Page 119 of Late Nights & Love Lines
Turning my chin toward him, he holds me close enough to smell the hops on his breath from whatever beer he drank downstairs. “Whether you ever love me back or not, this place is your home. These people, us, we’re your family. So, if you run, we’ll keep your heart safe. And when you come home, we’ll be here waiting for you, because this is home, Row. It’s home for you and me, and it’s home for us when you’re ready.”
My phone rings in my hand, once, twice, three times before he sighs and pulls away. Kissing my forehead, he gives me space, and I do the one thing I know won’t cause my pulse to skyrocket so high that I pass out.
I answer the phone. “Single Dad Hotline, I’m your helper, how can I help you?”
“Rowan, I need Lottie’s number.” He’s so loud I have to pull the phone away from my ear.
Thane Wilder has the uncanny ability to ruin a moment.
“Thane—”
“Listen. I know she’s not going to Paris because she has you to take over Europe now, and I don’t even care.”
“What the hell are you talking about? How do you?—”
“Kara’s run away, and I think she’s searching for Lottie because she thinks Lottie is heading to Paris. I need her number.”
“Ran away? Why would she?—”
“For fuck’s sake, Rowan. I need the goddamn number.” In all my time working with Thane, I’ve never once heard him emit an ounce of emotion, but now he sounds as though he’s drowning in it.
My phone is wrenched from my hands. “Don’t fucking talk to her that way.”
I jump to my feet and find a very pissed-off Sebastian scrolling through his own phone while growling into mine. In horror, I watch as he recites Lottie’s personal cell phone number, then tosses my phone onto the bed behind him.
“Paris?” he asks, the word trembling as it crosses his lips.
I wring my hands together in front of me while the lunch I ate earlier swirls in my belly like shards of glass.
“I told you about Lottie’s offer,” I say. My voice shakes worse than a category-five earthquake.
“I remember.” I can’t read his expression, but a fear I’ve never known creeps up my spine.
It’s the fear of losing him, I realize.
“Did you accept the position?” he asks.
I shake my head.
“Did you turn it down?” His tone is a blend of hopefulness and fear that I feel all the way to my bones.
Breaking eye contact, I stare at my wrist while twisting the pretty crystals and shake my head again.
“I see.” Two words that convey the hurt in his tone. He steps forward, holds my biceps in his hands, and places a gentle kiss to my forehead. “I meant what I said. This is your home whether you’re mine or not. Always.”
When he steps back, he doesn’t meet my gaze, and that cuts more than my mother’s indifference. But this time, the pain that I feel is my own damn fault.
“I’m going to get the kids to bed. It’s getting late.”
I try to swallow or nod or something, but my mind has lost control of my body and I can’t even blink.
He leaves me alone on the balcony. The party down below is filled with people who are trying so hard to include me in their lives, yet I’ve never felt more alone in my grief and pain.
“Fight for the life you want, not the life you think you deserve.”
Pappy’s words from my sixteenth birthday come back to haunt me now because I’m beginning to understand that my entire life has been built on fighting for the life I thought I had to have—the one that’s a never-ending uphill battle against old wounds.
What if I’ve been fighting for the wrong thing all this time?
