Page 31 of Better as It

She finally looks at me. “Why are you here, Justin?”

The question catches me off guard. “I mean it,” she says, voice shaking now. “Why? This isn’t your baby. This isn’t your problem.”

“You think I give a shit about that?”

“I think you should.”

“Well, I don’t.”

Her eyes start to shine. “You should be out with the club, doing runs, drinking with the guys, finding some girl who doesn’t come with this kind of baggage.”

“Stop,” I say, voice quiet but steel under it.

She quiets.

I reach out, tuck a piece of hair behind her ear. “You think I want some girl I barely know? Someone who won’t look me in the eye and tell me she’s falling apart but still gets up anyway? You think I want less than you?”

She blinks, tears falling freely now.

I lean in. “You’re it for me, Dia. Always have been. I knew it before I had the right to know it. And I’m here now because this is where I belong.”

She breaks. Full sob this time, hand over her face.

I pull her into my arms and hold her while she cries into my shoulder, her tears soaking into my shirt, her body wracked with everything she’s held back.

We get home and she immediately showers and changes into pajamas. The fatigue of pregnancy is definitely wearing her out. She’s asleep on the couch, curled under a blanket, Skye snuggled at her feet. The ultrasound photo rests on the coffee table next to an empty mug of tea.

I sit nearby, lights dimmed, scrolling through my messages.

BW’s sent a gif. Something stupid.

I don’t respond.

Because this right here is more important than any message, or any road right now. I used to love to watch her sleep. IN the beginning before things got complicated, I would be her ride home. She would invite me in. She always fell asleep on the couch in my arms and I wouldn’t dare move so I could watch her sleep. My mind goes back once again.

I’m sitting on the edge or her bed. The room is dark, but there is moonlight peeking in through her blinds catching wisps of hair that are laying across her face.

She’s at peace. This innocence in her face always stands out when she sleeps.

Tonight, it guts me.

Her breathing is soft, lips parted ever so slightly, her arm tucked under her head like she’s curled herself into a smaller version. Behind that softness and sweetness is a fire. A willpower to take down giants. She’s stronger than she looks and sassier than ever awake. But when she sleep, all there is to see is peace.

I ruined us before it even had a chance. I shouldn’t be here. I shouldn’t have come. I shouldn’t keep volunteering to be her ride. I damn sure shouldn’t have kissed her again. I never should have touched her with hands covered in blood like mine. My chest aches with it, the way it feels so right to have her wrapped up against me and the way it is so wrong that I allowed it to happen in the first place.

I stand, the mattress dipping ever slightly. She stirs, but doesn’t awaken fully. There is the faintest frown on her face as if she senses I’m about to vanish.

And I am.

I have to.

I pace the small room, once then twice. Hands in my hair, tugging at the strands in some effort to ground me. I struggle to find the strength to do what I should have done the first time she looked at me with pure, unconditional love.

Walk away.

I crouch beside the bed again, watching her carefully. Her lashes flutter, but her eyes never open. Her chest rising and falling in a steady rhythm. I reach out to touch her face, butstop short with my hand hovering in the air like the mere contact would burn me alive.

I whisper, “I’m no good for you.” It cuts me to my soul to admit. “You deserve, soft. You deserve gentle. You deserve untainted. You need someone who hasn’t spent his adulthood trading pain with men like currency and letting loyalty be measured in scars, all in the name of country and now in the name of brotherhood. I’ve taken a life and I can’t have that touch you.”

---