Chapter 81

Iwrung my fingers in the hem of my shirt as I stared at my reflection in the bathroom mirror. Killian’s athletic pants swallowed my legs alive, his shirt hung long and loose on my body, and my hair barely constituted as together. I looked exhausted. All-night sex with your hot-as-sin husband would do that to you.

But he was gone when I woke up. Despite knowing we were in his mom’s house—meaning he was probably downstairs—my heart had a mini panic attack over him leaving. So pathetic.

I rummaged through the drawers to keep busy as the negative thoughts zeroed in on that one little thing. He loved me. I kept telling myself that. Insecurity wouldn’t win. I wouldn’t let it ruin us before we even began.

I found a ponytail holder in a random drawer and quickly put my hair up—perks of straight hair. It was easier to get out of the way. I still missed my curls, but they’d come back.

The house was loud when I made myself leave the bathroom. I had a feeling everyone was there, and I was right. Almost. Killian was missing. I tried my best not to think about it as I quietly wandered into the living room, which was honestly hard when all conversations ceased. I waved awkwardly. God, it shouldn’t have felt this weird. They were my family too.

Except I’d also tried to cut them off.

“Morning,” I whispered.

“Good morning, darling,” Maeve greeted cheerfully. “My cavemen didn’t wake you, did they?”

She stared pointedly at where Lucas and Finn were tangled up in one another, clearly stuck in a wrestling match. Both grinned stupidly, and I laughed.

“No,” I said. “I really should get up at this point.”

“Can I go back to sleep?” Cade muttered. He was sprawled out on a couch with a pillow on his face. “The cavemen have me awake.”

“I told you to go use my bed,” Maeve replied.

“And I made a joke about that, which now has Declan threatening to toss my rear end out if I try to crawl into your bed,” he told her. I bit my lip as Declan nodded, mouth tight. “I need my beauty sleep.”

“Don’t make jokes about my mom,” Declan shot back.

“It was a bad joke,” Raven agreed, but nothing in her expression made me believe it bothered her in the least.

“Okay, well,” Maeve stood, “we’re just going to go to the kitchen and let them do… whatever this is. I don’t pretend to know what they’re doing half the time.”

I smiled. That was a lie. Maeve knew pretty much everything about everyone. She hooked her arm through mine and steered me to the kitchen.

“Nolan, you too,” she called over my shoulder. Glancing back, I watched Nolan scramble to disentangle from his blankets and hurry after us. “I’m just going to leave you two here. I’ll be back eventually.”

“You’re not very subtle, Mom,” Nolan hollered as she left.

“I’m not trying to be, darling!” she retorted. No one expected her to be.

Alone, Nolan turned to me with a million little thoughts etched across his face. My poor little smut-writing wolf. How in the world did I begin to make up for what I did? What was the right way to tell someone you were sorry for letting your trauma take over your life and turning you into a horrible person? Nolan and I had been friends for the better part of ten years. No one got me quite like Nolan did and vice versa. We really were awkward little fish together.

“I’m sorry,” I said. That was a terrible start, but it was a start. It didn’t begin to encompass everything I needed to say to him.

In three long strides, he closed the distance between us and scooped me up in his arms. I hugged him and buried my face in his chest, comforted by the soft aromas of coffee and vanilla mingling together. Crying into Nolan’s chest had been a thing for a long time.

“I didn’t know,” he whispered into my neck, his arms tightening. “I knew he was awful, but I didn’t know.”

“It’s okay.”

“No, it’s not,” he said. “If I’d know—”

“It wouldn’t have changed anything,” I replied and pulled away. The sadness on his face was a painful pill to swallow. “I didn’t want anyone to know, Nolan. I couldn’t… I’m still not thrilled that you know.”

“They know because I needed someone to know.” Killian. I turned to find him standing in the kitchen doorway with a coffee holder in one hand and a bag from Waverly’s in the other. My stomach fluttered. It wasn’t the leather jacket or the way his clothes fit every muscle that made me melt. It was how his expression softened when I caught his gaze. And then he backed out the door and yelled into the living room, “Everyone out!”

“Killian!” I exclaimed.

