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For a moment I couldn’t read his expression. Then he sagged against the wall and took a deep breath, hand pressed to his stomach.
“She knows.”
“Yeah, I…Is it okay I told her?”
He nodded, eyes on me.
“She knew before we got here?”
“Yeah. I…I’ve told her all about you. I talk to her all the time, as you keep reminding me. But I should’ve asked you. I see that now.”
He swallowed hard and pulled me against him in a hug. I could feel his heart beating faster than normal.
“Is that why you were so nervous before?”
He nodded abortively.
“Figured it wasn’t fair not to tell her. Not when you guys are so close. So I was just waiting for the question that seemed easiest to…”
I knew the word he was thinking: confess. No matter how firmly he insisted that addiction didn’t make other people less, he couldn’t believe it about himself.
“Plus. Don’t really know how to…be. A boyfriend. In front of your family. Don’t know if I can touch you in front of them or…”
He pressed his lips to my hair and sighed.
Dane’s gruff, blunt brand of emotional honesty turned out to be my undoing. Watching him try to honor my request that he open up more was like watching a bear cub trundle to its feet for the first time. It was lumbering and clumsy and so intensely sweet, it turned my guts to warm honey.
“Can I tell you a secret?”
He nodded.
“There’s never a moment of the day that I don’t want you to touch me.”
He tensed in my arms and made a choked sound.
“Never?”
“Nope. Always touch me. Whenever you want. However you want.”
“Oh, God,” he breathed. “I always want to.”
“Can I be done in the bathroom yet or what?” Adrian hollered.
“Just a minute!” I called through the door. “Well,” I amended. “Okay, don’t touch me in ways that will make me embarrass myself in front of my little brothers while we’re sharing a room with them.” Not that I thought Dane would ever do that.
He stroked my hair and dropped a kiss to the top of my head.
“When we get home,” he murmured, low voice curling around me, “I’m gonna touch you everywhere.”
I shuddered at the thought and groaned at having to wait.
The door banged open and I turned to yell at Adrian, but it was Lucas.
“Hey. Gonna crash, okay?”
“Yeah, yeah,” I grumbled. Clearly the moment was over. “You make any progress with the stage manager?”
“Ugh, shut up.”
Somehow both of my brothers got into their bunk beds without further drama. I climbed into bed, sliding to the far side to make room for Dane. The bed had been secondhand when I’d gotten it in middle school, and it protested mightily at Dane’s muscular addition. He sagged so far into the middle that it rolled me right on top of him and let out an ungodly groan in the process.
Snickers came from the bunk beds.
“I can sleep on the floor,” Dane said quietly.
“Shut up, you will not.” I settled against his chest. “This okay?” He nodded, but he was tense with trying not to move and make the bed squeak any more. After fifteen minutes of trying to fall asleep on his tensed muscles, I clambered over him to the floor.
“What’re you doing?” Lucas said from the top bunk.
“Here, can you help me?” I asked Dane, motioning him to get up. With another mighty groan, he extricated himself from the bed. “Let’s just put the mattress on the floor so it won’t make noise.”
Dane pulled the mattress off the sagging metal frame with one hand, leaning the frame upright against the wall. He let the mattress thwap to the floor and we rearranged ourselves on it. It wasn’t terribly comfortable, but it was quiet, and it couldn’t sag so far down in the middle.
“Better?”
“Yeah,” he said, and he drew me into his arms, pressing his nose to the back of my neck. It was his favorite way to sleep, his second favorite being with me lying completely on top of him. But that led to a very particular result when we awoke, one I didn’t relish indulging in with my brothers in the room.
“?’Night, baby,” I said. I felt him mouth ’Night, sweetheart against my skin before I drifted off to sleep.
* * *
—
When I woke up, Dane was gone.
Lucas and Adrian were still asleep, and the way the sun came through the window told me it was before seven. Dane was an early riser.
I crept down the stairs, skipping the one that squeaked. I thought I might find Dane quietly reading or listening to a podcast in the living room, seeking some downtime before the chaos that ensued whenever more than two people were awake in my mom’s house. But instead of Dane’s familiar silence, I heard soft voices coming from the kitchen. Dane and Mom.
