Page 7 of Beyond Repair: Part One

"Morning," he croaks.

Christ, he looks so tired, and I don't mean just physically. My fiancé’ssoulis tired. I pepper a few kisses on his splotchy cheeks. "Why are you awake, Henry?"

In the soft glow of our bedroom from the nightlight, I watch his attention flick to the picture that's been at our bedside for years. He shrugs while my throat tightens with emotion.

It feels like just yesterday Nina wrapped her arms around mine and Henry's necks, then jumped up so we could swing her between us. She was always so much smaller than us.I miss the way she used to climb us like a little monkey.

"Kai—"

"I know," I soothe. Looking at the last photo we have of her makes the urge to tug the blanket over us and never face the world again that much stronger. "I know, baby."

He sighs and wiggles against me to roll back onto his side. "Does something feel different lately to you?"

I frown into his bare shoulder. "What do you mean?"

"I mean..." He's silent for a moment. "Like something's about to change." Running my lips across his smooth skin, I shake my head. "What if it's Nina?"

This isn't the first time we've had this kind of conversation. I'm not sure what triggers this feeling in Henry, but I try to be supportive. He's always been different, more in tune with...something. The universe maybe? Fate? Who knows, but I believe him when he expresses these things.

"It's been a while since you felt like this." It's not a question, but a prompt for him to explain himself more. The curiosity and anxiety I experience each time scares me, like I too feel something shifting in the world. All it took to notice it was my fiancé pointing it out.

"Over a year and a half ago," he confirms, still looking at the picture beside our bed. "I thought maybe..."

I know what he thought. For an entire month, Henry had the volume on his phone as high as it could go. He rarely let his cell out of his sight just in case we got the call we've been waiting for since we were sixteen and seventeen. Nina's mom and dad promised to call us if anything ever changed with Nina's case.

Leaving our hometown was the hardest thing we've ever done aside from losing the heart of our group. It felt like admitting defeat, as if moving on with our lives as adults meant giving up hope on Nina.

I admit, and I fuckinghatethat I feel this way, but my hope has taken some brutal hits over the years. Bouts of depression and indescribable guilt have taken chunks out of the four of us.

It's so hard not to follow the others into the pit of despair when it flares up. We're close, closer than friends. The four of us are a family. Losing Nina brought us together and forced us, as teenagers, to hold on to each other tighter. It never occurred to me and Henry to move out after I proposed last year. We're right where we're meant to be and if a couple living in a house with two other men is weird to some people, they can go fuck themselves.

We have a built-in support system and when times get rough, like now, we're damn lucky to have our best friends, our brothers, down the hall. Well, not down the hall; upstairs. They don't need to hear me fucking my man until the sheets don't muffle his screams.

Turning my head to my wrist, I take a deep inhale. My breath stutters at the absence of her scent.

"Here," Henry says, sounding a bit more alive in the face of my desperation for our girl. I keep my forehead pressed into his shoulder blade even as I hear the beep of him turning the humidifier on. "Up."

Heeding his demand, I lift my head and let him maneuver me until we're facing my side of the bed with me as the little spoon now.

"Breathe, love."

I take a breath and immediately release a sigh of relief when the scent of roses settles my nerves. Nina always smelled like roses.I wonder if she tasted like them too.

After a while of us soaking in the aroma from my humidifier, Henry slides his hand from my stomach to my hip. "Stay with me this morning?"

My dick twitches. I roll to my back, groaning as the sheets tease the sensitive tip. He doesn't hesitate to twirl his rough fingers through the patch of hair at the base of my cock. The sadness that strangled me minutes before, settles into a weight passed on to the shoulders of the entire family.

"Have I ever denied you anything?" I grin when his eyes light up.

"Does that mean I can have your mouth?"

Fuck the hike. I'm gonna follow his happy trail instead.

Chapter 6

Nina

"How are you feeling about tomorrow, sweetie?"

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