Page 123 of Smith

Smith saying it back made me realize what I said. Neither one of us had said the words. I knew he loved me, he showed me a thousand times a day. And I hoped he knew I loved him and not because he was bathing me, feeding me, and babying me. I loved him before the crazy manic kidnapped me.

“And do you guys love me back?”

“Oh, yeah, we love you like fucking crazy.”

I didn’t stop myself from smiling.

“You know what’s even crazier? The two of you hiding behind ‘we’ and ‘both’ instead of using ‘I’.

My smile turned into a frown.

“Don’t ruin my moment,father.”

My dad’s laughter filled the cab of the truck. Smith’s smile added to the goodness.

And there I sat, my gaze bouncing back and forth between the two men I loved most in life.

One I had all my life, the other I’d have for the rest of my life.

I was stunned into silence.

The house was amazing.

Cash had even found some reclaimed hardwood for the damaged flooring in the fourth bedroom and replaced the rotten planks.

I knew those floors would look stunning sanded and stained. The proof I was right was gleaming under my feet. The new bathroom and closet were amazing. Kira had added built-ins. With the money saved from salvaging the hardwood, she had the funds for it.

Unrepentant, she’d told me she looked through my laptop and found my budget and plans for the house. This of course after she unapologetically told me she cracked my password.

I finished my walkthrough of the upstairs, something I was surprised I’d been allowed to do alone, though Smith had walked me up the stairs and he was standing at the landing waiting for me to go back down.

“Brittney and George are downstairs,” he told me. “They were in the area and wanted to come by and see the house. If you don’t want them here, I’ll go down and handle it.”

They weren’t ‘just in the area.’ I wasn’t given the exact timeframe but Smith had told me the police had asked them if they’d come to the station and look at the evidence taken from the house. Smith reported Brittney was freaked. George was pissed. Beyond being angry his ex-best friend had been renting a storage unit in his name, had dating profiles set up using parts of his, had creepy pictures of his sister, had hidden evidence of his many crimes in his childhood home, he too was freaked to learn Billy was crazier than he’d thought. Especially when it came toStephanie, a girl he knew in high school. A girl he’d told the police Billy was obsessed with. I’d guess he wasn’t as freaked out as he was scared yet thankful Billy hadn’t turned on his sister, seeing as Billy was also obsessed with Brittney.

“I’m glad they’re here.”

Smith helped me down the stairs. The house wasn’t small but it certainly wasn’t designed for entertaining either. Thankfully, there wasn’t furniture in the living room, or Cash, Jonas, Zane, Ivy, Kira, my dad, Philip, his two teenage sons, Everette and Dakota who had also helped with the house, Brittney, and George, with the addition of me and Smith would not fit in the room. Lincoln was around here somewhere, or he had been when I went upstairs.

“Hey,” I greeted Brittney and George. “What do you think? They did a great job, right?”

Brittney’s face crumpled.

Oh hell.

Maybe it wasn’t a great idea having the old owners in the house they grew up in after it was totally remodeled.

“It’s beautiful,” she softly muttered.

“You sure?”

George put his arm around his sister.

“It’s great, Aria. We wanted to come by and see it but also we wanted to apologize.”

Smith, who was never far, was suddenly pressed close, ready to take my back in the event they said something that brought up bad memories for me.

Yeah, I totally loved him.

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