Fallon
Chapter sixty-one
Promises
Cyrus and I each carry a sleeping child upstairs, both kids completely wiped after a full day in the sun.
We’d hoped for baths before bed, but they crashed the second we left the park.
Thankfully, Jonah gave Jules a ride home, both looking rather put out over being trapped in a car together.
That left Cyrus free to help me wrangle two limp, exhausted kids into the house.
Truthfully, they aren’t the ones running on empty.
My muscles ache as I lift Billy higher against me. My sunburned skin pulls with every movement, still tender from hours in the heat. But my sweet girl, smelling of sugar and popcorn, has my whole heart bursting at the seams.
The mattress dips as I lower her gently onto her bed.
She hums in her sleep as I untie her shoes, grains of sand spilling from the soles onto the floor.
I smile, brushing dirt from her cheeks, silently acknowledging that baths will have to wait until morning—and these sheets are definitely headed for the wash soon after she vacates them.
Liam’s will have to be thrown in the wash, too.
These two kids are everything a parent could ever ask for.
They are tiny, little, candy-colored messes. And they are perfect.
Gently reassuring myself that we are, in fact, doing a good job at raising them.
“She looks so much like you.” Cyrus’s voice is low behind me, and I hum in agreement, a small smile tugging at my lips.
“Both of you are lovely,” he murmurs. “I should start carrying my sidearm everywhere.”
“Overreacting much?” I whisper, amused.
“Not nearly enough.”
His arms snake around my waist, drawing me back into him, his presence grounding and warm.
“I have to protect my girls.”
I smile at his words. “Sure you do.”
“Fal…everywhere we go, people look at you. You’re stunning, my love. And so is our daughter.”
Our daughter.
His voice cracks something in me wide open—those words…they mean everything.
I love him. I always have. He’s ruined me for anyone else.
These past few weeks have been some of the best days I’ve ever known.
Not all of them have been easy. There’s been tension.
Confrontations. Secrets bared to one another, for the world to see.
The social media fallout was horrendous.
There were so many calls, emails, interviews, and podcast invitations, all relentless.
All because Cyrus did his job.
People are freaking weird.
His calloused hands slide up my arms as we lean together in the doorway, watching Billy snuggle deeper into her dinosaur.
“Cyrus,” I whisper, my voice barely audible. “What are we doing?”
Tension ripples through him as he squeezes me tight.
“Come on, Fal,” he says softly. “Let her sleep. I’ll run you a bath, and we’ll get some aloe on your shoulders.”
He takes my hand, leading me quietly down the hall.
“What are you doing?” I ask, curious.
He shrugs. “Running you a bath. Then, rubbing aloe on you. Tucking you into bed and enjoying the night in the same bed as you.”
I laugh. “Excuse me? Who said you get to sleep in our bed?”
Cyrus turns, smiling with that cocky glint in his eyes.
“You did the moment you referred to it as ours. Don’t spook on me or act like it’s not my first sleep over.
That wasn’t the proposal. When I get down on one knee, you’ll have a front-row seat.
This is…probing.” The hair tie I was using chooses to ignore the importance of this moment and snaps.
Red curls tumble free, cascading down around my face.
Cyrus and I share a small laugh, and the lightness of the moment loosens something in my chest. My hip cocks out as my eyebrows raise.
I’m enjoying this with him. This moment, the laughter, the tenderness of it. Not wanting to lose it, I hedge.
“Probing?”
His lips pull back as he clasps one of my hands in his. Giving me a small spin before he whispers against my lips. “To see if you’d say yes.”
I fiddle with the buttons of his uniform shirt; his muscles beneath my palm twitch as I run my hands over his chest. I sink my teeth into my lip. “Yes, to what?”
His other arm wraps around my waist, pulling me flush against him. “Me,” he wiggles his brows, “probing you.”
I snort—I can’t help it—oh my God. He did not say that. Our laughter gathers into a gentle crescendo, echoing down the hall.
He looks at me the way he does when he’s about to say something that’s going to take my breath away.
“I want forever with you, Fallon. Even that isn’t an adequate amount of time for me to spend loving you.”
Tears burn behind my lashes. I’ve waited so long to be chosen—by him. To be included without bracing for an onslaught of abuse, to exist with him, without counting the seconds until he slips away.
He kisses my forehead, gentle and reverent. “Don’t speak, woman, you have a way of humbling me that I can’t handle right now. Go soak in the bath. I’ll make tea. Then we can deal with that sunburn.”
As he turns to leave, he pauses. “Oh, and Fal?”
I glance over my shoulder, my chest already tight. “Hmm?”
“I love you.” My toes curl into the lush carpet.