Chapter 5
CHAPTER
FIVE
SAMANTHA
I lay in my bed for a minute, trying to think of what Phoenix might have to tell me, but nothing came to mind.
And he was moving in next door?
For someone used to traveling between realms, it wasn’t every day that I felt like I was in a different universe. But apparently, today was that day.
It was almost too much to process, especially when I didn’t even know what I was supposed to be processing. So, I did the next thing on my to-do list.
I got up.
I showered and got ready for the day. Normally, I’d train. Rain, shine, no matter what. But not today. Not after a night like last night. My limbs still felt heavy and maybe a bit like Jell-O. It was a weird combo, but I wasn’t about to try working out. I’d break something for sure.
Instead, I put on a little bit of makeup because it made me feel normal. Today, I needed that. Getting ready like I did every day made me think that this was going to be okay, even if I wasn’t exactly one hundred percent okay right now.
I threw on my comfiest pair of leggings and a super soft, oversized, flowy V-neck. Comfort was king today. I slid my feet into my cushiest slippers and loosely braided my wet hair as I walked down the stairs.
Mom and Frank were seated at the island, drinking coffee. Phoenix paused whatever he was doing at the stove to turn to me. He’d showered, too. Changed. Shaved. He gave a small smile, and the single dimple on the left side of his face deepened, making my heart rate speed up and holy shit , he was way out of my league.
Maybe I should’ve put on more makeup.
There was an ache in my chest, and I pressed my fist to it, trying to rub it away as I went down the last few stairs.
Frank pulled out the stool next to him, drawing my attention away from Phoenix. “G url .” He drew the word out as he motioned to the stool.
“Don’t say that. And definitely, really, don’t say it like that. You’re not a tween girl.” I made my way to the island and took the offered stool. I was kind of glad that Frank was there to distract me. I wasn’t sure what to do with or say to Phoenix now that I was fully awake.
“Why can’t I say it like that? I can pull off anything,” said the forty-something Orthodox priest. He was wearing the usual pack T-shirt-sweatpants combo, too. He must’ve slept here. It almost never happened, but nothing about last night had been usual.
“No, you can’t pull off everything ,” Mom said from the other side of him. “That’s absurd.”
“You really can’t,” I said, and I heard Phoenix laugh but I stayed focused on Frank because Phoenix made me feel too many things.
“Fine. I won’t say that again.” He rolled his eyes, and I swear I saw his fourteen-year-old daughter in that expression. “How do you do today?” He said primly, then took a sip from his mug with his pinky sticking out.
I rolled my eyes at him. “Good. Fine. I think?” I spotted the churro chip cookies on the counter and reached for one, but Mom slapped my hand away. “Ow.” I shook it. “Come on. Don’t be like that. It’s tradition .”
“A tradition you partook in last night,” Mom said.
Right. I remembered that. Sort of.
“And even if you hadn’t, you can’t have a cookie for breakfast.” Phoenix was leaning against the counter. He had a pot of boiling water on the stove, a bowl of something he’d been mixing, and a bunch of other ingredients on the counter. “You have to have real food first.”
I met his gaze, and everything in me heated. We were both quiet for a second.
I was missing something. I could feel it, but I didn’t know what it was. So, I cleared my throat and went back to something easier. “A cookie is real food. There’s eggs in there. Butter. Flour. All the basics in one tasty little treat.”
Phoenix crossed his arms, showing me more of his tattoos, and man, I wanted to ask so many questions. Especially about the one with some kind of script woven through flowers. He tilted his head, drawing my eyes up, telling me he’d noticed where I was looking without saying it.
Get yourself under control, Samantha.
He raised a brow as if to see if I’d ask about it, but when I didn’t, he went back to the easier stuff. “Sure, it’s got eggs, butter, and flour, but it also has a lot of sugar. Chocolate chips. Protein is what you need. I texted Chris, and he confirmed it.”
Wait. What? He’d texted Chris?
Since when were they texting? When did they exchange numbers?
How much did I miss while I was out of it?
I guessed I’d missed more than I thought. But in all honesty, I wasn’t sure if I minded. This—Phoenix being here, cooking—it was kind of nice. I’d been wanting a relationship like Chris had with Cosette or Tessa had with Dastien, but I hadn’t thought about how much the men in their lives tried to take care of them.
Was this that?
And did I mind?
I thought about it for exactly half a second, then smiled. No, I didn’t mind. It actually felt good. “It’s going to be like that, is it?”
