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But that wasn't a life I wanted. Not for me or––I realized with a gulp––the family we would have one day. With a deep breath, I told him as much.
"I'm sorry," I said as I sat down on the couch. "We––maybe we should have talked about this before you bought this place. Before we agreed to get married. There's still so much we don't know about each other. I could––if you want––I could, um..."
I couldn't quite bring myself to say I'd leave if we thought differently on the matter. But it must have shown on my face.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Brandon said as he sat up completely. "Are you trying to break this off?"
"What? No!" I blinked, my eyes suddenly wet. "I'm just...you don't have to change what you are for me. But Brandon, I don't want guns in my house! I don't want them around my kids!"
Brandon set the gun on the bedspread, reached out to take my hand, and pulled me so I stood between his legs.
"Skylar," he said quietly. "I would never put our kids in danger. But I can't live like a sitting duck. I can't."
"But––"
"I'll get a safe, tomorrow. You're right––a tie drawer is a stupid fucking place to keep a deadly weapon. But Red...people like us...we're targets. We might be able to live our lives without any protections if we were like everyone else...but we're not, baby. We're just not."
I glanced around our new home, with its comfortable, yet plush surroundings, through a totally different lens. I had never lived in luxury––not in my family's house in Brooklyn, and not in any of the tiny apartments I'd called home. I'd been a regular person my whole life, someone who blended in with the crowd, who didn't need to worry about being singled out.
No more.
"I don't like it," I whispered, even as I allowed Brandon to weave his fingers through mine and drop light kisses over my knuckles.
"Me neither," he said. "But that's where we are." Then he looked up, his eyes bright and earnest. "I won't let anything happen to you again, Skylar. I won't."
His voice shook at the end, and I saw just how much my safety meant to him. I cupped his face and stroked my thumbs over the chiseled lines of his cheeks, feeling the stubble that had grown through the day. My fingers found his lips, drifted over the soft edges, and pulled slightly on the lower one, until Brandon bit the edge of my finger.
I considered that night––was it more than two months ago now?––that I'd been taken against my will. Messina's face and touch was still imprinted on my mind, but I'd been diligent about working through it with a therapist and at home. Would it have ended differently if I'd been armed? I didn't think so. I felt safer with people, not weapons.
But that was me.
I looked at the gun on the bed, then back at Brandon, who was waiting patiently––and nervously––for my answer. I draped my arms over his shoulder, then straddled him on the bed. His hands found my waist.
"I meant what I said." I nuzzled his nose. "I'm not going anywhere."
Brandon's chest caved slightly as he exhaled with relief, and he nosed into me, looking for a kiss.
"Get a safe," I said as I dropped one, then another onto his searching lips. "And a therapist."
He lay back onto the mattress, taking me with him as he pulled me down for another kiss that took my breath away.
"Brandon," I breathed once I was able to get a word in edgewise. "I mean it."
I looked to the side of the bed, where the gun still lay, looking harmless on the comforter.
Brandon followed my glance, then looked back at me, his hands tensing slightly as he pulled me even closer.
"Tomorrow," he said. "That's a promise."
And then he kissed me again, and didn't let go. And tomorrow ceased to have any meaning, since when he kissed me like that, time seemed to stop completely.
~
