Chapter 41
luna
I toed off my boots, the floor cold under my socks, and crossed the short space to the couch. He didn’t move when I sat down, so I tucked myself into the corner beside him, knees bent toward his side, shoulder brushing his arm.
“You know,” I murmured, eyes on his profile, “we’ve never actually slept together.”
“Wouldn’t be my first choice,” he said flatly.
“Come on, Jer. What’s going on? I feel like I’ve been trying to get to you, but it’s like pushing against a brick wall. You don’t let me in.”
I tucked my legs up under me, refusing to give him space even though every line of his body screamed for it.
“What do you want from me, Jer?”
“I want your signature and you to come downstate and close the estate. That’s it. I need you to sign the papers so we can close, so I’m not stuck owing the ag company every cent they think they’re entitled to. That’s what I need from you.”
“You think I don’t fucking know that?”
His eyes flashed. “Then don’t make this into something it’s not. I’m not asking for the world, I’m asking for a signature. You come, you sign, and it’s done. You disappear again, and I’m still stuck, but at least the debt’s not hanging over me like a goddamn noose.”
“Disappear again?” I was on my feet before I even realized it, heat rushing into my face.
“You make it sound like I wanted to leave. Like I woke up one morning and thought, ‘Gee, you know what would be fun? Walking away from the only two people I’ve ever—’ ” The words caught in my throat.
“You were drowning in booze, Jer. You weren’t there.
You were killing yourself, and I couldn’t—”
“Couldn’t what? Stick around long enough to see me pull my head out of my ass?”
“I was half a world away and still checking every rumor. I did find you once, Jeremy. Austin did his big press conference, and there was a photo of you on your social media where you were still choosing the bottle over me.”
“Yeah. I was a drunk. I was a fuckup. I deserved for you to hate me. I deserved to lose you.” His eyes lifted to mine, furious and hurting at the same time. “But you still fucking left. And don’t tell me you didn’t mean it, because you didn’t come back.”
“You think leaving didn’t tear me apart? You think I didn’t lie awake every night wondering if you were dead, if you were eating, if you’d ever get sober? I hated you for it, Jer. I hated you for making me choose between loving you and saving myself.”
He pushed up from the couch, suddenly towering over me. “And I hated you for saving yourself. For walking away before you got burned again, even if it meant walking away from me.”
He curled his hands into fists, like he’d been holding this in for years. “But then I saw you with him. Will.” His tone darkened, almost spitting the name. “Yeah—what about Will, huh?”
“What about him?”
“You were… happy with him,” he bit out. “Perfect photos, perfect life. I figured—hell, I assumed—you were going to marry the guy.”
I swallowed hard. “I almost did.”
He froze.
“I—what?” he rasped.
“I almost got engaged. I never posted or told anyone.”
His jaw tensed. “You never told me.”
“You never asked, Jer.”
He stepped toward me, eyes blazing. “I shouldn’t have to ask. That’s what friends do—they tell each other shit. Especially when it’s something that big.”
“Fine. You want the truth? I almost married him. I was with Will for years, and I broke it off right before it happened. He sucked. After sex, he made me sit there and rehash everything. Every fucking time. Like it was some performance review I could fail.”
Jer’s jaw ticked, his fists curling at his sides.
“I was ashamed,” I said, swallowing hard but not softening.
“Ashamed because he made me feel like I wanted too much. He hated that he couldn’t compete, and guess what?
He couldn’t. Because sex is the one time I feel powerful, Jer.
The one time I feel safe enough to be exactly who I am.
And with him? I felt wrong. I felt small.
I felt like I had to apologize for wanting anything at all.
And—ugh!” I tugged both hands through my hair, pacing because if I stood still, I’d throw something.
“Friends, Luna—”
I shoved him, hard enough that his back hit one of the logs stacked against the wall. “Friends don’t miss friends after they fuck,” I fired back.
“Luna—”
“Friends don’t fuck each other in the car.” I closed the space between us again. “Friends don’t keep each other’s secrets from foster homes. Friends don’t— friends don’t make me feel safe when nothing else ever has.”
He opened his mouth again, but I cut him off, louder this time. “YOU ARE SO MUCH MORE THAN A FRIEND TO ME!”
