Page 96 of Pray for the Damned

Kade nods and crosses to the chair beside her bed. “I know. I just miss her.” His words are so gentle I almost miss them, but they bring a smile to my face.

My brother has never missed anyone in his life. He’s never given a fuck about anyone. But what he feels for Waverly surpasses everything. For both of us.

“You love her?” I ask.

His eyes flick up to meet mine, a stricken look crossing his face for a moment before the cool indifference returns. “Yeah. I do.”

I smirk. “I never thought I’d see the day.”

“Shut up. It’s not like you’re not head over heels for her.”

“Oh, I am, but I realized that years ago. It’s not a revelation for me.” I chuckle.

Kade sighs and slips his hand into hers, careful of the IV as he settles beside her. “Your apartment or mine?”

I raise a brow. “To move into?”

“Yeah. I don’t want to waste another minute. We’ve fucked around for a decade. After almost losing her, I’m done with it. I want everything, and I don’t want to wait for it.”

I shake my head, but the smile that tugs at my lips widens. “Yours,” I say. “Mine is small because I was never there.”

“And which one of us is legally marrying her?”

“Me,” I say, expecting him to argue, but he just gives me a nod and presses a kiss to the back of Waverly’s hand.

“Okay, but I get to knock her up first.”

I raise a brow. “And how exactly do you intend to enforce that?”

“No coming inside her when she’s ovulating.”

A chuckle tumbles from my throat, but an image of our future fills my mind. A little girl that looks like her mother and twin boys that look like us. A ring on our girl’s finger. A house in the suburbs where the kids can grow up. It’s perfect.

“You need to quit,” I tell him.

“I know. I’m done with that life. I thought I might try my hand at being a stay-at-home dad.”

“I think you need kids for that,” I remind him.

“Like I said, no more wasting time.” He shrugs.

I chuckle and shake my head. I don’t know how this became my life, but I won’t take it for granted. Not even for a second.

CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT

WAVERLY

The steady beep drags me from sleep, but my eyes refuse to open. There’s a pressure in the base of my skull that throbs, but I push past the pain, desperate to find the source of the annoying as fuck beeping.

It doesn’t take long for me to give up on my eyes and take stock of the other things around me. There are voices in the distance, but they’re too far away to make sense of what they’re saying.

The sharp stench of disinfectant touches my nose, which begins to put the pieces together in my scattered mind. I must be in the hospital. That explains the beeping and the smell, as well as the hard bed at my back.

My entire body is stiff as a board, making me think I likely haven’t moved in a while, which begs the question, how long have I been here?

But then I feel it. The hand in mine, the fingers brushing up and down my arm. The gentle kisses to my wrist every so often, and I realize I’m not alone.

Memories rush at me all at once. Being taken. Emmett and Kade’s cool indifference. Being shot. The sharp agony and my inability to remain conscious.

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