Page 147 of The Bronze Garza
I tilt my head to look up at him. His jawline is so sharp. “You really think it was bad?”
“Yup.” He toys with the ends of my hair. “But Jo gave me notes to give you. It’s in the glove compartment. She said something about you mixing genres and the plot being unfocused.”
It’s a little disheartening, but being unapologetically honest with me is so true to his character that I can’t even be offended. He’s been like this with me since day one. Never coddled me. Never pitied me.
“Do you think I have a chance?”
“I do. But I dunno anything about this shit so I can’t help you,” he says. “Jo can, though. She writes, too. Her father was a novelist and she’s got a chest of manuscripts rotting in my basement.”
“No way.” All those hours I spent typing away on her porch and she said nothing about this? Jo and I will be having words.
He nuzzles my hair. “You’ll get there.”
“You didn’t even get to see me kill you in chapter fifteen,” I grumble. “Then have hot sex with your surprise twin brother in chapter twenty.”
His shoulders shake with laughter. “Def made the right decision copping out early.”
“In all fairness, a lot of crazy shit was happening, all right? And that was my outlet.”
“Lyra?” he whispers in my hair.
“Hmm?”
“I love you.”
I tilt my head up again and scrape my teeth along his jawline. “I love you, too.”
ChapterThirty-Four
“It’s already worth it, baby.”
Lyra
Fourteen months later
From behind my sunglasses, I watchas Torin throws the chunky baby in the air then catches him. The baby giggles and kicks his pudgy little feet, wanting more, so Torin does it again.
Shirtless, barefooted, toes buried in tawny sand, it’s the most relaxed I’ve seen my man in months.
“He’s so good with him,” Jules says lazily from the sun lounger beside mine. “Who would have thought?”
We’re in Turks and Caicos. And bywe, I mean the entire Garza family. I’d been planning this trip for a while.
Each time Torin returned from a job, he was more tense than before the previous job. His growing resentment for his job, for having to leave me, was becoming a tangible thing and I didn’t know what to do about it.
With his incumbency to a “super-secret organization that must never be discussed,” he can’t exactly retire. He was appointed his position, and only death or severe disability can unseat him. Every boss has a boss, and they’re—kind of—his. When they call, he has to go.
Wanting to do something nice for him, I figured since I’d bombed his last vacation, I owed him one. So, with careful planning, I secured an entire beach front villa estate for two weeks.
Four days ago, he jetted here straight off of a job, under the impression that it would be just us spending the weekend together. When he arrived at the villa and found his entire family waiting for him, he’d closed his eyes and just stood there, breathing, wordless, for two whole minutes. And I could almost see the tension seep out of him like vapor.
We all knew him, so we all knew that kind of reaction from him wasgood. Gratitude and appreciation Torin style.
A two-week vacation with him all to myself would’ve been ideal for me, especially since he’s been away for almost two months. But his family is important to him, and he’s voiced how much he hates not being able to connect with them as often, so I knew including them was the right decision.
When planning, his brothers advised me that the best time for the trip would be late December, as that’s when things at Red Cage are more quiet, but to have a private jet on standby just in case. So here we are, a week before Christmas. According to Tillie, the entire family hasn’t been together for a holiday in over five years, so everyone—especially Monica—is grateful for the getaway.
Tripp and True are out on the water zipping about on jet skis with two local women they picked up from who knows where.
