Page 107 of Little Bird
“I can’t expect you to love someone who brings you so much trouble. I don’t deserve it,” I whisper.
My fingers are twitching, my palms aching for the sting of a sharp blade, because the emotions are too big and I need to get them out of me. I need something more manageable; a physical pain that I can understand. But my bag is upstairs in my room, and I know I can’t leave in the middle of this. I press my palms together, trying to open up an old wound, but Gabe immediately notices and takes my hands in his.
“Shh,” he says. “Taryn, hush.”
He pulls my palms to his mouth and kisses one, then licks the other, and my nerve endings light up. The skin that wanted a blade a moment ago now just wants Gabe.
And my body agrees.
I gasp and look to Gunner to find his eyes hot with passion.
“You think we can’t love you?” he asks quietly.
“No one ever has,” I admit.
Gunner reaches over Gabe’s shoulder to brush his finger down my nose and then over my lips, his eyes following the action.
And in that moment, with my hands in Gabe’s and Gunner’s fingertips on me, I remember how to breathe, and my fear fades a little bit.
“Then I guess we’ll be the first,” he says simply. “If you’ll let us.”
It’s such a beautiful thought, so unexpected, that I can’t reply. My gaze shifts to Gabe, though, and I see the promise of forever in his eyes, too. The promise that this isn’t over.
Not even close.
He leans down and moves his face forward until it’s only inches from mine. “Do you think I’ve forgotten already?”
“Forgotten what?” I breathe.
The corner of his mouth twitches. “What have we always told each other?”
I don’t even have to think about it. The answer has been in my mouth for half of my life. “That we’re all in,” I say.
He cups my cheek, his eyes glowing with love and commitment. “Did you think that was going to change just because some city slickers showed up and threatened us?”
I press my lips together, because now that he’s saying it that way, it does sound crazy. We’ve been promised to each other since I was twelve. And suddenly it feels like doubting it is the biggest betrayal in the world. Because Gabe has been promising me his soul since the day I met him.
“Are you still all in?” he asks.
“Yes.”
“Then I don’t see what the problem is.”
It’s so simple, so easy, that my anxiety wants to fight against it. I want to scream that it shouldn’t be this simple or feel this natural. It shouldn’t feel like I’ve finally come home after a long trip full of disaster.
Then again, Gabe and Gunner have always felt easy and natural to me. It’s why I came to them when I was in trouble. Why I dialed Gunner’s number rather than any other.
Because these men have always been home to me.
I’ve always been all in.
I just had to go through hell to figure it out.
Epilogue
Taryn
Christmas morning is bright, beautiful, and sunny, and as I sit in the great room sipping coffee and eating a cookie, I feel like I might have found my way back to Heaven. My mother and Johnny Massimo are gone, and I know they won’t be coming back. I have no plans to go back to New York City, at least not immediately. One day, maybe.
