Page 70 of Midnight Curfew

Ripping his T-shirt out of his hand, I drop it to the floor and turn us around, gripping the front of his neck as I run my lips up his throat.

He exhales, relaxing in my arms.

I push him down on the bed and lie on his back, threading my fingers through his hair as I run my mouth over his shoulders and down his spine.

I breathe him in, the last remnant of his cologne making everything buzz under my skin. I’ve never told him, but I get hard when I smell him on my sheets.

I trail my other hand down his back. “Maybe it’s better you were so young when she died,” I tell him. “I wish I didn’t remember.”

I wouldn’t hate thinking of my mother so much if I barely had a memory of her. My throat swells with a lump.

Opening my mouth, I hesitate for just a moment. “I was in the house that day.” I lay my head on his spine, moving my hand back up his skin. “By myself.”

He lies there, not moving, and he’s probably afraid to. I don’t talk much when we’re in bed.

“I heard her cry.” I trace a line around his shoulder blade, remembering it like it was yesterday. “I started climbing the steps, and I saw her closed door, and I just stopped,” I choke out. “I was always scared of her. I didn’t know what to do with her, how to act around her…I let my dad and Macon and Army handle the emotional stuff.” I lick my dry lips, closing my eyes. “I wanted her to do it.”

I don’t know why my voice is thick or why it hurts in my throat. I’ve never cried over her.

“I really just wanted it to be over,” I tell him. “She wasn’t fully alive, but she just wouldn’t die, either.”

She had two more kids after me, who were just as big of a mistake to her as I was.

Of course she never said it, and she was never cruel, but we could feel it. Macon, Army, and Iron were her comfort. Her rocks.

I’d only known her at her worst.

“I saw the closed door, and I knew.” I glide my fingers down his arm, smiling at the goose bumps that break out as I blink away a tear. “I don’t even know how I knew. Her door had been closed before, but I just knew.”

And I let her do it. I didn’t stop her. I can say it was a mercy to let her be. She’d suffered long enough, and the stress had already killed my father two months before. It would’ve killed Macon to have to keep her alive as well as the rest of us.

“If she really wanted to die, though, would she have been crying?” I ask.

Maybe she wanted me to hear her.

Or maybe she knew I didn’t care, and that’s why she waited for the day when I was the only one home.

“I just sat down on the steps,” I whisper, “and stayed there until my brothers came home, and I wonder about that a lot. What would’ve happened if I’d gone to her?” I bury my nose in his skin, moving my lips. “She wouldn’t have been different but maybe I would’ve.”

Maybe I would’ve become a man with a fucking heart.

I relax into his back, lying on him as I slide my hand up and down, kneading his waist, then his neck.

I never told my brothers that I was aware of what she was doing in there.

Maybe I do have a conscience, because it scares me that they’d never look at me the same way again if they knew.

Callum is the only one I’ve ever told. Not even a girl with cleavage and legs and a little skirt. He’s going to want to fucking cuddle every time now.

I snatch at his skin with my teeth, gently dragging the bite out as he sucks in a breath.

Moaning, he stretches under me as he grabs my phone off the table at the head of the bed and checks the time.

“Iron’s gonna want his bed,” he says.

The sun is coming up, and my brother was kind enough to crash on the couch last night. Sharing a room isn’t usually a problem, unless I don’t have a woman in here.

Which I haven’t in about a month. Callum has been more addictive than I would’ve imagined.