Chapter 34
ROMAN
The bags beneath my eyes are heavier than the one I’m carrying up the driveway.
I stopped looking at the time once it passed midnight. It took all my effort to keep from passing out behind the wheel on my way home, but this is where I needed to be. Spending another night away from Vancouver wasn’t possible with how on edge I’ve been this trip.
The rest of the team is still in Seattle and will fly home together tomorrow—or today, I guess.
It takes me three tries to get my key into the lock before I finally push the front door open.
The lights are off, which hopefully means Evie’s asleep.
Regardless of whether she wanted me involved or not, I made her an appointment with her doctor tomorrow to discuss whether the medication she’s on is still doing what it needs to.
I’m not playing around with my niece’s health, and I don’t give a shit if that makes me overbearing.
Numbly, I shove my shoes off and move through the house as silently as possible. Evie’s bedroom door is shut, so I open it just a crack and peer inside. Thankfully, she’s asleep. The snores escaping her are loud, and if I weren’t so exhausted, I’d laugh.
Once I’ve shut the door again, I start for my room. It’s brighter inside than I’m expecting, considering the time and emptiness. The lamp on the nightstand has been turned on to the lowest setting and casts a soft glow throughout the room. I go from confused to shocked and finally, relieved.
If it weren’t for that, I might have missed the person-shaped lump beneath my black comforter. Not to mention the golden hair that’s splayed out all over my pillow and bathing in the light.
Fuck, this is exactly what I needed.
The heaviness poisoning my muscles depletes for just long enough to allow me the strength to set my bag on the dresser and tug my hoodie off.
Taking a seat on the edge of the bed, I softly place my hand on Brielle’s hip.
She doesn’t stir, so I keep it there while taking in the sight of her here in my bed. Asleep, maybe even dreaming.
She’s facing my way, and the longer I stare, the more tiny details I find that I’d been careless enough to miss the first hundred times I’ve looked at her.
There are a few scars on her cheeks that are clearly old, having faded nearly all the way.
She must have had the tip of her ear pierced at one time because there’s a small hole there that hasn’t properly closed yet.
It’s nearly in the same place as mine are, yet not quite.
The roots of her hair have grown a bit darker over the weeks since she’s dyed it back to blonde.
It’s almost the same colour, yet different enough that I know it must be her true natural colour.
I smooth my palm down the small pieces sticking up from her crown before using a knuckle to sweep a few strands off her temple.
Her breathing changes as she makes a low, sleepy noise, and her lashes move. A second later, her eyes are opening just a crack. She blinks a few times, forcing herself awake.
“Go back to sleep, baby. I didn’t mean to wake you,” I whisper, leaning down, my finger stroking her jaw.
She swallows, then wets her lips. “You’re home.”
“I am.”
“Early.”
“It’s late,” I tell her.
“No,” she murmurs roughly. “You’re back early.”
“I needed to be here.”
Her eyes open a bit wider as she tries to focus them on me. One of her hands slips out from beneath the blanket and finds my wrist, holding on to it.
“Why?”
I hold myself back instead of kissing her like I want to. With her staring at me all drowsy and soft, like maybe my being here tonight makes her as happy as it makes me.
“You know why,” I breathe out, nudging my finger under her chin. With a gentle lift, I have her head tipped just enough that I can swoop in to taste her lips.
She shuts her eyes again, smiling into the kiss as I gather her hair in my hand and pull it all toward the top of the pillow, away from her face. It’s beautiful like this, dripping all over my pillow.
“I wasn’t trying to be creepy, crawling into your bed,” she admits sheepishly, breaking the kiss. “Aubrey was going to bring me home, but I just . . .”
“There’s no better place for you to be tonight.”
It could be the exhaustion speaking, or this could be the truth that I can no longer ignore or push aside in hopes of making it go away.
Whichever it is doesn’t matter tonight. Right now, the only thing I want is to crawl into this bed beside the woman who I haven’t been able to stop thinking about and fall asleep with her in my arms.
Even if this is the only night I get to experience this, it will have been worth it.
Brielle releases my wrist and flips over onto her back before rubbing the flat blanket beside her. The loopy grin on her face makes my chest fill with fire.
“This is me asking you to join me, in case it wasn’t obvious,” she teases after a beat.
I chuckle and stand. Feeling her eyes on my back, I drop my hands to my waist and shove my track pants down.
My T-shirt goes next, then my socks, leaving me in only my briefs when I turn the lamp off and join her in bed.
The sudden lack of light makes what we’re doing feel a bit less daunting, knowing there’s somewhere to hide.
