CHAPTER 178

MOONA POV

I can’t get settled in this squeaky bed. 

My belly is filled with nerves, and I hate that. I hate the fear of losing people, so I’ve learned that the best way of going through life is not to get attached in the first place. It’s lonely but it’s safe. But this time is different. This time I’m already in deep.

 I pushed them and they didn’t walk away. I made them mad and they don’t hate me for it. At least I hope they don’t.

Finding Brian was a lucky break I never thought I’d stumble into. Finding Cain too is more than I ever hoped for. Having both of them in my life is a crazy dream beyond anything I’ve ever dared dream before. Losing them? Well, that would be more than I could bear.

  I toss and turn until I’m sticky and uncomfortable, thinking about what happened, wondering what happens now.

 What if Brian doesn’t come back? What if he’s really had enough of me now?

 What if Cain is in the room next door regretting ever offering me a place to stay?

I know my heart is playing tricks on me, making me doubt all the kindness they’ve shown. I know the thrum of nerves in my belly is just the end result of pushing people away over and over again and still crying when they finally give up on me. I know I brought a lot of this on myself. I know I always do.

 But for the first time in my life, I’m daring to hope that this road leads somewhere else. Somewhere good.

 And maybe, just maybe, in this house with these two men who’ve given me so much time already, I’ll find something to keep.

  When I was still a little girl being passed from one home to another, I’d get nightmares so bad they’d wake me up. I’d tiptoe out of my bedroom in the middle of the night with my heart racing and tears streaming down my face, and hover outside the bedroom of whichever new parents I had that month, and I’d want to knock so badly. I’d want to tap on that door and ask them to make the nightmares go away, just to feel someone there. Just to have someone’s arms around me and tell me I wasn’t alone.

 But I never did knock on that door, not with anyone. I’d take a couple of deep breaths and remind myself that I was all alone in this world, and I’d pull my big girl panties up and go back to bed without a word.

  I take a deep breath in the darkness tonight, and it feels different somehow. Everything here feels different.

      And maybe I’m different, too.

Maybe tonight’s the night I can finally knock on that door and reach out. Maybe tonight’s the night someone will actually be there.

      My heart is in my mouth as I slip out of bed. The springs creak as I leave, and I wonder if Cain’s been able to hear me tossing and turning through the wall every night this week. I’m really quiet as I turn the door handle, steps light as I tiptoe along to his room.

I press my ear to the door and listen. There’s no light showing around the edges, and I can’t hear any movement in there.

      I don’t know whether I can really do this, not knowing if he’s going to freak out and order me back to my own room. Maybe he’ll think I’m coming for sex, which I’m not.

      It’s weird to find that I’m not, but I’m really not.

      I press my forehead to the door, frustrated that my fingers are shaking and I’m not brave enough to knock. I think of all the times we’ve sat together with a beer in the evening. All the times he’s seemed pleased to have me around.

      What’s the worst that can happen?

      It can’t be any worse than Brian blowing me out with some bullshit friends only excuse, right? Right?

      

So I knock.

I knock loud but only once, and then I step back, recoiling as though my fist is on fire. My muscles are wired and ready to bolt back to bed, skin clammy at the thought of reaching out where I’m unwanted. I’m about to bolt when the door swings open, and my eyes are wide as they meet Cain’s sleepy ones. He’s naked. Stark bollock naked. But he isn’t shy and he shouldn’t be. He looks amazing.

 He’s broader than I pictured him under his clothes. Solid and muscular with a dark line of hair under his belly button leading down to a…

      A really big dick.

      Really big.

      “You okay?” he asks and I nod like a dumbass.

      “Yeah, I’m just…” I dither for words, suddenly so aware I’m in knickers and a vest top and nothing else. “Sometimes I can’t get to sleep…”

      I feel like he’s staring right inside me. 

His eyes are thoughtful and kind and they make my stomach do weird flips.

