Page 28 of A Very Rossi Christmas
"Absolutely."
It was the last thing I remembered, that word and the feel of him around me, until I woke up the next morning to the sun shining brightly through my window. I cracked one eye open and registered that it had to be after 7 and that it was going to be a beautiful day.
Christmas, I realized. It was Christmas.
I turned over to wish Joseph a Merry Christmas, nearly laughing at the idea that we were together again for the holiday after all these years, but froze when I was facing the other way.
Joseph wasn't in my bed, and when I ran a hesitant hand over his pillow, I found it cold and smooth.
He'd been gone for some time, then.
He'd managed to get out of bed—and then out of the house—without waking me. Without bothering to say goodbye.
And from the looks of it, he'd taken Caleb with him.
I closed my eyes in regret and something that felt a whole lot like a piece of my heart breaking off, and bit my lip, trying to contain the emotion and disappointment rolling through me.
Stupid to have thought he'd stay, I told myself. Stupid to have thought this might be anything. Stupid to have forgotten what was really going on here, and who we both were.
Stupid to have thought that one night of finally giving in to something that had been brewing between us for years could lead to anything more than this.
I opened my eyes and sat up, staring out at the ocean. At the end of the day, I reminded myself firmly, he was a Rossi, and I was a Brennan.
And that made us enemies.
No matter how much our hearts thought otherwise.
I got out of bed, found my robe, and went to make coffee, turning my head to what I was meant to be doing with my day... and the question of whether or not Brooks had made it home last night.
EPILOGUE
JOSEPH
CHRISTMAS IN LA
I slumped into the chair at my gate and let my head fall into my hands, trying to figure out where the pain inside me was coming from. My head? Yes, I had a killer headache. My back? Definitely. Getting over the wall last night and then jumping to the ground had been brutal. My stomach?
Yes. I'd had coffee but no food, and that never sat well with me.
My heart?
I stilled, doing a mental check of the organ in question. It seemed to be beating normally, pumping the blood through my body the way it was supposed to. Physically, at least, it was fine.
Emotionally?
That was a different story.
I allowed myself a moment to remember, then. Just a moment, because I knew it was all I could afford. The feel of Sloane's skin under my fingertips. The taste of her on my tongue. Those amazing silver eyes staring up at me as I slid into her for the first time.
I let myself recall the feeling of being inside her, of my heart expanding so rapidly that I thought I might have a heart attack then and there. Let myself remember her moaning my name again and again as we dove into the darkness together.
I let myself remember the feeling of falling asleep with her in my arms.
And then I looked up and into the airport itself, the ghosts of the night flitting away like they'd never existed. My eyes jumped from person to person in the crowds, as if I was somehow expecting to see a familiar face. A head full of red curls and wide gray eyes dancing in a face that looked like it could have belonged to a child.
The face of the girl I'd loved since I was seven years old.
And then I took all those feelings and memories and the sense of finally being with someone I belonged to, and I put them all into a chest that I then shoved into a closet in my mind and walled up with bricks.