“What?” His smile spread into a grin that made my stomach somersault. “Me making sure you get what you need? Yeah. It’s going to be exactly like that.”
I looked at Frank, wondering what he thought.
He shrugged, but there was something in his eyes, a kind of giddy excitement that I’d never seen before, and I wasn’t sure what to make of it. “I’m not telling you anything. They already let me have a cookie, and I can’t risk losing the second one.”
“Traitor.” Sold out for cookies. To be fair, they were seriously amazing cookies, but still…
I looked at Mom. “Can I at least have a coffee?”
“Sure.”
Whoa. I didn’t expect her to agree. “Great.” This day wasn’t going to be so?—
“After you finish a glass of water.”
This was bull, but a glass of ice water slid in front of me. I looked up, and Phoenix gave me a wink.
“Fine.” I took a sip, tasted the electrolytes in it, and glanced at Mom. This had to be her doing. I didn’t mind them every once in a while, but she had been pumping me full of them recently. It was getting old. “Mom. Come on. Is this really necessary?”
“I didn’t give you another IV like I wanted to. You were sleeping so hard, and?—”
“Fine.” I didn’t like the edge of fear in her voice. If my drinking electrolytes made her feel better, then I would drink the dang electrolytes. “But I actually feel okay. I swear.” Maybe I was a little worn down, but I should’ve felt a lot worse. I wasn’t sure why I felt so good.
“Good. You ate a ton last night.” She sounded happy about it.
“I did?” I often didn’t remember it, but that was my usual MO.
“Yes.” Phoenix shook his head. “I’ve never seen someone eat so much. I think for most of it, you were half-asleep. But we just kept sliding food in front of you, and you kept eating until you pushed away a plate, put your head down, and went to sleep on the island.”
Huh. “I vaguely remember that last part, but not the eating. What did I eat?”
“Lots of things.”
Weird. “Okay. Well, I’m hungry again. And I’m guessing the real food from last night doesn’t count for today since you’re still not giving me the cookie.”
Phoenix gave me a small shake of his head. “No. It doesn’t count.”
“Fine.” I wanted to argue, but it seemed like the odds were against me if even Frank was backing them. “What are you making?” I tried to look around him but couldn’t figure it out.
“Eggs Benedict. Your mom said it was her favorite.”
Mom leaned against the island and raised a brow. She was enjoying Phoenix cooking for me, maybe a little too much, but she was right. It was pretty fantastic.
Eggs Benedict wasn’t just Mom’s favorite. It was one of mine, too. We just didn’t have it often, and never at home. “With hollandaise?”
“Yes. Just finished making it.”
“Shut up.” Who was this guy? No one made hollandaise from scratch. Did they?
“Right,” Mom said, but the way she said it, there was an implied can you believe how awesome he is? And yeah, she had a point.
He snagged a bowl from the counter and tipped it. “It’s a lot easier than it seems.”
“If you say so.” I glanced from him to the bowl and back again. “How do you know how to make that?”
He shrugged. “I told you. I like to cook.” He put the bowl back on the counter behind him.
“But it’s a big difference between liking to cook and making your own hollandaise.” I liked to cook , but not like that. Mom was super great at following any recipe, but she didn’t make sauces like that. At least not as far as I knew.
“It’s really not that hard. You just?—”
“That’s what she said.” Frank blurted out the words, then laughed at his own lame joke.
I hung my head. “Frank.” I was going to murder him.
When I looked up, Phoenix was silently laughing, chin to his chest, eyes closed, whole body shaking.
Mom was holding back her laughter. Barely.
I looked back at the graying priest, who was rubbing his hand along his beard and smiling his I-made-a-joke smile. What an idiot. “I apologize for that moron.”
A loud laugh burst from Phoenix. “For a priest, you don’t exactly act like one.”
“I’m still a human, and there’s joy in laughter,” Frank said. “Tell me that you’re not enjoying that laugh. I dare you.”
The laugh did feel good.
“If I can find time to make someone laugh, to bring them a bit of happiness, then I feel like it’s my duty to make that happen,” Frank said. “I don’t get the chance to do it often. For the most part, I deal with people going through the hardest of times, so I lighten it up when I can. My kids find me hilarious.”
That was factually incorrect. “No, they don’t.”
Frank crossed his arms as he looked at me, then back at Phoenix. “Well, my wife, Rachel, she definitely does.”
