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Christ.
Glancing around at all the solemn faces, I asked, “What’s going on?”
“Killian refuses to leave here without you,” Uncle Ramsey informed me. “But we’re more interested in what you want.”
I looked over at Killian, and as soon as I did, he stood up from the chair that he’d been sitting in. “They’re going to have to throw me out if you don’t want to leave with me,” he stated, and my heart thumped inside my chest again.
“You’ll be lucky if that’s all we do,” Lennon huffed, and though this situation was a clusterfuck, I almost laughed. A lot of people didn’t understand Lennon, but since I did, all that I could see were her good intentions. No matter how messy, violent, or unreal, Lennon’s words and actions always came from her heart, and they were always filled with good intentions, no matter how brutal the delivery.
“Lennon, that’s enough, I said,” Uncle Deke said sternly, eyeing his youngest child. “Get it under control, young lady.”
Even though Crew was the one in the family that was emotionally unstable, Lennon wasn’t emotionally unstable, so much as she couldn’t control her temper when it came to her family. You had a better chance of taking down an enraged bull than you did talking down an enraged Lennon Marlow.
With most of the men in the room eyeing Lennon to make sure that she just didn’t go off and stab Killian in the neck, Uncle Ramsey was eyeing me in that way that made him the patriarch of our entire family and it was hard to hold his gaze.
Finally, he said, “If you leave with Killian, you’re signing up for the hardest relationship that you are ever going to have, Posie.” I could feel my eyes begin to sting. “Loving him is going to be one of the most painful experiences that you are ever going to endure. I want you to understand that.” The entire room was deathly quiet and that just added to the weight of his words. “As much as we’d all like to make this about him, this is about you. To love him will mean showing him the parts that haven’t healed, the parts that are never going to heal.” He walked up to me, and I didn’t bother wiping away the tears that began to fall. “And if you think that he’s not going to demand to see them, then you’re wrong.”
“I…I know,” I whispered.
“No, honey, I don’t think that you do,” he said softly. “Nevertheless, it’s your decision. If you love him, then none of us will stand in your way. However, if you don’t love him, then there’s nothing that we won’t do to make sure that you’re safe from him.”
“She’s not in danger from me,” Killian hissed, and that snapped me out of my emotions. “And I already told you that I’m not fucking leaving here without her. She doesn’t have to love me for me to love her.”
“Killian-”
“No,” he snapped, cutting me off. “I’m not fucking doing this with you, Posie. I’ve already gone days without you, wondering what the fuck I’m supposed to do if you walk away from me, and I’m not doing that anymore. You’re coming with me, and only over my dead or unconscious body will that not happen.”
I cradled my head in my hands. “I…I don’t know what to do-”
Before I knew it, Killian had taken Uncle Ramsey’s place and had my wrists encased in his large hands, his face in mine. “Do you love me? No bullshit, Posie. Do you love me?”
Looking up at him, I wasn’t going to lie; I couldn’t. “I do.”
Killian’s entire frame sagged with relief. “Then leave with me, so that we can figure this shit out,” he said. “I fucked up. I get it. I get that more than you can possibly imagine. But I am not going to let that cost me the one thing in the world that I can’t fucking live without.” He took my face in his hands. “I don’t fucking care how ugly things get between us. I can live in ugly. I can do all kinds of things in the dark. What I can’t do is live without you, and I won’t.” His blue eyes were like lasers burning through my soul. “They will have to fucking kill me, Posie.”
Suddenly, it was amazing how exhausted I felt. The emotional stress of this entire situation was finally making itself known, and it wasn’t just this nonsense with Killian. Even though I’d come a long way since my attack, I was so fucking tired of making sure that I never turned back to the old Posie. I was so determined never to be her again that I forced myself to act like she didn’t still exist somewhere deep inside me, and she did. She was always going to be a part of me, and that Posie wanted someone to just hold her when this Posie got tired.
I took a deep breath, then stepping back from Killian, I looked at all the faces of my family. “It’s okay,” I said. “I…I’ll go with him.”
Lennon looked like she wanted to say something, and it was sweet how she was struggling with not opening her mouth or killing Killian anyway.
“We need more than that, Posie,” Liam McCellan said.
My eyes looked over his way. “I want to leave with him, Uncle Liam,” I amended. “Whether this works out or not, we need to talk. There are a lot of things that need to be…aired out, and Lord knows that I have enough ‘what-ifs’ in my life.”
“I’m not going to not let this work out, Posie,” Killian said quietly next to me. “I’m not sure what you don’t get about that.”
“I’ll need you to call me or your Aunt Emerson later before you call it a night, Posie,” Uncle Ramsey instructed. “It was all I could do to make her stay home for this.” I gave him a soft smile. There was only one person on the planet that Uncle Ramsey bowed down to, and it was his wife. So, I could only imagine what he’d had to do in order to keep Aunt Emerson home.
“I will,” I promised. “I’ll send you guys a text, but make sure to call her.”
Even though Uncle Ramsey always looked serious, his eyes looked like he was deciding the fate of the world. “You don’t owe anyone anything, Posie,” he said. “You do not have to leave with Killian. You don’t have to explain yourself to him. You don’t have to hear him out. You don’t ever have to have anything to do with him ever again if you don’t want to.” I could feel that thump in my chest again. “No matter what it costs us, we will never let anything happen to you again.”
“Just say the word and we’ll let everyone know,” Uncle Deke added, and I felt like my chest was going to crack open with all the emotions coursing through it.
“There isn’t anything that we won’t do for you, Posie,” Uncle Liam added, and that had the tears falling silently down my face again.
“And whether you realize it or not, Killian isn’t your only shot at love, Posie,” Uncle Ace said. “Don’t leave with him just because you’re afraid that no one else will be willing to understand you.”
