The Long Way Home_Harper Sloan, page 19
“Ready?” Sway asks, gaining my attention.
“I’m always ready,” I sass, the words out before I realized how they sounded.
“Noted.” I hear spoken from behind me, the gruff voice of a man I find myself completely head over heels for gives me a thrill so violently strong, I feel my whole body react with a little shiver.
Sway’s eyes twinkle, holding my gaze.
Davey looks on with a huge smile, eyes to the space behind me, and shock clear as day in his expression despite the happy smile is confusing. I don’t have time to think about his weird reaction. Zeke speaks, and another shiver of awareness zaps through my body.
“Though, would prefer to be alone.”
“Not missing this moment, Zachariah Cooper,” Sway smarts back, eyes narrowing but still twinkling bright. “You made me wait for over two dagum decades for that. I’m going to enjoy watching her meet you again. Consider it payment for my services.” He snickers.
“Pain in my ass,” Zeke grumbles behind me. A beat of silence follows before I hear. “Turn around, Liv.”
My heart pounds.
“Yes, Liv, turn around,” Sway cooingly mocks.
I look at both the men on the couch, clearly loving this, and with a calming inhale, I turn around.
“Holy shit,” I whisper the second I get my first glimpse.
He doesn’t speak, giving me the time to study him. The new him. No, not the new him … the new old him. He’s no longer Drew, not even is he my Zeke … in front of me might as well be a stranger—he looks that different. Had I not seen him without his contacts before now, I’m not sure that I would recognize him at first glance.
Those eyes though are all him.
“You’re beautiful,” I whisper, blushing instantly when I realize my thoughts had escaped my lips, my eyes still roaming over him, looking at the differences, but also seeing more parts of the man I knew him to be starting to stand out more in front of me.
He doesn’t react outwardly, but I see his eyes catch fire as I continue my perusal. The blue as bright as the sky on a clear and sunny day. His eyes still crinkle in at the corners in the same way. His nostrils still give a little movement when he takes a deep breath in, almost like a fluttering beat. He still runs his tongue over his full bottom lip. His stance is still the same—shoulders strong, his fists slightly clenched, and his long legs planted wide on the ground beneath him.
I take a step toward him, watching his throat as he swallows thickly. Without his beard, the strong lines showcase the thick cords in his neck. His jaw ticks, those yummy flexes screaming look at me now that they aren’t covered by hair. He looks so much younger. If I didn’t know his age, I would put him in his early forties. Heck, maybe even his late thirties. His hair looks lighter now, too. The missing longer locks that had been more dirty than blond are a big reason he no longer looks like the same man. Blond and short, not dirty blond and long, trimmed at the sides with the length just long enough for me to run my fingers through it and make a mess on the top.
“You’re staring pretty hard there.” He breaks the silence with his low and steady words.
“You sound like you, but you don’t look like you,” I dumbly droll.
“Still the same me, Liv,” he responds.
“No.” I smile and take a step toward him. “You’re Zeke.”
“Like I said. Same thing.”
My hands come up, and I frame his face, palms landing on the two dimples I had no idea the man I was seeing possessed. “Not even close. You’re you, but you’re also not.” I rub my palms against his cheeks slightly, feeling the smooth skin that used to be covered up. His lips look fuller. His eyes brighter. “How do you feel?”
He swallows thickly again. His eyes dart a glance at the two men on the couch. It’s only then that I realize he had been holding my hips because right before he opens his mouth, his fingers twitch and give me a squeeze.
“Like I might throw up.”
“Let’s not do that. You might mess your hair up.” I wink, and his lips start to pull up into a small smile.
“Scared, Liv. I’m fuckin’ scared.”
I hear, Sway I think, make a small cry.
“Right here by your side, my handsome giant.” I wink, taking a step closer and erasing the distance, no longer caring that we aren’t alone. “I’m right by your side every step of the way.”
“Not going to be easy.”
