took as long as it needed to,” he whispered. “It’s always been you since the day I met you, Frankie. I’ve always been yours. Now you’re mine, too.”
Eyes closing despite my best attempts, I burrowed into him, and his arms tightened. We weren’t leaving anything behind when we went home. Nothing important, sure. Didn’t mean I was eager to leave. But I couldn’t fight against the exhaustion swarming me, so I let the sound of his heart and his steady breathing lull me to sleep.
Thankfully, we didn’t have a flight at crack of ass so there was time for coffee and last-minute rushing to search for anything we might have forgotten. Archie urged us not to worry, the staff would send anything missed on down. Then again, he checked that I had my charm bracelet and necklace on while Jake checked my ring. My new charms were safely tucked away in my backpack. We’d get them put on the bracelet at home.
“Did I stick my tablet in your stuff?” Coop asked, and I gave him a blank look.
“You’ve been sticking a lot of your tabs in her stuff,” Jake said with a wicked grin, and I rolled my eyes, even as I flushed—just a little.
“Yeah, yeah,” Coop said. “Fuck off with that. You snuck into her shower and locked the damn door.”
I tried to hide my laughter with a cough, but Ian and Archie weren’t so kind. “He didn’t sneak into her shower,” Archie countered. “He snatched her right out of the bed.”
“You snooze, you lose,” was all Jake said before winking at me.
Terrible boys.
All of them.
“I don’t know,” I told Coop, bringing us back around to the topic at hand. “Did you check my backpack?” They had all stuffed different things in there for the flight here because they’d done all the packing. Not that I’d seen Coop with his tablet the whole trip.
He brushed a kiss to my hair before he went to grab it where it sat by the door with our other suitcases. We seemed to have a lot more to take back than we’d brought, but I was with Ian. I was not leaving my new guitar here. We’d managed a couple of fingering lessons that tended to get distracted for other things.
“Got it,” Coop called as he pulled it out of the front pocket. “Why do you have mail in here?”
I glanced over to see him holding a stack of envelopes. I frowned. I’d forgotten those were even in there. “Just put them back. I have to open them and figure out what they are later. Maddy was ignoring the mail, and I don’t know if those are bills or not. I can wait to figure it out.”
“Want me to take care of it?” Coop offered.
I made a face. “Later. We have an hour. I just want all of us to be right here together. We can deal with that when we get home.”
He nodded once, but he stuffed the letters into his backpack instead of mine and ignored my look with a playful smirk. Tablet in hand, he rejoined us, and I leaned my head on his shoulder as he tabbed through his screen, looking for apps to play on the flight.
Jake, Archie, and Ian were arguing over some game, and it took me a while to sort out they were talking about an actual team sport and not a video game. At that, I tuned out and just savored having all of them there. I wanted every single last minute down to the last drop.
When the car showed up, I let out a little sigh, and Archie grinned at me.
“We’ll be back, babe. I promise.”
I believed him, but it still made leaving bittersweet.
As the car pulled away, I twisted in the seat to watch the lodge disappear behind us.
Reality left a lot to be desired, unless we could make what we’d had the last few weeks our reality at home.
A worthy goal, right?
Jeremy awaited us at the apartment when we got there. The guys carried all of our stuff inside, even Coop, who could have taken his stuff back to his place.
Even better, the cats were waiting for me. Tiddles was hilarious as he raced toward me meowing. It was like getting chewed out. Tory and Tabby both rushed out to see me and then promptly ignored me. Tiddles didn’t bother with that, he rubbed all over me until I picked him up and cradled him.