Chapter 11
Lana
The soft alarm sound wakes me up from a deep sleep. The best sleep I’ve had in years, really. The heavy weight around my waist made sure of that, even though this isn’t how we fell asleep.
I reach over to kill the alarm on my phone and allow myself to sink into him.
I don’t know how to be angry with him anymore, not these past three days. And his face when he came into my room last night…
It was the same sad face he used to come home with after seeing his parents. When he would come home to me with bruises on his face after a fight with his dad. The same heartbreaking eyes that looked at me with more weight than he could hold.
So I held him as the big spoon and waited for him to fall asleep before I did. I kissed his bare shoulder and back, nestled my cheek against his warm skin, and granted myself the privilege of him.
But at some point in the night, we turned around and now he’s holding me. I’m so warm and comfortable, I never want to move out of this spot on my bed. I never want him to leave this bed either, but he has to.
It’s hard to be mad, but I have to be mad. I have to put my foot down and hold off on forgiving him so easily. I’ll do that later though. I need this right now.
It’s still early, the sun is barely in the sky, and normally I’d get into the shower to get to the bookshop early, but I can spare an hour for this.
“Lana?”
His voice is sleepy and hoarse—the kind of voice most women usually find attractive. But Christian’s just waking up voice is beyond comparison.
“Yeah?” I whisper.
“I should go,” he says, loosening his arms.
But I pull him back by his forearms. “No,” I breathe and turn in his arms. “Stay for a little bit.”
His tired eyes brighten when I face him, a tiny twitch of his lips. He reaches to push hair behind my ear and traces my jaw with his thumb, his eyelids still heavy.
“I wanted to say I’m sorry,” I rasp.
“For what?”
“The way I reacted to your gifts,” I say. “The sneakers and the boots.”
“You were right—”
“It was thoughtful of you.”
Christian sighs quietly through his nose. “Maybe but…”
“You love me with gifts,” I tell him. “You always have. I think… I don’t know, I think it was just the timing of it. I’m sorry.”
“I am too,” Christian whispers. “For leaving you. Lana, I love you so much.”
It is a pinch of pain in the heart, but from a needle and string, slowly stitching up a deep, gaping wound I’ve had for years. A wound I convinced myself was never going to heal.
“I think we need to talk,” I whisper.
Christian inhales, and releases the breath shakily. “Okay.”
“What happened yesterday morning?”
“I don’t know,” he whispers. “I choked when I tried to kiss you and… my day was just weird. I just felt…detached.”
“Was it me?”
“No,” he says quickly, shaking his head. “No, baby, no. Never, no. It was me. It was just a weird day.”
“Describe it to me,” I blurt, scooting closer into his body. “What happened?”
“I don’t know,” Christian whispers, sadness flowing out with the deep tenor of his voice. “I really wanted to kiss you and I got in my head about it. I guess I was just nervous.”
“You were nervous? About kissing me?” I really try not to giggle at all, but that has to be the silliest thing he’s ever said.
“I think so,” he says. “You’re really pretty, you know that.”
Even though I feel myself blush, I say, “Nice try. Talk to me, Christian. Communication is part of this.”
“I got scared I was going to mess it up.”
“The kiss?”
“Us.” Christian shakes his head, lying back and pinching his eyes with his fingers and thumbs. “I can’t do that. I’ve done enough. Okay, I’ve grown. I’ve learned a lot from my mistakes and I know I’m not perfect, Lana, but I’m trying to be the person you want me to be.”
“There,” I say. “That is your problem. I don’t want you or need you to be anyone you already aren’t. I wouldn’t trade who you are for anyone or anything, Christian. I’ve known you since we were nineteen. I fell in love with who you were then and…even now.”
He smirks slightly. “You’re in love with me?”
I roll my eyes, smiling, and turn away from him. “Don’t ruin this.”
Christian pulls me into him tightly, suffocating me in affection. “There has never been a time I wasn’t in love with you, Lana.”
“Hmm.”
“What time is it?”
“Six thirty,” I tell him.
“You’ll have to go soon,” he whispers against my neck.
“I have thirty minutes before I have to get up.”
“Thirty minutes then,” Christian whispers.
“Thirty minutes.”
The alarm sound plays softly and I wake up again thirty minutes later on my back with Christian’s arms wrapped around my body, his head between my ribs.
Smiling, I reach to hit snooze again, giving myself an extra ten minutes to scratch his head while he snores quietly on my stomach.