      “You wanted some company?”

      “Yes,” I blurt, and then panic, in case he thinks I’m a slut looking for a ride, but I’m not and I tell him so. I tell him so fast that my words are garbled, and then I close my eyes and take a breath. 

“Sorry,” I say, “I’m crap at this stuff.”

      “You think you’re crap at a lot of things,” he says. “But you’re not nearly as crap as you think you are.”

      “You think?”

      He nods. “I know.”

      “Thanks,” I say and I wonder what will happen now. I feel like a tit standing here outside his bedroom door begging for someone to talk to me. To hold me.

      “I’m tired,” he says. “But if you want some company you’re welcome, in here.”

      “Please,” I reply before he thinks better of it.

      He steps to the side to let me through and I brush past him into a room that smells of him. I love the way it smells. The lamp is on the far side of his big bed, so I guess that’s his side, if he has a side. I slip into the other and hug my knees to my chest, heart racing at being in someone else’s personal space.

      He slips into bed on the other side and flicks off the lamp. I can hear him breathing.

      “That stuff earlier,” he begins and I feel him move closer. “You know that it’s because we give a shit, right?”

      I nod, then realise he probably can’t see me in the dark. “Yeah, I know.”

“Good,” he says. “We give one hell of a shit about you, Moona. Both of us.”

      My heart pangs when I think of Brian walking away. “Do you think he’s okay?”

      “He’ll be fine. He just needs to work things out.”

      I roll to face him in the darkness. 

“You think he’ll be back?”

      He laughs a little. “I know he’ll be back. He can’t stay away. The guy’s besotted with you.”

      A ripple of shock runs from my head to my toes. “He’s what?”

      He laughs again. “He’s crazy about you. Always has been.”

      “But he said…”

      “He said what he thought he should say. He’s being noble because he thinks that’s what a better man would do.”

      “There is no better man,” I whisper and I hear him take a breath.

      “I know. He’s my best friend,” he says. I feel the heat from him even though he feels a million miles away. The space between us feels like a gulf. “I guess he’s the man you want, right?” he asks and I’ve never heard him sound nervous before, but there’s something there. Just a little something.

      “The man I want?”

     

“Of the two of us. It’s about him, right?”

 My heart flutters. “You mean my favourite?”

      He sighs. “Yeah, your favourite.”

      “I don’t have one,” I reply honestly. 

The silence is heavy. It makes me fidget, like I’ve said something wrong. “I don’t have to have a favourite, right? Why do I have to choose? I can’t choose. I don’t want to.”

      His voice is low but warm. “Well, that’s uh, kinda how things work, no? You meet a guy, you hook up, it becomes a thing…”

      “You want me to choose one of you?”

      He sighs. “Fuck, this isn’t how this conversation was supposed to go.”

      “But you do, right? You want me to choose?” I hug my knees tighter, because I can’t. I always wanted someone to give a shit, and now there are two and I can’t lose them. Not either of them. “I’m not choosing,” I tell him. “You’ll have to work it out between you. I love you both.”

      I suck in breath as I realise what I’ve just said, every muscle wired as I wait for him to freak out. But he doesn’t. He really doesn’t.

      “You mean that?”

      My body is on fire with nerves. 

“Yeah. I mean that.”

And then he touches me. I flinch as a warm solid arm reaches out for me and pulls me close, but it feels good. It feels amazing. My body presses to his and his legs wrap around mine, my head fitting so perfectly against his shoulder.

      “And we love you, both of us. We’re both fucking crazy about you, Moona Avii, you little shit.”

      I smiled against his skin, and I could cry. I could really cry.

 His cock is hard, I can feel it pressing against my leg, but he makes no move to fix that and I make no move to fix that either. I wrap my arms around him and hold him tight and he holds me.

      “Sleep now,” he whispers. “We’ll sort this crap out another day.”

      I nod. Yawn.

      And eventually I fell asleep happy.