Page 214 of Burning Daylight
Roman tenses beside me, but I nudge his side. “Relax. He’s been making fun of me since we were kids. This is affection.”
Lance’s mouth lifts in the faintest almost-smile. “He knows how much I love you.”
I lift a brow. “Does he now?”
He shrugs. “What, you think he was the one who saved you? All alone?”
Roman smirks. “I could’ve done it alone.”
Alex groans, dramatically dropping onto the chaise. “Can we not do the whole masculine martyr monologues right now? She just regained consciousness, not upped her tolerance for testosterone.”
Paxton sighs, frowning at me. “We tracked you with Benjamin Voltaire, who for the first time in his life was helpful. Lance got to you before the rest of us.”
“I heard Roman punched a tree,” Felicity pipes in. “Did you punch a tree?”
Lance chuckles. “He totally punched a tree.”
Roman scoffs. “It was symbolic.”
My eyes fling back and forth between all of them. Roman is…joking? With my brothers.
What the hell happened while I was drugged and knocked out?
“You know what else is symbolic?” Alex waves his hands. “The fact Jules survived. Poisoned, betrayed, dragged up a cliff like the last act of a Greek tragedy, and still, she rises.”
Felicity snorts. “You’re so dramatic.”
“I’m just saying,” he continues, completely unbothered. “If this were a play, we’d be in the final act. The masks are off. The villains are dead. The lovers are reunited. All that’s left is the curtain call.”
“Jesus,” Lance groans. “You teach a couple acting classes and now you think you’re the narrator ofHamlet.”
“I’m aphilosopherat heart, Lance. You know this. It’s not my fault I’m good at everything.” Alex grins.
“I give it five minutes before he starts quoting Nietzsche,” Paxton mutters, flopping onto the end of my bed like it’s his own personal chair.
“Well that just shows how much you don’t know me,” Alex says. “I’m in my Sophocles era now. Chaos, fate, tragic women with killer one-liners…”
He waggles his brows at Felicity.
I tune them all out, focusing on Roman.
“Thank you,” I whisper, squeezing his hand. “For coming back. For saving me. For not letting us end.” My throat tightens, tears pricking my eyes. “I thought I had lost you.”
“You willneverlose me.” He leans in, resting his forehead on mine, ignoring the bickering of my family. “Fate always brings us back together.”
I close the space and kiss him, soft and slow, full of every word I don’t know how to say.
“You still gonna paint me in everything?” I ask, a brow raised.
His lips twitch. “On my hands, in the sky, in the space between one breath and the next.”
“You can’t paintbreath,” I remark.
“That sounds like a challenge.”
I shrug. “Maybe it is.”
Someone clears their throat.
