Page 4

Four

Luna

I didn’t mean to come this close, didn’t mean to touch him, to say that.

But I couldn’t have predicted the effect my words have on him.

His hand settles on my hip, drawing me steadily closer to the hard planes of his body. “I think I’ve changed a lot, tiny tornado.” A pause, long and drawn out, same as his eyes tracing down my body. “We both have.” Another tug has me flush against him.

And I feel the change.

A big one.

And yeah, I said he hadn’t changed, but I just meant on the inside.

Because the outside of Aiden is markedly different, and the way I’m suddenly pressed flush to him feeling all that I’m feeling is different in the best possible way. So much more intense than teenage infatuation, than a few kisses snuck here and there.

The inside, though.

That’s familiar.

That’s Aiden.

Safe and good and always something I can rely on.

My home when the realities of living with my family were…well, what they were.

All of that familiar, all of that safe…it flows through me and I melt against him. “I missed you, Aiden,” I murmur. “A lot.”

“Is that why you decided to show up on my doorstep and wake me up at two in the morning after all this time?”

Guilt slices through me.

He’s still talking though, so I tuck it away, stow it to flagellate myself later.

“Is that why you still have it?” he asks.

“It?” I hedge, even though I know exactly what he’s talking about.

The marriage contract.

The whole reason I knocked on his door at two in the morning.

“Luns,” he murmurs, settling his hands on my shoulders and leaning back. Holding my gaze, lifting a brow, and…

I give.

Just a little.

“I moved back home.”

Surprise sliding through his green eyes. “ You moved home?”

A pulse of pain, my throat going tight. “Grams died eight months ago,” I push out, and the truth of saying that aloud is so agonizing that I can barely stay standing, barely fathom surviving it.

She was…

The only bright spot.

Except for Aiden.

“Oh, sweetheart,” he murmurs.

And then I’m held tightly against him again, wrapped up in that safe and familiar. He smooths one hand up and down my spine.

“You should have come sooner,” he orders.

“I didn’t know you were back in California,” I whisper.

“I just happened to see you pop up on the TV.” I push lightly at his chest, gaining enough distance for me to see his face again, to stare into green eyes I once knew better than my own.

“You made it,” I tell him, touching his jaw, smiling up at him, the pride I have for him and all his hard work cutting through the grief, the worry, the strain that have eaten me up ever since I got the call that Grams was sick a year ago.

“I did,” he murmurs.

“I am so proud of you.”

A blip of quiet, his arms tightening slightly, and I don’t miss the slight flush that appears on his cheeks, the hint of red that is just as adorable now as it was when we were teenagers. “Thanks, Luns,” he says softly, and then—of course he does—he changes the subject from himself.

Humble.

Sweet.

But a boy destined for much greater things than me.

Then, Luns , why the fuck are you here with that stupid contract that means nothing in hand—at two o’clock in the morning—on his damned birthday?

Desperation.

But my desperation isn’t so great as to fuck up Aiden’s life.

This was crazy, coming here at all.

I knew that, but…

This is Aiden.

No. I’m not going to do this, not with him, not ever.

“Finish your cupcake,” I tell him, carefully extracting myself from his hold, going back to mine. He lets me go, and I hate the blips of hurt, of longing, of despair ricocheting through my middle that turn my insides to ribbons as I move away.

This is pretty much the best way this all could have gone—he didn’t kick me out, didn’t call the police, didn’t…

Have a woman in his bed demanding to know who the hell I am.

Right. Yeah.

That would have been worse.

“How did it happen?” he asks between bites.

How did I get here with my life in shambles, barely making it paycheck to paycheck, the one thing I cared about from my fucked up childhood about to be shredded to pieces?

The Maybelle family curse.

Or the one that seems to strike only the female members of my family.

My mom. My sister. Grams. Me.

“Luns?”

I jerk, gaze colliding with his. “Yeah?”

“If you don’t want to talk about Grams then we don’t have to.”

Damn.

Why does he still have to be so nice?

“It’s not that,” I admit on a sigh.

“Then what?”

“I just can’t believe that she’s gone. That they’re all gone—my mom, my sister, Grams. I—” My voice breaks and even though it’s not the impetus that brought me here, that had me spending every free moment of the last week of my life on the internet, searching for Aiden, for where he might live, until I finally found his address and knew that if I waited for the light of day, reason would take over and I would shove the stupid marriage contract back in the box of my childhood memories and just deal with what lay ahead alone.

Alone .

God, I hate that word.

That reality.

“I woke up the morning after she was gone,” I push out, “and realized I have no one. My brother. My dad. They’re…” I trail off, eyes stinging.

He waits as my thoughts spin and my words find a way back.

“They haven’t changed,” I finish. “And I found the contract when I was packing my stuff up to take over to Gram’s place, and then I saw you on TV”—both of those statements are true—“and it seemed like the universe was guiding me toward you, bringing you back to me.” Also true.

So true that my throat stoppers up for a long moment and my next words are raspy.

“Because you were the one person left who wasn’t like them. ”

He’s silent for a long moment.

Then he sets his fork on the plate, crosses back over to me.

And I get Aiden again—safe and warm, gentle and kind.

“You know what I was thinking?” he murmurs, voice soft, arms tight. “Before I fell asleep last night?”

I shake my head.

“I was thinking about how alone I am. My parents are doing their retirement thing. My siblings are all busy with their families and jobs and lives that don’t revolve around my shitty hockey schedule.”

My heart squeezes.

“And they’re not going to be here on my birthday,” he murmurs.

He shrugs.

But I don’t miss the note of hurt in his words.

“I’m a grownup. I don’t need my family here on my birthday.

I know they have lives and jobs and vacations and kids and retirement.

I just…” Another shrug. “They’ll call,” he says.

“I know they will and they’ll mean the Happy Birthdays they wish me.

But I won’t be with them and I’m not with the Breakers anymore so I don’t have them either.

And the Grizzles are fine but I don’t know where I’m fitting in with them yet, don’t know my place, not really…

” He shakes his head. “Sorry,” he says. “I’m rambling and taking over.

I just wanted to say that I know a little of what it likes to feel lonely, so I’m glad—however it came to be—that you’re here now and neither of us are alone. ”

He’s still so sweet.

Big and strong and bearded but with a gentle, beautiful soul that feels deeply.

It’s why I fell in love with him as a teenager.

And why I ultimately let him go.

And it’s why I fall a little for him right now.

And maybe it’s why—or maybe it’s just that he’s big and strong and bearded and pressed against me—that I do what I do next.

I flatten my palm over his heart, feel the steady beat below.

“Maybe we don’t have to be alone,” I say as I lift on tiptoe.

His hands tighten on my hips. “Luns?”

“Maybe we can be us again.”

And then…

I slant my mouth over his.