Page 111 of Regal Feather
“Uh-huh.”
“Why do I have the feeling that you were the reason this is child’s play?” Carlos interjected before he finally unlocked the doors and moved to get out of the car.
“I’m so gonna tattle on you.”
“Yes, because León has a well-documented history of siding with you.”
More bickering between the two ensued while I walked the distance to the front door. They had parked closer to the main gate than we usually did. The fresh air would probably do me good. I’d only put on a pair of sweatpants and a hoodie over my fishnets and rubber skirt. It was a good thing that there had been no one outside, and Danny’s truck was parked close to where Santos’s car had been.
It didn’t matter too much. I just needed to focus on something.
I couldn’t see any light switched on from here, but that didn’t tell me much. All of the bedrooms faced the opposite way, and Santos could be a bit of a vampire, anyway. He’d scared me plenty of times because I assumed a room was empty, I turned on the lights, and he was there, grumbling about the lack of warning. Or because he assumed I knew he was there, spoke, and my heart beat out of my chest in consequence.
Fuck.
If I fucked this up beyond repair, I wouldn’t just be losing the easy thing we built over the past few weeks.
I’d be losing years. A forever of memories, of bonding, of the one person I knew I could fully trust. The person I could open up to and be vulnerable with.
“Guys?”
I couldn’t get the fucking key on the door.
My hands were trembling too much, and I hated it. I didn’t know how to stop it. I didn’t know how to pretend that everything was fine, or that it was normal to freak out because someone had hinted at a possibility that hadn’t really been a possibility until he put it out in the air. No amount of telling myself it wasn’t going to happen helped, either. No amount of reasoning that Santos would be fine slowed my heartbeat or made it any easier to swallow past the knot in my throat.
This was ridiculous.
For some reason, the thought cemented in my head and steadied my hand. It also helped that Danny had his hand on my lower back. There was some more bickering, but it was more muted.
The door thudded as I opened it. I’d always hated the heavy wood. I understood it was the highest quality there was, the kind of thing everyone complained about because shit like it wasn’t built anymore, but try to tell that to a lanky kid who just wanted to get in or out of the place without needing to ask for help. Or to feel like he’d run a marathon every time he set out to get the deed done.
“Come on, I can use a drink.”
“Uh…”
Danny just walked in front of me toward the kitchen. I’d expected something more dramatic; rushing to cover all the rooms only to find out Santos was taking a shit in the bathroom, and then everyone would scamper, and he’d be in shock, and I wouldn’t hear the end of it for a month.
Nope.
Instead, Danny and Carlos started moving toward the kitchen, and I just stood there, in the middle of the hall, trying to think of ways to salvage this that didn’t just accelerate the visions of Santos leaving. Of me destroying the one thing that had always mattered more than everything else. Of me having lost sight of that somewhere along the way. Of me not knowing how to function when Santos wasn’t the only thing that existed, because I’d never had to juggle a relationship with anything or anyone else before.
And instead of me running to find Santos chilling somewhere, it was him who found us.
“What…” His eyes narrowed as he tilted his head to the side. Danny and Carlos were grabbing something from the fridge;I wasn’t paying attention. “What are you doing here so soon? Everything okay?”
He didn’t address the other two men, but his gaze darted between the three of us. I didn’t care. I just ran to him and hugged him, and ignored the small oomph he made and how much more confused he had to look now.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, I’m sorry.”
Was I babbling? I didn’t know. Could he even hear me when I was pressed against his chest? I didn’t know either. I was getting so tired of it, too, of the uncertainty and the discomfort, and second-guessing every step I took.
Seconds ticked. Eventually, Santos wrapped his arms around me, but it didn’t feel right. The touch usually soothed all the thoughts, but right now it only left me scowling because it didn’t feel the same.
“Slow down. Did something happen with the workshop?”
I shook my head. Before he could pull away—because he surely would want to do that—I clenched my fingers around the back of his T-shirt. It was an old one he used to sleep in sometimes.
It now smelled like my detergent.
