Page 143 of Fall Into Me

When he grabbed me around the waist and hauled me back to the bed, every bubble of laughter died in my throat when he hovered above me and said, “Time to tick off number three on the sex list,” and reached for one of the lingering ties loosely hanging from one of his ankles.

My parents were still in Cullen Grove. They still didn’t know about what had happened with Declan, and I put it all down to the fact that it had been two whole years since my mom got her “new phone,” and she still thought the red button that popped up when she got a call was the answer button.

Every time without fail, she pressed it and muttered, “Dammit, I missed them again.”

They ended up calling Fane when they kept getting my voicemail to let us know that they were going to be out of town a little longer and that they were going to extend their stay, turning it into their first vacation in over a decade.

Cullen Grove was only forty minutes from Darling, but it felt like a world away compared to the cautious baby steps they’d been taking toward their new normal after everything they’d endured.

In a bittersweet way, the distance was good for me too. I had a chance to learn a little bit more about who I was without them, after so much of who I’d been had revolved around them for so long.

I gave in to Fane’s pleading and didn’t work for the rest of the week. We had, however, been into the café every day, and when I noticed that Ash had been eating up all my cookie ingredient stock again, I couldn’t have cared less.

I just ordered double what I had the time before, and when Fane received a message from him that said,Tell Cora I love her so much that my body is struggling to physically hold it all in,I didn’t even roll my eyes.

Okay, I did, but just a tiny, baby roll.

Fane made us breakfast-for-dinner nearly every night, so by Sunday, I felt like a living, breathing caramelized banana.

I was quickly running a brush through my hair, getting ready for our weekly dinner at my parents’ place now that they were back from their trip, when Fane called out from the front door.

“Hey, I don’t think I’m going to be able to make it to your parents for dinner,” he said, tugging on his boots. That made me pause because it meant he was still planning to leave the house.

“Oh.” I nodded as casually as I could. “Okay.”

“Do you want me to drive you, or will you take Delilah’s car?”

“No, no, I can drive.” I tried to smile, but he didn’t even look at me as he reached for his jacket. We weren’t glued at the hip or anything, though it had kind of felt like it since he’d been back. The man was hard-pressed to let me out of his sight—especially since I still hadn’t gotten a new phone. I’d been enjoying not being tethered to one, if I was being honest.

So, this sudden mention that he wouldn’t be coming to dinner—and the way he’d checked his phone four times in the last two minutes—made my stomach twist.

“Is everything okay?”

He looked at me finally, a small smile on his face. He just settled a broad hand on the back of my head and pressed a kiss to my forehead. “There’s something I have to do.”

I nodded, my fingers not wanting to let go of his jacket when he pulled back, but I did. “Okay.”

I locked up behind us, and we both got into separate cars, him going one way and me going the other.

It felt weird being away from him.

It felt weird that he wasn’t being weird about it, but then again, I was just going to my parents’ place. Something I was, admittedly, wildly excited about.

Their absence had felt necessary when they announced their extended stay in Cullen, but by the time Thursday afternoon rolled around, I missed them enough to send a message asking if we could move our usual Thursday night dinner to Sunday.

We talked for hours, just the three of us. Before, during, and long after our plates were scraped clean. It hadn’t been the three of us in a long time, and the conversation between us hadn’t been as easy as it was since before Mom got sick.

I knew I had to tell them about Declan, and I did—but in the most pared-down version of events imaginable. As I spoke, I found myself absently pulling my hair across the cut on my neck, the stitches for which I had thankfully gotten out the day before. The bruising on my face had faded to a yellowy-green by now, and while it was definitely out of place for a dinner setting, a full face of makeup did the trick in covering up what little evidence remained.

They both panicked for about thirty seconds, frantic and overwhelmed, before I managed to reassure them with the samestory I’d given the police. The real details—the whole truth—were known only to me, Ash, Fane, and Declan.

Their relief was palpable, but so was the lingering worry in their eyes. I could feel it in the way my mom’s hand gripped mine across the table, her fingers trembling ever so slightly. It was harder than I’d thought it would be, not just sharing the story, but resisting the urge to soften it, to erase the worry so clearly etched into their faces. That worry, I realized, was universal. It existed in every parent for their children, no matter how old we got.

But, just like Fane was learning that the sins of others were not his to repent, their worry was not mine to carry.

When they hugged me good night, it was at least two hours later than it usually was when we parted ways. When my mom hugged me a little tighter and a little longer, I didn’t fight it. I settled into the skin of being her daughter. A child who had grown up and no longer got the benefit of being hugged by a mother who was taller than her, bigger than her.

I let myself sink into the way she smelled like bergamot and lemon and jasmine and lilies. She’d always smelled like that my whole life. It was constant, and I let it soothe something in me. A reassurance that we were going to be okay. That we had survived so much, and somehow, we would keep going.

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