“You and me, we need to talk,” he told me. “And we’re not going anywhere until we’ve done just that. And I don’t need these fuckers chiming in.”

“Language,” Maeve cut in.

“Jesus fuck,” he grumbled, sighing in frustration. I pressed my lips together and tried to not laugh at him.

“Killian Donovan Byrne,” she began as her head popped around the corner, “you and me are going to have a long talk about that tongue of yours.”

“Some people like my tongue,” he said under his breath, and I burst out laughing, my cheeks burning. He winked at me. “Sorry, Mom. I’ll do better.”

“Don’t lie, baby boy,” she replied. He let out an exasperated sound, and she patted him on the shoulder.

One by one, everyone filed out of the house. Killian’s brothers gave him shit as always while I mumbled an obscene amount of apologies. I felt bad—him kicking them out because of me and all—even if none of them seemed bothered by it all. In fact, most seemed like they were anticipating just that happening.

“Horny villain,” Killian said ever so casually as Raven walked past, offering a hand.

“Donut villain.” She high-fived him, and I frowned. What the heck had happened between those two? Spinning in the doorway, she blew me a kiss and drew a heart in the air, making me smile.

Declan was last to file out. He paused next to Killian and clapped him on the shoulder. Something inexplicable passed between the two of them. It was brief and pumped full of emotion before Declan disappeared, leaving the two of us alone as Killian shut the door.

“I came back.” His deep voice filled the silence.

“I know,” I replied. Still, his fingers curled around the back of my neck as he pulled me closer, pressing his lips to my forehead in a lingering kiss. Quietly, I repeated, “I know.”

“We‘re going to eat, and then we’ll talk.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“I wasn’t asking, Genevieve.” That tone of his changed—commanding and unyielding. His dark gaze held mine, waiting for me to argue. “You haven’t eaten since yesterday, and we had a long night. You need to eat, and you need to hydrate.”

“Yes, Sir,” I whispered.

“Good girl.” He kissed my temple. “Thank you. I just want to make sure you’re taken care of.”

“I know.” I was used to Killian and his firm but gentle reminders on things like eating, drinking water, and when to go to sleep. I wasn’t great at taking care of myself. I was better at taking care of everyone else because they mattered more. I took the sandwich he held out for me and followed him to the blanket fort in the living room.

“Now,” Killian began a half hour later as he tossed his wrapper in the bag, “you and me, we’re going to talk. No power play, no control. I want us to actually talk to one another.”

“Okay.”

“And we’re going to sit and talk until we’ve talked about everything—”

“But your family—”

“Can fucking wait,” he said over me. When I opened my mouth to protest, he cut me off, “Genevieve, we should’ve done this a long time ago. We need to do this. There’s so much shit between us that we can’t consider moving forward if we don’t talk.”

Consider moving forward? I didn’t like the sound of that. Was he unsure of us?

“You don’t know if you want to continue our relationship?” I asked quietly.

“That’s not what I meant,” he replied. “Don’t get inside your head please, Genevieve. What I mean is, we can’t pretend the last three years never fucking happened. We’d be setting ourselves up for failure. Does that make sense?”

“Yes.”

“Okay.” Killian drew in a deep breath as he crossed his arms and leaned back against the couch. The blanket fort was a weirdly comfortable place to have this conversation. There were pillows to cuddle and blankets to burrow into. Even he had a hard time looking intimidating with a crocheted blanket tossed over his feet. “I’d like to hear about the last three years for you, and then I’d like to tell you about my last three years. After that, we need to figure out how to move forward.”

“I think your last three years have been more exciting than mine,” I muttered. Pulling my legs to my chest, I rested my chin on my knees and stared at him. I clicked my tongue piercing against my teeth as I debated what I was supposed to say. What was the best thing to say?

“When did you get your tongue pierced?” he asked, giving me some gentle direction.

“Oh, that. The first Fall Games after you… it was after… ”

“Genevieve,” he interrupted. “We have to be able to talk about it. There’s no future if we can’t talk about it.”

“Yeah,” I whispered. “The first Fall Games after you left, I went with Nolan. I didn’t go to the games themselves. I didn’t even stay in the clubhouse. There was a spa place that I went to, though I never got a massage. I should’ve gotten a massage. I just needed to get out of Cedar Harbor for a while. Bea did all my piercings.”

