Page 68 of Serpentine

He smiles. “Two f-bombs. She means business tonight.”

I laugh again, this time unabashed. “You’re fucking right. I do! No one fucks with you and gets away with it.”

His hands scoop behind my ass and mold to the flesh through my leggings. “Is that so? It’s kind of hot, you know? Thinking of you defending me.”

“I’ve got a vicious bite.” I snap my teeth together, the sound barely audible over the white noise.

He laughs, and it’s from the belly. “I bet you do, Bambi.”

I let my head rest under his chin and close my eyes, taking more of the moment before it’s over. Even though I’m glad it is over, he and I have bonded deeper through whatever happened.

“Are you alright?” he asks.

I pull back up to eye him. “Me?”

He nods, reaching up and tucking the hair behind my ear. “Few people have seen me like that. It had to be scary for you.”

I’m still taken aback. He’s worried about me.

“I’m fine. I don’t judge you for whatever it was, either. People have different ways of processing the world, I think. Sometimes, I get these panic attacks where I can’t breathe, and my dad used to tell my nanny I was making them up that they were for attention. When all I wished was that he understood they weren’t something I’d wish on my worst enemy.”

He nods in understanding. “It’s like that for me. Though, I don’t have a name for anything that happened to me. I’m just…different.”

I clear my throat, letting the following words roll around a few times before I speak them. I told Braxton to be honest, and I will be the same with him. “Do you want to?”

He quirks a brow in question.

“Do you want to have a name for what is different about you? A doctor could probably diagnose you. You wouldn’t have to be alone. I could go with you or Miles…”

His eyes take me in, and I can almost see the wheels of his mind turning. “You’d do that? I mean, what would it matter now? I’ve lived my life this way for all these years.”

I shrug as nonchalantly as I can. “It wouldn’t matter, but you’d have an answer. It might help you understand yourself better.”

He seems to inspect the plains of my face for a moment as he thinks. “I would like to. Mom said it didn’t matter to her or the family, but I think it matters to me. I want to know.”

I nod. “Well, let’s figure it out then, yeah?”

“We have a lot going on right now, and…”

I cover his mouth with my finger. “It’ll take time to get into a doctor anyhow, Brax. We will get the ball in motion while everything else gets handled. Don’t make it a point of stress, or it’ll become one.”

He nods as he leans forward and lets his lips skim mine before fully diving in.

I groan, winding my body around him as tightly as I can.

“Can we turn the white noise off? It’s making me sleepy,” I say when we finally come up for air.

He chuckles but nods.

Neither of us moves to get up. We stayed in our little bubble a while longer, ensuring both of us were alright before leaving it.

It’s just him and me, the world turning around us as we decompress together from what’s outside these walls.

“I’m going to miss you,” I tell him.

I’m unsure if he’s heard me until he says, “I’m going to miss you, Bambi.”

TWENTY-ONE

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