He was gone.
Agony lined my insides.
But little voices were flowing into my room, and I knew I didn’t have the time to wallow. I forced myself from the bed, aching in a way I wasn’t sure I knew how to handle.
Knowing he would be gone.
That he’d given too much.
But after last night? I had a new understanding of what he’d meant when he’d told me he had nothing left to give, even though I ached for him to find refuge in me.
In us.
And at the same time knowing seeing my children just might hurt him too much.
I pulled open the door only to stop in my tracks.
Gasp leaving me at the sight.
Leif was in the living room with my children.
Greyson on his back and trying to tackle him to the floor, Penny giggling as she explained to him how to play the boardgame that was set out in the middle of them. Leif tried to balance Greyson on his back and listen to Penny at the same time, and both Brendon and Kallie were there, adding in their instructions.
Warm, brown-sugared eyes found mine, like he felt me before I’d even stepped into the room.
Heartache.
Affection.
The small room crowded.
Overflowing.
Abounding with something greater than I’d ever felt.
Love.ThirtyLeifIt was getting harder and harder to separate.
Time. Space. Devotion.
Who the fuck I was supposed to be.
There I was, sitting propped up on her bed strumming at my guitar like that was where I belonged.
Wearing nothing but the jeans I’d pulled back on from where they’d been tossed onto the floor.
Discarded while I’d gotten greedy.
While I’d gotten lost in her sweet body again.
Another summer thunderstorm rumbled the walls, quick flashes of bright light blanketing the windows, the disorder almost a calm.
Every blip of light illuminating the girl who was curled up next to me.
That tight, sweet body exhausted and spent.
Her face sheer bliss where she slept.
Kudos to me.
Girl was radiating this joy that couldn’t be missed. Emitting that light that pressed into the dark.
Had been this way for the last week. Neither of us able to get enough. Reaching for each other every chance we got.
Pure, straight-up gluttony.
No chance of gettin’ full.
I glanced down at her, girl on her side, facing me. Waves of black hair strewn around her, and her heart beating this pace that sucked me straight into peace.
That feeling gripped my black, bitter soul.
Vacancy screamed.
Begging me to just let go.
Had the stark, striking need to play.
To get lost in her decadent harmony.
Girl a song.
Surrender.
I let my fingers play across the neck of my guitar as the other hand quietly strummed. My voice barely broke through the still of the night.
Moved.
Desolate.
Would give it all up,
If it would keep you from coming apart.
Are you falling?
Are you flying?
Tell me, baby,
Is it worth dying,
For everything you’ve been living for?
Is it, is it worth dying, for everything we’ve been fighting for?
I fumbled through the chorus, the words I’d been searching for catching in my throat.
Felt like I might as well have been touching her.
Adoring her.
Girl lying next to me a revelation. Something I never saw coming.
How did we get here?
Is it ecstasy?
Blasphemy?
Can you live in this bitter truth?
Is it rhapsody?
Heresy?
Lying here next to you?
Could barely get the lyrics to scrape free, their truth bottled deep, vying to be heard.
Recognized.
Accepted.
I jolted out of the stupor when my phone lit up on the nightstand. The ringer had been silenced, and the flash dragged my attention to it.
My chest tightened when I saw who was calling.
Unease.
Anticipation.
Being careful to keep quiet, I slipped off the bed, setting my guitar aside and grabbing my phone before I quietly slinked out of the suite and out into the hall like a motherfucking snake.
A cheater living a double life.
No surprise there.
But there was no room for an audience.
Not for this.
No chance I’d risk any one of them colliding with my past.
When I was out in the silence of the hall, I accepted the call, not knowing if I should be sagging in relief or sitting on edge.
“Brax.” Kept my voice quiet. Hushed in the night.
“Yo, man. How’s it?”
Perfect.
Amazing.
Torture.
“Good,” I told him rather than dolling out the treachery.
“You got news?” I forced out the question, turning to stare out the bank of windows that ran the hall.
Pool was a dark, deep pit. Water a toil of energy.
Trees tall, dark shadows that thrashed in the night.
The yard nothing but desertion and rapid blips of light.
He blew out a weighted breath, confession laced with caution. Like he hated to be the bearer of motherfucking bad news. “Got news, but I’m not sure you’re going to like it.”
I waited.
He stalled.
“Just tell me, man.”
Reluctance filled his admission. “Think it’s your mom who knows, brother.”
Bitterness surged.
Malice curled my hands into a fist, nearly crushing the phone. “You sure?”
He exhaled, his voice quieted in secrecy while a party raged somewhere in the distance behind him, fading as he paced away from the mayhem of that world. “Can’t say for certain. But she cornered me earlier. Asked a bunch of pointed questions. Think she knows that I know where you are.”