Page 59 of What We Break
"But Blake's the most loyal person I've ever met. Like, pathologically loyal. When he heard I was struggling, he didn't just call to check on me. He packed up his entire life and drove fifteen hundred miles to make sure I was okay."
"He's very..." I pause, trying to find the right word. "Dedicated."
"That's Blake. He doesn't do anything halfway. When he commits to something — or someone — that's it. Forever." Reid takes the plate from my hands, his fingers brushing mine. "I know he'll always be there. Not because he has to be, but because he's literally not capable of walking away from people he cares about."
Not capable of walking away.I turn that over in my head while I rinse the pasta pot.
"What's that like?" I ask. "Having someone who just... shows up? Not from across the world. Just — already there."
Reid sets down the dish towel and turns to face me fully. He's close enough that I can see the gold flecks in his hazel eyes, close enough that I have to tilt my head back to meet his gaze.
"You don't have that?"
"I have my parents. They'd drop everything for me, and I'd do the same for them." I shrug, scrubbing at a spot that's already clean. "But 'dropping everything' means leaving whatever build they're on. Right now it's a community center in Cambodia. Before that it was a church in the Philippines. They go where they're needed."
"Together, though."
"Always together." I smile a little. "They've always had each other. They just never had a fixed address. And I grew up in that — two suitcases, new country every year. It was a good childhood. A really good one, actually. Just... mobile."
"And then you became a travel nurse."
"And then I became a travel nurse." I laugh because it sounds so obvious when someone else says it. "Short contracts, new city, always moving. Only my parents at least had each other as a constant. I just had the suitcases."
Reid leans against the counter, arms folded, watching me in that warm open way of his.
"Is that why you took the permanent position here?"
"Part of it. I called my mom when I accepted it and she cried for ten minutes." I set the pot in the dish rack. "They've been waiting for me to land somewhere. I just didn't know how for a long time." I'm still not sure why it mattered so much to them. They're nomads, so why are they so shocked that I am too. Was. Not am. I'm turning over a new leaf.
"And now you do?"
"I'm figuring it out. I've got the job. I've got the apartment." I dry my hands on the towel he abandoned. "But knowing how to stay somewhere and knowing how to actuallybuildsomething there — those are different skills. My parents never taught me that one. Not because they didn't want to. They just didn't know how either."
Reid just holds my gaze, steady and warm.
"You know," he says quietly, "for someone who's never had a home base, you're doing a pretty good job of building one."
I think I’m starting to understand women with a praise kink. Reid seeing me, telling me I’m doing a good job could only be better if he’d called me a good girl too. I really like this guy. God, what were we talking about? Right. Building a home base. "I'm used to figuring things out alone."
"That doesn't mean you have to keep doing it that way."
I've gotten so good at being self-sufficient that I stopped letting myself think about what it might feel like to have someone who'd drop everything if I needed them. I just filed it underthings other people haveand moved on.
"Blake would do that for anyone in his circle," Reid continues. "But there aren't many people in that circle. He's careful about who he lets in."
"But once you're in?"
"Once you're in, you're family. And Blake doesn't abandon family." He pauses, brow furrowing. "He never admitted it, but I think Jared made him promise to look after me. That would be totally like him."
"You're really lucky," I say quietly. I wonder what that kind of devotion must be like. To know, without question, that someone will always choose you. That you matter enough for someone to rearrange their entire life around keeping you safe.
Don't get weird about it. It's not your devotion. It's theirs. You're a guest in this house eating their pasta and washing their dishes and you've known Blake Moore for two hours.
Two really good hours, though.
Reid reaches for my hand, still damp from the dishwater. "Laine, baby, you gotta stop breaking my heart."
He tugs the plate from my other hand and drops it back into the soapy water with a soft splash. Before I can protest, his hands are on my waist, pulling me closer until my wet palms land flat against his chest.
