Chapter 26
T hat...I hadn’t expected that , and it had me pausing. Had me shifting back just the slightest bit as I absorbed the blow, but Lainey noticed.
Her eyes widened with worry and apology as she tenderly curled a hand around the back of Kaia’s head as if to protect my niece from a conversation she couldn’t understand. “Asher, I’m?—”
“No,” I finally answered. “I don’t.”
Lainey studied me for long moments before the words, “I’m sorry,” slipped past her lips and just over the sound of Kaia’s hushed whimpers. “I shouldn’t have said that.”
“You should’ve,” I gently argued, head shaking. “Lainey, don’t worry about holding back with me.”
“But that?—”
“Hurt because that’s my— was ...” I worked my jaw a few times before clearing my throat. “That was my brother who I couldn’t save. And that’s weighed on me for longer than I can remember. But I like when you challenge me,” I told her. “I wanna know what you’re thinking, no matter what or who it involves. And I needed the reminder of what Kaia was living in with them.”
She nodded for a while before realizing, “But that doesn’t change how you feel about having her here with you.”
“No.”
“It should.” When I tipped my chin her way in question, she said, “We don’t know exactly what Kaia’s everyday life was like, but you’ve lived through that—through worse —and you protected your siblings from it.”
Lainey gestured to me before placing her hand on Kaia’s head again, this time like she was trying to soothe my niece to sleep. “Okay, so, you’ve gotten on the mafia’s bad side and that is...” A startled sounding laugh left her. “I dunno, I still can’t wrap my head around it. But Wyatt was buying drugs from them. Her parents were using around her. They were actively putting her in danger, Asher. Kaia’s safest with you because you’ll do everything to protect her.”
I let my stare fall to where Kaia was clearly trying to get comfortable in Lainey’s arms in the ridiculous starfish outfit that made her look adorable. I wasn’t sure if I agreed with Lainey, but I could at least understand what she was saying. I could see how this was better than where she’d been.
“I never wanted kids,” I admitted on a breath.
A hum of acknowledgment left Lainey. “Want ed ...things can change.” Before I could argue, she added, “From what Cameron said, I got the impression you’ve never wanted a relationship either.” One of her eyebrows lifted in equal parts curiosity and hesitation as she slipped past me. “Has that changed?”
I followed her, my words dark and low when I demanded, “What’d Rush say?”
Lainey’s shoulders shook with a muted laugh. Twisting around, she never stopped walking toward the couch as she teased, “So angry, Mr. Briggs.”
“What’d he say?”
“That you’ve never let yourself fall for anyone.” Her head tilted, waiting for me to confirm or deny it when I just needed to know why they’d talked about this at all.
“You should know by now that isn’t true.”
“Before... this ,” she clarified clumsily as she turned to go sit on the couch, but not before I saw the way her cheeks darkened with heat. Once I was seated beside where she was cradling Kaia, she asked, “Was he wrong?”
“No.”
Lainey pressed her lips together to fight a smile that still broke through. With a steadying breath, she put the full force of those eyes on me and said, “So, things can change.”
I didn’t tell her that this time with Kaia hadn’t changed anything—I still didn’t want kids. I just studied the blush on her cheeks and the way her eyes danced as she watched me before saying, “I told your dad.”
Lainey’s expression fell in an instant. “What?”
“Your dad...I guess we never did get back around to my talk with him.” I swallowed thickly, my head bobbing for a moment before saying, “I told him about when we first met. I told him that, even though there were a dozen reasons why I shouldn’t entertain even the idea of you and me, I knew I’d never want anyone the way I want you. And if I ever found out you felt the same, I was gonna ignore every one of those reasons and never let you go.”
Her earlier blush was nothing compared to when I finished, and it took everything to stay where I was beside her instead of reaching out to feel the heat staining her cheeks.
“You can’t go around saying things like that if you want me to hate you,” she said a little breathlessly.
“Would you hate me even if I didn’t?”
“No,” she said without hesitation, then huffed out a self-deprecating sound. “I couldn’t make myself hate you even when I thought you’d meant all those things I’d heard you say about me.”
Even though I’d finally explained it all, even though it was all out there, my stomach still twisted at the reminder—at the pain I’d put her in this week. “I’m sorry, Lainey.”
Her head moved in a jumble of nods and shakes. “I know you are. I should’ve let you explain earlier. But we’ve already gone through that; I was just letting you know that I can’t...” She pressed a hand to her chest and gave me a hopeless smile. “I’m incapable of hating you.”
The hidden meaning of her claim settled heavily between us as if waiting for one of us to give first—utter those three words first. But for as much as we’d both confessed tonight, that ...that was too much.