“Nothing worth having ever is.”
He grunts out a laugh, lacking all humor. Then he turns to look at Sway, without disconnecting from me.
“Make the call.”
I hold his gaze, hoping he can see how much I love him. Gone is the tiredness I had felt before we entered the hotel room. In its place is steadfast determination to be this beautiful man’s strength as he faces the family who thought he was dead.
Oh boy.
“Stone” by Whiskey Myers
No one speaks.
We’ve been in the car for five minutes now, and the energy grows more and more electric as the time ticks along with the miles. You can taste it, it’s that wild.
Zeke’s been holding my hand so tightly, I lost feeling in my fingers a few miles back. I don’t dare let go, though, or ask him to release the tightness some. I give him what he needs. I let him cling to me as if he’s afraid he’ll blow right out the window.
If I’m honest, I need it too. I need to feel like I was helping him somehow. Knowing how hard this was likely going to be for him. Who am I kidding, there’s no way I could know what he’s feeling. I’m just going to hold on as long as he needs me.
I can’t imagine what’s going through his mind right now. When he asked Sway to make the call, he tracked that man’s every movement while Sway had paced the room, not looking away once. I couldn’t hear whomever was on the other end of his call, but there was a small hum of their voice coming from the gap between his ear and the phone. That small space allowing the murmur of their voice into the room was all it took for me to feel the pain coming off him in waves. I don’t know how I knew for sure, but when his brother’s voice was on the line, there was a small jolt that rocked his tall frame ever so slightly. My goodness, I pray with all that I have his brother doesn’t make him fight for forgiveness.
When I glance over at him, I see the hard lines of his jaw as he clenches and unclenches. His dimple popping out with each flex he makes. I had no idea I had this big weakness for dimples before now. Maybe it’s just because they’re his dimples, but nevertheless … he’s heart stopping with or without them. Even with so much trepidation radiating off him, he’s breathtaking. I knew he was handsome, but I didn’t know he was stop-your-heart-and-swoon kind of handsome.
I squeeze his hand and gain his eyes. “Are you okay?”
He glances down at our hands, lifting them up from where we had been resting them on the seat between us, turning them over with a flip before repeating the action a few times. His eyes study our connection silently. I wait, my heart picking up speed as the silence continues, but I give him what he needs and wait for him to answer me.
“I think …” He pauses and clears his throat. “I think I am,” he responds a little lower the second time, for just me. “Thank you for being here.”
“There’s nowhere else I would rather be. It’s going to be okay, honey. If you want to get out of there, just say the word and I’ll make it happen.”
“You gonna steal a car and take off with me?”
I hold his gaze for a beat. “If that’s what you need? You bet your tail I will.”
I get his smile. His real smile. Not the one full of worry and fear for what is about to come, faking it for me. I open my mouth, ready to say something to keep that smile on his face, but I don’t get the chance before Sway clears his throat.
I had almost forgotten we weren’t alone.
Almost.
“We’re about to pull in, honey buns,” Sway announces from the front.
When I glance out the window, I realize we’re in a neighborhood. A big one, with tons of space between the homes. Houses that were meant to be the showcase of the land around them. As the car pulls us farther into the neighborhood, I realize that the space between each house gets larger and larger. Wouldn’t it be something to have this much land? If I didn’t love living in Boston so much, this is what I would want.
Sway pulls the car into a driveway, and I marvel at the beauty around us. Heck, no matter how much I love Boston, something as magnificent as this would be a huge temptation.
“They’re likely out back at this time of the evening. When the sun starts going down and the grandbabies start getting tired, never fails to pull them around the backyard. We do monthly family dinners out here in their backyard. Older kids stay on the lake most of the time, but those grandbabies of theirs are passed around like hot potatoes for the adults that soak up the time with them.”
“Been gone a long time,” he murmurs, loud enough for Sway to hear him, pain thick in his words. “Somehow, it still looks the same.”
