Page 98 of Under Pressure

“What’s holding you back?”

“From what?” It’s a pointless question.

“Oh, sweetheart,” she whispers, slipping her arm around my shoulders and bringing me in for a tight hug. “There isn’t anything you could say or reveal that would change how he feels about you.”

“My experience with letting people into my life and having them stay is slim and disappointing.”

But it’s more than just the fear of finally accepting him into my heart and having him take the next trip out. It’s what would drive him away in the first place. The cruel, jagged parts of me and the past that’s responsible for them. He’s only seen glimpses of the real me, and while he might think he likes it now, the interest will fade. It always does.

The determination he feels to get past my walls will fade, and he’ll tire of constantly battling for a softness that I’ve always worried never actually existed inside of me. And that’s what scares me.

He deserves better, and I’ve known that from the moment I saw him on the opposite side of my counter that first day. We were always on limited time.

Serena blows a breath into my hair and wraps her arms tighter around me despite the lax way mine hang between us. I lean my cheek to her shoulder and close my eyes for a moment, inhaling her soft laundry scent. It’s alarming how peaceful it is being hugged by a stranger. She doesn’t feel like one at all.

“Hey, Mom. I just wanted to give you a heads-up that you can stop gossiping with your friends in that cursed group chat about me finding a wife. You should probably sit Dad down when you tell him this, but I’ve found your future daughter-in-law, and you’re going to fucking love her.”

I stop breathing.

She smiles against my hair and strokes my back again. “He’ll kill me for telling you that, but I need you to know that this isn’t some fun pastime for him. Even if you decide that he isn’t what you need, I hope you make that call for reasons other than feeling unworthy of him. As much as I love my son and am proud of the man he is, he isn’t above you. I don’t need years of conversations between us to know that. It’s clear how strong and intelligent you are, not to mention beautiful, and he’d be lucky to have you. We all would.”

I don’t know when the tears started, but when I hear her gasp, I know she’s begun feeling the shake of my body against her. Whether it’s hearing her words and feeling her strong, motherly embrace or simply the overwhelming relief of being seen, I break down in her arms.

And for the first time in my life, I let myself cry in the arms of someone other than Callie or Gran.

35

“Stayout of the gym tomorrow, Beckett. I mean it. Let your arm rest,” Roman says in that gruff, brutal tone he usually reserves just for me.

I unbuckle my seat belt and nod, desperate to get out of the car before I suffocate in the sexual tension brewing up front. After being away with the team for the last nine days, it’s truly a miracle he didn’t haul Brielle onto his lap the moment they saw each other and fucked right there regardless of my presence.

The last hour in the car with them has been an experience I never want to live through again. I’d rather use one of the thousand nail files Elle’s stuffed into the centre console and use it to pop my eyeballs.

If I hadn’t taken Wes up on his offer for a ride to the airport the day we left, I’d have skipped all of this and driven myself home. But, alas, I survived and can checksit in the back seat while my boss and best friend’s sister make fuck-me eyes at each other while doing this really weird thigh-squeezing thing that I want to forget ever having to witnessfrom my non-existent bucket list.

“Yeah, you got it. Night,” I mutter while shoving the back door open.

Brielle waits until I’ve started closing it behind me to speak. “Can you tell Quinn that I’ll be at Blank Page at about noon tomorrow?”

I duck my head inside. “For what?”

“We’re finalizing the list of items for the engagement party. Don’t tell me you forgot about it.” She whips around to look at Roman, and he immediately glares at me. “You reminded the team this week, right?”

“Of course I did, sweetheart.”

“Don’t crucify the man, Elle. That’s my bad. The sexual tension in here is fogging my brain.”

She huffs, blonde hair bouncing. “Just remind her, please.”

I slap the roof as I close the door and hook my bag over my shoulder. It would have been easier to take a suitcase, but fuck it. Three days in, I just started wearing the same clothes and stopped shaving my face. Without Quinn, there wasn’t any point in worrying about my looks.

Except now I’m going to step inside and scare her half to death with the mountain man thing I’ve got going on.

Roman’s car tears down the road, disappearing into the night. I crack my neck and enter the building, not sparing the guard a look on the way to the elevator. I’m antsy to get upstairs and see my girl.

Yeah, she’s mine. Being away from her for so long has done one thing, and that’s make it clearer that we’re together. For real, not in the way she’s wanted us to pretend to be in front of Ruthie and the other old ladies from bingo. Quinn is mine for real, for keeps, the same way she has been for months now.

I’ve just got to convince her of that, and preferably before I burst apart with the need to make things official.