Lead Me Home (Fight for Me #3)(62)

My mouth dropped open. “Hey, don’t go making any moves on my man.”

She laughed. “See, told you so.”

A giggle slipped out. It should have been impossible with everything that’d happened tonight.

But I thought maybe . . . maybe some good things were finally coming together.

“I’ll be right back,” I told her before I eased out the door and down the hall.

Ollie had insisted he would get Kyle a snack while I helped Brenna get settled in the guest room. I’d left them with Kyle sitting on one of the high-backed stools, babbling something Ollie was clearly pretending he understood.

Now I slowed, inching forward when I noticed all the lights had been doused, the open living space only illuminated by the lights that poured in from the windows.

I peeked my head out at the end of the hall.

My chest squeezed and my heart expanded.

Oh God.

This man.

He was absolutely undoing me.

He was sitting on the couch, Kyle fast asleep in his arms. The little boy’s thumb was in his mouth and his cheek was pressed to Ollie’s chest as Ollie softly patted his back, tattooed arms wrapped so protectively around Kyle’s tiny body.

Tears pricked at the back of my eyes, and that old, old love burst free.

No longer held.

No longer bottled.

“Hey,” I whispered as I inched out, keeping quiet so as not to startle Kyle.

Ollie’s eyes popped open.

And he smiled.

He smiled the softest smile and it moved right through the center of me.

“Hey,” he said. “He started to get fussy, so I walked him a bit before he fell asleep.”

I nodded at him, unable to speak around the lump that formed in my throat. I moved that way and carefully pulled Kyle from his arms.

Ollie stood behind me, and I walked down the hall, my knock quiet before I pushed open the door and brought Kyle to Brenna who was fixing a spot for him to sleep.

I passed him to her. She gazed down at him, adoration on her face.

And I felt it all around me.

Adoration.

Love.

“Sleep well,” I told her.

She just nodded, and I moved back out, Ollie waiting for me right on the other side of the door.

He took my hand, and I followed him back to his room.

He flipped on the bedside lamp, and I went directly into his bathroom. I washed my face, peeled off my jeans, and moved back out to where he lay on the bed.

Wearing only his underwear.

His big body sculpted of muscle. Covered in ink.

But those eyes. They pierced me from across the room.

I started for him, only to falter a step when my attention caught on what was on the other side of his room.

A wall covered in pictures.

Not just any pictures.

It was pictures and newspaper articles and prints tacked everywhere.

Layer upon layer.

Sucking in a ragged breath, my eyes narrowed as I inched that way.

Horrified.

And somehow in awe.

Sydney’s smiling face beamed from all of the pictures, her expression so free and full of belief.

The way she’d always lived. What she’d always been so patient to instill in me when I’d always been the timid one itching to shed my sticky skin.

There were a ton of pictures of the three of us. Playing. Laughing. Arms hooked over each other’s shoulders.

Inseparable.

But it was the newspaper articles that gutted me.

So many of them were about her from the time when she’d gone missing.

More of other girls.

Cold cases.

Kidnappings.

Rapes.

Murders.

Strings were attached between some of them and notes jotted across others.

Clues.

Questions.

A chill slicked down my spine and spread across my skin.

Warily, I looked back at him. He’d sat up on the edge of the bed, his legs flung over the side, raking a nervous hand through his hair.

“You’ve been looking for her this whole time?”

He looked up at me, his voice quieted so Brenna wouldn’t hear. “What else could I possibly do? Forget? Give up like the detectives? Looking for her is the only thing I’ve ever had, Nikki. I can’t give up the hope that maybe, just maybe, one day I might find her.”

My stomach twisted.

A coil of misery and desire and affection.

I looked back to the things that he had tacked to the wall. My fingertips reached out to flutter over the red woven bracelet with the charm inscribed with ‘fly’.

It exactly matched the one I still wore around my ankle.

Ollie’s piece.

The third one would be forever missing.

They say heartbreak isn’t physical.

I believed it was a lie.

Because I could feel it. Could feel his. Just as I could feel the same crack running right down the center of me. Everything adding up and becoming this weight I didn’t know how to bear.

It was a rending of my chest.

A splintering of my soul.

Cautiously, I moved toward him.

The space between us coming alive.

Shimmering.

Streaks of color.

Flashes of light.

Chemistry.

Ours had been ugly for so long. Like a shadow hanging over us.

Now, I waded through it like the gift it always should have been. I got down on my knees in front of him and pressed my hand to the side of his face.