Down to My Soul (Soul Series Book 2)(78)

“Yeah, that’s me.” Rhyson meets the questions in my eyes with a small smile.

“Well, I’ll see you when you get back.” Aunt Ruthie gives Rhyson a hug, which makes him grin at me over her shoulder like he just got perfect attendance at vacation Bible school.

This man of mine.

“She likes you, Rhys,” I tell him as Aunt Ruthie crosses the yard to her old Ford Tempo. “I’ve never seen you so . . . nervous with anyone before.”

“Not nervous. Just . . . it’s important to me, okay?”

“I know it is, baby.” I peck his cheek. “Is that Gep?”

I shade my eyes, watching him and another hulky guy get out of the Escalade. The second guy drives away in the other SUV, almost identical to ours, and Gep leans against the truck, checking his phone.

“Yeah.” Rhyson toys with my fingers.

“He just got here?”

“No, he’s been here. He and another team member were staying in town.” He gives me a hooded look. “He’s pretty much always with me, even if you don’t see him.”

“In Berlin?”

“Up the hall, two rooms down. I only get so much privacy. You know that. And half the time the little I get is a bit of an illusion.”

“At the beach?” The day had been so special. I hope Gep wasn’t hiding on a boat in the harbor watching with binoculars or something.

“That day it was just us.” He links our fingers on his chest. “I promise.”

He considers me for a moment before speaking again.

“We’ll need to assign someone to you after we go public, Pep.”

“To me?” I unlink our fingers to lay a hand on my chest. “I don’t need security like you do, Rhys. I’m not that famous.”

“Not to sound like an *, but I am that famous, and if you’re with me, you need security.” He pauses. “That’s my life. That’s our life, you know?”

“I don’t want that until I really need it.”

“You really need it as soon as everyone knows you’re mine. I didn’t push before, but now you have some degree of fame on your own, too.” He bites the inside of his jaw, like he’s weighing his next words. “You meant what you said last night, right? About our future? About kids? All of that?”

“You know I did.” I say it so softly anyone else on the porch wouldn’t even hear. Like it’s our little secret from the world how committed we are to each other, and maybe I want it to be.

“You know me, Kai. Do you honestly think I’m gonna have you walking around some mall with my kids unprotected? At Whole Foods? The movie theater? That’s not our normal. It doesn’t work that way, and I need you to accept the way it does work.”

It feels like my bottom lip has slid into a slight pout, but that would be childish, so I tighten my lips around any counterpoint I could come up with.

“Baby, please. I don’t want to spend the last ninety seconds we have together arguing about something you know damn well I’m not caving on.” He slides his palms down my back until they cup my butt, pulling me up onto my toes and into him. “Yield.”

It’s hard to be obstinate when he has me like this. When I can feel how much he wants me, how much he loves me. When I want, more than anything, to make sure he knows I feel the same. I flatten my elbows against his chest and nod. He drops a final kiss into my hair.

“Gep’ll work out the details when you get back to LA. In the meantime,” he says, reaching into his pocket and retrieves something, but closes his hand over his palm so I can’t see what it is. “I have a parting gift for you.”

“I get a parting gift when you leave?” I laugh, shaking my head. “And just for two days?”

“What can I say? I’m an extravagant guy.”

He opens his hand, and my mouth falls open. Delight and shock mix up to spread a huge grin over my face. He has the little sheer bag containing all the broken pieces of the ballerina my mother gave me so long ago.

“Where’d you find this?”

“Find. Stole. Semantics. I may have opened some of the boxes packed in your room when you left on tour. I wanted something of yours while we were apart.” He shrugs. “I wanted something of you with me.”

That self-consciousness comes over him like it does every time he’s thoughtful, like he’s not used to how well sweetness fits him.

“I didn’t know . . . still don’t know . . . what it is,” he continues. “But I figured something this broken worth holding on to had to be special to you.”

It’s so broken and so special my fingers tremble as I take it from him.

“I’ve been looking for it.”

“I’m sorry, Pep.” He frowns, palming the side of my neck. “I didn’t even think about that.”

“No, it’s fine. It’s a ballerina. Mama . . .”

My words evaporate as I remember the day my ballerina broke. The day Mama broke in our living room. I couldn’t ever really put either of them back together after that. I slip the bag in my jeans pocket.

“I’m glad you had it with you,” I say, leaning into him and turning to kiss his palm.

“Well, I’m returning it now that I have you back.” He takes my chin between two fingers. “And not planning to let you go anytime soon.”