“This is me asking you to join me, in case it wasn’t obvious,” she teases after a beat.
I chuckle and stand. Feeling her eyes on my back, I drop my hands to my waist and shove my track pants down. My T-shirt goes next, then my socks, leaving me in only my briefs when I turn the lamp off and join her in bed. The sudden lack of light makes what we’re doing feel a bit less daunting, knowing there’s somewhere to hide.
Before I’ve got a chance to tug the blankets up over myself, she’s rolling toward me. Her arm goes flying over my stomach, holding me tight, while her thigh drapes over mine and squeezes. The chilliness of her toes sends a jolt through me when they curl beneath my knee.
I reach around her and fist the comforter, covering the both of us with it.
“I’m not drunk,” she declares suddenly.
“I didn’t think you were.”
Her cheek finds my chest, resting directly over the kick drum hiding inside of it. “Good. Because that’s not why I’m here or why I want to share the bed with you.”
“What’s the real reason?”
“You know it,” she whispers, using my previous words against me.
“I’m selfish. I want you to tell me anyway.”
I tuck an arm behind my head and rest a hand on my chest. It’s close enough that I can feel her exhales ghost across my knuckles. In the dark, I pretend that I can’t feel her looking up at me and close my eyes. There’s no telling what I’d say if I got lost in her eyes right now.
“Why a butterfly?”
My chest stills beneath her cheek. She runs a feather-light touch across the back of my hand as if fully aware of where the outline of the tattoo exists without being able to see it.
“When we were kids, my sister—Lena—wouldn’t go anywhere without her bug-catching kit. There was a huge mesh cage in our room that she filled with butterflies all summer. It wasn’t humane in the slightest, but she was only nine, so our parents never said anything about it. I did, though. I hated that she was keeping bugs in the house, especially so close to my bed. So, one night, after she’d finished reading them one of her Ninja Turtle books, I shoved the window between our beds open and unzipped the cage so the butterflies could escape.”
I swallow and focus on the sound of Brielle’s steady breathing.
“It was like she had a sixth sense when it came to those things because the moment the first one flew out, she was jumping out of bed and throwing her alarm clock at me. I’ve still got the scar from where it cut me.”
Brielle shakes with a near-silent laugh. “She sounds like a badass.”
“Yeah. There wasn’t a single holiday dinner that she didn’t bring that up and curse me out for it in front of anyone who would listen.”
“Did she always love butterflies?”
My lips quirk despite the heaviness of the conversation. “Only when she wanted to use what happened to get something from me. Then suddenly, she had a million ideas for how to protect every single one of them in existence.”
“The tattoo is for the memory, then,” she muses, lips against my chest.
“Mm. I think about that night a lot. Even after this long, I can still remember it like it happened yesterday.”
“You don’t need to tell me what happened to her right now, or tomorrow, or even in the next few months. But I would like to know eventually. Especially with how much she meant to you.”
I lower my arm to rest around the curve of her shoulder. “I don’t talk about her a lot.”
“Do you want to?”
“Of course I do. It feels like I’m trying to forget she ever existed when I don’t. But it fucking hurts,” I admit, my throat squeezing the life out of the words.
She sweeps a hand up my chest and settles it at the base of my throat, applying a warm, steady pressure that becomes my focus. “She knows that you think about her. She has to. Especially after watching you raise Evie.”
“Sometimes I wonder if she made a mistake putting her with me. Evie’s father is a pathetic prick who never wanted anything to do with being a real, honest member of her family, but our mom could have done a better job than I did. I heard all about that for the first year after Lena passed. Taking on the task of raising a teenager changed me more than I could have expected, and it nearly broke me. I don’t know if I messed her up for?—”
Brielle’s finger presses to my lips, shushing me. Hovering right above me, she balances herself on my chest and shakes her head, eyes bright even in the dark.
“You did everything you could with what you knew at the time. And who cares if you weren’t perfect? Parents rarely are. But you were still there for her during the hardest time of her life, even when you were grieving the same person just as deeply. Evie is incredible, Roman. And you had a lot to do with that. You did what not everyone would have in your shoes, and that is . . . that’s really fucking hot. In a totally not weird, sexual way.” She grins when my lips twitch and drags her hand up my throat to tangle in my hair. “You might think that it was just you doing what you needed to, but it would have been easier for you tohand her off instead. I promise that Evie loves the hell out of you, and if given the choice for a do-over, she’d choose you every single time.”
