Chapter 41 Giving UpGiving In
GIVING UP OR GIVING IN
ORAZIO
“We’re not doing the tourney.”
“Ori…” Jessa sighs from her perch against the doorframe.
Alice is tucked protectively in my arms, her rhythmic breath puffing over my skin. Harley is spooned to her back, also asleep, face nuzzled into her crown of curls. She hasn’t woken in over twenty-four hours, only stirring enough to turn over in her slumber, and so I haven’t left her side.
I can’t. Can’t move. Can’t do anything else but stare at her to ensure she’s still breathing.
I trace over one of the red scratches that mar her skin from tumbling through the brush. This one is on her cheek; it slices through her freckles, and while it isn’t deep enough to scar, I’m overcome with rage that she’s been marked like this.
It can never happen again.
“It’s not happening, Jessa,” I rumble with finality.
“I was wrong to allow you all to think the tourney was possible. She’s not ready.
And now that Maven and Enzo know she’s back…
” I swallow around the lump in my throat.
“Fuck Arcadia. They can have it. I care about our people but not as much as I care about you all. Let’s just be happy here. Together.”
A quiet beat passes before Jessa pushes off the molding and approaches the bed; the action is a mirror to what I’ve done so many times over the past two months, waking up Alice in this very room to go train. The bed sinks with her weight.
“Okay,” Jessa says, quietly, reaching out to toy with a strand of Harley’s white hair. “She said something similar on the Fourth of July, you know.” She sighs, tonguing her cheek. “Has Alice told you that she was married?”
“Jessa, I’ve known since we were twenty-two,” I admit. “I saw them. In the city.”
Jessa’s shocked expression melts away as realization clicks. My drunken night with Harley. My subsequent distance. My visceral reaction to Alice coming back.
“You thought she rejected you.”
“She did reject me,” I whisper, the hurt pinging in my chest. “And she all but did again, right before Enzo found her.” I chew on my bottom lip, rip into the skin until I taste blood. “But I don’t care about that anymore.”
“You’re giving up?”
I shake my head, curling closer to the woman I’ve finally admitted to wanting and the man I’ve been holding myself back from. “Giving in.”
“About damn time,” Jessa huffs, though its full of affection as she stands and rounds the bed. She ruffles my hair, patting my crown. “Tell them that when they wake up, will you?”
I swat her hand away, but she just chuckles, leaving me to watch over our pack.
That’s what we are, even if I’ve been too stupid to admit it.
“Did you mean that?” Harley’s red-brown eyes peer at me over Alice’s head, burning bright.
My throat tightens as I whisper, “I didn’t know you were awake.”
“I can be sneaky when I want to,” he says. “Did you mean what you said?”
“Yeah,” I sigh. My fingers twitch to brush over his cheek, so I let them, rather than holding them back.
His white lashes flutter at the first touch of our skin.
He’s soft, with the same freckles as Alice dotting over his cheeks and nose.
“I’m sorry for being a dick. I’ve always had feelings for you, but that doesn’t excuse the—”
“I forgive you.”
“I didn’t finish my apology yet.”
“I once told Alice that I’m not a hard person to convince when it comes to pleasing the women in my life,” Harley says, glancing down at the woman slumbering between us. “I’m also not someone who withholds forgiveness from the man in my life who clearly needs it.”
“Harley—”
“Just promise me you won’t hold back your feelings going forward,” he says.
My thumb swipes over his cheek and down his jaw, which is stubbly from two days’ worth of growth.
His lithe hand reaches up, gripping my wrist, squeezing all his hope and love into my pulse point.
“It’s okay if it’s slow. And it’s okay if it’s messy at first.” He pulls our hands from his face and plants them on Alice’s waist, fingers laced together.
She doesn’t stir, but with her warmth added to ours, I almost feel complete.
“You can trust us with your heart, Ori. We won’t let it break again. ”