I grunted and rolled over away from him.
“And you’re naked under the covers, aren’t you?”
“As I said, I had him step out.”
“Which is lucky, because if I opened the door and he was in here with you, I would have lost my—”
“Oh, Mr. Madison, I love your work so much,” I teased him. “I hope you don’t mind that I bribed your manager to let me into your room.”’
“If only having you was that easy.”
“Please,” I scoffed. “I’m nothing but easy where you’re concerned.”
“You’re such a liar. Easy is not something you have ever been.”
I snorted. “What would be the fun in that?”
“It’s going to be like this for the rest of my life,” he grumbled into my ear and spooned around me, kissing over my shoulder and up the side of my neck, his arm slipping under my bicep so he could put his hand over my heart. “Up and down, fighting with you.”
“You should run now,” I offered, utterly certain of his choice even after a short time.
“Oh hell no,” he husked, inhaling deeply, a man content. “This is my spot, next to you, for all of my days.”
Yes it was.
“And by the way, we’re going home tomorrow.”
“What?”
“There’s no reason to stay. The Netflix people can follow us home and watch me work on my album in the studio, but you’ve nearly been shot and kidnapped, so yeah, we’re out of here before anything else happens.”
“You know those were isolated incidents.”
“I don’t care. I’m taking you home behind a big-ass security gate.”
“No, you can’t make changes to your commitments because of me. I don’t want you to alter your life in any way or I’ll worry that I’m not helping, only hindering. I can’t be a burden, do you understand?”
“That’s what I was saying to Dez,” he told me, holding me tighter, his face pressed to the nape of my neck. “He showed me that, before anything else, I’m a man in love, and the thought of someone hurting you or hitting on you or just—I need to go home and take some time for us to become a solid us before I charge back out into the world again.”
“Nick––”
“No,” he said, his voice brittle and flat. “My life is changing because it’s time, because I’m not who I was, or what I was. I’ve changed. Grown. I want a life, with you, as a couple, making plans and following through on them. I’m stepping forward, not back.”
That made sense. Our new reality had happened when we were away from home, so in some ways it didn’t feel quite real yet.
“Will you trust me to be making good, thoughtful choices for both of us?”
“Sure,” I agreed, my voice low. “But I don’t want you to leave here without making sure that you’ve done all you came to do.”
“Meaning closure.”
“Meaning whatever you think you need,” I clarified. “I don’t want you to feel like you’ve short-changed yourself in any way.”
“Like by confronting my father.”
“Do you feel like you need to do that?”
He let out a deep breath. “He never reached out to me, and just today he plotted, from inside a jail cell, to have you kidnapped and ransomed. So no, Loc, I don’t ever need to see him again.”
There was never going to be a happy resolution for him and his family; that ship had sailed years ago. All he had now was whatever memories were left.
“Tomorrow morning I’m going to visit my mother’s grave and say goodbye. From here on out, I’m going to make sure it’s covered in flowers, and whatever else is going to happen to my father and my sisters, that is for them to deal with, live with, and be at peace with. I am going to go home with you, wait for my ring to be delivered, and then we will head back to your mother’s house and get married. That’s where my head is; that’s my North Star, as it were.”
“Okay,” I whispered, reaching behind me to take hold of his hip. “I can’t wait to be married too.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really,” I snapped at him.
His husky laughter made me smile, even though I didn’t let him see. “God, I love you.”
“Yeah, well, I love you back.”
His sigh was long.
“You can hold me a little tighter; I’m not gonna break,” I murmured.
And he did.
Eighteen
I had everyone from Torus fly out to Sedona for the wedding, and as I suspected, my mother and Jared hit it off right away. What was really surprising, though, was that people stayed after Nick and I left. Ella needed to sit in the sun with my mother; Owen was compelled to put in just a simple video security system; Shaw and Nash constructed an herb garden of river rock and put in some more fruit trees. I never questioned the need that others had to be near Sherri Barnes. She was coming to stay with Nick and me over the holidays, with all the dogs, and I was looking forward to that. She had been worried that she was going to interfere with my studies, but my classes to begin my master’s degree in social work didn’t start until the spring. Not that I would have been bothered anyway, she was a soothing blanket of calm for me. Always.