Page 26 of If You Go
At 7:35, Alisha staggers out, hair like a storm cloud. Sam moves so fast he nearly dumps his coffee onto the floor.
“You good, Lish? You want breakfast? Coffee? Hair of the dog?” Sam fusses, already building a plate.
She swats his arm, eyes half closed but smiling. “Yes. All.”
I sip coffee and look at the hall. Door still closed. Quiet. The room feels wrong without her in it. My bed smells like her. My shirt smells like her. I want the rest of the apartment to catch up.
I am not a patient man by nature. But for her, I can be.
My phone vibrates on the counter and I pick it up. A reply from Arnie.
I grunt. “If Gavin wants a war, he picked the wrong coast.”
Joshua nods into his mug. “We’ll hit what we can see and make the rest visible.”
“Good,” I say. “We keep June under glass. We keep Surry here until her father finalizes the move. We are not the soft target.”
“Already doubled cams, changed door pins, and set the garage to manual overrides only,” Corver calls from his office. “Nobody gets in without a voice and a gun aimed at them.”
My jaw loosens a fraction. That’s our system: one hand builds, one hand breaks, both hands protect.
Now I just needherto wake up.
Just at that moment, I hear slight movement down the hall. A door closes, and I hear feet shuffling along the wooden floors.
I lean back against the counter, fold my arms over my chest, and wait for the woman who fell asleep on me to walk into my kitchen like she belongs there.
Because she does.
And I plan to make sure she never forgets it.
CHAPTER TEN
OH. MY. FUCKING. GOD.
What did I do last night?
I feel like I got run over by a bus and then the bus backed up to check if I was okay and ran me over again. I don’t open my eyes yet—too scared of what I’ll find—so I inventory with touch: sheet, duvet, cool air across bare thighs, the faint floral scent of someone else’s soap. Flashes come back to me, piece by piece. Brenden’s arms around me, his mouth on mine. The way he threw me onto the bed. The way his skin felt against mine. The warm bed after the shower. But now, no other body in the bed. No heat but mine.
I crack one eye, then the other. I’m in Brenden’s room. His bed. The massive wall of shadow where his closet door stands and leads to the shower where we took me is ajar. I lift my head. He isn’t in here, and the darkness of the closet leads me tobelieve he isn’t here anywhere. I’m alone. Why does that make me feel sad? I wanted this. That’s what I told him.
A stretch pulls through my hamstrings and lower back; a sweet ache answers low in my body, pulsing with each heartbeat. My skin still tingles where his beard rasped: neck, breasts, inner thighs. The pillow smells like him—cedar and soap and something warm, like sun on worn leather—and I bury my face in it for one breath, just one. I can’t regret any of it. I won’t. Not a single second.
I slip off the mattress, legs wobbly, and pad to the bathroom. Cool tile. Relief. Water, soap, the soft rasp of a toothbrush he’d set out like he knew I would need it. I catch my reflection—hair a mess, mouth kiss-swollen, the ghost of last night’s flush still high in my cheeks—and I don’t look away. I look…happy.
I make my way back in the bedroom, looking through his closet as I go. His closet is a mirror of my own. Black, grey, brown, some white. But no color. I see if I can find anything that might be closer to my side, but no luck. Great. Over sized band tee it is. Phone? I left it in the living room during charades. I smack myself on accident as I put my hand over my face. Of course I did.
I crack the door. The hallway beyond is bare as a bone—no art, no photos, just clean paint and a practical runner. It reads like a bachelor pad that never bothered pretending otherwise. For a second, I imagine frames here, a gallery of lives; then I remember where I am and who owns this place, and the blankness makes sense. Men who’ve taught themselves not to need anything that can be stolen don’t hang memories on drywall.
Where I have created a small community, a family of sorts, Brenden has avoided that. He stays within what he knows. His brothers. His work. Where he is the rock the storm beats against,I am the waves. Perfect compliment, but also the making of an epic tragedy.
I step out of his room, and begin to pad toward the open room beyond.
Voices carry from the kitchen. Alisha and Samuel stand shoulder to shoulder at the island, digging into plates, both in borrowed clothes. Selene’s messy bun bobs as she rummages in a cabinet, the too-long sleeves of someone else’s shirt swallowing her hands. Looking around, it makes me feel better I’m not the only one waking up in clothes that don’t belong to me.
Brenden sits at the far end of the counter, blue eyes on his phone, thumbs moving. The moment my bare feet hit cool tile, his attention snaps up. That grin—shameless, satisfied, a little dangerous—spreads across his mouth like he can still taste me.
“Good morning, Siren,” he rumbles. It’s unfair that a voice alone can stroke my entire nervous system with one simple sentence.
