Page 65 of Oathbreaker

That was our secret guilty pleasure—the guys would have castrated me if they knew I not only watched it but enjoyed it.

“Is it still good?”

She tells me about the new professional dancers on the show, which have been her favorite performances, and then she looks up a few on her phone, showing them to me. Before long, I’ve slid onto the little love seat next to her. Our heads are close together, her left side pressed against my right.

Briar and me.

Me and Briar.

Sitting together essentially watching TV—just like we used to. Before I was deployed, I would sit in my room in my apartment—her in her dorm room—and we’d watch things together on nights neither of us had anything to do.

Fuck, I’ve missed this.

Her laugh.

The way she puts her hand on my thigh without realizing she’s done it.

And I don’t move, don’t touch her, don’t say or do anything to break the spell.

“Want another beer?” she asks.

I hate that she’s moving but I nod. “Sure.”

She goes back into the house, and I breathe deeply. I’m so hungry for her touch it’s driving me insane, but I have to take one baby step at a time. Both with her and with Frankie.

Tonight was the first time I gave Frankie a bath. Briar told me to play it by ear when it came to bath time. Banks, Royal and Atlas have all stopped doing it now that she’s a little older and the girls are happy to step in. Dash still does if he has to, but he’s started to back off too.

“You’re her father,” Briar explained quietly. “If she’s uncomfortable, that’s one thing, but if you’d been here all along, you would have been doing everything I do. Just like I would still be bathing a four-year-old boy, if we’d had one. She can do most of it, but I don’t leave her alone more than a minute, like if I have to grab something, and then I have to wash and rinse her hair because she doesn’t get all the soap out…”

So, when it came time for her bath, I kept things simple. “Is it okay if I help with your bath tonight?” I’d asked.

She stared at me for a long beat and then shrugged. “I guess so. But I want bubbles.”

Briar had warned me that bubbles always turned into a huge ordeal, and to proceed with caution, but for my first time I figured it might make things better for both of us. And it had gone without a hitch. A messy hitch—bubbles fucking everywhere—but it turned into a bonding moment, where I was almost as wet as she was by the end.

I look up when Briar comes back out, taking the proffered beer. “Thanks.”

“Sure.” She sinks down next to me again without hesitation, but now she’s staring up at the night sky. “Remember Tijuana?” she whispers.

I chuckle. “I do.”

She’d begged to come with us one Christmas when we’d come home from college. The plan was to go party but we had to behave if we brought Briar. Eventually, we relented and she was completely mesmerized by it all, both the good and the bad. The street vendors. Restaurant employees standing outside the bars offering two-dollar-shots of tequila.

“First time I ever got so drunk I puked.”

“Dash was pissed.”

“I know.” She giggles. “It was hilarious watching him glare at every single person who dared to look at me. But I had a blast.”

“I did too.”

“Because of you,” she whispers after a moment. “You kept Dash from ruining my night, and whenever you were worried we might be in a dangerous spot, you’d put your hand at the small of my back, like we were together. So, I pretended we were, and that it was a date, instead of a night out with my brothers.”

“I wasn’t there yet,” I admit. “Not then. But that’s around the time I started to realize you weren’t a kid anymore.”

“You knew, you just weren’t ready to admit it to yourself yet. Otherwise, you would have just put me in the middle of the five of you. Instead, you found a way to touch me that wouldn’t alert the others to your feelings.”

If that was the case, I don’t remember it that way, but she’s probably right. She usually is.