Page 72 of Just Say When

It hurt how true that was. It hurt even more that he had alwaysknownit was true. I was his, now. I was his, way back then.

That was why he had left.

And that hurt most of all.

I slept.It had been an emotional rollercoaster of a day, and that combined with the epic orgasm had wrung me out. The second Brax tucked me up against his hard, warm body and pulled the quilt up over us, I was dead to the world.

He was still there when I opened my eyes to darkness. It was the first time we had spent the whole night together. Usually, we started the night on the couch and ended up in his bed, before I would eventually untangle myself from his arms and go back to the guestroom.

I lay there for a moment, listening to his quiet snores. It was too dark to see, but my fingers found their way to the tattoo on his chest just the same. I traced itthere, in the darkness, my heart doing uncomfortable things in my chest.

All this time.

With a sigh, I slid out of the bed, careful not to disturb him. It was Saturday, the one day we both had off. My body was so attuned to rising early that I woke up at 5 a.m. every day of the week, whether I had to work or not. Of course, on my days off, I simply rolled over and went back to sleep. I had the feeling that wasn’t going to be possible today.

My brain was wide awake.

I pulled on Brax’s sweats that I had commandeered and headed to the kitchen to make coffee. I wasn’t hungry yet, so I wrapped a throw blanket around my shoulders, shoved my bare feet into shearling slippers, and took my coffee onto the porch to greet the sunrise and sort out my messy mind.

The sky was a grayish purple, still dark enough that a few stars still twinkled. I didn’t know any constellations except the Big Dipper, because it was obvious, and Orion’s Belt, because it looked like an upside-down frying pan, but I loved to look at the stars. When I was a kid, I couldn’t wrap my mind around the fact that they were always there, regardless of whether I could see them or not.

Love was supposed to be like that. Immutable and true even when you couldn’t see it.

But I was still that child staring at the blue sky, searching for proof.

It had been there all along. The tattoo. My kiss on his heart. And he had hidden it from me. He had hidden his heart from me. It felt like a betrayal, but maybe one that neither of us could have understood at the time.

The door opened, and Brax stepped out, looking adorably rumpled.

“Hey.” His voice was gravelly from sleep. “Is there space for me on that swing?”

Silently, I scooched over a couple inches and opened the blanket. He sat down, then rearranged my body so I was facing him sideways, my legs draped over his lap, the blanket wrapped around us both.

“You didn’t want coffee?” I asked, noting the lack of mug in his hands.

He shook his head. “I didn’t know where you were. If you had gone to Lodestar without saying goodbye, or—” He broke off and shrugged.

His feet were bare, I realized. It was twenty-three degrees out here and he was fucking barefoot. My chest ached as I realized his first thoughts had been of me this morning, that he had been in such a hurry to find me that he hadn’t stopped to take care of himself first.

I pulled off my slippers and dropped them at his feet. “Here. They’ll be tight on you, but it’s better than nothing.”

“You’ll be cold,” he protested.

“I have the blanket. I’m fine.” I was already tucking my toes into the flannel.

He hesitated. “Essie?—”

That’s when I lost my shit.

“Put your goddamn feet in the goddamn slippers, Brax,” I said softly.

It might have been the quiet that tipped him off. I was never quiet. He eyed me warily as he shoved his feet into the slippers.

“I am an adult. I have been in charge of my own feet for at least twenty-eight years now. The only person who gets to decide if my feet are too cold isme. Do you understand?” I kept my voice pleasant, but inside I was seething.

“Then isn’t that the same for me, too?” he asked reasonably. “I get to decide for myself.”

“No, Brax. You don’t. Because you’re a jackass who would freeze his own feet off rather than take something from me that I am freely offering, because you don’t have any faith in my ability to take care of myself. Therefore, you forfeit all slipper-decision autonomy until you can pull your head out of your ass.” I blew on my coffee, sending the steam curling into his face.

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