Page 73 of This Reckless Home

He doesn’t turn around, and my pulse races as my stomach drops. “Noah settled?”

I take an inhale. “Yes. He’s asleep. Justin and Ant are with him.” I step closer, my hands shaking as I wring the bottom of my sleep shirt between my fingers. It’s one of Steele’s, and it’s like the hug I can’t ask him for but so desperately want. “Are we… are we okay?”

His broad shoulders tense, and I brace myself, knowing this will hurt. “I don’t know, Flower.”

His honesty lands like a gut punch and my hand flies to my stomach. He doesn’t see, his back still to me. I nod anyway. “Okay.”

He sighs. “I need some time. To process.”

“O-of course,” I reply, backing to the door and nodding like a bloody muppet again. “I understand.”

And I do. And it’s not his fault this feels like every time my dad leaves. Every time he missed some event of mine. Every time he told me I wasn’t enough. It’s not mine either, but it hurts just the same because I want Steele’s big arms around me so badly I can’t take a full breath.

“Blossom—” He finally turns and I freeze when his pain filled brown eyes lock with mine. “I’m not mad at you.”

My lips part, and once again my head bobs. “But you’re not okay either.”

His large shoulders sag, and the distance of the kitchen tiled floor between us seems insurmountable. A vast ocean we can’t hope to cross. “No.” His voice is gentle, tired. Hurt. “I’m not.”

That lands like another blow, because I know I did that. I ruined this between us. I hurt him and how can he ever look at me the same?

I nod a final time, my throat too tight to speak, then turn around before the tears that are burning my eyes can fall.

“NUMB” BY TOMMEE PROFFITT, SKYLAR GREY

STEELE

She's gone before I can find the words.

I hear her footsteps retreating down the hall, soft and quick, and I stand here with my hands braced against the sink and my chest doing something I don't have a name for.

I should have turned around. Should have looked at her when she asked if we were okay, instead of staring out at the dark yard like a coward.

But I couldn't. Because I don't know what my face would have done if I had.

Are we okay?

The honest answer sits in my gut like broken glass. I don't know. I genuinely don't fucking know, and I've never been a man who lies to make things easier, so I told her that. And I watched the reflection of her take it. Watched her nod and back toward the door like she was trying to make herself smaller, and still I didn't turn around.

Because if I had, I would have crossed that kitchen and pulled her into my arms.

And I can't do that yet. Can't hold her close and pretend the thing she told me in that car isn't still sitting in my chest like a coal, burning slow and steady. Isn’t painful.

She handed two hundred thousand dollars to men who would have called Noah a slur while they hurt him. Who would look at me and see something less than human. Who would look at Nox and see a problem to be solved.

She did that. She knew what they were. And she did it anyway.

I know why. I can understand the why. I even understand that I might have done something just as impossible for the people I love.

But understanding something and being okay with it are not the same thing. And I am not okay yet. I’m not sure I ever will be okay with it. It’s not something that deserves forgiveness, regardless of understanding.

I am not leaving.

That I know with a certainty that sits beneath all the rest of it, solid and unmoving. But I need to find a way to hold what she did alongside who I know her to be, and right now those two things don't fit together in my hands.

The yard is dark outside the window. Somewhere upstairs, Noah is asleep. Safe.

I stay at the sink for a long time, staring into the darkness, choking on words.