Caden was looking out for me as usual.
I wandered back to my room and grabbed my guitar. I tried to pick up where I’d left off, but as so often happened with songwriting, my creativity was a fickle thing. It came and went with an unpredictability that could be beyond frustrating. Even when I desperately wanted to write, when I knew it would soothe me to stitch inner turmoil into a song, communicating in a way I wasn’t good at otherwise, I’d never been able to force it.
Music had always been a constant, so honest in its volatility. I needed that now more than ever, with everything feeling like it was changing so quickly. I sighed, setting my guitar down and abandoning it for the night in search of a warm blanket to curl up with.
When his key turned in the lock a few hours later, my heart quickened its pace as I fought the urge to run to the door. Instead, I poked my head up from the couch, watching silently as he set his duffel bag down beside the door.
Sid.
Dressed in head-to-toe black, his heavy work boots sounded against the floorboards as he walked further into the room. His black T-shirt showcased the colorful tattoos running up the expanse of both of his muscular arms. When his electric-blue eyes landed on me, a warm smile lit his handsome face.
I beamed in return. “Hey. Welcome home.”
“Thanks.” He sighed, running a hand over his recently shorn dark hair. He collapsed on the couch beside me.
I fought the urge to crawl into his lap and hug him. He’d been gone for two weeks, a short trip this time. Sometimes he was gone for months at a time. Every time he went out on a job, I worried about him.
I knew that, as a former Marine and now highly trained security specialist, he could take care of himself. That didn’t mean I didn’t worry about him.
“Are you hungry?” I asked. “We’re kind of low on supplies at the moment but I managed to make you something and hide it from Cade.” I grinned.
He chuckled. “Wow, I’m amazed you could hide anything from him. He has a better sense of smell than a bloodhound. I’m famished. But I can get it.”
He started to get up but I stopped him. “You’ve got to be exhausted. I’ll get it.”
He sighed, not putting up much of a fight, which further confirmed how tired he must be.
My brother had formed Talon security after getting out of the SEALs and had recruited Sid and a few other men to join him. They only took a few contracts a year, providing security for corporations doing business in areas of disruption overseas. Most recently I knew Sid had been somewhere in the Middle East. He’d also traveled to Africa in the last year. Aside from where he went and how long he’d been gone, he couldn’t share much. It was just as dangerous as when they’d served in the military if not more so; I knew that much.
I heated up the pasta dish I’d made him and watched it revolve in the microwave, trying desperately to tamp down the turmoil that was my constant companion when it came to Sid.
After years of close friendship, my feelings had changed unexpectedly, morphing into something terrifyingly close to love. When I really thought about it, I knew those feelings had always been there. They were present in the twist of my gut when he looked at another girl, or the butterflies in my stomach when he wrapped an arm around me. Despite the time they may have taken to bloom, it still felt like a light switch had flipped on and now I was grappling with what the hell to do underneath the bright lights.
“How many episodes in are you?” he asked, breaking me from my reverie, his eyes turned to theLaw & Order SVUmarathon I’d been watching.
“Three,” I admitted.
He chuckled, shaking his head at me.
I placed the plate in his hands and sat back down, curling up with a blanket over me at the other end of the couch.
“Trav get back okay?” I asked after my brother.
He nodded, taking a huge bite of pasta. I knew he wouldn’t say much more and I didn’t press him.
“Everything okay here while I was gone?” he asked once he’d swallowed.
I shrugged. “Yeah, same ole same ole. Cade’s been staying at Danika’s most nights. I think they’re getting pretty serious.”
He nodded, a thoughtful expression passing over his face at hearing about his little brother. “Looks like you guys actually cleaned up a little bit,” he noted, looking around our living room.
Sid was by far the cleanest of us. I didn’t tell him it had actually just been me who had cleaned up, that I didn’t want him to come home to a messy house. Instead, I shrugged, trying to appear indifferent.
He finished his meal and placed the plate on the coffee table in front of him, patting his lap in silent invitation. I stretched out my legs across his muscular thighs in our typical TV-watching position.
Sid and I had always been somewhat affectionate. However, the sheer need to touch him as of late was new and something I was still desperately trying to understand.
“All right, Sam, I’m cutting you off,” he said after the episode ended. “How about we watch something less depressing, hmm?”
