Chapter Ten
Daemon
Ican’t fuck this up. We’ve spent a week of sharing Jemma and she’s perfect. Beyond perfect. She’s smart, kind, quirky in a cute way and accepts my quiet nature instead of trying to get me to talk.
Something even Erik and Daemon don’t understand. Not entirely. As a single child of parents who rather often forgot they even had a kid, I found it useless to try to start up conversations only to get a ‘sure, sure now go play’. Years of that teaches a kid to keep their mouth shut. That’s how I discovered my love of computers. They didn’t tell me to shut or the opposite…require me to talk.
While Daemon and Erik are the coders, I’m more hands on with the hardware portion of our company. I design and build everything from un-hackable servers to encrypted laptops every government official and CEO or large corporations need. Or at least should if they don’t want their systems compromised.
For the last several nights Jemma has poured herself over every string of code Warren has thrown at her. Dissecting something as complicated as that black market virus is high level hacker shit not even the best of our company can handle.
But our Jemma tackles it without blinking.
She likes to nibble at anything she can get her hands as she works so I willingly clock in a lot of hours testing our new recipes in the kitchenette of our suite. Her favorite by far is pissaladiére pasta. Nothing gives me more pleasure than to see her enjoying something made by my hands.
The more time we spend with her, the less I dwell on the fact this isn’t the first time we’ve come close to finding the one. The guys won’t admit it, but it is because of me our last relationship hit the rocks, shattering into a million pieces and taking my soul with it.
This trip is showing me maybe it wasn’t all my fault after all. My inability to convey emotion contributed, sure. But, how could a woman serious about the men who loved her run off with another? I spent months raking myself over the coals, doubting myself at every turn. Nearly drove a wedge between Erik and Warren.
I snuggle Jemma a little closer. So young yet she’s taught me a lot in a short amount of time. I never thought I’d learn to love again, but here we are and I am afraid when this trip is over, I won’t be able to let her go.
On a good day emotional shit is just another layer of being human I rarely understand. But Jemma makes it all seem so easy. Maybe it is and I’m the asshole always complicating it.
“Grab the door.” I jerk my head toward the car door and hold our precious cargo close to my chest. She’s asleep in my arms and I want to keep it that way for as long as possible.
I hate to see our time in Paris come to an end, but we’ll be back. I have so much more to show our girl.
For now, we’re heading to London on an early flight. The sun will come up right as we enter the city. One of the most beautiful sights and I want to share it with her.
On the plane, I take a seat and hold her tight, her head on my shoulder and her breath lightly brushing my neck. Her hand comes to rest on my chest and the tinkle of her charm bracelet makes me think about whoever it is that damn snowflake represents. And those hearts. All boyfriends? I don’t know, she won’t tell. In London I’ll have a new mission. Do whatever it takes to get her to tell us.
I know I should put her in the bed. Every time I try to move, she burrows deeper into my arms. I catch Warren’s eyes overtop of her messy bun. He knows. She’s the one for us. We all think the same, that is what makes us such a great team. We pick up on the other’s thoughts.
I reach into my pocket and pull out a charm and Erik helps me clip it onto her bracelet.
She stirs, opening her big green eyes is awe and in that one moment she takes another piece of our hearts.
“It’s beautiful.”
“Not nearly as beautiful as you are,” I whisper back as my friend claims our girl’s mouth in a tender morning kiss.
We can’t—won’t—fuck this up.