I rolled my eyes. “She married you. Clearly, she has questionable taste.”
Frank bumped his arm against mine. “Well, then, why are we friends?”
“You tell me, buddy. I met you one time in a mental hospital, and I’ve never been able to get rid of you. I even moved across the country, and look where you found yourself.”
Frank sat up straight with a haughty look on his face. “That was divine intervention. God wanted us to work together. An opening came up, and the church asked me if I would come. I took the sign that I was supposed to continue mentoring you. You’re welcome.”
“Did I say thank you?”
“No, but you were definitely thinking it. You frequently do. I can tell. Especially in moments like these.”
I leaned my head on his shoulder. “I sure do.” I might tease Frank, but I’d been really glad when he moved his whole family from LA to Austin. I hadn’t realized how much I’d leaned on him until I moved away. It’d been a long three months before they arrived.
Mom and Phoenix shared a look. “They’ve always been like this,” she said. “Since the day they met.”
Phoenix gave her a nod, then turned to me. The smile faded away, and I knew what he was going to ask. “Mental hospital? That’s where you met Frank?”
It felt like forever ago, and to me, maybe it was. “Yeah.” I sat up straight in my chair. “Seven years ago?” I looked at Frank for confirmation.
He nodded. “Roundabout.”
“I want to hear this story,” Phoenix said from where he leaned against the counter.
“No, you don’t. It’s not an interesting story.” At least I didn’t think it was, but if he wanted to know, I didn’t mind telling it. The whole thing was just a little sad and depressing, and I never wanted anyone to pity me. I hated that. It was the worst.
Getting pity from this man who was here, cooking me food, being basically perfect, would suck, but I wasn’t going to let that stop me. I wasn’t ashamed of my past.
“Please. I want to know more about you.” He didn’t smile when he asked, but he was kind. Always kind.
“It was a few months before we met,” I said. “Before that night on the stairs.”
“I remember when you came home.” He crossed his arms. “Your mom let us know. Asked me to keep an eye out for you when she was working.”
“Yeah.” People sometimes treated me differently once they knew my past, but not Phoenix. That gave me some hope that this wouldn’t go as badly as it had before. “That wasn’t my best time. I’d been a bit of a mess, trying to adjust to normal life and mostly failing.”
“You weren’t failing at anything.” Mom hated it when I talked badly about myself. It was a pet peeve. One of them, anyway. “You’re too hard on yourself.”
“Maybe,” I said, mostly to appease her. But this was so far off track. And so not the way to get Phoenix to stick around. “So yeah, back to meeting Frank.” Ugh . Why did this always feel so awkward to talk about?
Probably because it wasn’t something I talked about. There was such a stigma with being in a facility, but he already knew this about me. So, I shouldn’t have felt weird about it. And yet…
Screw it. “Frank and I met at the in-patient pediatric mental facility. Baycroft.”
“As in, he came in as a priest to counsel you?”
I laughed but couldn’t meet his gaze. Not while talking about this. “Him? No. I’m not sure why anyone would listen to him. He’s a real ding-dong.”
Frank let out a fake-insulted gasp. “I’ll show you a ding-dong.”
I shoved Frank. “Ew. Gross. Please don’t.”
Frank started laughing, and I couldn’t help but join in.
“Are they really always like this?” Phoenix said to Mom over our laughing. His slanted smile told me he was at least amused by our shenanigans.
“Usually,” Mom said. “Unless they’re working. Then, they behave. The rest of the time? You get this nonsense. They’re ridiculous. Supposedly, they’re two grown-ups, one of them with teenage children of his own, but you wouldn’t know it when they’re like this.”
Something about that made me laugh harder. “Sorry.” I tried to smother the laughter. “It’s a coping mechanism for all the dark stuff we see.”
Frank bumped my shoulder. “For the record, lots of people come to talk to me and love getting my advice.”
“Sure, they do.” I laughed again at the offended look on Frank’s face, and this time, Mom’s rich laugh echoed mine.
“But no, I didn’t counsel her at Baycroft,” Frank said, turning to Phoenix. “I didn’t work there.”
“Thank God.” I swallowed down the next wave of laughter at the face Frank made—tongue out and everything.
I finally looked up at Phoenix. He was standing there, still leaning against the counter, arms crossed, no judgment on his face. He looked genuinely curious and interested in the story.