Or maybe it only felt that way for me because those words had never left me a day in my life, even in a familial way with my siblings. Then again, our mom had tossed those words around a lot during twisted abuses, which meant I love you landed somewhere along the same vein as the rest of the childhood I couldn’t seem to escape. Even when it wasn’t directed at me, it triggered a trauma type response.
“So, is this a kidnapping?” Lainey asked, playfully drawing out the last word and breaking through the charged silence. “Because you said you’d never let me go, but you’ll eventually have to before someone from my family files a missing person’s report.”
A gravelly sound that was too strained to be considered a laugh crawled up my throat, and I sent her a grateful look when I focused on her enough to notice the well of understanding in her eyes.
Not that she could . But she must’ve sensed that I’d needed something to pull me away from the memories threatening to break free.
“It’s my job to prevent those,” I reminded her as I stood. Leaning in close, I tipped her head back and captured her lips.
Because I could. Because she was there. Because I wasn’t sure how I’d gone all these months without doing this .
I deepened the kiss for just a moment before pulling away, but kept my lips hovering over hers when I said, “Not letting you live out of a hotel though,” as I carefully curled my hands under Kaia’s arms and took her from Lainey now that she was asleep.
Lainey’s mouth parted to argue as I stepped back, so I hurried to add, “We’re talking about that when I get back.”
Her eyes rolled in defeat before she said, “I would’ve put her down soon.”
“I know.”
If there was anything I was sure of, it was the way Lainey cared for Kaia.
Even after enduring a handful of hours with Kaia’s screams, Lainey had gone to get Kaia as if it was something she got to do, not something she had to do. And even though Kaia had started falling back asleep long before the medicine could help her, I had no doubt Lainey had continued holding her because she’d wanted that time with her.
Reaching for where I’d left her coffee earlier, I grabbed the glass and handed it to Lainey as I made my way around the couch and toward the hall. My heart warming and aching in a way that was slowly becoming familiar when Kaia shifted and burrowed deeper against my chest. One of her little starfish hands covering half of her face the way it always did.
“Things can change.”
Lainey’s words skipped through my thoughts before I could push them away.
My entire life had changed, placing a baby in my care. That didn’t mean I had...that I wanted this—wanted kids.
But even as I thought it, I realized I was just standing beside Kaia’s crib, holding her a little longer. And once I had her in it, I lingered. Watching her curl up in a tight ball the way she always did before stretching out in that ridiculous thing Lainey always put her in, making her look exactly like a starfish.
Passing my knuckle along her cheek, I murmured, “Night, little Starfish,” before easing out of her room and through the apartment.
I followed the sound of running water to where Lainey was standing in front of the kitchen sink, washing out her glass, and slipped up behind her.
She sucked in a quick inhale when I placed my hands on either side of her, caging her against the counter, but released it just as fast when she relaxed against me. “So quiet,” she whispered in teasing reprimand.
A grunt rumbled in my chest as I moved her long hair off one shoulder to press my lips to her neck. When her head tilted to the side to give me better access, I placed one more feather-soft kiss there before saying, “I should warn you, I’m not good at this.”
I felt more than heard her next laugh. “I don’t agree.”
“I’ll hurt you without trying,” I said somberly. “Just by being me.”
Lainey twisted in my arms to look up at me, her expression wholly unbothered. “I’m starting to figure you out, Asher Briggs.”
“That right?”
An affirming sound rose in her throat, but there was a hesitance to it. Before I could ask what it or the slow furrowing of her eyebrows meant, she asked, “And if I need nights like this? Nights where you talk to me?”
I knew what she was really asking.
She wanted more conversations where I was open. She wanted to know me.
I didn’t tell her I’d spent my life making sure people couldn’t know me. I didn’t tell her the times I’d bared my soul to her, I would’ve done anything for her to understand me because I’d been worried I was going to lose her. I just studied her expression as I absorbed her plea.
“If you wanna know something, just ask.”
She worried her bottom lip before speaking, her voice quiet and filled with worry. “What if I know it’ll bring up things—bad things. Country music things.”
I tightened my grip on the counter because it was obvious in the way she was looking at me that there was already something she wanted to know. From the way she’d quickly changed the subject when I’d started internally spiraling earlier, I had a feeling I knew what it was.
“Ask your question, Lainey.”
Hesitation pulsed between us for long seconds before she began, “Cameron said?—”
A curse bled from me and had Lainey pressing her lips together as I pushed from the counter and straightened, folding my arms across my chest as I did. “What all did you and Rush talk about?”
“Nothing,” she hurried to assure me. “Well, not really. I had my playlist on, and he told me you don’t like country music. When I told him I knew and would have it off before you got back because I knew why , it...well, it really surprised him.”
She gestured between me and the ceiling, stammering a little as heat crept into her cheeks. “A-and then you came home, and he, uh...he asked if I was in love with you.”