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I bite my lip. “We haven’t defined this,” I gesture between the two of us, “…yet.”
He gets one of his smirks on his face that shows off his dimples and sends heat to my core. “What we have defies definition. You’re not my wife. You’re not my girlfriend. You’re my everything. From the moment I wake up until the second my eyes close at night, I think about you and only you. If we have to put conventional labels on it, fine. Girlfriend it is. But I’d prefer something more consuming.”
My heart skips a beat. “Has anyone ever told you that you’re kind of intense?”
“And?”
“And I like it.” I swing my leg over his lap to straddle him. “Apparently, that’s a thing with all football players. You’re all possessive cavemen.”
“So you guys were talking about us?”
“I’ll never tell.”
That’s a lie. All he has to do is ask, and I’d spill everything.
“I’m glad you got along so well. I wanted you to meet the people who are important to me.”
I think about my own people. He’s met two-thirds of the people I’d care to introduce him to. Granny doesn’t get around much, so he’d have to go to Eastern Tennessee to meet her.
“I wish you could’ve met my dad,” I tell him. “He wasn’t perfect by any means, but he worked hard for us. He tried.”
“You haven’t talked about him before.”
“I wasn’t sure about you,” I tease. He grips my hips, and I shrug. “I guess I just wish you could meet the more important people in my life, and he was a big part of it.”
Then I tell him everything. About the tornado, the panic attacks, the grief. I lay it all out for him because if someone like Micah Freeman wants me to know everything about him, I want him to understand me. The real me. Not the girl who was so high on whatever those good drugs were, but the real me. The one who grew up in a trailer, who had perpetual dirt on her knees because she didn’t have a mother to remind her to wash up, and then the single greatest tragedy of my entire life. The day the Tennessee wind came in and stole what little I had.
Because if Micah Freeman wants this, he has to see the entire bleak picture, and how Athena saved me.
“So, if the house was burning down and you could only save me or Athena…” he asks later that night in bed.
“I’d choose Athena,” I tell him.
“Good.”
I turn toward him, propping my head up with my hands. “Yeah?”
“Because I’d sacrifice myself for you two to get out anyway.”
18
Micah
Awhimper wakes me in the middle of the night, the sound eerie, like a haunted lullaby. As I blink my eyes open, the cries become more pronounced, grief-stricken.
My arm instantly clamps around Raeann. Her shoulders convulse up and down. The sad cries emanating from the back of her throat, paired with the deepening line between the brows above her closed eyes makes my heart race.She’s dreaming.
Athena moves over to the bed, panting heavily. We share a look. “I’ve got this,” I tell her. She low whines, glancing at Raeann, then back at me. “I promise.”
The poor dog makes an annoyed grunt in the back of her throat, then leaves the room.
Raeann’s pinched face dissolves further. She’s going through hell in her nightmare. So much so that I’m surprised she hasn’t woken herself up yet. I turn to face her, trailing my fingers over her cheek and ears. Her eyes move rapidly underneath her lids, and every once in a while, her limbs jerk.
“Shh, you’re okay,” I tell her. “You’re with me.”
She howls in her sleep, the sound so loud, I’m convinced she’s awake until I spot her eyes still firmly shut.
My heart breaks, and I stare at her with an ache I can’t express. I haven’t been through tragedy like Raeann has. I’ve never lived through tremendous fear and lost nearly everything.