“At once?”

“In one sitting, yeah.”

“That had to hurt,” he commented.

“Not really. It hurt less than everything else I was feeling.” As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I regretted them. His pained expression hit me straight in the heart. “I don’t know… I don’t know how to say it without it… I don’t know how to say it without hurting you.”

Reaching out, he took my hand and kissed the back of my knuckles.

“I need to hear it, Genevieve,” Killian said softly. “It’s going to fucking hurt, but I need to hear it. Please. The pain is inevitable. It’s part of the damn process.”

I nodded and kept going because he was right. Through the hurt was the only way we’d make progress.

“It broke me,” I whispered rather pathetically. I blinked back tears, knowing I couldn’t do a single thing to stop them. “All of it broke me. Both of you were just… gone. And I didn’t have anyone… it was just me. Everyone knew I ended up in the hospital but not why. I couldn’t tell people why. And they knew you were gone. George asked if I wanted to file a missing person’s report, but I knew you weren’t missing. I didn’t know where you were until you answered my call after six months.”

“I did?” He frowned. I’d thought as much. “I don’t remember.”

“You were drunk.”

“What did I say?”

“I don’t want to—”

“What the fuck did I say to you, Genevieve?” Killian demanded. Despite his tone, he wasn’t angry. Distressed maybe? Worried? I couldn’t quite place it.

“Please… I don’t…” But I didn’t want to tell him.

“Genevieve.”

“You told me to go fuck myself.” I could barely say the words out loud. For a long time, I’d clung to the words he’d said as punishment. Some kind of horrible message I needed to hear. Even now, I had to gently remind myself to separate Killian from his drunken thoughts. While I wasn’t positive as to exactly how I knew alcohol was a problem for him.

“What else?” he asked through clenched teeth. I tightened my hold on his hand, trying to convey some kind of comfort.

“You told me you’d rather be dead than come home to me… that I wasn’t your family.” The words were so ugly. “You said… you said if you could go back and never fall in love with me you would—that you’d always regret marrying me. You said I ruined everything good in your life, and your life was better without me. And you told me that if I knew what was good for me, I’d pretend you were dead and move on. You said you weren’t coming back to me ever and to leave you the fuck alone.”

“Fuck.” His head tipped back on the couch, and he covered his face with his hands. Remaining silent, I watched his chest heave with mild fascination. Was he crying? Killian never cried. I’d never seen him cry. He buried everything so deep that I wasn’t sure he even could. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

“It’s not okay,” he replied, his words muffled. “That… that was… fuck. What the fuck is wrong with me? I’m so fucking sorry.”

“Killian—”

“I’m a mean fucking drunk.” His hands dropped, and sure enough, tears spilled from those dark eyes. I crawled over the blankets and right into his lap, desperate to hold him. To comfort him. I pulled him to my chest, rested my head on his, and held him tight. A sob tore through him and wrecked my heart. “I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry. You never deserved that, Genevieve.”

I stayed silent, holding him tighter, as he spewed apology after apology. No words could make this kind of hurt right, so I didn’t even try.

“Keep going,” he said into my shirt. The hold he had on me didn’t let up, and I didn’t want it to. I squeezed my eyes shut as I continued.

“I listened to you,” I told him. “I packed it all up and got rid of it to forget. I couldn’t… I can’t make myself go into the rooms, so I just sort of… pretend they’re not there. But everything else? You were in everything, so I got rid of it. And I put a smile on to convince everyone it was okay—that I was okay. I told your family and friends that I didn’t want to talk about you or what happened. And everyone just… let it be. The stories still floated around, but they mostly let me be.

“Life just kept… going, and I couldn’t move with it. I can’t breathe when I’m alone. It all just hurts too much,” I admitted. “I fill all my time with all these things just so I don’t have to feel anything. It doesn’t stop the nightmares or the nights I spend crying, but it… pretending helped.”

Until you came back like a wrecking ball and ruined all my pretending. I couldn’t add that last part in. It was for the better. This was for the better.