Right. I guessed I should stop goofing off with Frank and actually tell it. “The thing about mental health is that sometimes there’s a spiritual component that people ignore or don’t have the capacity to recognize. Sometimes people get admitted that maybe shouldn’t be. A lot of patients had various sorts of demonic problems, and I tried to help those cases when I could.” It didn’t always work out right away, but eventually, I was able to help anyone who came in with a spiritual problem.
“One day, there was this girl…I knew right away that she needed my help. So, I went to help her.” I thought back on that night. The tolling of a spiritual bell that woke me from a dead sleep. The chill in the air. The way the lights flickered in the hallway.
For some reason, I didn’t exactly mind my time at Baycroft. I mean—it wasn’t a resort, but it wasn’t horrible, either. It was the only time I’d ever been safe from my father.
In some ways, I wished I could go back to a place like that. My room upstairs was torn up. The only way that could’ve happened was if he’d made his presence known. I wasn’t sure what that meant for staying at the Sanctuary, and?—
Mom cleared her throat, drawing me back to the present.
Right. I’d deal with whatever came next later. “Sorry. Got lost in my memories for a second. Anyway…I went down to help this new patient out, and there was this guy in the chair.” Oh, boy. I was slow this morning. I just realized that this story was going to turn into a can of worms. I suddenly wished I’d never started telling it.
“Frank,” Phoenix asked. “He was the one in the chair? That’s how you met him?”
“No,” Frank said. “That’s how she met Hunter .”
“Who is Hunter?” Phoenix asked.
“Her ex,” Frank said before I could stop him.
“Frank!” I shoved him off his stool.
He caught himself on the edge of the island. “Excuse me. It’s the truth.”
“Yeah. Maybe. But you didn’t have to bring that part of it up.” And now, the can of worms was officially open. “We could’ve left him as a vague shadow of a guy.” That was how I always wanted to remember him. A person who was only a part of my life for a little bit but had left a lingering shadow.
“Okay. Now, I really want to hear this story. The full version.” Phoenix pointed to me. “You’re not getting out of this.” He turned to the stove and shut off the pot of boiling water. Then, he snagged the bowl of hollandaise and put it in the fridge.
Frank’s phone vibrated on the counter.
Saved by the phone. I looked up at the ceiling. Thank you.
“Um. Samantha…” Frank’s voice had an apology in it, and I didn’t like it.
I took a second because I knew what that meant, and when I finally looked at him, all the humor was gone from his face. He was in full priest mode.
“No.” I knew what that meant. He was going to need my help with something. “I can’t .”
“Okay. Just…wait. It could be nothing.” He slid off the stool and went outside to make a call.
I closed my eyes and took a breath. “I have this feeling that Astaroth is up to something. Whatever last night was, it’s not over yet.”
“What makes you think that?” Phoenix sounded close.
I opened my eyes to find him on the stool that Frank had left. “Something he said to me. His tone. I don’t know…” I glanced at Mom. “He might have been taunting me.”
“You’d know better than me.” My mother didn’t really know Astaroth at all, other than the attack that made me. She pressed her lips together, and there was a question in her eyes.
I didn’t know how to answer it, but I could try. “I don’t have any proof that says he’s up to something—no evidence or anything he explicitly said he was going to do—just this growing knot in my stomach and his open-ended threat…” I rubbed a hand down my face. “Or maybe I’m just tired. Maybe he was trying to rattle me.” That wasn’t quite right. “Wait. No. He’s always trying to rattle me, but this time…” I wasn’t making sense, and I knew it. I just couldn’t find the right words. It was all a jumble because I needed time to sort through everything that had happened. Which would take more time than I had right now.
“The psychological toll and the warfare will be bad for a while, Samantha. You can’t go all end times on me,” Mom said.
“Right, but?—”
Frank came back into the house. He tapped his phone into the palm of his hand as he studied me. “How tired are you?” He slid the phone into his pocket.
Was he kidding right now? “Very.”
He loosened the komboskoini— a knotted prayer rope that he kept wrapped around his wrist—and moved his thumb over it. “I don’t think this involves your father, and if I’m right, then you could get a boost from it.”
Frank was right. Sometimes, I got a boost from doing what I did. And with how drained I was, it felt like a fair risk to take. But there was always a chance my father would show up. “What are we talking about? Give me the details.”
“I’ll cook while he talks. You’re going to need the fuel.” Phoenix got up, gesturing for Frank to take the stool again, and went around to the stove.