Before I’ve got a chance to tug the blankets up over myself, she’s rolling toward me. Her arm goes flying over my stomach, holding me tight, while her thigh drapes over mine and squeezes. The chilliness of her toes sends a jolt through me when they curl beneath my knee.
I reach around her and fist the comforter, covering the both of us with it.
“I’m not drunk,” she declares suddenly.
“I didn’t think you were.”
Her cheek finds my chest, resting directly over the kick drum hiding inside of it. “Good. Because that’s not why I’m here or why I want to share the bed with you.”
“What’s the real reason?”
“You know it,” she whispers, using my previous words against me.
“I’m selfish. I want you to tell me anyway.”
I tuck an arm behind my head and rest a hand on my chest. It’s close enough that I can feel her exhales ghost across my knuckles. In the dark, I pretend that I can’t feel her looking up at me and close my eyes. There’s no telling what I’d say if I got lost in her eyes right now.
“Why a butterfly?”
My chest stills beneath her cheek. She runs a feather-light touch across the back of my hand as if fully aware of where the outline of the tattoo exists without being able to see it.
“When we were kids, my sister—Lena—wouldn’t go anywhere without her bug-catching kit.
There was a huge mesh cage in our room that she filled with butterflies all summer.
It wasn’t humane in the slightest, but she was only nine, so our parents never said anything about it.
I did, though. I hated that she was keeping bugs in the house, especially so close to my bed.
So, one night, after she’d finished reading them one of her Ninja Turtle books, I shoved the window between our beds open and unzipped the cage so the butterflies could escape. ”
I swallow and focus on the sound of Brielle’s steady breathing.
“It was like she had a sixth sense when it came to those things because the moment the first one flew out, she was jumping out of bed and throwing her alarm clock at me. I’ve still got the scar from where it cut me.”
Brielle shakes with a near-silent laugh. “She sounds like a badass.”
“Yeah. There wasn’t a single holiday dinner that she didn’t bring that up and curse me out for it in front of anyone who would listen.”
“Did she always love butterflies?”
My lips quirk despite the heaviness of the conversation. “Only when she wanted to use what happened to get something from me. Then suddenly, she had a million ideas for how to protect every single one of them in existence.”
“The tattoo is for the memory, then,” she muses, lips against my chest.
“Mm. I think about that night a lot. Even after this long, I can still remember it like it happened yesterday.”
“You don’t need to tell me what happened to her right now, or tomorrow, or even in the next few months. But I would like to know eventually. Especially with how much she meant to you.”
I lower my arm to rest around the curve of her shoulder. “I don’t talk about her a lot.”
“Do you want to?”
“Of course I do. It feels like I’m trying to forget she ever existed when I don’t. But it fucking hurts,” I admit, my throat squeezing the life out of the words.
She sweeps a hand up my chest and settles it at the base of my throat, applying a warm, steady pressure that becomes my focus. “She knows that you think about her. She has to. Especially after watching you raise Evie.”
“Sometimes I wonder if she made a mistake putting her with me. Evie’s father is a pathetic prick who never wanted anything to do with being a real, honest member of her family, but our mom could have done a better job than I did.
I heard all about that for the first year after Lena passed.
Taking on the task of raising a teenager changed me more than I could have expected, and it nearly broke me. I don’t know if I messed her up for—”
Brielle’s finger presses to my lips, shushing me. Hovering right above me, she balances herself on my chest and shakes her head, eyes bright even in the dark.
“You did everything you could with what you knew at the time. And who cares if you weren’t perfect?
Parents rarely are. But you were still there for her during the hardest time of her life, even when you were grieving the same person just as deeply.
Evie is incredible, Roman. And you had a lot to do with that.
You did what not everyone would have in your shoes, and that is .
. . that’s really fucking hot. In a totally not weird, sexual way.
” She grins when my lips twitch and drags her hand up my throat to tangle in my hair.
“You might think that it was just you doing what you needed to, but it would have been easier for you to hand her off instead. I promise that Evie loves the hell out of you, and if given the choice for a do-over, she’d choose you every single time. ”
I move instantly.
Brielle goes lax as I roll us over and pin her to the mattress beneath me.
I bury my face in her throat and breathe her in, too overrun by emotions that scare the fucking hell out of me.
They’re distracting, but she’s more so. Her vanilla scent is overshadowed by the laundry soap I use as it clings to the shirt she’s wearing.
I reach down and harshly fist the fabric, yanking it up her stomach.
“The more you tell me things like that, the more I want to keep you,” I declare into her skin.
Her lips find my ear and stay there, demanding that I listen to what she says next.
“I’m not going to stop, so I guess you might as well just take me, then.”