Page 109 of Before the Bond
The thought arrived without fanfare and sat there, solid and simple and real.
This was mine and I was staying.
Chapter 24
Caleb
She told me I wasn't allowed to question it tonight.
Tonight you just get to be here.
Seven words. She'd said them with her forehead pressed against mine and her hand against my face. I didn’t know what to do with that yet.
The sitting room was quiet now.
The estate wound itself down slowly.
Jake was first, talking until his words started slurring, and still not used to being up for longer periods of time.
Then Maureen, who had kissed the top of my head on her way past in a way she hadn't done since I was too young to be the one running things. I was sure the past days were hard for her. I wished I could express to her how much I appreciated her helping me, but she didn’t let me. She just gave me a pat on the back.
As expected, Donovan was one of the last people up. He did perimeter checks for the remainder of the night. He couldn't take the chance of the Voss pack returning.
In a few ways, it told me something about Donovan I hadn’t seen before. The way he doubled back over routes he'd already cleared, the way his gaze kept snagging on the tree line evenwhen there was nothing there. It made him miss things. That’s just how much he cared about the things around him.
The fireplace burned low. The room held woodsmoke and warmth and the particular stillness that follows a long, hard thing finally being finished. I didn’t visit this area at all when the bond was draining me. It had been too far to walk. And too painful.
We didn’t sit in our separate chairs this time. We took to the sofa — like the first time on the porch.
Olivia leaned against me, her legs curled on the cushions as she held a book in her hand.
She'd shed her jacket for a robe over her nightclothes.
"You're doing it again," she said.
I looked at her. "Doing what?"
"The thinking thing." She tapped her temple. "I can practically hear it."
I smirked. She read me quickly now. She wasn't wrong.
I set the book I hadn't been reading face-down on the cushion and exhaled. The fire threw a low orange light across the room.
Outside, the forest was still. The only thing we could hear was the crackling wood.
Tonight you just get to be here.
"She meant it, you know," Olivia said.
I turned. She was watching me with those dark, steady eyes that had never once let me perform my way through a conversation.
"Who?"
"Me." She said it simply. No emphasis, no performance. "On the porch. I meant it. You don't have to spend the next three hours finding a reason it was conditional."
What moved through me then was not an easy feeling. It was a difficult thing that happens when someone names exactly the habit you're in the middle of and there's no clean way to deny it.
"I know you meant it," I said.
