Page 77 of Hushed

“Hostile territory. No supplies. Bad tactical position.”

I back out from under the table and knock my chair over in the process. When I finally surface, I’m on my knees with only my shoulders above the table line, and everyone is staring at me.

“Meeting the in-laws,” Ruby Preston says, knocking back another very large glass of wine. Her words slur slightly. “Do you remember how nervous I was the first time, dear?”

She turns to Lincoln, but he’s glaring at me in stony silence. Hughes has crossed his arms over his enormous girth. Delphine uncorks another bottle and pours two glasses that are far too full and passes me one of them. Tracey is still taking photos. Molly catches my eye and then looks away.

In the kitchen, a timer dings.

I lever myself to my feet like I’m climbing a mountain. There’s something on my cheek—I brush at it and a breadcrumb falls away.

“Who wants dessert?”

Chapter twenty-six

Levi

Iwake up alone in our bed.

Moonlight silvers the dresser but there’s no golden glow under the bathroom door to reassure me he’s in there. I feel the mattress and am relieved that it’s still warm. For a second I was afraid that he had taken off into the night. At least if he did, he hasn’t got much of a head start.

“Baby boy?” I call softly.

No answer. I pull aside the blanket and pad to the hallway door. A sliver of light penetrates from downstairs. I look over the railing and can see the kitchen light is on. Water is running in the sink.

I pad down the stairs. Bastien is standing at the counter with his back to me, staring into one of the cabinets. There’s a pot on the stove and a mug on the counter.

I watch him as he turns off the tap.

After the guests left, he almost completely shut down. He cleaned mechanically, complained of a headache, and I sent him to bed while I returned chairs to the neighbors. When I came back, he was asleep—or pretending to be—and I curled up next to him and hoped tomorrow would be better.

I watch as he sets a pot of cold water on the counter. He takes a teabag out of a box, studies it, and puts it back. He drums his fingers on the countertop once, then takes the box out again and removes the same teabag. Then he opens a box of cocoa mix and reads the back, puts it down, pulls out another box of tea, opens it, sniffs it, and sets it aside. He picks up the cocoa again and looks between it and the tea. He tears open a cocoa packet, puts the pot on the stove, and digs through the cabinet for chamomile tea.

“Bastien?” I start.

I don’t get to finish. My voice triggers something primal. He screams and snatches the pot off the stove and brings it down hard on the mug. Ceramic explodes across the counter. Water cascades onto the floor and sizzles on the burner, but he’s still swinging, shouting wordlessly, smashing the handle into powder.

“Hey!” I cross the kitchen in two steps. “Hey, hey, hey.” I get my arms around him, stopping the pot mid-swing. He turns in my grip and holds me, breathing in ragged gasps, while I gently extract the pot from his hand, set it down, and switch off the burner.

For a long moment he just stands there, trembling in my arms.

“What was that about?” I ask when his breathing has calmed.

He takes a shaky breath. “I was thirsty. I thought I wanted tea, and then coffee, and then cocoa, and then when I was trying to decide, I realized I didn’t want any of that.” His voice catches. “I just wanted to be free to fucking choose.”

“Oh, baby boy.”

He shakes his head and pulls back to look at me. His eyes are wet. “I thought I’d get to at least choose my own groom. And I didn’t. It was handed to me. So what the fuck does my midnight snack matter? I have no choices left in my life that mean anything.”

“I know this is hard—”

“Hard?” He laughs. It’s an ugly sound. “Hard is a sudoku puzzle that doesn’t have enough clues. I went from miserably single to blissfully engaged in less than twenty-four hours. You set our wedding date for next week? Yesterday morning we were talking about June if we lasted. That was a big fucking if!”

“I’m sorry! I panicked!”

“No, you didn’t panic! You spotted an opportunity to corral me into the outcome you fucking decided I wanted.” He pulls away from me and presses his palms to his eyes. “I’m so angry and I don’t know what to do with it.”

“I understand.”