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And I can’t let it happen. I can’t get close to them. I can’t get any closer than I already am. The weekly brunches are only going to make the end of the story more painful.
It’s just that I can’t imagine Remy showing up on my doorstep, needing something, and discovering that I wasn’t prepared.
After I’m gone, that will be true. Until that day, however, I’ll remain as ready as I’ve always been. Remy doesn’t need me to bring her money for field trips or forge Mason’s signature on a permission slip. She might need a place to stay and some fresh clothes.
I can’t give her a brother who isn’t an island. That’s what Mason and Jameson are for. Clothes and a spare bedroom are all I have.
We pull up in front of my brownstone.
Elise is sleeping under my roof tonight.
It’s too much emotion to feel about a woman I’ve already damaged things with beyond repair. That, and the thought of her scent hanging in the air near my bedroom, finally, blessedly, kicks me out of my head.
There. Christ. It doesn’t hurt so much from a distance. I usher Elise and Lydia inside, then go back out to take the SUV to the secure garage.
When the door’s locked behind me again, I collect extra towels. Get some things for Lydia to wear. I deliver all of them to one of the spare bedrooms.
Their voices float out from the bathroom, Elise’s low and comforting, Lydia’s high and shaky. They have very similar voices, most of the time. The shower runs. My mind idly traces the stack of towels. The neatly folded clothes. What was I thinking, buying those in the first place? I should have cut my family off long ago. Refused to show up for the weekly brunch. Moved cities. Movedcountries.
But I couldn’t. Remy needed the illusion that everything was all right. She still does. It’ll hurt when she discovers that everything about me was fake.
Although maybe she already knows.
I go downstairs. I’m too wired to sit down, but I let my thoughts drift anyway. Keep them far away from Elise.
Until there are quiet footsteps on the stairs.
Until she appears at the living room door, shoulders slumped like the corners of her mouth. There are shadows under her eyes.
“I put her to bed,” she says. “I feel so awful for her.”
The distance in my mind collapses.
If Elise were any of my lovers, any one of the people I went to bed with at the end of the evening, I’d comfort her. The droop in her shoulders and the pain in her eyes beg for a response. If she were one of them, I wouldn’t hesitate.
It’s what she needs. It’s the key to her trust. It would undo the lock and let me under her skin.
None of that is why I go to her.
All of it’s true.
But the most true thing, the one that propels me across the room and has my arms around her, holding her close?
It’s that I want to touch her.
I’ve wanted to go back to her since I left her apartment the night of that fucking dinner. I’ve been drowning in the scent of buttercream frosting since she opened the door a couple of hours ago.
She’s tired. We’re both tired. This doesn’t count. I’ll keep my distance in the morning.
Elise buries her face into my shirt. Her hands come up to hold the fabric. She clenches it tight, but then her arms slip around my waist and she’s holding me just as tightly as I’m holding her.
She breathes.
Saying any fucking thing right now would destroy the illusion that this is nothing. That it’s a one-time lapse of judgment because of the adrenaline of the night. If I open my mouth, unacceptable things are going to come out.
I’m sorry. I hate this. It’s supposed to be everything I wanted, but when have I ever let myself do what I wanted?
That voice swims up again.Got you.
