“Kaiden.”
His smirk is wide. “Have to say, Em, I like my name on that mouth of yours.”
I suck in a breath when he dips down, thinking he’s about to kiss me. I don’t want my first kiss to be on my old bed in the room my sister died in. And I shouldn’t want it to be with Kaiden.
Instead, his lips brush the right side of my mouth, then trail to my ear. “Nostalgia.”
I blink.
He pushes himself back up. “Rachel reminds me of what it was like before I let everything get to me. Before your dad came into the picture, Mom was always on my ass about my feelings and shit. It was…” He paused. “Rachel helped me forget about it all.”
Frowning over his response, I soak in the way his features softened. He likes Rachel, respects her maybe. Yet, it seems like whatever they have going on is on two different levels of understanding.
“I don’t like your father,” he continues, brushing his knuckles across my jaw. “But I don’t hate him either. He distracts my mom.”
Swallowing is hard with my heart lodged in my throat. “You talk to her more. That must mean you want something from her. She loves you so much.”
His touches stop, his knuckles lingering against the edge of my chin. He doesn’t make eye contact with me, but his gaze drifts across every piece of my face like he’s looking for something, searching.
“I do it for you,” he hums under his breath.
Without another word, he settles on his side and draws me into him. My sho
ulder presses against his chest, and I don’t bother fighting him when he repositions us so we’re both laying on our sides. This time we’re facing each other, but I can’t look at his expression.
I focus on his shirt, the way his chests rises and falls, and I exhale slowly. “Why did you bother coming here? Be honest.”
His hand finds mine between us. He guides my palms to his chest and leaves them there, curling one of his arms around me until our bodies have no room left between us. Without mobility of my hands, I can’t push him away.
Do I want to?
We spend a while listening to each other’s breathing. After enough time passes, I settle into the bed, letting one hand drape around his side and the other fall onto the mattress.
“You didn’t say goodbye,” he whispers.
I close my eyes and breathe in his scent.
“I was coming back.”
His silence tells me what I already know.
He doesn’t do well with goodbyes either.
The longer we lay in silence, the more my body settles back into comfort until my lids get heavy. I’m half asleep when I feel his hand go to my hair and brush some behind my ear. I’m too tired to worry about what his touch will do to the fragile strands.
He leans toward me. “I was worried about you, Em. That’s why.”
His voice fades.
The room fades.
But his warmth lulls me to sleep.
Chapter Twenty-One
I wake up alone by the time the sun is finally up. It takes me a while to get my stiff limbs to cooperate enough to stretch and climb out of bed. After changing into leggings and a sweatshirt, I head to the kitchen where I smell bacon.
To my surprise, Kaiden is at the table with a plate of pancakes in front of him. Grandma smiles at me when I walk in and transfers a few of the fluffy cakes on a plate for me, along with some fruit on the side. Glancing at the empty seat next to Kaiden and the one at the opposite end that Mama usually sits in, I weigh my options.