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“You had the option tonotleave without telling me,” she grits out. “You had the option tonotsneak away like a spineless jerk afraid of getting in trouble.”
“It wasn’t about me getting in trouble.”
I love how her eyes hold a million emotions, and though she can stand over a dead body and bottle up every single one of them, she looks at me and can’t stop the way they all burst through.
But on the flip side, Ihatethat I’m the reason her eyes hold betrayal tonight. They hold hurt. And sadness. And distrust.
“Fuck, Minka. I’m sorry.”
“Are you staying there?”
“What?” My voice comes out too sharp. Too stunned. “Forever? Fuck no.” I bring my free hand up beneath the blankets and loop my finger through the chain around my neck. Pulling it closer, I press a kiss to the white gold band that forever rests over my heart. “I’m coming home just as soon as I can. I promise.”
“Youcouldcome home now,” she murmurs. “I’ll get up and get dressed, and pick you up from the airport.”
“Minka…”
“Come home, Archer. You’re my penguin, remember? I made that whole speech and let you have my heart. I gave you everything. But then you got on a plane and took it all to New York.” She quivers under her covers and allows her lips to tremble. “Our bed is cold without you.”
“I’ll be home in a couple of days,” I promise. “The southern rockhopper penguin, right? Even when they part for a season, they come back together again. Always.”
“Don’t use my words against me!” She pushes up in bed with a scowl, allowing the covers to fall away and reveal her shoulders, bare but for the straps of a tank top. Her hair is knotted at the top of her head, and her eyes, puffy with exhaustion.
“I cried a little bit,” she admits on an almost whisper. “Tonight, when I got home and you weren’t here, I got really mad, and my mad sometimes turns to tears. That pisses me off even more.”
“I’m sorry I made you cry.”
Noise in the hall makes my skin tingle with awareness, and headlights in the yard remind me that guards patrol every inch of Malone land. Just like when I was a kid.
“Can we be okay?” I study her chocolate-brown eyes and the deep dimples that carve into her cheeks, even when she’s not smiling. “I’m a long way away right now, and I miss you so fucking much my stomach hurts. I need us to be strong,” I plead, “because there are a million things happening around me, and you hating me makes those other things impossible to combat.”
“Emotional manipulation?” she challenges. “I just have to get over what you did today? No big deal, no consequences?”
“Not manipulation,” I counter. “But a request. Can we just…” She’s so beautiful. So fucking beautiful, even in her rage. “Can we put this in a box and set it to the side for now? The moment I’m back and I can see you in person, we can open it up and deal with our shit.Together,” I press. “We’ll deal with it together, and I’ll fix what I fucked up. But while I’m here…”
“You want a truce,” she sighs. “Moratorium, so you can focus on the frickin’ danger you’ve put yourself in.”
I drag my bottom lip between my teeth and nod. “Pretty much, yeah. I want to know we’re strong so I can stop feeling like I’m gonna puke every two seconds. Let me deal with this bullshit, wait for my father to die, get my brother back, then when I come home again, we can hitgoon our shit.”
“I mean…” She draws a deep breath and exhales to release some of the tension she holds in her jaw. “Okay. I suppose. How long does your father have left? And can you put a pillow over his face and deal with it tonight?”
I choke out a laugh and turn over in bed, while inside, the anxiety in my stomach releases. Nausea backs away, and the muscles in my torso relax.
It’s all her. Everything I feel is at the whim of her mood—which is dangerously codependent, and yet, not something I’ll ever change.
“I don’t need to smother him. I’d be surprised if he lasts the night.”
“Really?” Her eyes grow fractionally wider. “He’s that bad?”
“He’s clinging to the last scraps of whatever he has left. He can’t get out of bed. He can barely talk, though he mustered the strength to annoy me with a few words.” I bring the phone closer and study the way her spaghetti strap falls to the side of her shoulder. “Felix is still an idiot. My baby brother…” I stop for a moment and smile. “He grew up, Minka. He wasn’t even out of diapers last time I saw him. He wasn’t walking. Wasn’t talking. He was just a ball of fat that cried a hell of a lot.”
Her grin notches up, and her hand crosses to right the fallen strap.
It’s ridiculous that I focus so intently on that insignificant detail, but I do. She’s a snake charmer, and I’m the idiot who’d take a bite to the face rather than look away.
“And now?”
“Now, he’s a man.” I glance up again and meet her eyes. “An easy six feet tall, with a bit still to go. He’s kinda thin, but his shoulders are broad, and his arms are filled out. He’s an athlete, Minka. One of the real kind. He’s got Malone attitude and a temper to match, but his three-point throw is perfect.”