“You’re home now,” he responds softly. “You’ve been gone, yes, but not sure it matters the why of it when you’re back from the dead, honey child. Remember that.”
“You’ve got nothing but faith this will work out, Sway.”
Sway smiles at me before looking back at Zeke. “And you, my dear, apparently don’t live only once. Why don’t we squash that doubt now and yolt.”
“What the hell is yolt?”
“You only live … twice.” Sway laughs maniacally.
I watch some of the worry wash off Zeke. I have no idea what that meant, but it clearly means something to him. Enough to ease some of his worries and fears, at least.
“You’ve got all the time you need. Your brother is meeting me … well, us … in the home office Ax has. It’s away from everyone. They’re still out back. You and Asher talk first and then you decide what to do after. It will give you two the privacy you need. I should warn you, they know something big is happening, just unsure what.”
“Cameras?”
“I texted Axel on the way,” Davey starts. “He’s reluctantly turned them off until you’re inside, and I let him know it’s clear to monitor the house again.”
Zeke turns his gaze from the house, giving Sway a look of disbelief. “He agreed to that?”
He holds his hands up with a small laugh.
“He’s older now. His daughter, which I might add put every part of his overprotective nature in overdrive, is out of the house. Izzy is undoubtedly on his lap. He turned them off for me and not for long, but he did it because and only because he trusts me and everything he holds dear is already safe.”
“I find it hard to believe that time could have cooled his protective nature.”
Sway just laughs and shrugs. He and his husband step out of the car, shutting the door and leaving us in silence.
“Tell me what I can do?” I ask after a beat.
“Don’t leave me,” he answers with so much vulnerability in his tone.
“Never.”
“No matter what happens, Livi. Don’t leave me.”
“Sweetheart, I’m not going to leave you. I’m right here, by your side.”
His eyes, even in the dark, heat. He lets go of the hand he had been holding and frames my face with his large hands. His gaze holds mine, studying and searching. I take his handsome face in, the changes that just make him even more stunning, but those eyes are both the Drew I knew and the Zeke Cooper of his past.
“Wouldn’t be here without you, Olivia. No matter what happens in there, you need to know that I’m thankful for you and that gift you’ve given me. Been dead a long time. Even without this”—he looks toward the house—“you have given me so much in the time we’ve been together that my life already was becoming beautiful. Can’t imagine it can get much bigger than only everything in the world I every cared for in one place together. I know I wouldn’t be here without what you and Riley have given me. I have no idea how this will go, but I know I can get through it with you.”
He gives me a short but deep kiss, and when he pulls back, I can see the solid resolve and determination that’s destroyed the fear in his stunning eyes. His whole body seemingly grows bigger and stronger in the darkness of Sway’s car. I’ve seen so many sides to him over the years I’ve known him, but this is something to behold. I imagine, had I know him before the pain and years of being “Drew,” I would see this man.
“Ready or not, darlin’,” he says softly against my lips. “You only live twice, after all, so might as well make the second one count.”
“Starting Over” by Chris Stapleton
I’m going to be fucking sick.
Olivia’s hand tightens in mine, and I release some of the tension I’ve been holding on to her with. I let my grip up some, but not much. I need her. I need that hold on her to make sure she’s with me. That tether her hold gives me a feeling of safety that only she can provide.
It’s not some grand big epiphany, this dependency that I have on her. Especially for this. If anything, it just drives home what I already knew about her and us together. I’ve been alone for so long, I had forgotten what it felt like to have someone who had your back out of love, not obligation. Even in the time “before,” which I like to look at as the time I had with them in Hope Town before the shooting, I never had this. Sure, I had my brother by blood and the brothers I found in Axel, Greg, Beck, and Maddox. I knew, deep down, that the women in their lives had supported me out of love, not obligation, but that wasn’t like the love that Olivia gives me. No, her love isn’t the familial kind that the others gave me. It’s the kind only found with your person.
