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33
MYA
I jumped in front of Oliver to block his path so he didn’t continue wearing down the floor of the bedroom as he paced.
Aside from exchanging a few words with Teddy and Easton after they’d arrived, he’d said nothing since the confrontation with his father. Not to me or our hosts. After getting Teddy and Easton settled, he’d taken off to do a perimeter check, and so the last thing I’d expected was for him to come blazing into my bedroom without knocking first only to walk back and forth while shoving his hands through his hair, further mussing it up.
“Talk to me,” I begged, touching his chest in hopes I’d calm him down or get him to open up.
His eyes were bloodshot, and I half-expected to smell alcohol on his breath, but there was nothing there.
“Oliver.” I slipped my hand up and around to the nape of his neck. “That limo window can come down for a minute, can’t it? I think you need it to.”
His eyes fell closed almost in slow motion. How much more heartbreak could we work into one day? If only at midnight we could reset the clocks and all the pain would fall back to zero, and we could forget.
“He told me I’d feel better when I got justice,” he gritted out, low and raspy under his breath, but at least he was talking. “By the lake, in nearly that same spot we were earlier, he said those words to me. Now he’s acting like . . .” His cheeks puffed up with air, then he let go of the breath.
I was pretty sure Sam was suggesting he didn’t regret having his revenge, he only wished it hadn’t come with the high price of losing his family. I hated that Oliver was borderline there now himself, and I had to help him see we could take down our enemies and still have a future together. It wasn’t too late for us.
But, given his state of mind, I didn’t want to press him about that now. I wasn’t exactly in the best state, either. Our parents had both given us one hell of an evening, but for very different reasons.
“You should sleep.” Oliver deflected again, refusing to share more of his feelings, trying to keep that wall up. “We have to get up early tomorrow. It’ll take us much longer to get to the airport since we have to make sure we’re not being followed.”
His expression was all business, full operator mode, his eyes open and a stern expression there. It was as if he was trying his best to eliminate the conversation with his father from his mind.
Not in the mood to fight, which would happen if I pushed him to keep talking about his feelings, I asked, “Will you sleep next to me?”
“I can’t, and you know that. I may accidentally hurt you.” He removed my hand, let go of me, and lifted his chin toward the recliner in the corner of the room by the window. “But if you don’t want to be alone, I can sleep there.”
“No freaking way.” I supposed an argument was going to happen regardless. So stubborn. Like me, that’s the problem. “You’re hurting.”
Did he really need the reminder? He was currently holding his lower back and wincing. The pain from carrying me was probably now catching up to him in other parts of his body.
Despite a little tension in the back of my skull from whacking his jaw, I was shockingly fine. I credited that to him taking the brunt of the fall, keeping my dead weight on top of him. Once again sacrificing himself for me. Just like he did for everyone, always.
Well, it was time for him to stop and let someone do something for him for a change.
“You’re sleeping with me, not in the chair,” I insisted.
“Mya, goddammit, I can’t sleep next to you.” The man rarely swore at me like that, especially not in that way. He was truly adamant about the bed situation. Terrified he’d hurt me if he had a nightmare.
“I unintentionally hit you in the head earlier, so if you accidentally swipe me, it cancels out what I?—”
“There will never be any getting even when it comes to you being hurt,” he hissed, eyes nearly bulging from his face. “If I hit you while I was asleep, you think I could live with myself after that?”
His father had warned me of that same thing early in the morning. “You wouldn’t mean it. There’s a huge difference.”
“I’ll never take that chance.” He shook his head and retreated to the chair.
He was still in the tee and sweats, and he couldn’t sleep how he normally did since he was missing his boxer briefs, so he was dooming himself to be completely miserable and uncomfortable. All because he was so damn stubborn.
Vanessa had tossed our clothes in the laundry, including our undergarments, so at least we’d have those tomorrow for the plane. I hadn’t exactly been excited going panty and braless at dinner tonight, but I’d had no choice. As soon as I’d returned to my room, I’d changed into a plain oversized tee but was still naked beneath.
Sitting down, resting his elbow on the chair arm, he lowered his chin onto his palm, eyes toward the bathroom instead of on me as I went over to the bed and pulled down the comforter.
“What about a pillow wall between us? We’ve done that before. This time it can keep you from coming to my side if you have a nightmare instead of us just being childish like in the past.” Those pillow-wall days had been before we’d given in to desire, set up for the sole purpose of not doing that very thing. Clearly, we’d had a change of heart.
“Not even a pillow mountain would work,” he retorted, still avoiding me.
