Page 64 of Hide From Me (Chaotic Love #3)

Thirty-Two

Moe

I can’ t stop looking at her.

The lights could flicker out, the canopy could catch fire, King could drop-kick someone into the ocean—and I wouldn’t blink. Cordelia could launch one of those razor-sharp bouquet knives straight at my face and I’d let it hit me just to keep my eyes on Raylen.

She’s sitting near the aisle, just slightly off to the side like she’s trying not to be noticed, hands folded too carefully in her lap.

Like she’s physically holding herself back.

That dress—emerald green—clings to her like sin and fate all at once, and it matches my boutonnière so perfectly it’s like some cosmic joke.

Or a cruel reminder. We are stitched together, even if we’re unraveling at the seams. Her eyes haven’t met mine fully, but she hasn’t looked away either.

And that’s enough to keep me rooted here, tethered like gravity doesn’t apply to anyone but her.

Around us, the reception hums to life. The air is thick with champagne and laughter and the low hum of string instruments from hidden speakers.

Waves crash behind the canopy in a rhythm that feels oddly like a heartbeat.

Cordelia is already barefoot, yanking Caspian onto the dance floor with a look that promises both eternal devotion and, if necessary, homicide.

Jasmine’s laughing so hard she nearly spills her drink.

Sam’s got lipstick on his collar already, and I’m sure it’s hers.

The whole world is glowing—but I only see her.

Raylen. My chaos. My compass. My center of goddamn gravity.

“Stop staring,” Jon mutters beside me, elbowing me with enough force to knock my drink. I flinch, dragging my eyes away from her and scowling at him.

“I’m not staring,” I mutter defensively.

“You’re burning holes in her skull,” he says, deadpan. “People are gonna start thinking you developed laser vision. Or had a stroke.”

I take a slow sip of champagne and try to act like it doesn’t taste like longing and panic. “Appreciate the medical concern.”

Jon leans in, that smug grin never leaving his face. “So… you two back together yet, or are you still practicing your professional level emotional constipation?”

I shoot him a look. “Why do you always sound like you read one therapy book and never emotionally recovered from it?”

He shrugs, unbothered. “Skimmed a pamphlet once in a vet’s office. Had diagrams.”

I snort, but it dies quick. My gaze drifts back to her like it has a mind of its own. “I don’t know. She came for the wedding. Not for me.”

There’s a pause. The kind that sits heavy between two people who’ve already survived the kind of silence most others never hear.

Jon watches me for a moment longer, the amusement softening into something unspoken. Something heavier. He opens his mouth—probably to say something halfway decent—but his phone buzzes across the table before he can get it out. He glances at it and goes still.

“Problem?” I ask, already knowing the answer.

“Fuck,” he mutters, pressing the phone to his ear.

King appears out of nowhere, a cupcake in one hand and a belt knife in the other. How he even functions as a real person, I’ll never know.

“What?” he asks gruffly.

Jon ends the call and jerks his chin toward the trees. “We’re going. Now.”

King sighs like the universe personally inconvenienced him. “Knew it was too damn quiet.” He wipes frosting on his pants, hands the cupcake to a stunned lieutenant. “Hold this. Don’t eat it. ”

They’re already moving, shadows swallowed by the trees at the edge of the lights.

Jon shoots me one look—something between an apology and a promise—and I give him the barest nod.

We’ve found our balance. It’s not father and son, not exactly.

But it’s enough. The kind of enough that neither of us expected but both of us needed.

I glance at the lieutenant who dares lift the cupcake. I smack it out of his hand just as it reaches his mouth, grinning when it hits the sand.

“He said don’t eat that,” I remind him with a grin. Let King come back mad. Let him wonder what happened to his damn cupcake. Let me feel just a little bit in control.

Caspian’s the next shadow to approach.

He doesn’t speak at first. Just stands there in his slightly wrinkled tux, looking more like himself than he has all night. His tie’s already loosened, hair slightly messy, face tired but soft. It’s the quiet kind of peace—the kind you only find after war.

“You good?” I ask him.

He nods, then returns the question. “I am. Are you?”

The question catches me off guard. I blink. “Yeah… I think I am.”

He exhales slowly, like he’s been holding something in. For how long, I don’t know.

