Page 32 of After All This Time

"I'm fine, Tobias."

She hit me with both "okay" and "fine."

The twin pillars of dismissal.

"It's late, and I'm tired."

She tries to pull away from my grip, but I hold on, my fingers tightening just enough to keep her here.

"Just talk to me first," I plead, trying to tread carefully. "I hate going to bed on a fight. You know that."

It's a wound I don't dwell on, but it's there all the same.

The memory of my mother is more absence than presence—a hollow space where love should've been, shaped like a woman I can't remember.

Growing up with just my dad made me feel like an orphan in my own home, always craving the tiniest scrap of attention or some sign that I was more than a burden, yet despite everything, my love for him was unconditional. I couldn't help it. Even when it felt painfully one-sided, I clung to this hope—this desperate need to believe that he cared somewhere deep down in his blackened soul. I wanted to think that I mattered to him, that I wasn't invisible, and that I wasn't completely alone in this life.

I'd go to bed some nights, hoping he'd come by, even just to say goodnight. I'd lie there, staring up at the glow-in-the-dark stars stuck to my ceiling, counting them over and over, wondering what kind of broken thing I must be for my own father to look at me like I was nothing.

As I got older, I promised myself that anyone I cared about would never have to wonder where they stood with me. They'd never go to bed feeling like they weren't enough.

And now here I am, standing in the shadow of that promise, holding Amelia's wrist as if it's an anchor that will keep her from closing herself off and leaving me on the other side of a wall I can't breach.

"Please, Mills," I loosen my grip, hoping she'll recognize my need for things to be okay between us.

"Fine, you wanna talk?" she says, crossing her arms and giving me that look—the one that screams,You asked for this,and I know I'm about to take a hit."The only reason you're living with me is because you were forced into it. You drive me to work because you'd be the one blamed if anything happened. You try to keep me away from a perfectly nice, although, yes, maybe a little pushy guy because you're scared our parents would lose their shit if I ever took someone like him home. This whole situation? Emotional blackmail. You got a car out of it, and now you're stuck with me until I'm gone next year, and you can finally breathe again."

Ouch. Seriously, fucking ouch.

"Tell me right now that this is your anger talking and not what you actually feel."

I keep my gaze on her, searching her eyes for any sign that she'll refute it, but she only looks away.

"I love living with you, Mills. This—us—being here with you feels like home again, and not the home I grew up hating, but the one that I finally felt comfortable in after you tiptoed your way into my life."

How could she ever think I’m not happiest with her here, when being with her has always made it a little easier for me to breathe?

I turn and walk away toward the kitchen, needing to stop looking at her while she feels so distant.

"I get that our parents pushed this situation on us because you're new to the city, but I'm not here to babysit you or becauseI have to be, Amelia. I know you know that, so why are you putting me into a role you know I'm not playing?"

She follows me, hands planted on her hips, but something in her stance softens.

"Okay, maybe I'm overreacting a little, but I'm not a kid, Tobias, and I can make my own decisions about who I spend time with."

"I know that, Firefly. I just worry about you. That's all it is, and I haven't even thought about you leaving if you get a permanent position with the company."

I close the distance between us, needing to erase this rift, and she looks up at me, confusion darkening those chocolate eyes I know better than my own, and for a moment, I forget how to breathe.

The moment hits me like a surge, and my body immediately betrays me, cock stirring and making my blood heat with an ache I have no right to feel. It's wrong, and every instinct I have tells me so. Every moral fiber in my body screams at me to back away, but when her teeth catch that bottom lip, my mind spirals into places that should be locked away and buried six feet under where they can't poison what we are.

For one dangerous heartbeat, I forget everything—the boundaries, the rules, and why I shouldn't want her.

My hand moves on its own, reaching for her mouth like it has any right to be there, aching to drag that lip free with my thumb.

I catch myself a breath away from her skin, redirecting my hand to her shoulder in a touch that's supposed to be innocent but feels like a lie, because there's nothing fucking innocent about the images burning through my brain right now.

Brush it off. You're unsatisfied, that's all. You're desperate to lose yourself in someone without feeling hollow, and now you're imagining things that shouldn't even cross your mind because your dick brain is dominating your head brain.

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