She shakes her head.
“We can put your hair up so it’s not wet when you go to sleep.”
“I’m fried. I don’t think I can even move to get up to pee.”
I chuckle, my fingers trailing from her sides to her hips, to her ribs and back. “I’m not really into that kind of kink.”
She laughs. “Good to know you have a limit. I was starting to wonder.”
“Come on, Angel.”
Lifting her up, I carry her into the bathroom. She is fried. Her body wasted as it limply sags into me. I start the water and do my best to put her hair up, securing it with the elastic she left in here from earlier. And once we’re both clean and sated and happy and exhausted, we crawl back into bed, her body tucked into mine.
“Two months, Rina. We’re moving in together in two months. Remember this.”
“Hmmmm,” she hums, already half asleep.
Two months. Because in two months, I’ll have an idea if I can make it with my own business. Luccia is already coming with me. That’s why she was so worried about me today. She thought we were both about to lose everything we had discussed and figured out.
No more sexual harassment for her. I’m paying for her visa as she works on her green card. And since it’s just us, for now, I told her if she needs to, her kid can come to our building after school and play or do homework out of one of the spare offices, so she doesn’t have to pay for a sitter.
She liked that idea.
And while it’s still hitting me hard all that happened today, all that Alexander offered me, I know in my gut, as I hug the woman sleeping in my arms closer, that I’m making the right call.
“If I have you, Angel, I have everything,” I whisper into her ear, already knowing she’s fast asleep. “I don’t need New York. I just need you.”
37
Rina
Two months later
A groan slips past my lips at the sound of my doorbell. “Go away,” I yell, knowing whoever it is can’t hear me. “It’s my day off!”
Refusing to open my eyes, I throw the blanket over my head. It’s early. I don’t have to look at my phone or my alarm clock to know that. I feel it. I didn’t get home until nearly nine o’clock last night when my shift was supposed to end at seven. My patient decided fifteen minutes before the end of my shift was the perfect time to try and die.
An hour later we finally had him stabilized, but it was one hell of an effort to get him there. I came home, showered, ate a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and then passed the hell out. But now, in addition to the ringing, there’s knocking. Repeated knocking. And now my phone is getting in on it.
“Ugh!” I scream, opening my eyes and blinking against the harsh white light searing my eyeballs. Snow is gently falling past my window as I curse a million curses under my breath, grabbing my phone and answering. “Oliver, why are you at my door at” —I glance at my clock— “eight in the morning on a Saturday?”
“Because it’s moving day. Now get your ass down here and help.”
“What?” Only he doesn’t answer because he’s already hung up. “Moving day? What the hell is he talking about?”
I throw on a bra, a long-sleeved thermal shirt and my black fleece-lined leggings, grumbling as I storm down my stairs. Turning off the alarm, I unlock the door and fling it open to find all of my brothers standing there, each holding brown cardboard boxes, same as Brecken is.
“What the hell is going on?”
“Moving day,” Brecken says, just as Oliver did, like this should explain everything. He plants a kiss on my cheek, setting the box he’s holding down in my foyer.
“What the hell is moving day? What are you doing?” I snap at Carter as he scurries past me, walking his box into my house, heading straight for my living room.
“We’re moving him in with you,” Landon states flatly, glaring at Brecken and looking as annoyed to be here as… wait. Did he just say…
“I’m sorry, I think I just had a stroke. There is no way I heard that correctly. Did you say you’re moving him in with me?” I glare at Landon before turning to Brecken who is still standing in the foyer.
“That’s what I said,” Landon confirms. “Now where do you want this one? I can’t see the label.”
“I think that one goes in the bedroom,” Brecken informs him. “Thanks, man.”
Landon grunts, adjusting the box and marching in the direction of the stairs. Me? I’m utterly gobsmacked. Brother after brother parades past me, each with their own large box before exiting only to return with yet another box. It’s only then that I realize there’s a small moving truck parked outside my house.
“You’re not talking,” Brecken says, as cool and confident as ever. “I assumed there would be more talking by this point.”
“What the fuck is going on?”
“We said two months. Remember?”
“We did not say two months. When the hell did we ever say you’d move in with me in two months?”
“That night I took you to my building for the first time. We were in my bed talking and I said I’m giving you two months. You said yes. My face was in your pussy, and you said yes. Twice, actually.”
“Oh my god, Brecken. You’re absolutely crazy. I was clearly not saying yes to moving in with you.”
He grins, completely unrepentant. “Sure you were. I said two months and you said yes. Well, yelled it really. So here I am. Two months exactly.”
Oliver trudges past me with yet another box. “You knew about this?” I snap at him before catching Luca’s eyes. “All of you did? You knew he was planning to move in with me even when I didn’t and you’re helping him?”
I don’t think I’ve ever been so incredulous in my life.
“We like him,” is Luca’s only reply.
“So?”
“So he asked us to help and here we are.”
I can only shake my head. Kaplan actually grins at Brecken, and I swear I catch Luca saying that Landon owes him fifty bucks.
“Not yet,” Landon states. “She hasn’t kicked him out yet. That was the bet.”
“But she will,” Luca retorts. “Look at her face. She’s red as hell and looks like she’s about to breathe fire.”
I can’t even with those two. “Brecken, you can’t… I mean, we can’t… I mean…”
I don’t even know what I mean.
My brothers are in on this. They planned this. All of them. Together. Because they like Brecken. And they know he’s good for me. That he’s a good man. A man who loves me. A man who I love in return.
Brecken’s arms wrap around my waist, and he hauls me into his chest, his lips meeting my ear. “Yes, I’m crazy. Yes, this was a total sneak attack that your brothers not only helped me plan but orchestrate. Yes, I want to live with you. In the months we’ve been together, last night was the first night we’ve been apart other than when you’re working nights. But on the nights that you are, I’m at your place when you get home.”