Sway walks around me with Davey staying behind to take up the rear. He opens the door, the chimes making a little jingle that the alarm system does when the door opens. I follow as he enters, moving toward the home office that Ax has by memory more than because I’m following. My heart pounds with each step. I give Olivia’s hand a little squeeze, relaxing slightly when she returns the gesture. We stop a little before the office door and let Sway go in first. I don’t know what he says, but I hear my brother respond. First time I’ve heard him talk in so painfully long. I close my eyes and soak it in.
“Seems a little cloak and dagger type of mystery here, Sway. Isn’t this a little different from your normal MO?”
“Oh hush, you. Not everything has to be done at a spectacular level.”
Asher laughs. “Going to remember you said that.”
Sway clears his throat, and I steady my breathing the best I can, bracing myself for what’s about to happen. With a little flex of my fingers in warning to Olivia, I start walking and pull her behind me. She anchors me, holding me steady for the storm ahead.
My brother’s back is to me, no doubt something Sway planned. His careful manipulations during the day to minimize the pain on everyone hasn’t been lost on me.
I owe that man more than I’ll ever be able to repay.
God, I take in my brother and feel that part inside me that has ached for him start weaving and mending. Each stitch making it feel that much closer to being healed. Full.
Even from behind, I would be able to pick him out of a lineup. We had a connection. Growing up with the evil mother we had, we struggled to find meals, and it makes you grow closer than most siblings.
Aside from his hair showing a lot more gray than blond, he looks the same even from behind. Same cocky stance. Same relaxed arms. That energy that tells people not to fuck with him.
Goddamn.
I’ve missed my big brother.
My heart picks up speed as I open and close my mouth a few times with no sound escaping. It feels too great, the emotions slamming into me so harshly, that if not for Liv, I would be on my ass. My words are stuck in my chest, too thick and clogged in the reaction to seeing and hearing my brother.
Olivia places her free hand on my forearm, and I look down at her. Understanding, worry, and love in her eyes. Her touch calms my wrecked system enough for me to breathe. With a calming breath, I try to shake off a little more without success, and I clear my throat. My brother doesn’t move much, but I see the slight tic that tells me Ash knows something big is happening. It’s the same twitch he always had, ever so slight, and that left leg with the relaxed knee, clicks straight into place as he stands tall—no longer relaxed. He turns, slowly, and I see Sway in the corner of my gaze clasp his hands over his chest moments before my brother’s eyes meet mine.
Fucking hell.
Emotions flash over his features.
So many of them, they blur into one of hopeful heartache deep within me.
I did that, caused that pain in his face.
Olivia hiccups.
Sway sniffles.
No one moves.
No one speaks.
My throat gets thicker when I see his eyes fill with unshed tears.
Still, no one moves.
Not one goddamn word is spoken.
Not for the longest fucking time.
In the next moment, before I even have a chance to react, I see him jerk forward. Though it wasn’t the movement that shocked me the most … it was the anger that burned bright just before he did. It was enough to distract me, and I’ll never for the rest of my life forget what happened next.
Sway screamed—later I’ll look back on that shit and smile over how one grown-ass man could sound so high pitched and shriek-of-the-century loud.
Asher bellowed, warning me too late of the shitstorm coming.
It was Olivia who stopped my heart.
The sound she made when Asher’s fist connected with her face mixed with the sound of shocked horror from my brother’s, which only made Sway’s screaming louder.
“What the fuck, Ash?”
“Me what the fuck? You what the fuck!”
“What the fuck!” I hear coming from the back of the house.
“Oh boy,” Sway whispers, finally stopping that damn noise he was making.
“Come on, sweet girl.” Davey steps into the crowd around where Olivia had stumbled after Asher’s fist hit her. A fist meant for me that she stepped in front of. To protect me. My God, this woman. She knew exactly what he was about to do and put her own body in the way to protect me from hurting.
