Chapter 22
Chapter Twenty-Two
If there was anything to know about Moon, it was that there was a one hundred percent chance he’d suddenly turn into a blazing furnace if he was held through the night.
His body seemed to suck all the heat out of me and harbor it in him, making an oven beneath the blankets, already pre-heated to four hundred and seventy-five degrees. Just right to cook a frozen pizza.
I fucking loved it. Couldn’t get enough of it, actually. I’d take the sweaty, stuck-together skin over not having him in my arms any day. I’d say it was a small price to pay, but it wasn’t even a price to pay. It was a price I’d beg for if I had to.
Moon Miller was safe in my arms, snoring softly, with his face pressed between my pecs.
I wondered how he was even breathing, seeing as he was smooshed so far into my skin.
Resting my chin on top of his head, I closed my eyes and soaked it all in.
His arm twitched just as he groaned quietly, starting to stir.
I pulled away just enough to see his eyes crack open. He blinked a few times, his face scrunching as he adjusted to the world of the wide awake. “Good morning, brat.” I pressed my lips against his forehead, lingering for just a moment.
He sighed, closing his eyes and leaning into me. “Morning.” His voice was rough and deep with sleep. I couldn’t get enough of it.
“How’d you sleep?”
Yawning, he rested his head on my inner arm. “Mmm, it’s too early. So sleepy.”
“Well, if you let me get up, I’ll make us some breakfast. I’ll let you sleep until it’s ready.”
I didn’t think anyone could’ve resisted with the way he peered up through his lashes, his lips forming a pout. “You’d do that?”
“I’d do anything for you, actually.” I swiped some of the crusty remnants of sleep away from the side of his eye. “A little breakfast would be nothing in comparison.”
He rolled onto his back, a tired grin growing on his face. “Thank you, Daddy. I need a kiss first, though.”
That I could do. I went beside him, rather than leaning over him, and kissed him right on the lips. He smiled against my lips, humming contentedly. “Anything, baby. Absolutely anything.”
Leaving the warm bed with my brat right in the middle was almost painful.
If I could stay by his side all day, every day, I would.
There was nothing more in the world I could ever want than to hold him in my arms until the moment we each took our last breaths.
Even then, I’d be damned if some bitch like death thought they could take him away from me.
But cooking for him was the next best thing. Caring for him in any way I could. Just something to show him that his decision to let me hold the heavy parts of life for him meant the world to me, and that I didn’t plan on taking advantage of that.
Unlike Moon, I had plenty to cook with. I decided on something easy, since we both needed a nice, lazy morning to start off with.
Could never go wrong with bacon-and-cheese omelets—especially the way my mom used to cook them.
She always added a little bit of red pepper flakes and a whole lot of love into a four-egg omelet, saying Harrison and I were growing too fast for her pantry to keep up with.
With breakfast plated and waiting, I walked back into my bedroom to wake Moon up.
He was on his back, his arms raised above his head, with his legs tangled in the sheets.
It looked like he’d fought something in his sleep and lost drastically.
I crawled onto it, lying beside him, and rubbed a hand over his chest in slow, soothing motions. “Moon, baby. Time to wake up.”
His eyebrows furrowed as he whined, but his eyes didn’t open.
“Come on, I’ve got breakfast on the table for us.”
He shook his head.
“Moon,” I rubbed his chest again. “It’s time to get up. I let you sleep for a bit longer, but I need you up so you can eat.”
“Don’t wanna.”
Sighing, I let my head hang in defeat for a moment. “Okay, brat.” I pulled the blankets off his lower half, throwing them aside despite his many protests. “I said it’s time to get up, so it’s time to get up.”
I watched, holding back a laugh as he curled in on himself instinctually. “It’s cold!”
“I was trying to be nice about it, but you didn’t listen to Daddy, now, did you?”
Finally, his eyes opened all the way, settling on his signature bratty glare. “Mean. That’s what you are. Mean.”
“Oh, I’m mean? I just cooked you a big, heaping breakfast, and I was planning on helping you wash up after if you were a good boy. You aren’t being too good right now, though.”
“Why do I gotta listen to you?”
The attitude was in full force now. No more of the sweet, cuddly Moon I’d been holding just a little while ago.
