Page 117 of My Ex's Brothers

Tripp’s voice is solid, unwavering. Stronger than it should be for someone his age.

“Betsy was pissed. Dad too. What he did, it didn’t just affect you. It affected all of us. And if he thinks he can come waltzing back in here like nothing’s happened, with asorryand that cocky attitude, he can fuck right off.”

Tripp laughs, covering his mouth with one hand. I meet his gaze, seeing the mischief there, and it only makes me smile. “Oops. Sorry.” He gently covers one of Lyla’s tiny ears. “He can go fuck right off,” he whispers, and I can’t help but laugh. The laugh starts small, but it builds until I’m crying and Tripp is laughing too.

“Thank you, Tripp,” I say through a choked sob slash laugh.

But the air turns tense as silence falls. He traces his finger down Lyla’s cheek, gazing down at her with a softness that only elevates his youth, but at the same time, makes him look older.

“I mean, that’s what you do when you love someone, right?” he says. “You fight.”

The simplicity in his voice is not lost on me. I know he’s talking about my love for my daughter. Understanding the best way he can.

But I can’t help but feel like he’s saying it to me too.

“Right,” I say, just as he looks up. His crystal gaze meets mine, and his eyes dip to my mouth as his expression shifts to something softer.

Sweeter.

“I think I love you, you know,” he says quietly.

My lips turn up in the corner just the slightest. “I know,” I whisper, because it’s true. I think I’ve known Tripp’s loved me since that day at the grocery store. At the zoo. I felt it then, and it’s never changed. This feeling I have when I’m with him. When I look at him.

“I think I might love you too,” I whisper.

Tripp reaches his free hand out and pulls me and Lyla closer.

“You think so?” he teases me. “I know you do.” The dark tinge to his voice makes my blood rush, my insides heat. He kisses me, and it’s different than the way he usually does. Tripp is always fun, always bright. His kisses are like sunshine.

But right now he doesn’t taste like sunshine and dreams. He tastes like dark chocolate, like rainy days and thunder and lightning.

His kiss is unrelenting and strong.

And I know from that one kiss that he would do anything for me. For us. For Lyla and me. His heart, his loyalty, his strength is more than he shows to the world. I feel blessed to know it.

“Thank you,” I whisper against his warm lips.

“Anytime, Mamma Mia,” he says. “Do you want me to put her down, or?—”

I shake my head, leaning it on his shoulder. I curl into him with my sleeping baby and close my eyes. “No. Just…stay here. Like this. With us. Okay?”

I flash my gaze up at him and note the smile on his face.

“Okay,” he says, squeezing my shoulder just a bit. “Anything for my girls.” He grabs the remote, flipping through the channels as I close my eyes.

When I wake, Lyla is gone and I’m in bed. But it isn’tmybed. I know without looking where I am even though I haven’t spent much time in anyone else’s bedroom.

The metal and dark colors scream Richard Rose.

Plus, the smell of car grease and metal is unmistakable.

“Where—” I rub my eyes and then I see him, across from me, sitting on the edge of his bed, legs kicked out, one arm behind his head. He looks at me with a softness that is uncharacteristically beautiful on a man like him.

“Tripp put her down,” he says.

“Where’s Dane?” I ask, not missing the hurt in Richie’s eyes. I hadn’t meant it like that, I just?—

“In the library slash nursery.” I don’t miss the way he looks to the door, almost as if he expects me to go. To get up out of this bed and leave to get Dane.

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