Nevaeh
I didn’t think I would sleep with all the noise in my head, but everything seemed to catch up with me all at once. I closed my eyes, letting myself relax against Braxton, telling myself I was just going to lie there and rest, thinking I wouldn’t get a single moment of sleep.
The next thing I knew, sunlight was filtering in through the window and Arella was standing over me, gently shaking my shoulder. “Nevi,” she whispered. “Hey, if you want to go to the hospital with us, you need to get up.”
I frowned up at her for a moment, my brain racing to catch up, then reality flooded back in through the sleep fog, and I jerked upright in bed. The arm that was wrapped around me tightened, and Braxton lifted his head, glancing around, assessing.
“What’s wrong?” he growled, his eyes narrowed menacingly as he tried to figure out the danger that had made me rush to sit up.
“I was going to let you sleep since you seemed to need it, but I knew you would wake up and be mad if I just left you.” Arella gave me a grim smile. “And Mom has already called saying Daddy is wide awake, up out of bed, and moving around. I figured you would definitely want to go with us to see him.”
Pushing my hair back from my face, I nodded and tossed back the covers. “Thanks. Give me fifteen minutes, and I’ll be ready.”
“Okay. We’ll be waiting downstairs for you.” She shot a look at Braxton then walked to the door and closed it behind her on her way out.
I started to get up, but Braxton only tightened his hold on me. “Brax—”
“Come here,” he commanded. He moved so quickly, I didn’t even have time to blink as he rolled onto his back and pulled me down on top of him. He twisted his hand in my hair and brought my head down so he could kiss me.
For a moment, I let him, and I found myself kissing him back. It wasn’t a demanding kiss, but one that tried to impress on me how much he cared about me. Swallowing hard, I finally lifted my head and quickly pressed against his chest until he released me.
Getting to my feet, I was about to make a run for my bedroom when his voice hit me dead center. “I love you, Nevaeh.”
I clenched my eyes closed for a moment, letting his words wash over me for only a second before forcing my feet to move without returning the words that bubbled up and begged to be released.
When I walked downstairs a short while later, Braxton was waiting in the living room with my sisters and Damien. The keys to Mom’s vehicle hung from Arella’s fingers, but when I went to take them from her, she grinned and shook her head. “Nope. Someone else is driving us.”
Humming to herself, she practically bounced out of the living room, leaving the rest of us to follow. Mutter
ing a curse because I already suspected who was driving, I grabbed the tote full of tightly sealed containers of soup and freshly baked French bread that was sitting on the coffee table and exited the house behind my brother.
Sure enough, Jordan was just pulling his vehicle into the driveway. As I turned to close the front door, making sure it was locked, Braxton took the tote from me and then clasped my hand in his.
Looking down at our entwined hands, I was overcome with how perfect my smaller one looked in his much larger one, and my heart broke a little more. As I sucked in a shuddering breath, we moved toward Mom’s vehicle together, and he opened the back door for me.
“Morning,” Jordan greeted as he accepted the keys from Arella and gave me a grin. “I’d ask how you slept, but you look like you’re all kinds of hungover.”
I flipped him off and got into the second row with Damien and Braxton since Bliss and Heavenleigh were already taking up the third.
“You wound me, Nevaeh. Truly.” With a laugh, he got behind the wheel. “We ready?”
“We’re good to go,” Braxton told him as he shifted his long legs into a more comfortable position.
Jordan cocked a brow at him as he glanced over his shoulder to back out. “Thought you went home with Mia last night.”
“Nevaeh was here,” he said, as if that explained everything. From the look on the other man’s face, it seemed to do just that, and he gave a single nod before concentrating fully on driving.
Rolling my eyes at the two of them, I shifted away from Braxton as much as the small space would allow and busied myself fixing Damien’s unkempt hair. He wanted to let it grow out like Daddy’s, but Mom wasn’t a big fan of his having long hair and tried to keep it short. But it looked like she was losing that war, and he was as shaggy as ever.
Braxton dropped his arm across the back of the seat, his fingers playing with the ends of the ponytail I’d put my hair up in so I didn’t have to wash it. He skimmed them over my shoulder every so often, and I tried to ignore the fact that my skin seemed to burn and tingle where they grazed.
By the time we got to the hospital, I was beyond ready to put some distance between us, and I made sure Damien and my two youngest sisters were between us at all times on the walk inside.
Thankfully, most of the paps had cleared out, making it easier to get into the building. But there were still a few hanging around, trying to get a picture of everyone coming and going so they could sell them to the highest bidder. None of them would get a factual story, though. Aunt Harper’s magazine was the only one that would have the exclusive on her husband’s and brother-in-law’s surgeries.
Despite the less chaotic entrance, Seller’s security was still in full force, and Braxton gave many of them nods as we passed.
Arella led the way to the private room Mom had told her Daddy had been moved in to, and as soon as we walked in and I saw Daddy sitting up in a chair next to the window, my knees went weak.