Chapter 28 Nathan
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Nathan
Before I can do anything more than slide my lips over hers, Bella reappears, breathless and wild-eyed.
“My room has a window seat! And a giant closet! And a DESK! And—wait, is that a whole other room over there?”
She points to another set of doors.
“Yeah, that’s my personal music room,” I tell her and watch her face fall.
Then I add gently, because I can’t keep it a secret, and really, I don’t want to, “There’s one downstairs for you to use.”
She smiles, and Adrianna exhales, and fuck me, I’m filled with pride.
These two might be the most important people in the entire world to me. And for reasons I can’t name, it feels so good to have that—to have them.
“Can we see it?” Bella asks.
“Yep, come on,” I say and take Ad’s hand as we leave our room.
I lead them—my family—toward the back of the house, where a doorway opens into a small but fully soundproofed studio.
Hardwood floors.
A keyboard against the wall.
Racks for guitars.
A mixing setup.
Sound panels.
Everything all sleek and ready.
Adrianna steps inside slowly, her fingers drifting over the keyboard as if drawn by a magnet.
She presses one key.
A clean, perfect note fills the room.
She presses another, then two together—creating a sweet, simple chord.
Something inside me cracks open.
She used to play like this—untaught, untrained, all instinct and feeling.
Sitting beside me on the floor of my old attic bedroom, using the shitty electric keyboard my grandmother bought at a yard sale.
She’d close her eyes, listen to what I hummed, and mimic it until it became something real.
Something ours.
Something that made us both believe in magic.
“You remember this?” she asks softly.
“Every second,” I whisper.
She smiles—small, shy, beautiful—and traces the keys again.
My fingers itch. My chest tightens. My whole fucking being feels like it’s straining toward her.
The music in my head—silent for years—stirs.
A rhythm.
A melody.
A spark.
Her spark.
“You’re incredible,” I say, but she shakes her head and steps back like she can’t let herself accept the compliment.
I hate that.
I hate that the world ever made her doubt what she is.
But there’s time for that.
Time to show her what she is.
Time to rewrite every false belief she carries about herself.
I’ll make goddamn sure of that.
Right now?
I need to take care of what matters most.
Adrianna.
Bella.
This family of mine.
This fragile beginning we’ve made.
The threat hanging over their heads.
Because before I can write a single lyric, before I can let myself drown in the music she brings back to life in me—I have to make her feel secure.
I have to make her safe.
I have to make sure she never doubts what she means to me again.
I look at her standing there in the studio light, her hand drifting along the keyboard like she’s touching a memory—and my heart thunders with the real, unedited truth.
Adrianna means so much to me.
She’s the star that guides me back when I’m lost.
The hope that sparks light despite the darkness surrounding me.
She is my breath, my heart, my body.
Adrianna is home.
She is everything.
And I’m going to protect her with every fucking breath I have.