Page 76 of Absinthe Dreams
I held on.
Didn’t want to let go yet when she needed me to be strong for her right now. She looked forward and caught the look on my face, and her expression crumbled into one of deep empathy.
“I know,” she whispered. “I tried. I’m so sorry.”
Yeah. What the fuck ever. I broke then – gutted, and legitimately so. I couldn’t hold it in anymore if I’d wanted to. She took me into her arms at the same time I took her into mine, and we both just stood in the hot shower spray and sobbed. Both of us grieving in our own way and our own things… her, for the trauma she’d endured, a little for Cy, I was sure, and for what little innocence she had left in this world, having been burned away.
Me, for my brother, for my friend, and my club, and for her and her pain – I admit, that was part of it.
Fuck, we were a pair, she and I. Both clinging to each other, the soul tie between us tightening, binding us tighter, despite it having every reason to grow thin and weak, brittle from the fire we’d just walked through.
I had no explanation for that. Only gratitude.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Genesis…
We’d showered and dressed in comfortable loose clothing, but as tired as I was, I wasn’t ready for sleep.
We wound up on the back patio, both of us cuddled together in Chainsaw’s hammock and watching the sky grow lighter, going from blue to lavender to pinks and yellows before finally the faintest bright blue.
I closed my eyes and found myself drifting as we swayed in the light breeze that smelled green and came from the Mississippi over houses and neighborhoods.
He got me up before I could fall completely asleep out here, and took me in to tuck me in beside him in our bed.
I knew deep in my bones that Chainsaw was the one.
His arms around me kept me grounded, and all I felt when I pictured a life and a future without him in it was a deep sense of loss and despair.
I didn’t want to go back.
There was no back, now. Only forward. There was no way I would abandon the man now when one of his brothers and closest friends had just been murdered in front of me. What kind of awful human being would that make me?
It didn’t matter, because I wouldn’t think of it.
I couldn’t.
He held me fast as I fell fast asleep, and I knew without him having to tell me that he was in this as much as I was and that he had no intention of leaving either.
It was late afternoon when we woke, and I groaned and yawned, pressing the back of my hand to my mouth to stifle it.
“Hey, baby,” he murmured.
“Hey,” I whispered back.
“Nightmares?” he asked.
I shook my head.
“No.”
“That’s good.” He sounded relieved.
“I think I was too tired to dream,” I said.
“Is that a thing?” he asked.
“Scientifically?” I asked.
