Page 96 of Obsessed by My Ex's Mafia Uncle

Chapter Sixteen

Robert

I wear the front porch thin instead of knocking.

I keep going back and forth, the low scrape of my shoes the only thing keeping time with the pulse hammering under my ribs.

I’m holding two grocery bags that keep biting into my fingers enough to register, the contents shifting softly with each turn.

I stop in front of her door again and hold there, my gaze fixed on the wood like it’s going to move on its own.

It’s been a week.

Seven days of silence.

I gave her that at least. And it’s not because I wanted to, but because I chose to. There’s a huge fucking difference.

My hand lifts and drops once against the doorbell, my fingers pressing down the button.

It takes a minute but footsteps answer soon enough.

The lock clicks and the door opens.

And she’s there.

The porch light catches on cream silk first, sliding over the line of her shoulder, tucked into a pencil skirt that has wrinkledaround the hips region. Her hair isn’t staged, it’s lived in. Slightly undone, like she’s been running her hands through it without thinking.

And to crown the easy look, she’s barefoot.

Her eyes lift to mine and hold for half a second too long before something in them reshuffles, recognition clicking into place.

“Robert…” She stutters. “What… What are you doing here?”

“Hi.” I lift the grocery bags, allowing a clipped smile to drag across my face.

“Hi?” Her eyes go ballistic, her brows reaching for her hairline.

“Robert!” Blue’s voice tears through the space, pulling my attention toward the sound.

She’s already running toward me, with her socked feet slapping softly against the floor and her arms swinging. Her balance is uneven but determined, like the distance between us is something she refuses to accept for more than a second.

Something blooms in my chest at the sight.

I feel it before I understand it, before I can name it, before I can decide what to do with it.

“Baby…” Christine moves, her hand lifting like she’s about to intercept, to slow it down, to put space back where she’s been trying to keep it all week.

But it doesn’t matter as Blue reaches me. She stops right in front of me, breaths quickly, her bright eyes looking up like she’s found something she’s been expecting without knowing she was waiting for it.

“It’s you.” She smiles, lifting her arms as if it’s the most natural thing in the world.

And that line… the one Christine’s been drawing. The one she’s been standing behind, holding, guarding, managing… I cross it.

I step over it as if it were never there.

My hands move before anything else does, dropping the bags to free one arm, then both, and I lift her like I’ve done it before.

Her weight is nothing compared to the things I lift, but familiar in a way that feels like a space was carved there waiting for her to curl into it. Her small arms loop around my neck, her breath tickling my neck, and that hits differently.