I almost fall apart, when he says that. But now that I’ve started, I can’t seem to stop the words from flowing. I stare at his Adam’s apple and let the words pour from my lips, not thinking about the consequences. Just knowing I have to tell him, tell someone, because if I hold it in another moment I’m going to explode.
“If I close my eyes and think back, I can still smell the ocean that day. Seaweed and salt and that indescribable scent of summer. I can hear sound of shorebirds calling out overhead. Feel the whip of the wind against my face as I ran down the beach toward her. And the colors — the colors I remember most of all. The sand was so white, the sky so gray, the waves so green. And her skin. So blue. Like ice.” I swallow hard when my voice breaks. Nate’s arms tighten around my back but he doesn’t interrupt me. “I knew she was dead before I reached her. Even at seven, I knew what death looked like. I knew she was gone.”
I look up at him to see concern and sadness twisting his features.
“There wasn’t anything you could’ve done.” His words are intent. “You were a little girl. A baby.”
“I know,” I whisper, wishing I believed it. “But… seeing her like that… it did something to me. Most people spend their lives waiting for The Worst Day to happen. But when it happens to you while you’re still a kid… every other bad thing that happens to you for the rest of your life seems a bit anticlimactic. I mean… Failing grade on a test? Humiliating pool party? Date throws up in your purse? Still not as bad as finding your mother’s dead body.” I take a deep breath. “Maybe that’s why I haven’t really processed the whole mobsters-kidnapping-me thing. Because, as scary as it was…” I stare into his eyes.
“It still wasn’t The Worst Day,” he finishes for me.
I nod. “You know, I’ve always thought I’ll die young, like she did. That my timer is going to run out sooner than later. Maybe that’s why I wasn’t more freaked out when Cormack grabbed me. Because, in a way, I’ve kind of been expecting it for years now.”
His hands tighten suddenly around me, and his voice gets intense. “Don’t say shit like that. Get it out of your head. You’re not going anywhere. You’re not fucking dying on me.” He shakes me gently, as if he might force some sense into me. “I won’t let you.”
There’s a long pause where we simply stare at each other, eyes locked, breaths mingling. His words wash over me, seep into my soul like balm on a long-aching wound I thought would never close.
I won’t let you.
“Promise?” I ask finally, voice shaking.
That possessive look flashes over his face again.
“I promise, little bird.”
***
We don’t speak as we ride back upstairs and cross through the darkened loft to his bed, but his hand never unlaces from mine and when we climb beneath the sheets there’s no pillow barrier between us. He holds me close, his big hands on my stomach beneath the large t-shirt, his body curled around mine perfectly, like we were made to fit together.
Nothing’s changed — not really. Not on paper. I can’t pinpoint the exact moment everything between us shifted. But somehow, in the space of an hour, my whole world has flipped upside down and I’m living in an alternate universe where Nate and I hold each other close and aren’t afraid to show weakness.
I fall asleep in his arms and, for the first time since I got out of that basement, I sleep soundly.
Chapter Twenty-One
Let’s be honest: in ten years, the man-bun of the 2010s will be equivalent to the rat-tail of the 1980s.
Phoebe West, whose tastes sway more toward clean cut men with short, soft hair and deep chocolate eyes.
“Well, isn’t this cozy.”
Parker’s voice is the first thing that permeates my subconscious — followed quickly by the realization that there is a large hand under my shirt, nestled warmly in the space between my boobs, along with a male thigh sandwiched firmly between my legs.
Nate.
“I guess you didn’t mind sharing the bed after all,” Parker says dryly.