behaved like he hadn’t even heard me. “I should have told you everything that had been going on. But I never know how to deal with my parents. They want me to do stuff and they have ways of getting it to happen, and I was just so overwhelmed. I could feel it spiraling like…like before, you know?”
I nodded. I was starting to know, anyway.
“You absolutely didn’t deserve my anger. And because of the way I acted, I understand if you won’t forgive me this time.” He looked down at his hands, defeated even after the big stand he’d taken against his parents, like he’d forgotten I’d been right there with him.
I chuckled. “Shayne. I just kissed you in front of your mom and dad. I just agreed to pay half for the albums that mean so much to you so they could never take them away from you again. Hell, I offered to buy them for you.”
He smiled but the action was half-hearted. “I guess I understand if you just got caught up in the moment and you’ve had time to reconsider.”
“Shayne.” I’d never seen this vulnerable side of him, not really, and sadness filled me that the people who brought him this low were the people who should have loved him more than anything in the world.
I stood and approached him slowly, almost like I thought I might scare him off. Then I took his hand and gripped it in mine. I met his gaze and I held it before I lifted myself onto my toes and kissed him softly on the mouth.
“I’m here because I want to be here. You literally just nearly let your parents burn all of your albums, all of your happy places…”
“You’re my happy place.” He cupped my cheek and I leaned in to his touch.
“I don’t think I could ask for any more proof of that.” I held his hand against my face.
“I love you,” Shayne said. “I always have.” He broke off for a moment and his gaze intensified. “I always will.”
After what I’d just been part of at Shayne’s parents’ house, I no longer had any doubts about that. “I love you, too.” Then I chuckled. “Looks like you’re stuck with the entire Caldwell clan, then. You’ll have to face all my brothers every single week.”
He groaned, but his grin told a different story. “How will I ever cope?”
I laughed as he drew me close for another kiss, this one probing and exploratory, and I luxuriated in the touch of his tongue and the movement of his lips.
My breathing shifted and I smoothed my hands down his broad back before resting them against his ass, pressing him closer. The bulge in his pants rested against the bulge in mine, and I gasped a little, moaning as I urged him closer still, forgetting to breathe as he used his tongue to plunder my mouth, claiming me.
I drew back reluctantly, still holding him close, my breathing hard and without rhythm as I spun back to reality. “Hey.”
“Hey back,” he murmured.
I closed my eyes as I experienced him with every other sense. “I love you, Shayne.”
23
Shayne
February
I got to the park early, anticipation buzzing through me. Shit. And anxiety. My nerves might not even survive the morning—they jangled every time I heard a jogger approach as it was. I swigged on my take-out coffee, chugging the hot liquid back and waiting for the spike of energy I didn’t even need.
I opened the trunk of my car and picked up the bags I’d brought. I grinned as I remembered my call to Kairo.
“Hi, Shayne.” He’d sounded curious and a little wary.
“You know that mentor meeting on Leo’s birthday?”
“Yeaaaah.” He dragged out the syllable and I couldn’t tell if he was irritated or just too busy to listen properly.
“I’d like to hijack it.”
That caught his attention. “What? Hijack it how?”
“I’d like it to be a celebration for Leo.”
“I guess we can arrange something like that. What did you have in mind?”
I’d filled him in on my plan over the next few days, around urgent phone calls that dragged Kairo away from his crazy sleeping pattern.
And now the day was here.
Kairo had given Leo a later starting time, and I wanted the extra time to prepare with the kids.
I handed Kairo a cup of coffee as I reached him. “Thanks for this, dude.”
He glanced at me, tearing his gaze away from the excitable kids bounding all over the field in front of us. Their shouting and laughter