Page 173 of Shattered Silence Duet

“I don’t deserve you,” I whisper, holding her a little bit tighter.

When we’re about ten minutes from home, I gently nudge her awake and undo the seatbelt so she can sit beside me.

“What’s going on?” she asks around a yawn as she looks out the window.

“We’re almost home, but I wanted to give you something before we get there,” I tell her as I reach under my seat for the item I’d placed there when we first left the house.

I pass her the horribly wrapped package and watch her anxiously, praying she likes it and doesn’t think it’s lame.

She unwraps in quickly to reveal the hand-carved wooden box.

“Wow…” she says, her fingers trailing over the designs. “It’s beautiful, thank you.” I want to tell her that I carved it for her, but the words catch in my throat, worried about what she’ll think if she knew that.

“Aren’t the carvings exquisite?” Ben asks from the front seat. He smirks when my eye catches his in the mirror.

“They are. Wait—Did you get this made specially for me? All these things are so… personal,” she asks as I watch her eyes dart around it, trying to find the meaning behind each symbol.

“I… I made it for you,” I admit quietly.

“Atlas… I had no idea you could do this. That’s amazing! Tell me what they all mean!”

“Well, the cowboy hat and boots are for Tucker, the gears there are for our tech in the front seat, the yin yang is for the twins, the teacup is for Gideon.” She laughs at the one, no doubt because of his love for earl gray tea. “The pipe is for Dom, he loves to collect detective memorabilia and this is Sherlock’s pipe.”

“Where’s the one for you?” she asks as she turns it to get a look at the sides.

I point to the top edge. Hidden amongst vines is a switchblade. “It’s your knife,” she says, her finger trailing over it. I nod.

“This is amazing, Atlas, thank you.”

“Open it,” I tell her and when she does as I ask, she gasps as the music starts playing and the little ballerina pops up and starts spinning slowly.

“A music box? This is so cool, I love it even more!” She smiles up at me and I relax, letting the tension drain from my shoulders.

“Now you have to find the other hidden items in the design.”

“What?!” she asks, closing the lid and studying it. “There are things there that represent you as well as other stuff that represents each of us, they’re just well hidden, so you have to look carefully.”

We spend the rest of the drive home with her finding items and trying to guess who they are for and what they mean. By the time we get home, I feel so relaxed and at ease that nothing can bring me down.

Chapter 37

Mina

Iwake up feeling relaxed and well-rested. Since I’ve had someone sleeping with me every night again for the past few days, I’m finally catching up on my sleep, and it’s helping a lot with my mood. The shift probably has more to do with the men that are doing everything they can to apologize and make things right between us.

I see Ben sleeping on my right and smile at his handsome face. Nothing happened between us last night, I think the zoo had exhausted me more than I realized. There was something so heartwarming about the fact that they didn’t push me for sex, even if I asked them to spend the night in my bed.

To be honest, I kind of wanted them to push me a little bit. I'm not sure if I can initiate anything with them, but I’m grateful that there’s no pressure to do anything just because I want to cuddle, even if some of them are officially my boyfriends.

I never knew relationships could be like this and it makes me hopeful that things will work out with all of us. They were all pretty great at communicating how they felt, well, everyone except Gideon. It’s obvious he had changed his mind about me and I didn’t know how to bring it up with the guys. But since I hadn’tcompletely fixed things with Dom yet anyway, I wasn’t ready to ask.

Where Gideon was awkward and a bit distant with me. Dom still hugged me and seemed at ease around me. I knew he still wanted something with me, even if we hadn’t had a conversation about it yet. I had a feeling he was waiting for everyone else to go first.

He’s still been talking to me and checking on me. When we got home last night, he told me my dad had called, asking if he could see me again. Dom told me I didn’t need to answer now, but I should think about it carefully since I had a panic attack last time. He suggested I think about what I wanted from that relationship before I started to let Paul into my life again. I appreciated his advice, as it gave me something to consider.

Did I want my dad to be a part of my life? He’d left to get sober for me, but doing so caused a chain reaction that led to… everything. I wasn’t sure how I felt about it yet.

A yawn escapes me as my bladder tells me I need to get up.