I watched him move around our kitchen as if he lived here. He didn’t, but somehow, he felt like he fit. He made an iced coffee and snagged two cookies from the plate, and then turned to me with them.
Wait? Those were for me?
“Phoenix.” Mom drew out his name. “She hasn’t finished her water or had breakfast.”
“She’s going to have it soon, and it sounds like she’s going to need the sugar-caffeine boost.” He walked around the island and set them in front of me. “For you,” he said it like he was offering me more than what was on the counter.
The way he said it—the way he placed them there while looking into my eyes—made me feel like he was giving me so much more than some food and drink.
“Thank you.” My words meant more, too. It wasn’t just a thank you for what he was giving me. It was for sticking around, for cooking for me, for just being here, but I couldn’t seem to voice all of that. Not here. Not right now.
He looked into my eyes, and it was as if he understood everything I’d left unsaid. “My pleasure.” He brushed a kiss on the top of my head and went back to cooking.
I sat there, staring at the offering he’d just given me, still feeling the warmth of the kiss and remembering the understanding in his eyes. I would remember this moment for the rest of my life.
It wasn’t much. On the outside, it was pretty much nothing. But it felt like more.
It felt like the start of something big.
I took a sip of the iced coffee.
Dang it. He’d made it just how I liked it. I looked up at him as he moved around the kitchen, following him with my gaze.
“I watched your mom make it yesterday. Did I do it right?” he asked over his shoulder.
“Yeah.” Phoenix needed a flaw. Something. Anything. Otherwise, he just didn’t feel real. “It’s perfect.”
Frank put his head on my shoulder. “It’s just so romantic .”
I jerked my shoulder. “Stop it.” I waved a cookie at him. “Spill. What’s going on? I need all the details.” I took a bite of the cookie and groaned. Mom had made them just right. As always.
“Enjoying the cookie?” Frank teased.
I rolled my eyes. “Shut up.”
“Can’t. Not when I’m having so much fun.” He glanced down at the prayer rope, and when he looked back at me again, he was all business. “The exorcism I did last night involved a teen boy. Not a religious house. No wards. From the chat I had with the parents, there’s likely some generational things happening, which is tricky for me, but I know you can fix that.”
I made a cutting motion with my hand as I chewed the last of the cookie. “Snip, snip. That’s no problem.” I could cut demon ties pretty easily.
“It was the usual at first—bad friends, bad words, bad actions. It grew, and the parents seemed to be a little out of their league with it. They’re busy—both work—and they just let some things slide.”
That was understandable, even if it was a bad decision. “Easier to do that than face your problems.”
“Hey. Being a parent is hard. Things slip sometimes.”
“You’re lucky you had it so easy,” I said to Mom. I put my hand under my chin and fluttered my lashes at her.
“Sure. Easy. That’s what we’d all call your life.” The sarcasm was thick with that one, which was earned. I didn’t think easy was even in my vocabulary at this point.
I laughed, then turned to Frank. “Right. So, the kid is messing up. Sounds like normal rebellion. Busy parents and an attention-hungry teen.”
“Sure, until they started hearing things in the hallway. Voices. In a language they didn’t understand.”
Now, he was getting somewhere. “Demonic?”
“Confirmed. I heard them myself.”
Okay. This was getting interesting. “Right. So, generational, plus some dabbling?”
“Exactly. The son didn’t think it was real at first.”
I snorted a laugh. “Right. Best trick the devil plays.” The scent of ham cooking wafted through the kitchen, and my stomach grumbled. Loud.
“Holy shit.” Phoenix turned to look at me. “Was that your stomach?”
My face was burning, and I desperately wanted to hide under the counter in embarrassment, but I refrained. Barely. Because I was a grown-up. “I guess I’m hungry.” I gave him a smile that was more grimace-less smile.
He turned back to the stove and finished plating something. “Good thing this is ready.” He slid a plate to me, then got to work making more for everyone else.
I took a bite and moaned. “You gotta be kidding me.”
Phoenix turned back to me, brow raised. By the slow grin on his face, he knew how good it was. “What?”
“I need a flaw.” I held up a hand as Frank listed off some of my flaws. “Stop. No. I have plenty. I think everyone is well aware of my baggage.” I looked at Phoenix. “I need to know one of your flaws. It’ll help humanize you.”
“Do I look stupid? Why on earth would I tell you my flaws? You think I’m fabulous right now. I’m not ruining that.” He gave me a smile. “No way. You’re going to have to figure them out for yourself.”
