Let Me (O'Brien Family, #2)(55)
When a couple of my brothers finally found love, I was happy for them. I was. I may have the rep for saying shit I shouldn’t and acting like a clown, but I’m not stupid. Tess and Sofia, they’re good for Curran and Killian, and bring out the good in them. Being as young as I am, though, I couldn’t help thinking how much they were giving up by settling down. I didn’t necessarily think they were pussies for it, but I couldn’t relate or understand. To me, the world was full of women for the taking.
I never expected one woman to become my world.
So no, I don’t laugh with her. Instead I squeeze her hand. “That’s not what I saying,” I tell her. I release a breath as I pull onto her street. Once more, my time with her has come to an end. She’ll have dinner with her family while me and Wren will either order in, or eat at one of our brothers’ places. Either way, Sol won’t be with me and I totally hate it.
“I know,” she answers quietly.
Most of the spots along the one way street are taken, so I have to park almost on the corner. I’m still on her side of the street, but we’re about eight houses down. I cut the engine, abruptly shutting off the heat and the radio.
It’s only fifteen degrees outside despite the sunshine. Being this close to March, it shouldn’t be so damn frigid, but there are years where it’s still snowing in April. I should keep the engine running, leave the heat on and keep her with me a little longer. But I’ve already pressured her enough by telling her I want us to live together. So if she needs a little space from me to think things through―needs to get back and check on her family, I want her to know I understand―that I’ll give her the time she needs, despite that it’s taking all I have not to pull back onto the street and drive away with her.
“What are you thinking?” she asks.
I don’t look at her because I can’t. I don’t want to meet those large, light eyes right now, the ones who looked so sleepy yet so happy when I took that selfie of us this morning. Man, I can picture that image so well: her tucked against my chest as I held my phone up and away from us. It’s my new wallpaper. You can’t see much skin, but it’s obvious we were naked and in bed. Maybe it’s inappropriate, but it’s my damn phone and this is how I like us: her close to me―not like she is now, moments from walking away.
“Finn?” she asks.
“You don’t want to know what I’m thinking,” I tell her.
She waits a beat, her small fingers skimming over my rough knuckles. “Are you mad, I’m not staying with you tonight?”
“I’m not mad that you’re not staying with me,” I admit. “I never want you to stay if you don’t want to. But I am kind of pissed you have to leave.”
“It’s not that I want to leave you,” she says. “I hate us being apart.”
Me too, baby.
For a moment, I just hold her. But when I look at her, even though I’m frustrated, sad, and somewhat angry, I smile. I can’t help it. Sol makes me happy. “This is why it’s hard to let you go. If you didn’t want to be with me, it would be tough to hear and take, but I’d let you walk away because it’s what you feel and want to do. But you sitting here, telling me you don’t want to be without me, makes everything that much harder.”
The way her stare travels along my face, I know she’s not only listening to what I say, but sensing how every word carves into my bones like a saw.
“I wish me living with you could be as easy as that,” she whispers.
My lips skim over hers. “And I wish you could see it’s not as hard as you think.”
I’m making her feel worse by saying what I do―and I hate myself for it. I don’t want to guilt her into something she’s not ready for, no matter how much I wish she was. That doesn’t mean I can pretend like I never asked, or deny how I feel.
I’m ready for more. A lot more. Her moving in with me is just the start. “Will you at least think about it?” I ask quietly.
She averts her gaze, but nods. “I’ll think about it.”
“Yeah?” I ask, not sure she means it.
“Finn, it’s not that I don’t want to live with you.” She leans in close, her pretty stare begging me to believe her. “I want to wake up with you beside me every morning, and your face to be the last one I see at night. But I’m not sure it’s the right thing for me and my family. At least not now.”
“I get it,” I tell her.
“I hope so,” she says, her voice laced with so much emotion it tugs at my heart in a way nothing else can. “Because when I tell you I love you, I mean it.”
Her face lights up at my grin. This is one of those moments when life seems too perfect to be real.
So when the screaming starts, I’m reminded that nothing is perfect, and that life can be f*cking cruel.
CHAPTER 22
Sol
Finn and I both jump, our bodies turning toward the sounds of those screams. It only takes me seconds to see what he sees, but those seconds freeze time and etch in my mind like words chiseled on stone.
Tía stumbles out of my house, barely clutching the metal railing in time to keep from falling. She’s the one screaming―the one crying for someone to help her!
The clicking sound of Finn’s seatbelt releasing and his door swinging open breaks through my shock. In the moment it takes me to unfasten my seatbelt and leap from his truck, he’s already tearing down sidewalk. I’m running full out, skidding over the patches of ice and falling on my knees in front of Se?ora Segura’s house. “Sol, que pasa?” she asks.