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Neither said a fucking word. It was maddening and made me shift uncomfortably on the bed as I clutched the towel tightly to my chest.
Christ on a cracker, this was going to get old really fast.
At least I had stopped crying for the time being.
Tyson came out of the closet with a handful of clothes. He was no longer wearing a towel, but instead had on a pair of black boxer briefs. Seeing him wearing Dash’s underwear was almost enough to make me laugh. Today I didn’t even smile.
Tyson dumped the clothes beside me on the bed. He pulled me up to my feet and ripped the towel away from my body. An angry, embarrassed noise left my throat, and I felt my cheeks heat.
I knew they’d seen me naked in the shower, but this time felt different to me. I was going tokillTyson for this.
I stood there like a living doll as he dressed me in panties and a tank top. When I was dressed, he gently pushed me back down to sit on the edge of my bed. He walked over to the dresser, picked up my hairbrush, and crawled into the bed behind me with it clutched in his hand.
I closed my eyes as he brushed out the wet mess that was my hair. It filled me with a sense of peace that almost had me crying again.
Vivian had never brushed my hair like this, but I bet my real mother had.
It was the small, simple things that made me feel loved, and I figured Tyson knew that.
“I’m tired,” I said in a small voice, and I realized in that moment just how true those two words were. It was more than just a physical thing. I was exhausted in every way possible. Mostly emotionally drained.
“I know, beautiful, I know,” Tyson murmured. “Just give me a minute to finish up with your hair, then we can lie down and sleep. You’ll feel better in the morning.”
He was wrong. Sleep wasn’t going to change anything, and I’d still feel like shit in the morning. I might actually need therapy this time.
Tyson finished brushing my hair and put it up in a loose braid. Like me, he knew that sleeping with it wet and free meant I would wake up with it messy and wild, and I hated that. He’d likely wake up in the morning with his own long, wet hair messy and wild, but he wouldn’t care. He’d just jump in the shower and wash it again to tame that mess.
He pulled back the covers, and I crawled under them. I expected him to crawl under them with me, so I was surprised when he got off the bed and headed back to the closet. He came back out with Ash and Bone in his arms.
Of course. How stupid was I that I’d forgotten about them? I’d make a terrible mother to real children.
Tyson came back to the bed and deposited my babies down onto my bed before walking around to the other side of the mattress, the side closest to the windows, and then he crawled in with me.
My kittens made a beeline right for me, and they climbed up onto my body over the covers. Ash came up to my face, and she rubbed her little cheek against my chin. Bone came up on the other side of her sister, and she dropped down to her belly, resting her head on her little kitten paws. Ash scooted back and copied her sister’s pose like a mirror.
“I think they missed their mama,” Tyson whispered as he scooted closer to me on his side. He wrapped his arm around my lower stomach and threw his leg over both my thighs, pinning me down to the bed and making it so I’d be unable to shake him if he were to fall asleep before me and I felt like sneaking off.
Not that I could even get far with Simon and Trenton watching over me like they were. Or with my cats lying on me like that.
“Why don’t you close your eyes and try to sleep?” Tyson suggested. “You’re home, and you’re safe. Nothing is going to hurt you ever again.”
I knew I was safe here because all of my enemies were now dead. And besides, this was my home and they always made it a safe space for me. Always.
I closed my eyes and tried to do as he told me.
I swear I lay like that for over an hour and sleep evaded me. Tyson’s body weight eased into me at my side about twenty minutes after he lay down, and I knew he’d found sleep. It hadn’t taken nearly that long for my kids to start snoring softly with sleep. It was just me who struggled.
My cats were either lazy and sleeping or they were crazy little terrors. They were perfection, and their weight felt good. It felt right, like they belonged right here with me.
The side of the bed Tyson wasn’t sleeping on dipped at the same time as I felt movement at the foot of the bed.
Trenton and Simon had finally given up on watching over me and decided to join us in my bed.
This did not bother me or make me uncomfortable. I had a really big bed, and I was used to people crawling into it with me all the time. Trenton and Simon might not be my lovers yet, and they might not actually ever become that, but they’d long since become my family. I trusted them and always would.
A hand rested on my blanket covered foot, and another one rested above my hip, below Tyson’s arm and above his leg.
My body melted into the bed, and it didn’t take long for me after that, safe and cocooned by people who would do anything for me, to fall into a blissfully dreamless sleep.
