them out, especially Connor.
But still. This was what Ronan had wanted. He had wanted Sully to be the children’s legal guardian eventually. He certainly would have wanted Connor and Amie to meet Sully in any case, despite the fact that he never got around to introducing them when he was alive. I squeezed my car keys in my pocket, making up my mind.
“Okay then.”
Sully looked up quickly. “Okay?”
“Yes. But they’re so young, Sully, and they’ve been through a lot. Don’t fuck them over. I swear to god, if you do, I’ll castrate you and hang your balls out to dry. Do you copy?”
He flashed his teeth, probably smirking at my use of one of his favorite phrases. “Copy. I promise I won’t fuck them over. And Lang? Just so you know, I don’t plan on fucking you over, either. I promise that, too.”
******