“You know,” he starts, voice lower now, almost hesitant, “when you were a kid—when we both were—I was confused. I didn’t understand. Not when they took you in, not after Mom and Dad... you know.”

My chest tightens. “Don’t get sappy on me, Cas. My best man speech is supposed to make people cry from laughter, not trauma.”

He chuckles, but it fades. “I didn’t get it.

I didn’t know how to handle it. They gave me a brother I wasn’t expecting.

One who didn’t come from our world, who didn’t speak like us, act like us, think like us.

So yeah, I stuck you in front of the TV with horrible American cartoons.

Let you pick up that damn accent. Tried to keep you hidden from the real stuff.

Not because you were weak. But because I didn’t know how else to protect you. ”

He says it like it’s been his weight to carry all this time. Like he thought I didn’t see it. Like I didn’t feel it.

I grin faintly, heart aching in a way I wasn’t prepared for. “Great. Thanks for the lifelong identity crisis.”

“I suck at this,” he mutters. “But just listen, alright? The night I woke up with my hands around your throat, the night I realized I could’ve hurt you.

.. something changed. I always thought I had to protect you.

That it was some job I didn’t ask for but couldn’t say no to.

But I was wrong. I didn’t have to protect you.

I wanted to. Because you were my little brother, even when I didn’t know how to say it. ”

His voice cracks a little, and I look at him—really look at him—for the first time in a while.

He keeps going. “What I didn’t see then was how much you were protecting me too. You absorbed pressure so I wouldn’t feel it. You took on shit without ever complaining. You stepped up when I couldn’t. You’ve been protecting me this whole damn time. And I never said thank you.”

It hits harder than I expect.

Like something cracked open that I didn’t know was still bleeding. Maybe it always has been. Maybe I just got used to walking around with the wound.

I nod once, because I can’t speak. Not yet. And he gets it. Of course he does.

“So thank you,” Caspian says, his voice dipping rough at the edges. He glances away like it’ll help him get the rest out clean.

“And I love you.” The words land clumsy, like they don’t quite fit in his mouth—but they’re true. I can feel it in the silence that follows. “You’re my brother. And I mean it.”

I swallow hard, the lump in my throat thick and sharp, like it’s caught on something old. Something tender. “I love you too, man. ”

He nods once. Not too much. Not too little.

Just enough to say that’s all either of us can take right now without either of us having to admit it out loud.

Then he turns and disappears into the sea of movement on the dance floor, pulled back to Cordelia like gravity.

Like a man returning home to the only place he’s ever felt safe.

I watch him for a moment longer than I mean to. Let the weight of his words settle into my chest like a stone warmed by sunlight. And then I turn.

Raylen's standing near the edge of the dance floor, just outside the halo of light cast by the fairy strings overhead. Alone. Still. Her fingers loop loosely around the stem of a champagne flute she hasn’t even touched, the bubbles long since faded to flat gold.

Her gaze lifts—and lands right on mine and just like that, everything else fades.

Hope ignites in my chest too fast. Too bright. It rises like a flare shot across a battlefield, reckless and loud and completely impossible to ignore. I take a single step toward her—she steps back.

My stomach knots.

No, fucks itself into a coil of panic so tight I swear I might throw up.

It’s the same sick, hollow sensation I felt the night I let her go.

Like the ground’s cracking beneath me and I’m about to fall through.

She’s moving like she’s going to bolt—like the kiss, the messages, the dress that matches mine, none of it meant anything.

Like I dreamed it all and now she’s waking me up.

My brows furrow, squinting to make sure I’m seeing her correctly, because even though everything is shattering around me, I can almost swear she's… smiling?

Not soft. Not sweet. Not even careful.

She grins like a goddamn problem .

It’s all teeth and trouble, the kind of smile that promises chaos and bruises and laughter so hard it leaves your ribs aching. It’s the Raylen I’ve always known—the one who sets fire to expectations and dares the world to call her reckless. My heart stumbles in my chest, then takes off sprinting .

Before I can process what’s happening, she turns—and climbs onto the nearest table.

I blink, frozen, confused as hell. Is she…? Is she serious?

Music kicks up again. Something fast. Loud. Throbbing bass that rattles the glassware and pulls attention like a magnet.

And then she starts to move .