Page 167 of Unravel Me

That night, I can’t sleep again. I try not to toss and turn because Tommy’s small, warm body is lying beside me, and fortunately, being close to me was enough for him to fall asleep without much trouble, but I’m a completely different story. I keep wondering where Mauro is, obsessively torturing myself over why he hasn’t come back.

Everything has finally cleared up, after all, and from what I understand, he’s in Florida, which means he followed me there, but the question is whether what I said to him at the end, the things I threw in his face, hurt him badly enough to make him doubt us.

Then I remind myself that it’s impossible, because we’re True Mates, and true Rejection is practically unheard of; he hopefully understands that I didn’t really mean it, that I was just upset… Ehh, dammit!

Doubts and fear are tearing at me, but I’m fighting my own mind, trying to believe that we’ll find a way through this, no matter what kind of impasse we’ve found ourselves in.

I wish I had his phone number.

I could call him, text him, but of course I don’t have it, and getting up in the middle of the night and asking Emilio to give me Mauro’s number would be pushing it a little, so I just have to tough it out.

I don’t know how long I sleep. I dream of cities exploding, mushroom clouds rising over the buildings where I grew up, and wake up sweating in the pale light of dawn. I have the impression that I can hear muffled sounds, something like shuffling and scratching, so I carefully slip out of bed, making sure not to wake Tommy, who is also tossing restlessly in his sleep.

I tiptoe out of the room.

The sounds are coming from the adjoining room, the one Silvio designated as Tommy’s.

I look inside uncertainly, but I already know who I’m going to find.

It’s Mauro.

Wow.

Seeing him is like being struck by lightning.

My beautiful fated mate is kneeling on the carpet. A toolbox sits beside him, and he himself is… diligently assembling furniture. Most of it is already put together, actually, and he’s just fastening some shelves.

I stand there for a moment, staring, unable to believe what I’m seeing. My presence doesn’t go unnoticed.

Mauro must have been working for hours to put together the entire set of furniture for Tommy! Maybe most of the night, because there’s so much of it, and the pieces are all different shapes, with so many parts!

My heart speeds up.

His dark hazel eyes slowly lift to me, and if I couldn’t read his energy, his face would look completely calm and almost impossible to decipher.

I shiver slightly, as if his gaze were a wind blowing over me. I want to feel it on me, stirring up all my already-tense nerves.

For the third time since I entered this house, I repeat the obvious.

"I’m back, Mauro. I’m so deeply sorry, for all the anger I dumped on you." My teeth are literally chattering because I desperately want him to know the truth. "Believe me, if it were only about me, I would have stayed, but I was so damn scared for Tommy. I… I’m not just an omega. I’m a dad. I’m not alone… I come as a package deal with Tommy." I close my eyes because saying the next words almost hurts. "And with all my heart, I want you to… accept us as a package deal."

But if I had been expecting accusations, resentment, anger, there is none.

With one swift movement of his lithe body, Mauro gets to his feet, comes toward me, wraps his arms around me, and pulls me tightly against him.

In that moment, I feel all the tension, fear, stress, all those emotions simply pour out of me, and I burst into tears.

They run down my cheeks as I clutch desperately at his arms with my fingers… as if I were drowning and he were the one keeping me above the surface. "I’m sorry, so sorry, Mauro. I missed you, so much!"

Suddenly, I feel his arms tense slightly as he pulls me away from him so he can look into my face.

His expression changes, becoming somewhat tense, full of seriousness, and then Mauro does something I have never heard him do before, and I suspect no one has experienced in the past nineteen years.

He speaks.

"Jared… I love you."

I’m speechless. His voice is low and rough, almost as if he has laryngitis, as though his throat hurts, and maybe it does… He struggles with it, swallows, and then slowly continues.