Chapter 28 #2
Before I have a chance to argue, Zane and Max are removing their shirts, Kade is rolling up one of his pant legs, and Ryder is removing his jacket.
All of them turn, with different areas of their bodies facing me and that’s when I notice.
Each of them have the same tattoo of a life-like bear cub with the letters A and G in a banner across the front.
Initials. My initials. Well, my old ones anyway.
This time when the tears form and pool in my lash line, I let them fall as I stare at the beautiful images in front of me. “You-you guys really didn’t give up. Did you?” I choke out between my sobs.
“Not for a day, Baby Girl,” Zane answers, turning so that he’s facing me again. The rest follow suit and as I look into each of their eyes, nothing but honesty and sincerity shine back at me.
I don’t know why I ever doubted them when they said they had searched for me.
Some cruel part of me trying to trick my mind into believing I wasn’t important enough to be looked for.
That they had lived their lives without lurking nightmares plaguing their thoughts.
There’s a section within me that’s ecstatic.
My best friends, my men, never gave up—still won’t give up.
But there's also a part of me that harbors a deep sadness for them.
For the lives they never got to live and the experiences they never got to have.
Too busy looking for the missing girl from their past.
My jaw hardens, the thoughts of what more they could have accomplished in their lives, had they forgotten about me, lingering within my brain matter. Stabbing into the lobes of my mind like a tattoo gun, inking the thoughts onto the surface for eternity.
“Oh no. Don’t you do that,” Ry says sternly, placing himself in front of me and grabbing my face within his hands.
Wiping my tears away as they fall, I look at him with soft eyes and a wrinkled face, unsure of what he’s talking about.
“I know what you’re doing, Bear,” he continues, his thumbs stroking my cheeks in a soothing rhythm.
“You’re far inside your head at the moment.
Spiraling downward towards the area where your guilt lives.
You think that somehow, you’re to blame for what we either did or didn’t do within the last decade.
” He holds my gaze, forcing me to look at him. Even when I try to look away.
“But…h-how?” I mutter under my breath.
“Angel, I spent thirteen years learning everything I could about you. Every emotion, every look, every tell… I know when you’re angry, when you’re sad. Hell, I can even tell when you’re getting a headache from Max talking non-stop,” he claims.
“Hey!” Max shoots out from the other side. “I take offence to that!”
“Good! It was meant as an offence,” Ryder retorts, before continuing his speech. “This moment right here, with the face you’re making, tells me you’re blaming yourself. And I’m not going to let you do that. You can’t put this back on you. We did not suffer for the last twelve years.”
“Well, I mean we did, but not in the way you think, Kitten,” Kade pipes up, his head cocking to the side as he shoves his hands into his pockets.
“Of course we were angry, confused, and sad. So fucking sad. Our hearts broke, not having you around. Not knowing where you were or what was happening to you. To even know if you were still alive. We made it our mission to keep searching for you no matter what, but that was our choice. Our decision. No one forced us or held us accountable, and if we had the option to do it all over again, we wouldn’t change a damn thing. ”
My eyes are watering so much, everything around me has become a blur of liquid and color, but I manage to look toward where I know Z is standing.
He nods his head in agreement, and my gaze moves on to Max, who gives me the same thing.
Ryder’s hands are still cupped around my tear-soaked face, holding me close to him.
I bring my hands up, gently clasping his wrists and guiding them back down. Before raising my arms up to move my hair over my left shoulder.
“About a year ago, I found myself alone for the first time in a very long time,” I clear my throat, hyping myself before I admit this out loud for the first time.
“The first thing I did besides run, obviously, was find a local artist.” Moving my hair and turning slightly, I show them the memorial tattoo I had gotten done for the four of them.
Placed just behind my right ear, is the symbol for male with four shining northern stars surrounding it.
“I got it as a way to recognize that even in my darkest times, I had the four of you as my guiding lights. Pulling me from the depths and back to the surface above. Even though none of you were physically with me at the time, the memories of you made all the difference.”
I let out a long breath, inhaling deeply once again and closing my eyes. “Time for the big one,” I think internally, as I grab myself by the lady-balls.
“I remember, there were nights where I would lie awake, imagining all the things I would tell you if we were ever able to be together again. What I was always afraid that I would never get to say… that you would never be able to hear the words from me…”
“What is it that you want us to know, Princess?” Max asks, walking up to my side and placing a kiss on my shoulder.
“That I… I love you,” I utter out, looking up to face all of them head on. Straightening my shoulders, I hold my chin high and speak a little louder. “That I’m in love with you… all of you. And I have been since we were kids.”
In that moment, the cold tension that once blanketed our small space, breaks.
Replaced with a smoldering heat, living just beneath the surface of all our skin.
The guys—my guys—all hover, the distance closing between us now that they’ve been told, openly, that I want them.
Their eyes burn with lust and need as the silence around us morphs into a rolling wave of heavy breathing.
The ragged inhales from five people who are about to change the entire nature of the relationship between them.
As if I hadn't already done that with two of them.
The only other sound in the room is the tick of the clock on the wall.
A tick which is unknowingly counting down to all of our combustion.