I rolled my eyes. “Fine,” I said, then pointed my fork at Frank. “The call you just got was from the parents of the boy.”
“Yes. It was a mess last night, and I knew it would take several sessions, but everything went wrong.”
“What happened?”
“The demon…” He tugged his komboskoini fully off his wrist and started praying silently, working his thumb over each knot. “It just wouldn’t go. I did everything I was supposed to, but you know, for mere mortals like me, it can take time. It felt like I’d make some headway only to have the demon come back stronger. I eventually grew so tired that I had to call it a night. I meant to drive home, but ended up here.” He rolled the komboskoini between his fingers. “This one seems like it’s going to take a very long time, unless…”
“Right.”
“Unless what?” Phoenix asked.
I met his gaze. “Unless I take care of it.”
Mom made a noise.
I started to say something, but Frank touched my arm to stop me. “I can’t imagine how hard this must be for you,” Frank said to Mom. “I have two girls of my own, and I would destroy anyone who tried to my weaken child—because even if Samantha is fully grown now, she will always be your child. And yet, I have a teen who tried to kill himself this morning. He’s in the hospital, recovering and under a mandatory hold.”
Mom let out a gasp. “Lord, help him.”
“The warfare in that house…I had to force myself to walk in there. It felt thick and heavy. And the battle last night…well, you saw me when I arrived. I thought I’d come here at first because I was weary, and my spirit knew I needed Sam’s help. And then I learned what happened to her, and I thought it was so I could help her this morning. So, I stayed. But now, I’m wondering if I ended up here for an entirely different reason—I needed to be here to ask you to help this child.”
There wasn’t really a choice. I couldn’t say no. “Let’s eat, and then we’ll go.” I looked at Mom. “I’ll do an IV or whatever else you need, but this kid needs help. I won’t say no.”
“Do you ever say no?” Phoenix had a little wrinkle between his brows, and I wished I could say something to ease the worry. But lying had never been my thing.
“No. I’ve delayed before, and I’ve learned that it only makes things worse. With this stuff, sooner is always better. And it sounds like it’s already pretty bad for this kid. So, let’s eat, IV or whatever, and let’s go.”
“Alright.” Mom crossed the kitchen, heading down to the basement. “But I’m giving you a vitamin dose in your IV,” she yelled up to me.
I held up my hands. “Totally fine,” I yelled back. I wasn’t about to argue with her.
“I’d like to come with,” Phoenix said. “Is that okay? Will the family be okay with it?” His hands were shoved in his pockets. His gaze kept darting between me and Frank, as if he wasn’t sure which one of us—or both—would object to it.
“I’ll make it conditional.” Frank looked at me and winced. “But I might have to say that you’re weakened and need him with you.” His voice was a little too high, like he thought I’d be upset with that.
I wasn’t upset about something that was true. “I am weakened, and if he wants to come with me, then I need him. It’s not a lie.”
“Okay. Great. I’ll make the call.” Frank went back outside.
Phoenix motioned to the plate. “Eat.”
I would absolutely eat this and enjoy it. “Thank you. This is amazing.”
“You don’t have to thank me. I like doing it.”
“Well, I still think saying thank you is nice no matter what.” I ate a few more bites, and he went back to cooking. “You sure you’ll be okay with this?”
“I told you I wanted to stick close, so yes. This is what you do, and I’m excited to see what your typical work life is like.”
He plated up another batch and set it on the counter for Frank. Watching him in my kitchen was a little surreal. Having him in my life was surreal. Actually, everything that was happening was surreal. I still felt like I was in some alternate universe.
And something was going on with Phoenix. Was it normal for the guy you’ve just reconnected with to want to hang out twenty-four-seven?
But I didn’t want him to leave. At all.
So, I’d just enjoy it while it lasted and hope he’d be around for a while.
And really, the best way to find out if he’d stick around would be to show him my world.
If he’d been any other guy, he’d already be gone—long gone. I went through the facts in my mind. He’d stuck around through one of the worst nights I’d had in years, and he even carried me upstairs and slept curled at the foot of my bed. He was moving in next door and had somehow learned exactly how I liked my coffee. He even stood up to my mom, giving me the coffee and cookie before breakfast. No one ever went against her. Not even Dastien.
This was a good day.
Honestly, any day that started with Phoenix felt pretty amazing.
I took a sip of iced coffee.
Okay. Yeah. I could do this.