Valencia sucks in a breath, gathering her strength while I massage the kinks in her tense shoulders. “The thoughts in your head are only illusions. You’re stronger than you think, baby. Come on. Let’s do this.”
Those hazel eyes meet mine and the fury begins to ease. She nods, wets her lower lip, and steps in as I hold the door.
A light whiff of air greets us. It’s always been so much colder in here. We don’t need to see a single damn thing to know where we are in the room. The slightly ajar door gifts me Lencia’s outline. She feels her way inside, gripping Addilyn’s bassinet that hasn’t been moved. The shades are drawn. I had the window bolted with steel from the outside days after the disappearance.
This is the room I was proudest to have designed, and although a part of me says it still is, deep down I know it’s done its time. As much as we can stop fearing or find refuge in this room, it will always be the last place we saw Addilyn in.
Valencia nears the rocking chair.
“How is it?”
“It’s…overwhelming.”
I lift her and she straddles my waist as I sit down. Taking advantage of the dark, her arms wrap around my neck and I kiss her forehead. “It was the same for me at the start. Then day by day it began to be a little easier.”
We stay in a comfortable silence for a while, soundlessly reflecting on everything that has been. It must be going through her mind too, or else her breaths wouldn’t be this shallow. They match mine, falling into synchronized rhythms and so I focus on that.
It calms me.
Stabilizes me.
A good ten minutes pass before we make any further movement. The memory of Addilyn burns deep inside me. Her cute little smile. Those eyes. Her presence in our home.
Tears roll down my cheeks.
Fuck.
Back in the bedroom, I give Valencia nothing but my raw honesty. “I know that was an important moment for you. I’m so proud you were able to step inside and place your feet on the same floor where somebody destroyed our happiness.”
Lencia looks up at me and it’s a new awakening for me. Those doe eyes sparkle as she wipes away my fallen tears. “I should be thanking you. You encouraged me.”
“You stepped in. That is much more significant.”
“I beg to differ.”
“Oh, disagreeing with me so early in the morning, are you?” I grin, arching a brow in protest at the soft giggles escaping her. “It’s never too early for you, is it? Hmm?”
“Never, darling,” she teases, tracing the band of my boxer briefs.
“Never she says. Definitely too early for disagreements, but it isn’t for something else…”
“Point taken, but you may still get an eye roll out of me if you’re lucky.”
“Oh amore, I’m always lucky when I’m with you.”
“Thank you for coming in. Please make yourself comfortable.”
Instead of in a chair, Bryce sits on the edge of my desk. I let it go. This is Bryce McCarson we’re talking about after all. I should have expected that even if he did assist in my recovery, that doesn’t exactly mean we’re instant best friends. No. We have a long way to go. But we’re getting there.
He downs his soda and throws it across the room. Somehow it lands perfectly in the trash and he beams with raised hands. “Now that right there is what I call a shot of a champion!”
I clear my throat and drum my fingers over my laptop. “Bryce, I have a meeting in exactly fifteen minutes and so I’m hoping to get through this as quickly as I can…” I trail off.
“Perfectly alright with me.” Bryce brushes down his olive sweater and falls into the guest seat adjacent to me. “How are them bruises? The one on ya face doesn’t make ya look too bad. Ya just look like an Italian that came back from a mafia gang war.”
I smirk.
Hold up, smirk?
Damn, I’ve been so much happier since working everything out with Valencia that I’m even giving into McCarson’s sarcasm. “The bruises are fine. Are you calling me a gangster?”
“Not necessarily. I think that we’re all gangsters in our own way. We may not be part of an organized crime syndicate, but we’ve got those dark, dark secrets that we don’t want certain people to bring to life. And let me tell ya something that’ll surprise ya…The good guys, right, they always have the darkest. You just don’t see it because they conceal it, they’re good at that, but they have the darkest even if they seem the brightest. Remember that when you put me down for worst employee of the month.”
I raise my eyebrows and Bryce chuckles. “My verdict is in. You’re quite an inspirational guy when you’re not busy being infuriating.”
“If that’s your way of saying ya love me, I’ll take it.”
“It’s my way of saying there is no worst employee lists. Not that I love you.”
Bryce laughs. “So, are ya going to tell me what you and the Mrs. have decided on?”
Saturday morning when I woke up beside Lencia for the first time in months, we had a slow-paced day. For once, neither of us were rushing to make lunches, getting the kids ready, or pulling into work like a dear in the headlights. Instead, we arrived at Helena’s and spent the entire weekend with the twins, Daisy, Weston, and my sister-in-law making cannoli and rejoicing.
It was a novelty to be a family again. Pure bliss.
Today before work, Valencia and I had breakfast after taking the kids to school together and so many
