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Reed came inside first with a big smile on his handsome face. “I brought you a gift.” He thumbed over his shoulder at Casper.
Emotion bubbled up inside me until I couldn’t take it anymore and launched myself forward to wrap my arms around Casper’s shoulders and hold him tight. The bag he was carrying hit the floor as he embraced me back, those strong arms easily holding me up.
“I’m sorry,” I told him. “I shouldn’t have run from the room that night. If I’d stayed and talked, maybe you wouldn’t have left.” He smelled so good, scents I associated with being safe.
“You have nothing to apologize for. If I wanted to leave, I would have gone regardless of what happened. I’m the one who should apologize. I left like I always do, without a care for the ones I was running from.”
“You can’t help how you feel.”
“I can help how I hurt others though.”
Leaning back enough so I could see his eyes, I searched them, wanting to see how he felt. He thought he hid it, but I saw it. I sawhim.
He smiled. It lit up the whole damn room. “You’re touching me. I didn’t scare you off.”
“No, Cas. You’d have to do a hell of a lot more for that to happen.”
His arms tightened on me as he brought me close enough to bury his face against my neck. There was a sizable height difference between us, but he made it work while my toes barely touched the ground. “I don’t want to let you go,” he whispered. Chills broke out along my skin at his words. Casper didn’t talk about what he felt. Him voicing that little bit was huge.
“Then don’t.”
I could hear Reed talking softly to Starry. He asked how her night was and told her she was a good girl.
“Come sit on the couch with me,” Casper said before slowly releasing me.
Reed gave me a soft smile when I turned around. I took Casper’s hand in mine, not ready to let go of him either. He sat on the couch first. I grew bold and sat on his lap, needing to stay close to him.
Reed sat next to us, so his body was touching Casper’s, thigh to thigh. He lifted my legs to drape them over his lap. “Hi.”
“Hi,” I replied. “Thank you for bringing Cas with you.”
“Yeah, well, he needed some sense knocked into him.”
My eyes widened. “You didn’t hit him, did you?” I turned toward Casper to check for bruising. I didn’t notice it before, but I was so excited to see him I couldn’t think of anything other than to touch him again.
“I’m fine,” Casper said, giving my hand a squeeze. “He didn’t hit me, although he would have been within his right to do so.”
Reed chuckled. “There have been many times I wanted to lay your ass out for the shit you did, but I knew it wouldn’t make me feel better. If anything, I would have felt worse about it.”
Casper turned to Reed. “You should’ve done it. I deserved—”
I put my hand over his mouth and shook my head. His smile stretched against my palm until I moved it away.
“I wouldn’t have fought back if you’d done it,” Casper ended up saying. “Better?” he asked me.
“Much.”
Reed shook his head. “No more talk about what you deserve, or me or Elic. We each have areas we need to get better at. Cas is going to work on communicating and saying what he feels. I’m going to do better at voicing what bothers me. Elic?” It wasn’t presumptuous of him to ask me. It was honest, what we should be.
“I’m going to work on trusting others, which goes hand in hand with both of yours. If you don’t talk, I won’t know if I’m missing something or not. You two have had decades to learn each other. I have a lot of catching up to do.”
“You can read me just fine,” Casper said. He tilted his head down so his cheek rested on my shoulder. I leaned my head on his, soaking in as much of this as I could. The display of affection, even if it was only within these walls, meant everything to me.
“Can I get in on this?” Reed asked, motioning to Casper and me.
I reached for his hand. “I told you it was okay if you touched me.”
“You’re going to have to promise to tell us if anything we do or say makes you uncomfortable. We never want to make you feel that way.”
