Page 65 of Say You Love Me

I roll over and splay out over the mattress, letting my arm flop across my head. Finity stretches and moves so her head rests against my chest, her breasts pressed into my side, and her leg hooked over mine protectively.

I don’t know what time it is when I wake. My stomach aches with hunger as I never got the chance to eat. Finity is still splayed over me, so I roll out from under her and sit on the edge of the bed, rubbing the sleep out of my eyes. The baby monitor sits on my side, but it’s not plugged in. Getting to my feet, I shove my legs through a pair of sweatpants and pad my way over the wooden floor.

There are no sounds coming from Calla’s room so I push the door, wincing as it creaks. But Calla doesn’t stir. She’s lying in her cot, little arms tucked beneath the sheets, her cheek smooshed against the mattress. She looks so peaceful, so sweet. So still.

Reaching down, I run my finger over her cheek.

It’s cold.

Dread sits at the pit of my stomach as I hold my finger beneath her nose.

There’s no warm breath.

There’s nothing.

chapter twenty-nine

NOW

~

FINITY

“I don’t want you to go.” Rylee reaches for my hand, but I move it before he touches me.

I’m in the kitchen, packing some food to take up to the lake house. It’s that time of year when I make the trip to remember my father and this year, I’m looking forward to it more than usual. Because apart from our overstayer, life is good. Things have returned to the way they used to be.

Before I lost everything.

Before my life was shredded into a million little pieces.

Before I lost the affection of my husband.

And this year, it’s just going to be Hudson and me. Alone. Together. The way it should be.

“Well, it’s not up to you, is it?” I know my voice is sharp, but Rylee’s presence has become nothing more than a hindrance. I don’t need him anymore. I don’t want him. He hangs around our house, feeding off the morsels Hudson allows him of me, and yet he still stays. Still waits. Still dreams or hopes that one day I’ll be his, despite all evidence pointing to the opposite.

Rylee trails his finger along the countertop, his gaze locked on me. “I could come with you guys. It’s going to be so lonely here without you.”

“Isn’t it time you started thinking about returning to the city? Getting your own place?”

I ignore the hurt in his expression.

“You don’t want me around?”

I sigh. “It’s not that, Rylee, it’s just…” I don’t know how to explain it. I don’t need him to arouse Hudson’s jealousy anymore. I don’t need him as a sexual buffer between us. Our preferred form of communication has come back with a vengeance and we no longer need a translator.

“It’s been nearly a month, Rylee. You can’t stay with us forever.”

“But I don’t want to leave you.” He takes a deep breath. “I don’t like the way he is around you. He’s possessive. I’m worried he’s going to hurt you.”

I laugh. “Possessive?” I lean forward to whisper in his ear because it seems too crude to say it in the broad daylight. “He lets you fuck me, Rylee. What’s possessive about that?”

“It’s not the same. It hasn’t been…” his voice falls quiet, his eyes skipping up and down between me and the floor. “It hasn’t been ever since that night.”

He’s talking about the night Hudson finally took me as his own again. The night everything got better. The night my husband became mine once more.

“He’s my husband, Rylee. You are not.” I snap the lid closed on the basket of food.

---