Disappointment twisted in my chest, but I gave her a smile and nodded. “Yeah, caterpillar. I’ll say goodbye before I leave, okay?”
“Promise?”
That quiver in her voice stabbed straight through my heart. “Promise.”
While she went upstairs, I flipped through channels and tried to think of how I could fix this thing between us. I loved that girl too much to even chance hurting her, even if that was what I had done earlier. But I hadn’t lied to her. I knew what love was; it was what I felt for her. So I knew I wasn’t in love with her.
With how my father and my mother’s relationship had been, I didn’t think I could fall in love with anyone. It felt like a trap, like a life sentence.
Fuck that shit.
Around ten thirty, Alicia finally came home. I was still in the living room, still flipping through the channels, too lost in my own head to find anything that would catch my attention for more than a few minutes. When she walked into the living room, a yogurt in hand and a warm smile on her face for me, she dropped right down beside me on the couch.
“Kas already in bed?”
I shrugged. “Yeah. I guess she got bored with me.”
“I doubt that could ever happen,” my aunt said with a laugh. “The way you two are, I’m pretty sure you could sit in a room and never even speak a word and still never get bored with each other’s company.”
She was right; we could have done that. Yesterday.
Today, things had been different.
I turned on the couch so that I was facing Alicia. In all the years I had lived with her, I had never seen her get involved with anyone. Jace had always joked that she was married to her job, and I had agreed with him.
“Have you ever been in love?” I asked her.
Her eyes widened and her cheeks turned pink. It was the first time I could ever remember seeing her blush before.
“That’s a pretty personal question,” she said.
“We’re family. I figure I have a right to know if my favorite aunt has ever been in love or not.”
She grimaced. “You have a point I guess. And the answer is yes, I have been in love. Once.”
Her answer only made me more curious. “Didn’t it work out?”
“It didn’t get the chance to work out,” she told me, a sad look crossing her face as the pink that had filled her cheeks earlier faded. “I loved him and he loved me. We were engaged to be married and I was already planning our wedding. We went to Vegas for our bachelor and bachelorette parties. One night, we were all out and saw some girl being mugged. He rushed over to help her before any of the rest of us could even move.” She swallowed hard and put her barely touched yogurt down on the coffee table. “The guy shot him before he could even reach the girl.”
“Hell, Alicia. I’m sorry.” I wrapped an arm around her, pulling her in close. I rubbed my hand up and down her arm, and she laid her head on my shoulder.
But she didn’t cry. Her eyes were dry and haunted as she looked up at me. “It was a long time ago, sweetheart. I moved on eventually, but no one could have every replaced Peter in my heart. I finally realized I wasn’t going to be happy with anyone else, that they would only ever be second best, and that wasn’t fair to anyone. That was when I decided to adopt, and a year later, Kassa and Jace came into my life.” Her smile was brighter now, her eyes losing some of that haunted look. “And I found out that there is more than one type of love in the world. That there are different types of relationships that can make a person happy and give them a reason to get out of bed every morning. When you came to live with us, I felt like my family was complete.”
“I’m sorry Peter died,” I muttered, unsure what else to say after all of that.
“You remind me a lot of him, actually. Maybe not in looks. Peter looked like a Viking with his nearly white-blond hair and those big, blue eyes of his, but you act just like him sometimes. You protect those you love, Gray, but especially Kassa. And the way you look at her, sometimes I can picture Peter looking just like that at me.” She patted me on the cheek and stood. “That kind of love doesn’t come around often, sweetheart.”
“I don’t love Kassa the way Peter loved you,” I rushed to tell her, my heart suddenly beating so fast that it was choking me. “You and Peter were in love, Alicia.”
Her eyebrows lifted at my adamant tone. “And that’s not the same as what’s between you and Kassa?” When I didn’t answer, she gave my shoulder a firm squeeze. “Goodnight, honey. I’ll see you in the morning.”
***
I slept like shit that night, tossing and turning and dreading having to leave the next morning. My bed felt lonely and cold, and I had to fight with myself not to go climb into Kassa’s bed.
Around four, I finally gave the fight up and left my room. Kassa had left her TV on again, but it was on one of the SiriusXM music channels. As I crossed the room, I saw that she was curled up in the middle of the bed. She was dressed in my shirt again, holding one of her pillows to her chest.
As I looked down at her, my heart pounded in my chest so hard that it hurt. Clenching my jaw, I carefully crawled in beside her. My arms went around her and pulled her back into my front. I pressed my lips to the back of her head, inhaling deeply to get a whiff of her mint and raspberry shampoo.