Page 21 of So This Is Love
“Keep them to yourself. Now isn’t the time,” Roe said.
Wyatt hummed as if debating. “Speaking of sex?—”
Roe cut him off. “She wasn’t talking about sex.”
“But we’re all thinking about it,” Wyatt said.
Roe let out a curse as he shook his head.
“As I was saying…Bobby informed me that Lottie is to not?—”
“Please don’t make me relive that,” I begged.
Roe looked from me to Wyatt. “What?”
Wyatt grinned. “I’ll tell you later.”
For the next hour, Roe and Wyatt hung out with me while Mac emptied and put away everything in the bags. Mostly I listened to the three of them talk as I rested. Mac had just left when Bram showed up. He told Wyatt and Roe to go home. It was only seven, but Bram looked tired.
Roe and Wyatt reluctantly got up to leave. Roe leaned down to kiss me goodbye, but before his lips reached mine, Bram said in a very cold voice, “Before you put your mouth on my daughter, Monroe, remember I own guns. Lots of them.”
Roe froze.
“Don’t threaten my son, Bram.” Noble’s voice carried in from the hall behind Bram, who was blocking the doorway.
Noble’s words didn’t seem to reach Bram. He frowned at Roe with his arms folded over his chest.
Roe sighed, probably feeling the weight of Bram’s stare, and settled with kissing me on my forehead. “See you tomorrow.”
Bram moved out of the way for Wyatt and Roe to leave by coming farther into the room. “I saw that you didn’t eat much earlier.”
I glanced at the bedside table and finally noticed that the tray with the soup was gone. He must have come in while I had been asleep. “I wasn’t hungry.”
“Are you hungry now?”
I shook my head.
“You need to eat something. I don’t even care if all you can stomach is a damned milkshake.” The thought of me not eating really seemed to stress him out.
“I’ve never had a milkshake before,” I admitted.
He stared down at the floor for a moment and exhaled heavily through his nose. “If I get you one, do you think you could drink it?”
I thought about it. I wasn’t hungry, but I’d always wanted to try a milkshake. “What if I don’t like it?”
“It’s ice cream. It’s hard to dislike ice cream.”
I nodded. “Okay.”
“I’ll be right back,” he said before leaving.
I was alone. The realization hit me when the silence did. Closing my eyes, I tried to ignore my thoughts. I had done enough thinking and feeling today. In my fight to just lie there, I thought I heard a small noise. Then the smell of leather and bergamot filled my nose.
I opened my eyes and found Reid reaching over me to set something on the other side of the bed. He went still when he noticed I had caught him. I glanced at what he was trying to leave on the bed next to me. It was a cloth bag I knew very well. The craft store where I bought my art supplies sold them as an alternative to plastic bags. The money earned on the bags went to a local women’s shelter.
I looked back at Reid. For a moment, we just stared at each other.
He opened his mouth slightly, like he was going to say something. Then closed it. He straightened so that he wasn’t leaning over me anymore. “Roe forgot to give you that.”
