33. Adriano
When Casey walks back into the brownstone carrying her overnight bag and looking nervous enough that it nearly kills me, every instinct in my body reacts to it like something sacred returning.
Letty launches herself at her before the front door even fully closes.
“You came back!”
Casey laughs as she catches her, the sound still a little shaky around the edges. “I did.”
“For forever?”
My chest tightens immediately.
Casey glances up at me over Letty’s curls for one brief second before smoothing her hand down her back. “I’m still figuring some things out,” she says carefully.
It would be easier if she’d lied.
Told Letty yes, told me yes.
But she doesn’t, because this is what honesty looks like now: uncomfortable, raw, and sometimes even painful.
And, God, I love her for it.
Letty seems satisfied enough with that answer, immediately dragging Casey toward the living room to show her a drawing involving dinosaurs, glitter glue, and what appears to be our family represented as vaguely threatening stick figures.
“You’re the tallest,” Letty informs me seriously.
“That feels inaccurate.”
“But Casey has the best hair and bigger boobs.”
Casey makes a choking sound beside me.
I stare at my daughter. “Who teaches you these things?”
“Matteo.”
Of course he does. I can’t even be mad. I’m too happy to have Casey home to feel anything but joy, and I suspect he has something to do with that. Casey knew about ISM and he was the one who pushed me to take her the pastries. Fuck, I love my brother.
Dinner is quieter than usual that night.
Casey sits beside me at the table for the first time in days, and the awareness of her there hums through my body so constantly I barely taste the food in front of me.
Her knee brushes mine once accidentally beneath the table and my cock hardens. Fuck, I want her so bad.
It’s embarrassing how badly one touch affects me now.
Casey laughs softly at something Letty says, and the sound settles somewhere deep in my chest like relief. I missed her laugh and the easier version of her that started existing slowly over the past few months before I damaged it with my own stupidity.
At some point during dessert, Letty disappears upstairs to apparently “build Legos.”
The kitchen quiets gradually afterward. Suddenly it’s just me and Casey alone in the space.
The silence shifts immediately, tension like a living heartbeat between us.
Casey reaches automatically for the plates stacked near the sink. “You don’t have to do that.”
“I know, but I want to.”
She says it gently, and something about that nearly undoes me. Because she used to tense whenever someone corrected her instincts to help. Like existing in a space always had to be earned somehow. Now she just sounds comfortable as she claims her place here.
I watch her rinse dishes quietly for a moment before stepping closer without really thinking about it. Casey stills immediately when I stop behind her. I gather her hair to the side and bend so the scent of her skin envelops me.
“Can I kiss you?” I ask softly.
The words feel awkward in my mouth. I’m so used to taking what I want that earning it, asking for it, seems strange.
But it’s necessary. I need to earn the right to kiss her without asking and we’re not there yet.
Most of my life, asking implied uncertainty, and uncertainty felt dangerous.
Then Casey taught me that asking can also mean respect.
Her eyes lift slowly to mine. “You’ve never asked me that before.”
“No.”
“Why now?”
I could lie.
Say because I’m trying.
Because I’m learning, but honesty is the only way I’ll convince her I’ve learned. “Because I don’t think I realized before how often I assumed your yes belonged to me.”
Emotion flickers across her face so quickly I almost miss it.
Pain.
Love.
Something softer.
“Adi…”
“You never owed me certainty just because you loved me.”
The words scrape something raw out of my chest because I understand now, with horrifying clarity, how close I came to becoming the kind of man I hate, entitled in quiet, dangerous ways.
Casey sets the plate down slowly before turning fully toward me.
Then, very carefully, she reaches for my hand. The contact nearly destroys me with how good it feels. “You’re learning,” she whispers.
I close my fingers around hers immediately, gently pulling her closer. “Yes.”
She studies me for another second. Then smiles. “Yes. You can kiss me.”
Christ.
I think I fall a little more in love with her every time she chooses me freely. I touch her like she’s breakable at first. One hand settling against her jaw while I lean down slowly enough to give her every opportunity to change her mind. She doesn’t.
The second her mouth touches mine, something inside me unclenches for the first time in weeks. Relief floods through me so hard it almost hurts. Casey makes the softest sound against my lips, and suddenly holding back becomes almost impossible again for entirely different reasons.
I kiss her deeper, carefully, my thumb brushing slowly across her cheek while she melts closer inch by inch until her hands slide into the front of my shirt like she’s missed this too.
God.
The feel of her against me after weeks without it nearly brings me to my knees.
I pull back just enough to rest my forehead against hers. “You came back,” I murmur before I can stop myself.
The words leave more exposed than I intended.
Casey’s expression softens instantly. “I told you I needed time,” she whispers.
“I know.” My hand tightens slightly at her waist. “I just wasn’t sure if time would lead you away from me.”
Then she kisses me again. And for the first time since the warehouse, hope settles properly back into my chest. Not because everything is fixed or magically healed. But because she’s still here.
“For the record, Adi, you never need to ask before you touch me.”
God.
This woman.
Later that night, I find her curled on the couch in the library wearing my sweater again while rain taps softly against the windows.
She glances up as I walk in. “I thought you were working.”
My lips quirk. “I was supposed to be.”
“And?”
I look at her for a moment too long. “I got distracted.”
A smile tugs slowly at her mouth. “By organized crime and legal contracts?”
“By you.”
Heat rises instantly in her cheeks.
I cross the room before I can think too hard about it and settle beside her on the couch, pulling her automatically against my side. Casey relaxes into me after only the smallest hesitation.
Progress.
The thought shouldn’t feel as precious as it does.
“You look tired,” she murmurs against my shoulder a few minutes later.
I huff out a laugh. “That’s deeply offensive.”
“It’s true, though.”
“I haven’t slept properly in days.”
Her fingers still briefly against my chest. Guilt flickers across her face immediately. I catch her hand before it can retreat. “No,” I say quietly. “Don’t do that.”
“What?”
“Take responsibility for my inability to cope like a normal person.”
Despite herself, she laughs softly.
The sound warms something deep in my ribs.
“I missed you,” she admits after a while.
I close my eyes briefly. “Tesoro,” I murmur.
“You looked genuinely haunted.”
“I was genuinely haunted.”
“That’s a bit dramatic, Adi.”
“I’m Italian.”
Casey snorts suddenly against my chest, and the startled laugh that follows feels so normal, so us, that emotion catches painfully in my throat all over again.
Because, this.
This easy warmth.
This is what I almost ruined.
And I’ll spend the rest of my life making sure I never do again.