Ten minutes until I have to force myself out of this bed to go to work. I could “call out” and have my trusted assistant managers take over while I spend the day at home with him.
Christian was always a giant teddy bear like this, holding onto me this way, having the secret love of being the little spoon. I love him like this—all soft and mushy and loving.
I feel myself smiling as my eyelids grow heavy again.
So I grab my phone and make some calls. The first is to Ryan, assistant manager of the bookshop, and then Michelle, assistant manager of the café.
Then I text Natalia that I won’t be there today when she goes to help with the pastries.
She replies with an annoyingly long string of emojis, including several eggplants, and I set my phone aside on the night table.
My fingers sift into his hair again, finding a calm happy place like that rest of me has. It’s only when I’m drifting back to sleep that Christian stirs, softly groaning and readjusting his position before never changing it.
“Lana?” he rasps.
“Yeah?”
He groans against and pushes up onto his elbow to squint at me. “You have to go.”
“No I don’t,” I tell him. “Not today.”
His squint deepens as his brows furrow. “Why not?”
I shrug. “Took the day off. Ryan and Michelle are handling it.”
“Do you have something else to do today?”
“Yeah,” I breathe and settle lower into the bed, adjusting to make myself comfortable on my pillows again. “This.”
Christian’s serious, tired face softens instantly, softening my heart with it. His eyes open enough to show me both his surprise and hope, and the frown drops instantly. “Lana?”
“Come back here,” I whisper.
As though he’s scared I might rescind my offer, he lowers himself back onto my stomach, pressing a kiss through my t-shirt. Christian nestles his head into my body and his arms tighten around me.
“What should we do today?” I ask.
I have a strong feeling today won’t be a good day for him, not after last night when he looked so overpowered by his addiction. No matter how many times he says he is fine and okay, I know him. I know when he feels weak and defenseless even though he isn’t.
He doesn’t realize that this doesn’t make him weak. If anything, it makes him a warrior just for fighting it, to keep trying to win against it.
Christian is a fighter, through and through. Always has been even when he’s thought he wasn’t. Christian is more more than anything he thinks he is. And I love him, even if he thinks I don’t. Yeah, maybe I should tell him, but what does that leave me with? An open wound to pour salt into?
“Can you talk to me?” he whispers.
“About what?”
“Your life.”
I scratch his head gently. “You know everything.”
“I don’t,” he says. “Not anymore. What did you start doing while I was gone? Who did you hang out with?”
I snort. “I hung out with the people I’ve been hanging out with since I was seven, Christian.”
“Aside from them.” Christian lifts his head, resting his chin on my sternum and peering up at me with tortured, coffee colored eyes.
“No one,” I say. “Julian and I got really close after Grace was born and you were gone… He’s my best guy friend.
I saw the rest of the guys sometimes. The twins were like overbearing mother hens for a while.
They’d invite me to family dinners sometimes when it was really bad and I’d sleep over in Isa’s room.
Um… The guys would come over and help with things I needed.
They helped me move into this house and build a lot of stuff. ”
Christian frowns. “It should have been me.”
I don’t have the heart to say, yes, it should have been.
Instead I go on, “I finished my bachelors in business online.” I don’t mention that it was his mother’s money that helped pay for it.
“Then I opened the cafe. Natalia opened her bakery and Isabelle started teaching dance and… We grew up. We celebrated birthdays, holidays. For Christmas, the twins sometimes invited me to their family’s house.
Sometimes I spent it alone and visited my mom.
My first birthday…after… They all just invited themselves over to the apartment and forced me to go trick or treating.
They told me, "What's the point of my birthday being on Halloween if I don’t go trick or treating.”
Christian snorts, but it’s sad. He’s heartbroken. Just telling him these things looks like I’ve hit a man that is already down.
“Did you date anyone?”
“Why?” I stifle a smile. “Jealous?”
His brows pinch and he nearly glaring. “No,” he grumbles.
I arch a brow with a chortle. “No?”
“A little.”
I sigh, smiling weakly. “I went on that date with Levi.”
“But before that?”
I shrug and avoid the dating questions. “I started going to the gym with Julian a lot,” I tell him, and I don’t miss the way surprise flashes in his eyes.
Or maybe it’s suspicion. “He taught me a lot of work outs. Taught me a bit of kick boxing. It was nice. It felt therapeutic.” I chuckle to myself.
“I broke down one day, just punching the hell out of the bag until I was screaming and sobbing. After that… I don’t know, I felt freer. ”