It made me wonder why. Was it the vulnerability that did it?
Was this his way of gaining back the tough facade he’d built?
I wondered if part of it was something other than his personality, but a way of testing what my limits were as his Daddy.
As someone who—as the title implied—had sworn to protect and care for him.
If that were the case, I’d make damn sure he knew I wasn’t going anywhere. “Because I said so. Because you want to listen to me. Because you want me to enforce that, too.” I stood by the bed, bending down to drag him to the edge by his ankles.
“Hey!”
“Hey yourself, brat. Stand up.”
He frowned but did as I said. The moment he was fully standing, I bent once more, wrapping my arms around his waist, and hoisted him over my shoulder.
I held him in place even as he started to squirm and kick, though not very hard.
For all the effort he was putting into the show he was giving me, it wasn’t the most effective.
I carried him straight to the kitchen, plopping him down onto one of the chairs at the table. “There you go. Eat up. And a thank you would be appreciated.”
At first, his stare was armed with daggers. He glanced down, looking at the food on his plate, then back up at me. When our eyes met again, every muscle in his face relaxed. The crinkles around his eyes softened, forming lines rather than cracks. “Thank you, Daddy. Seriously.”
I leaned down, holding the side of his face, and pressed a kiss right on the top of his head. “Anything for you. Anything and everything until there’s nothing left to do.”
My very own makeshift first-aid kit lined the bathroom counter, reminding me of the third scariest night of my life. Each piece called out to me with whispers of what could’ve, what should’ve, and what would’ve happened if I hadn’t shown up when I did.
The first night was the first night without my parents.
Harrison and I had grieved enough for two lifetimes, not knowing what was ahead of us.
Our tears had made an entire ocean—a harbor overflowing with nothing but deep, unmistakable sadness that held us with a sharp grip, its claws anchoring beneath our skin, not wanting to ever let go.
At least our tears hadn’t been alone. We’d had each other to hold on to, both rocking on the floor of our childhood home, wondering what came next.
Did they have a will? How did we plan a funeral?
Not just a funeral for one person, but two?
The two people who had meant the world to us.
When we were kids, we looked at our parents like they’d personally hung the moon just for us to look at.
They were the superheroes in every make-believe story we could come up with when we played.
They were the center of our universe, and suddenly, they were gone.
Forever. And we were left with an empty house that wasn’t empty in the slightest. It had so much stuff and so many memories.
The second night was the night I’d found Harrison, and my world had stopped turning for a while.
I’d become stagnant, my body in such disbelief that it couldn’t make a single tear fall from my eyes.
I knew how to plan a funeral. It was easier with only one person.
I knew he didn’t have a will. I knew how he wanted to be buried, because we’d talked about it.
We’d talked about us both making wills, yet he never did, and that pissed me off to no end.
I still wondered, all this time later, if I’d done him justice.
If I’d gotten every detail right for his send-off into the great unknown.
I had Olivia to share the grief with, yet I was lonelier than ever before.
Another soul-crushing round of grief, this time for someone I’d shared my entire life with.
I’d shared a womb with him, only parting ways for an entire sixty seconds before he’d finally come out with me.
We were best friends. We were brothers. But on that night, we became nothing.
I became the beta fish circling the waters, waiting to find his, forever going in circles with nowhere to rest.
And then Moon. My midnight guide with stars for a smile. If I hadn’t been there, if I hadn’t intervened…I was afraid to know what would’ve happened.
So, I looked away from the medical supplies and turned on my heel, watching as Moon slowly lowered himself into the tub.
The cuts didn’t look too bad; all of them had scabbed over and were waiting for some TLC to heal all the way up.
Now that they were cleaner, I was able to see exactly how deep it ran.
There were old scars mixed with fresh ones.
Some were a pinkish purple, while others were white.
Some were long, some were barely more than a scratch.
But there were no scars on his tattoos, only fresh wounds.
“Am I that irresistible? Not that I mind you staring at me, of course.”
“Sorry, I was just trying to see how the cuts were doing.”
He looked down, running a hand over them beneath the water. “They’re not bad. Just in really bad places.”
I kneeled to the floor beside the tub, grabbing a loofah and some of my body wash. “How so?”
“Oh, fuck no.”