His laugh was dry and bitter. “What I need is to find the motherfucking bastard who did this to my brother. What I need is to rewind the clock so I didn’t waste the last however many years over some stupid fucking fight. What I need is for my brother to wake the fuck up.”
His breath hitched, and I had no control over my own body. Because one second I was standing in front of him and the next I was wrapping my arms around his waist, holding on and trying to absorb his pain.
His body was tight and vibrating as if he was seconds away from coming apart.
“Stop,” he said on a broken whisper. “Please.”
But I didn’t. I held on tighter, pressing my face to his chest.
He swore under his breath, and then his arms were around me, crushing me to him. He buried his face in my hair and clung to me.
He was so warm, so solid, so alive. I held on to him for dear life and willed him to release some of what he’d kept bottled up.
“Why don’t you ever fucking listen?” he grumbled, lips moving against my hair.
“Because sometimes people don’t know how to ask for what they really need. You needed a hug.”
“No. I didn’t,” he rasped. He was quiet for a long moment, and I listened to his heartbeat. “I needed you.”
My own breath tripped in my throat. I tried to pull back to look up at him, but he held me where I was.
“Just shut up, Daisy,” he advised.
“Okay.”
His hand stroked down my back and then up again. Over and over until I melted into him. I wasn’t sure which one of us was giving the comfort and which was receiving it now.
“He’s out of surgery,” Knox said finally, pulling back incrementally. His thumb traced my lower lip. “They won’t let me see him till he wakes up.”
“Will he want to see you?” I asked.
“I don’t give a fuck what he wants. He’s seeing me.”
“What was the fight about?”
He sighed. When he reached up and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear, I swooned internally. “I don’t really feel like talkin’ about it, Daze.”
“You have something better to do?”
“Yeah. Yelling at you to go the hell home and get some sleep. Waylay’s first day of school is tomorrow. She doesn’t need a zombie aunt pouring dish soap on her cereal.”
“First of all, we’re having eggs, fruit, and yogurt for breakfast,” I began, then realized he was trying to distract me. “Was it about a woman?”
He looked at the ceiling.
“If you start counting to ten, I will kick you in the shin,” I warned.
He sighed. “No. It wasn’t about a woman.”
“Besides love, what’s worth losing a brother over?”
“Fucking romantics,” he said.
“Maybe if you get it out, instead of bottling it up, you’ll feel better.”
He studied me for another one of those long, pensive beats, and I was sure he was about to tell me to get my ass home.
“Fine.”