Crazy Stupid Bromance (Bromance Book Club #3) - Lyssa Kay Adams Page 0,46
that this one, this detail, is the thing you need to hang on to. Why do we remember the weird little stuff but not the big things?”
Noah shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“My mom . . . she told me once that the hardest part about being a parent is that you never know when it’s going to be the last time you do something for your child. The last time you will wash their hair. Fix their lunch for school. Help them tie their shoes. It’s true as a child, too, though. When you watch your parent die. No one tells you this, warns you. That you need to hang on to every detail because it could be the last time you go to a movie together or go shopping together. I remember our last Christmas together but not what she said when she opened my presents to her. Why can’t I remember those things? I want to remember so badly.”
“Come here.” Noah opened his arms to her, and she went into them willingly. It was an awkward embrace, hindered by the way they sat and the tangle of the blanket around their legs, but it was perfect. He was perfect.
“I learned to pretend when she was sick,” Alexis said. “That it wasn’t really happening. You know? Maybe if I just went on with life, just acted like everything was normal, that she wasn’t dying, then maybe she wouldn’t. But then she just got worse and worse, and then came this day and I knew it was over. And I just kept rubbing her hand and saying it was okay. She could go. I’d be okay. I’d be just fine when she was gone. But I’m not fine.”
“I’m sorry,” he said against her hair, one hand cupping the back of her head to hold her against his shoulder. “For all of it.”
“I feel selfish. Making it all about me.”
“Grief doesn’t make you selfish, Lexa.” His mouth was on her hair. “Does it make me selfish that I wanted to tear down the entire U.S. government to get back at them for taking my father away?”
“You were a child. I’m an adult.”
“So am I, and I still hate them for it. So if you’re selfish for being pissed off at Elliott fucking Vanderpool, then so am I. And so what? We both lost our parents when we were far too young.”
“You know what I used to hate?”
He nuzzled her hair with his lips. “Hmmm?”
“Navigating other people’s emotions about my mother’s death. People either have no idea what to say, or they think they do and end up saying something entirely stupid and you feel sorry for them, so you say something to cover for them. It’s exhausting.”
He laughed, but there was no joy in it. Only understanding. “After my dad died, I got to a point where I thought I would punch the next person who tried to tell me how sorry they were.”
“Or ask if there is anything they can do.”
“Everything happens for a reason . . .”
She groaned. “They’re here for you.”
“You’re so strong.”
“As if there is any alternative but to just keep getting up every day and going about your life.”
“Exactly.”
She sucked in a shuddered breath and squeezed her eyes shut. “I don’t think I could do this without you.”
“I promise you won’t have to find out.” He lowered his mouth to her ear. “You don’t have to be so strong all the time, Lexa. Not with me.”
Alexis pressed her face into his neck and breathed in. He smelled like his laundry detergent, and it wasn’t until this moment that she realized it was her favorite scent. It smelled like safety and security.
And desire. Hot, burning need. For him and him alone. And she was sick and tired of fighting it.
* * *
* * *
The first brush of her lips against Noah’s throat felt like an accident. A mere coincidence as she moved in his arms to get more comfortable.
But then it happened again.
He stopped breathing as her lips touched the pounding pulse in his throat and lingered there, hot and soft. And even then, Noah might have convinced himself it wasn’t intentional if she didn’t splay her fingers wide across his chest. If she didn’t nuzzle his jaw with her nose. And if she didn’t lift her head and whisper his name in a voice laced with a tone he’d know anywhere but had never heard from her.
Desire.
Everything inside him burst into a flurry of frenzied