“Thank you, Tristan,” Mrs. Rivera whispered next to me. “My mama-heart is so full knowing my Katie won’t ever have to face another battle alone.”
Before I could even register what was happening, she dragged me toward her husband and daughter. She threw one arm over Kate’s shoulder and used the other to draw me into their hug.
My entire body stiffened.
Affection of any kind was so unfamiliar, my insides rattled in discomfort. Glancing over their heads, I eyed my car parked in the street. All I had to do was untangle myself from this awkward embrace and make a run for it.
I could’ve been out there in less than two minutes.
Yet again, I didn’t leave like I should have.
Mr. and Mrs. Rivera gently pulled away from their daughter and, with another apology, slipped back into the house.
Kate didn’t move. Neither did I.
Every cell inside my body burned with this desperate need to hold her. To feel her heart beat against mine. To taste those lips again. There were other things I wanted, things that scared the shit out of me.
Things I wasn’t remotely ready to want.
That was why I stepped back until there was enough distance between us that I couldn’t reach out and touch her.
“I’m sorry.”
Ironically, those weren’t the words that burned my tongue.
She just shook her head. More silence descended. It was awkward. The two of us standing there, not saying a word. But my brain simply didn’t have the capacity to focus on anything else than the hurricane of emotions this woman and her family had woken up inside me.
“We should probably head in.” I pulled my shoulders up. “Unless you want me to leave.”
“I don’t want you to go,” she admitted softly.
The confusion piled on. It would’ve been easier if she’d told me to get the hell out of there. But she wanted me to stay. Why? Did she want me in the desperate way I wanted her? Or was it something as simple as me being her ride home?
I didn’t know.
I didn’t fucking know.
It drove me insane.
And still I trailed her into the house. The mood at the dining table wasn’t the same. I hadn’t expected it to be. Eleanor stared daggers at me and Kate while Bryce, the shameless bastard, didn’t even bother hiding his longing when he looked at my wife.
If my head wasn’t so damn messed up, I would’ve thrown an arm around Kate’s shoulders and showed the prick she wasn’t his anymore.
Thing was, she wasn’t mine either. We might’ve signed a piece of paper that tied us together, but that’s all it was. A flimsy pieceof paper.
I didn’t have her in the way that mattered.
A good thing too. These two girls did not need the likes of me messing up their lives.
Shit.
It never stopped. This never-ending cycle of wanting them and reminding myself I wasn’t deserving.
For the rest of the afternoon, that’s all that went through my head. It was unsettling and tiring.
That’s why I almost sagged with relief when Millie’s eyes drooped, and Kate quietly asked if I’d take them home.
Because I was still very firmly stuck inside my own damn head, my goodbyes were almost nonexistent. When Kate joined me at the car, she didn’t say a word. Simply slid a half-asleep Millie in the back seat. The click of the seat belt hit loud and heavy. Louder still was the loaded silence that followed Kate into the car.