I spun toward the window and stabbed my finger at the dark outline of the house across the snow. “Do you see that? They have a family. Dirks has a mom, a dad, a sister who adore him. That’s his whole fucking safety net right there.”
I turned back, my chest rising and falling so hard it hurt. “I have you, you fucking bastard. I only have you. You’ve been my only family. I have Nova, sure, but she doesn’t even know you’re around. So guess what? I only have you. And you can’t keep pretending that doesn’t mean something.”
I jabbed my finger into his chest. “Get it through your thick-headed skull, you’re my family. You’ve always been my family.”
He didn’t move, instead he stood there, jaw clenched, eyes locked on mine like every word landed squarely in him.
“That’s what Dirks can’t give me. He’ll always be a part of me, part of my soul, my sunshine… but he will never give me my family. Not like you do.”
I stepped closer, pointing to my own chest. “It’s been you since the foster house, Jer.
From the second I arrived and he stuck me in that goddamn private room, it was always you.
You were the only one who made me feel like I wasn’t alone in there.
I hated leaving that foster house because I knew I’d lose the only family I’d ever had.
And now that I have you again? If you call me a friend one more time, I’ll fucking hurt you. ”
Jer’s mouth ticked up with a low chuckle. “Foster siblings, then?”
“Ugh,” I groaned, flopping back onto the couch and covering my face with my hands.
He sat down beside me, close enough that our knees touched.
“You’re my family too, Lune, and I’m . . . fuck, I’m bad at this. I don’t know how to be what you want.”
I turned toward him, heat still buzzing under my skin from the fight. “You don’t have to be perfect, Jer. You just have to stay.”
“Alright,” he breathed out. “I’ll do it. For the next few months, I’ll date you. No running off. No ghosting.”
“You mean it?”
“Yeah. But you’re gonna have to help me, Lune. I don’t know how to do this without screwing it up. I’m gonna need you to tell me when I’m fucking up.”
“Then listen when I tell you,” I said quickly, leaning in so my knee pressed against his. “I want dates. Just the two of us. I want to wake up and find you still there. I want to feel like you’re mine even when we’ve got our clothes on.”
His mouth twitched, like he wanted to smile but didn’t trust himself to. “That’s a lot for me, Lune.”
“I know, but I want you anyway. All of you. Not just the part that makes me come so hard I forget my own name, or the part that knows exactly how to piss me off in under thirty seconds. I want the rest, too. The Jer who makes me laugh without trying. The one who still remembers the way I take my coffee. The one who knows the shit in my head before I even say it.”
He dragged a hand over his face, groaning quietly. “Alright. I’ll give you that. I’ll date you, for real. But you have to promise me something back.”
“What?”
“That when I panic or fuck it up—and I will—you won’t give up on me. You’ll remind me why I’m here.”
“Deal.”
He stood suddenly, the couch creaking under the shift.
“Okay. Starting now.”
Before I could ask, he was at my suitcase, unzipping it and riffling through it. He pulled out a pair of my soft pink sleep shorts and the matching button-down top and tossed them right at my chest.
“Put these on.”
I caught them, frowning. “You want me . . . clothed? In bed?” I gasped dramatically. “Jeremy, are you feeling okay?”
“Honey, I’m trying here. We’re going to fucking cuddle—” He jabbed a finger at me. “The kind of cuddling you like so damn much. So you’re going to put these on, brush your damn teeth, and then you’re getting in bed.”
I tilted my head, smirking. “Bossy.”
“Don’t think for a second I won’t spank your ass if you show up in anything else.”
We both changed fast—me in the pink pajamas he’d thrown at me, him in a pair of gray sweatpants.
By the time we slid under the covers, the air between us was warmer.
“Now what?”
“Come here,” I whispered, shifting toward him. “Hold me.”
He hesitated for half a beat, then wrapped those big arms around me, pulling me in until I was tucked tight against his chest.
I traced the moon and star on his finger.
“For someone who’s a Dom during sex,” I murmured against his collarbone, “this is very weird. I’m giving you directions.”
He chuckled, lips brushing the shell of my ear.
“You’re my family, too,” he whispered, just before my eyes slipped shut.