Page 24 of Adrift

Before I knew it, I’d have fallen asleep.

I startle awake some time later, still clutching Arman to my chest. His warm breath wafts over my collarbone before he takes a deep inhale and buries himself even further into me.

I lift my eyes instinctively. It’s as if, even in sleep, I could feel someone’s eyes lingering on me. Someone who seems to do that a lot but never reveals a single thought. I feel his gaze on me, like I feel the cool breeze coming from the air conditioning.

Darian stands with his arms crossed, leaning against the doorframe, and I wonder how long he’s been there. He’s already rendered me tongue-tied multiple times over the course of my time here, but with his arms flexing under his gray T-shirt and his hair mussed in the sexiest disarray, I’m as good as mute.

Still, something about him seems on edge and unpredictable as his wild eyes stroll over every inch of me with the precision of a surgeon. He takes in my exposed legs before lingering on my bare shoulders. When he finally reaches my face, his eyes lock on my lips before they move up to my eyes.

I don’t know if it’s because his perusal has me parched or crazed–maybe both–but I find myself gliding my tongue over my bottom lip. The movement makes him inhale sharply. It’s when I bite the middle of my lip, inadvertently–or maybe purposefully–that I see his entire body go rigid.

Warning bells sound inside my head, alerting me to the fact that whatever is happening at this very moment is toeing a line I should be really sure I want to cross, because once I do . . . there might not be a return trip.

This isn’t right. He’s your brother-in-law . . ..

My gaze stays trapped on his as I start to rock the chair again, holding the most precious part of his soul in my arms. I don’t know if it’s the abandon that the shadowed room seems to bring about that vanishes in sunlight or the belief that I’m still dreaming, but I feel like I’ve sprouted wings, like I’m gliding toward a goal I never set.

It’s brazen and breathtaking, but at this very moment, I feel like I could leap off this cliff and soar. Only fate would decide if I’d make it to my final destination or fall into an endless abyss, but I feel daring enough to give it a try.

This want, this insane desire, isn’t something I’ve felt or been compelled toward my entire life. Not at this intensity, with the burner turned all the way up. The only man–a boy, really–who’s made me feel anything prior to this, would feel like comparing a feral street cat to a lion.

And if a street cat could have shattered me so inexplicably, then what would a lion do if I let it get close enough?

I watch as Darian’s eyes go from dark to boundless, as if they belong on a ravenous tiger. I watch as his nostrils flare and his breathing hastens, for the first time revealing an internal battle he’s fighting–a battle I’m not sure he even knows he’s having.

I don’t know how long we stay there, locked in a dialogue of silent words, before Arman’s small, dreamy whimper pulls us out of the haze.

Darian’s eyes find his son in my arms before he strolls over to me. Reaching down, he lifts the baby from my grasp before speaking over his shoulder. His brusque tone betrays everything we just wordlessly shared, and I wonder if I imagined it all. “Go to sleep, Rani. Like I’ve said before, you don’t need to worry about him on the weekends.”

And just like that, the warm breeze beneath my newly found wings disappears, replaced by an arctic chill.

Chapter Nine

Darian

I unzip Arman’s raincoat, hanging it on a hook in the mudroom, before getting a towel out of the cabinet to wipe his face and hands. We were expecting rain today but instead of a drizzle, we got caught in a downpour on our way home from the grocery store.

Securing him in his high chair, I tread back to the garage to unload the groceries from my truck. I look down the driveway and up the road to see if I spot Rani’s car anywhere but it–nor its owner–has been around much this weekend.

“Fuck,” I grumble, running a hand through my hair before grabbing the first of five bags and the handle of lagers for when my brothers come over tonight for our usual Sunday afternoon poker game.

Another pang of guilt stabs me right in between my ribs as I place the bags on the kitchen counter and run out for the others. I shouldn’t have been so harsh with her a couple of nights ago.

I’d heard Arman through the monitor as soon as he was up, but I wanted to give him a few minutes to settle down on his own before I went to check on him. Sometimes he wakes up because of a bad dream and is able to soothe himself back to sleep. I’ve learned the differences in his cries and can usually gauge whether I need to get up immediately or not based on them.

So, it caught me by surprise when I heard Rani’s voice in his room through the monitor. All my senses locked on her soft, throaty voice as she sang to my son, and something in my chest constricted while I watched her rock him back to sleep.

A part of me wanted to stomp over and tell her that she’s ruining him–making him believe in something she’ll ultimately take away at the end of summer. That forming this attachment isn’t healthy and will only end in heartbreak when he doesn't see her everyday afterward.

That same part of me whispered that I wasn’t just talking about my son.

The other part–the part that didn’t care about the repercussions or restrictions–wanted to go to her . . ..

Nothing about this situation–aside from her taking care of my son as if he were her own–is sitting well with me. My mind feels unsettled whenever I’m around her, like it can’t decide if I should root myself to my spot and hold my ground or run the other way.

I’m generally good at hiding my emotions–something that’s worked to my advantage with my brothers being the card sharks they are. I learned to keep my face impassive and my breathing steady whenever I got dealt a bad hand; otherwise, my brothers would rob me clean and wipe the floor with my ass. My emotions are for me to express in the privacy of my own room, not to be on display under a million lights like something in Times Square.

But with her . . ..

---