Page 216 of Revv

“Dios mío, cállate.” I shake my head at him. “You are literally standing in my house looking like somebody beat the shit out of you and you’re still flirting.”

“Technically, I did most of the beating.”

“Not helping, Papi.”

“That one sounded affectionate.”

I narrow my eyes. “Keep talking and I’ll make the other side of your face match.”

That finally pulls a real laugh out of him, rough and tired and so fucking familiar that something in my chest loosens before I can stop it.

I hate how badly I needed to hear that sound.

For another second I just look at him, soaked through, bruised, exhausted, still somehow standing here trying to make me laugh after the night we’ve both had, and then I give up fighting the pull toward him.

I step forward and wrap my arms around his middle.

Revel goes completely still.

Only for a second.

Then his arms come around me so carefully it almost wrecks me all over again, one settling around my waist while the other slides up my back like he’s afraid squeezing too hard might make me disappear.

I press my face into his chest and breathe him in beneath the rain and damp cotton. The tears come quietly this time.

Not the angry, humiliating crying from earlier.

Just everything finally draining out of me at once.

Fear. Anger. Relief.

Love, apparently.

Qué horror.

His mouth presses against the top of my head.

“I’m sorry, Mama.”

My fingers tighten in the back of his wet shirt. “I know.”

“I never meant to make you think I left.”

That one gets me, and my eyes close as his arms tighten around me.

“I know.”

“I mean it.” His voice drops against my hair. “I’m not going anywhere. Not ever.”

I lean back just enough to look up at him. “Careful, Papi. That sounds suspiciously like another promise.”

“It is.”

My stomach does the stupid little flip it always does when he looks at me like that.

“Then don’t make it unless you can keep it.”

Every trace of teasing disappears from his face. He cups my jaw carefully, thumb brushing beneath my cheekbone while his eyes stay locked on mine.