Inked in Lies (The Fallen Men 5)

He remembered.

I always slept with my hair braided because the thick, coarse strands went to frizz if I didn’t contain them overnight.

When I was a girl, sometimes when Dane was out with Anne Munn, Nova would do that for me. Braid the thick weave of my hair between his big, surprisingly nimble fingers.

And he was doing it again, propping my drooping back against his knees so he could make space to cross my long hair.

Tears sprang to my eyes, and I was too tired to control their spill.

I wasn’t sure if he knew I was awake, but when he finished, he pressed a kiss to my shoulder, then shifted out to lay me back on the pillows.

I closed my eyes and feigned sleep, too raw from the drink, the sex, and the grief of the day to make sense of my own rioting thoughts.

When he closed the door softly behind him, my eyes sprang open to stare at the glow-in-the-dark paint on the ceiling. Nova had painted a galactic garden like the kind seen on Pandora in the movie, Avatar. It was one of my favourite films, and I still remembered Nova surprising me with the design when I was nine and he’d finally gotten around to painting the guest bedroom.

A garden away from home, he’d called it.

Because he always made sure I had a home with him wherever he went.

Tears leaked down my cheeks, caught in the whorls of my ears, and wet the pillow.

I felt washed up on the shore of my own emotions, beaten by the cycle of the crushing waves, waterlogged with tears, panting with a mild panic that lingered even after surviving the worst of it.

Curling up with my legs tucked to my chest like I hadn’t slept since I was a girl afraid and alone in Ignacio’s house, I wept silently into my knees.

I wept for Dane.

I wept for King.

I wept for the irrefutable, irrevocable fact that I loved a man who might never love me back even though he’d finally noticed me the way I’d always wanted him to.

I was so mired in my own little pity party, I hadn’t noticed the door open and close, or the soft tread of heavy weight on bare feet padding to the side of my bed.

Soft, flickering golden light wavered over the bed from behind me as the mattress depressed and a hand landed onto my covered hip.

“Turn over, Flower Child,” Nova said quietly into the thick silence.

I hesitated because I didn’t want him to see the tears then sniffed and flipped over.

Nova had seen me cry more than anyone else ever had.

I doubted he’d be particularly perturbed by it now.

His eyes were twin dark pools in the night as he stared down at me. Light and shadow played over his face like duelling lovers, making him breathtakingly, almost impossibly beautiful, like an apparition or a god dropped from heaven just to seduce me.

I followed the light to his hands where he held a plate filled with a double stacked cheeseburger, the bun studded with lit candles.

“Can’t celebrate Dane’s birthday without makin’ a wish for him,” Nova explained in an intimate, hushed whisper that wound around me like a velvet ribbon. “Didn’t think to make his favourite tres leches cake until too late, so I figured his favourite burger would make a decent replacement.”

A wet sound spilled from my lips, half-laugh, half sob. “From Mo’s Fast Food?”

Nova’s smile was just a slight curl in his stubbled face. “Of course. Had the cab stop there and ducked into the gas station while they prepped it for the candles.”

I touched my fingers to the plate just to make sure I wasn’t dreaming. “He’d love this.”

“Yeah,” Nova agreed. “But I gotta confess, I did it as much for you as him. Know what it’s like to walk through this day with a dagger stuffed between your ribs, aimed at your heart. Thought maybe doin’ somethin’ sweet like this might lessen the pain a bit.”

My heart clenched so tightly I worried it would never unfurl. I choked on my breath as it solidified into something hard, immovable in my throat.

“It does,” I wheezed past the obstruction.

He nodded then shifted to settle the plate between us. “You ready?”

It took me a moment to understand what he meant, but by then he’d already started.

“Estas son las mañanitas,

que cantaba el Rey David,

Hoy por ser día de tu santo,

te las cantamos a ti,

Despierta, Dane, despierta,

mira que ya amaneció,

Ya los pajarillos cantan,

la luna ya se metió.”

Nova ran through the verses of Las Mañanitas with ease, his accent perfect because my brother had painstakingly taught him Spanish in their youth.

I didn’t join in until the last lines, my voice softer than his purposefully so I could continue to enjoy his raspy lilt.

When we finished, he locked eyes with me in a way that conveyed exactly what to do next.