twenty nine #2
Brooks dragged a hand down his face, jaw tightening, but I didn't stop.
"Every room we walk into, I feel it. And I try-God, I try so hard not to let it get to me. I just feel like I'm some phase you'll outgrow when it's time to settle down and be serious."
His voice cracked when he finally spoke. "You are serious to me."
I looked down at my hands in my lap. They were still trembling.
"And yet I feel like a placeholder. Like I'm the secret you'll regret."
That did something to him.
He shifted closer, sliding both hands around my face, tipping my chin until I had no choice but to look at him.
"I need you to hear me when I say this." His voice was low but firm. "I'm a grown ass man. I can be with whoever the hell I want. I'm not seventeen asking permission to fall in love."
"Brooks-"
"No. You think my parents scare me? You think a doorman's opinion decides my future? You're not a placeholder. You're the only thing in my life that makes me feel like I'm not performing every second of every day."
I blinked. His words were sharp but his touch was gentle. Like he was trying to slice through every wall I'd built without letting them fall too hard.
"I love you," he said, eyes fierce. "That's not politics. That's not strategy. That's mine. That belongs to me. And I don't give a damn how it looks."
A sob escaped my throat, uninvited, and then I was crying again-this time harder, messier.
He pulled me into his chest, wrapping his arms around me like he was trying to shield me from everything. His hand cradled the back of my head, the other tracing my spine in long, slow strokes.
"You're safe," he whispered. "You're safe with me. Always."
I don't know how long we stayed like that. Minutes. Maybe longer. The world felt smaller here-warmer. Like nothing else could touch me if I stayed wrapped in his arms.
Eventually, the weight of it all started to ease. Not disappear, but shift. Like I didn't have to carry it alone anymore.
My eyes burned. My limbs ached. My head was pounding from the adrenaline crash.
But for the first time all night, I didn't feel like I was falling.
He lifted me gently-just enough to guide me under the covers, his movements tender, like I was something breakable. I let him tuck the blanket around me. I didn't say anything when he brushed my hair back, or when he kissed my temple with a care that made my heart crack open all over again.
He didn't leave.
He laid down beside me, fully dressed, one arm stretched around my waist, grounding me there.
I felt the warmth of his body. The steady rhythm of his breathing.
It felt like something tethering me in place.
A breath. A pause. Then another.
We sat like that for a while. Maybe twenty minutes.
Maybe longer. My body had stopped shaking, but I stayed curled in his lap, exhausted and wrung out.
His chest rose and fell in slow, even patterns.
One of his fingers brushed against my hip every now and then-absentminded, but rhythmic, like he was trying to let me know he wasn't going anywhere.
Eventually, I closed my eyes. Not to sleep, but just to stop seeing.
The shadows behind my lids felt safer than the room around me.
Every time I opened them, I remembered again-how everything felt ruined. How my own skin didn't feel like home.
And then his voice broke the silence, soft enough to fold into the air between us.
"Do you want water?"
I shook my head.
"Do you need anything?"
I opened my mouth, then closed it again. I didn't know what I needed. Or maybe I did, and it scared me too much to say out loud.
So I said nothing.
Instead, I turned toward him, my cheek resting against his chest. His button up smelled like detergent and something faintly herbal-like cologne that had long since faded but still lingered in the fabric. He pulled the blanket higher over my shoulder, then brushed my damp hair off my face.
We stayed like that until the silence stopped feeling so loud.
Until my breathing matched his.
And when the quiet settled again, I didn't fill it.
Until I did.
"I want to leave."
His head lifted slightly. "What?"
I didn't move. I couldn't. The words were fragile. If I looked at him while I said them, I might shatter.
"I want to move to Jersey," I said. "I can't go back to the club. I don't want to."
The way he exhaled was quiet but startled, like I'd knocked the air from his lungs in one clean strike. He opened his mouth, and I could feel the hesitation forming there-the beginning of some gentle suggestion that I sleep on it, that I give it a day or two before deciding anything permanent.
But I cut him off.
"I know what you're going to say-that I'm emotional, that I should rest, that it's just tonight that's got me like this. But I'm telling you-this isn't new."
My voice cracked at the edges.
"I've felt it coming for a while. It's just-tonight sped it up."
Brooks didn't say anything right away.
His arm around me tightened a little. Not in protest. More like a brace.
"Okay," he said finally, voice even. "Then we'll go."
The words were simple. Quiet. But they landed in me with the force of something much bigger.
I blinked, slow and disbelieving. "Really?"
He paused, brushing a hand over my arm. "if you're sure, then yeah. We'll go."
Something in my chest squeezed tight.
I hadn't realized how much I expected him to resist. To remind me how hard it would be. How inconvenient. How sudden.
But he didn't.
He just said yes.
"You don't have to make a decision tonight," he added. "Even if you think you've made one. If you wake up tomorrow and feel different-"
"I won't," I said, cutting in.
He didn't argue.
Instead, he nodded slowly, like he understood it in his bones.
I rolled onto my back, staring up at the ceiling.
It looked different in the dark. Softer, somehow. Less perfect.
My voice came out small. "I think I've known for a while."
He turned his head on the pillow. "Known what?"
"That I was outgrowing the club. That it was starting to hurt more than help."
He was quiet for a beat. "Why didn't you say anything?"
I shrugged. "Because I didn't think I had anything else."
"You do."
I looked over at him.
His eyes were open now, watching me carefully. "You have me. If you want me."
I didn't know what to say to that.
I looked away.
My throat was tight. "What if it doesn't get better?"
"It will."
"You don't know that."
"No," he agreed. "But I know you and I know you'll figure out what you want."
I was quiet again.
Tears prickled behind my eyes again-not the same sobbing from before. These felt quieter. Sadder, in a way that was almost peaceful.
The room was silent again, except for the hum of the heat vent.
I turned toward him, laying my hand flat against his chest. His heart thudded under my palm-steady and human and alive.
"I don't want to be someone you hide," I said. "I don't want to feel like a secret."
"You're not."
"I feel like one."
His jaw clenched, but he didn't speak. He waited.
I took a breath, shaky. "I feel like... a placeholder. Like I'm just filling in until something more palatable comes along. Someone with a name that doesn't make headlines. Someone who doesn't make people raise their eyebrows."
His eyes flashed with something like pain. "You think I'm waiting for that?"
"I think people like you don't always get to choose."
"I'm choosing you."
"But for how long?"
He sat up a little, propping himself on one elbow.
"As long as you'll let me."
It should have made me feel better.
But I couldn't help it-the words were out before I could stop them. "It doesn't always feel like it."
He looked wrecked.
Like he didn't know what to do with that. Like it hit him in a place deeper than words.
"I hate that I've caused you to feel this way."
I stared up at him, swallowing hard.
"It would be just my luck to end up with someone who makes me feel both so safe and so afraid."
His eyes glistened in the dark.
The silence wrapped around us again. Thicker this time, but not cold.
I reached for him again, curling back into his chest.
His arms closed around me like it was the most natural thing in the world.
"I'm tired," I murmured.
"Sleep," he said. "I'm not going anywhere."
And for once, I believed him.
I let my eyes close.
Let my muscles go slack.
And somewhere between heartbreak and healing, I finally let myself rest.