Page 95 of Make Us Yours
“Then help me understand!” I throw the phone onto the couch a few feet away and take a step into him, my hands holding his cheeks.
“Please, Gabriel. Talk to me. I hate seeing you like this and not being able to help because you shut me out. Please don’t shut me out.” I kiss his lips softly before whispering against them. “Please…”
His arms wrap around me. “It’s not a pretty story…”
I pull my head back, looking into his eyes. “Neither was mine, but you still listened to it. Now I want to listen to yours.”
He breathes out, some of the tension leaving his body. “Are you sure?”
“Isn’t that what couples are supposed to do? Support and be there for each other?”
A smile appears on his lips. “So, we’re a couple? Does that mean I get to call you my girlfriend? Because I’d really like that.”
“Of course, you would.” I smirk. “But wouldn’t it be called a throuple? Is there an actual term for a three-person relationship?”
“I think they call it a polyamorous relationship.” He chuckles. His mood already greatly shifting from mere seconds ago. “So, do I?”
“Only if you tell me what’s going on,” I answer.
I’ll let him call me his girlfriend even if he doesn’t, but I’d really like to know. I don’t like seeing him this way; he’s supposed to be my happy, goofy boyfriend. Not the sad, seconds-away-from-breaking-down one.
He pulls me back in, placing his hand at the back of my head for me to lean onto his shoulder. For a moment, I’m afraid he won’t do it. That he’ll say he’s fine and act like I didn’t just hear everything he said. But then his soothing voice filters through the quiet surrounding us.
“Okay.”
I look up at him and smile. It’s one of those rare moments when I’m actually shorter than him rather than standing almost as tall, since I’m barefoot and not in heels. “Really?”
He gives me a hesitant smile in return. “Yeah. But can we go up to my room?”
My features shift to unimpressed. “Is that your way of trying to get me alone in bed?”
He chuckles. “No, but that’s not a bad idea.” I smack his chest, and he sighs. “I just… I don’t want you to look at me with pity in your eyes. I couldn’t stand having you look at me like that. It’s dark in my room, it will make it easier for me…”
I place my hand on his chest, watching the vulnerability swim through his eyes. “I get it.” I kiss him one last time and take his hand in mine, leading him up the stairs and into his room.
Chapter twenty-one
Veronica
Unwelcome delivery.
I push the door to his room open, and as he mentioned, it really is dark in here. With the blinds closed and the dark color of his walls, it almost looks like it’s the middle of the night. We climb onto his bed, and he settles in with his back against the headboard. While I place myself at his side, my head resting on his chest and my arm holding his waist.
“What time is it?” I realize now I still have no clue if it’s early in the morning or the middle of the afternoon.
“Just past nine. Noah’s out running.” The rumble of his voice vibrates through his chest and into my ear that lies against him.
I nod. “Does he know what’s going on?” I ask softly.
He sighs. “No. He knows about my past, but he doesn’t know about my present situation.”
“Okay.” I don’t push for more and instead wait until he’s ready.
It feels like a lifetime before he finally speaks up, his fingers gliding through my strands. “My parents never liked me. From the moment I was born, they hated me, and I still don’t know why. I don’t know what I did wrong or what I said wrong for them to wish my inexistence. I can’t remember a time when my mother hugged me, kissed me, or told me she loved me. And my father, he just ignored me. Until he didn’t.”
He kisses the top of my head, inhaling my scent like it might help steady him. “I was five the first time my father hit me. A nasty backhand to the face. I had a black eye the next day, and my mother told the school I had a fit because they wouldn’t let me do some shit, and I tried to run away and smacked into the door. When the reason he hit me was because I didn’t get up fast enough to give him a beer from the fridge.” He scoffs.
“It didn’t happen every day at that point, it was more verbal than physical from both of them. But soon, everything I did or didn’t do was never good enough. Hispunishments went from yells to punches every day. If there was a dish in the sink, whether it was his or my mother’s, and I didn’t clean it right away, I’d be punished.” He breathes out, his voice staying low and calm as he continues to work his fingers into my hair.
