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“I need my bubble,” she hiccups between tears.
I lift her to her feet, grab my phone and blast some music, and wrap her arms around my neck as I start to slow dance with her. Our hips are rocking, and her head is resting against my chest.
“Darling.”
“I like it when you call me that. Even without the emphasis from when you were so mad at me you couldn’t think straight.”
We continue to rock back and forth.
“I like calling you darling,” I tell her, kissing the top of her head.
“You got rid of all her things. It doesn’t even look like she was here, even though I can still smell her in there.”
“There is a box of her things on the counter,” I tell her, my hands smoothing up her back to try and calm her breathing. She tries to pull away, but I tug her back. “You need the bubble a little longer.” She looks up at me with those whiskey eyes and drinks me in. The look she’s giving me makes her even more beautiful, as torn apart as she is.
“I wish I hated you,” she says softly. “But I’m glad I don’t.” When she pulls away this time, I let her go. Following her, I see her opening the box and pulling out Becca’s phone, a photograph of her, and another small box. She glances back at me. “Do you know what this is?” I nod my head.
The box has Adora’s name on it. When she opens it, she sucks in a breath—it’s pages torn from books, with highlighted words.
“To the one who helped me breathe again.” She reads it out loud, then continues, “I was lost, before I was found. I was broken, before you put me back together. How can one person manage to have such a large impact in such a small amount of time?” She glances back at me. “This must have taken her ages.” She pauses, glancing up at me. When I don’t answer, she asks, “Did you know?”
I give her a simple nod.
“Did you help?”
Another nod. I don’t intend to lie to my wife.
“I’m not sure if I’m upset about the books being torn or that she isn’t here for me to tell her I’m upset.”
“I sourced the books from book bins. They were being recycled anyway.” She sighs, her lips trembling with a fresh wave of tears. “I knew you would hate for me to tear up perfectly good books.”
Taking a shaky breath, her eyes search mine as she gives me a small nod before she turns back and continues to go through the pages. I pour her a glass of water as she sits down on the floor, laying the pages out in front of her.
“I need to go to Keir. But I will stay if you need me.”
“No, I want time with this. Thank you.” Reaching up for me, I lean down, and she presses a light kiss to my lips. When I look at her face, she’s smiling, but it’s a sad one. One that has me wishing I could stay.
I head to the door and order food to be delivered in the next hour to make sure she eats before I walk out.
“Joey.” Her voice halts me at the door. “I am very close to saying I love you. But you don’t deserve those words when I’m full of pain.”
“That’s fine, Adora, I can wait. I’ve waited this long. What’s a little while longer?” I tell her before I leave, contentment filling my chest to hear those words from her.
I’ll wait as long as she needs me to.
“You’ve gone home to check on her twice already. She is fine. Enough,” Lucas says, shaking his head.
“She’s my wife.”
“Whoop dee do,” Lucas says. “Keir has a wife, and you don’t see him running home every second.”
“Can we kill him?” I ask Keir, but he doesn’t even pay us any attention.
Piper, on the other hand, nods her head. Piper is trusted as much as Lucas, maybe even more since he defied Keir’s orders a while ago. She enjoys what we do, and no other woman has held such a strong position as she does. I would like to think it’s because of who Keir is married to. He was meant to have a son to take over from him, but he had a girl first. And Sailor argued with him that a woman can be just as badass as any man. And it worked.
“I should shoot you again. Why are you even here?” Lucas says to her. Piper pulls her gun out, and he just cracks a taunting smile, not even fazed that she has it aimed at his damn boof head. She’s a good shot too, she will not miss if given half a chance.
“Put your lady bits away.” Lucas waves a hand at her. “Unless you want me to get the big boy out?” Lucas looks down to his crotch, but we all know that’s not what he’s referring to. He’s most definitely talking about his Smith and Wesson 500 handgun that’s tucked into his pants.
