He clears his throat, looking for all the world like he might pop out of his skin if I dig any deeper. Rubbing a hand over his jaw, he quietly murmurs, “Yeah, princess.” The word is so much softer than it used to be when he was spitting it at me in hate. I actually don’t mind being his princess when he uses the word like that.
“I, um, really like having you guys here with me. With Chase. And I’m going to ask you a million times, because it’s my job as his mom to make sure no one hurts him, but… you all aren’t going to pick up and leave us, are you? You’re not going to walk away?”
He gets this offended look on his face. “Fuck no, baby. Not ever.” He reaches out, tipping my chin so I meet his gaze. “In fact, I was planning to hang out with Chase today. We can’t go back to SIN yet, so I figured I’d make the most of our time. If that’s okay with you.”
I nod. “It is. And”—I exhale carefully—“I’ve got Chase next weekend. Kara’s got a thing. I kinda thought maybe Friday night,we could spend some time with him, only the three of us. We could tell him then.”
His look of hesitant excitement practically knocks me over. “Seriously? You think he’s ready?” He really does want this for him and Chase. I see it written in the barely contained joy in his eyes and the care and consideration in his actions involving his son.
“He could be by then. We can play it by ear.” My eyes flick to his. “But I do think it’s time, yes.” A soft smile tugs at my lips. “He loves Woyal. He’ll love Daddy even more.”
“Fuck. I have a baby.” He rubs, distractedly, at a spot on his side.
“You do.” I tip forward and cock my head to see what he’s messing with. “What’s that?”
“Oh. Nothing.” He stops what he’s doing and shifts his arm, conveniently hiding the spot he’d been rubbing from view.
I frown. “Not nothing.” Getting up, I stand between his legs, sinking down to my knees. I gently nudge his arm out of my way, not missing his intake of breath as I do. There on his rib cage is a fine silvery line, jagged in nature. It’d hardly be noticeable to most, but I know every inch of Royal’s body. A sick feeling rolls around in my stomach. That wasn’t there before the accident. This is my doing. “This is from the crash.”
Royal doesn’t even bother to vocalize his answer, he simply inclines his head. His entire body has gone tense.
He’d been so upset when he got into the car that fateful night. My eyes crash shut, even as the pads of my fingers draw across the scar that was left by my bad decision. The lights from emergency vehicles had flashed and flashed that night. I didn’t think they would ever stop.
“I hate that my parents kept me from seeing you. I’m so sorry.” The words feel like they scrape out of my throat, leaving raw and painful wounds.
“I know.” He reaches for a lock of hair that’s fallen into my face.
“I guess we both came out of that time of our lives with scars.” The minute the words leave my mouth, I wish I could bite them back, but they’re out there, lingering in the tension-thick air.
Royal tilts his head to the side, eyes focusing on me warily. “Echo, do you mean an actual scar?”
I take one breath, then another, blinking rapidly, horrified that I’m on the verge of tears, because I’m not so sure I want to tell him what happened, how I almost died and left our baby alone. My head jerks ever so slightly to the side as a wave of goose bumps rise on my skin. “No,” I admit quietly, “a psychological one.”
Before I know what’s happening, Royal tucks his hands under my arms and lifts me to my feet. In doing so, his eyes are almost level with mine as he sits there on my bed. “What are you talking about?” His voice is stern, his gaze probing. Piercing. Unrelenting.
“You— I— Never mind. It’s not important. I’m fine now.” My eyes shift away from his unrelenting stare to my favorite piece of Chase’s artwork that we had framed and hung on the wall. I don’t want to tell him because I know it’ll hurt him.
“Echo.” My name comes out on a growl from deep inside his chest and reverberates up the column of his throat. “There is never going to be a time when something that happened to you is unimportant to me. Even when I wasn’t here—even when I thought I hated you—you were always at the forefront of my mind.”
My heart thumps uncomfortably in my chest.
“Look at me.” He touches his fingertips to my jaw, steering my gaze back to his. “What don’t I know? Were you in an accident while I was gone? Did someone hurt you?”
I blink at him, taking in the seriousness of his expression. His hand curls around the side of my jaw until he’s cupping my face. My eyes blur, and every single breath I drag in cuts me deep, like the air is full of razor blades. The skin on my forehead pinches with the furrow of my brow. “I wrote to you when it happened. When I—” I close my eyes against the memory of so much blood. Of the medical personnel pouring into the room with me and their quick actions that ultimately saved my life. It all flashes before my eyes in an unending loop until I feel dizzy with it.
“I want to know everything,” he rasps. “Please, baby.”
I manage to squeak out three words past the thing wedged inside my throat. “I almost died.”
Royal stares at me with anxious eyes, speechless for several agonizing beats of my heart. I’m terrified of his reaction when he finds out that whoever was responsible for our correspondence not reaching each other kept this from him. “What?”
“I hemorrhaged. After giving birth. It all happened in a blur. I lost a lot of blood very quickly, and my blood pressure bottomed out. I think I went into shock or something, but I know there were a ton of people in the room. An oxygen mask was placed on my face. And they ended up giving me a blood transfusion.”
Royal blinks rapidly, then draws me close to him, holding me tightly. I physically feel how his next words rip from somewhere deep inside him. “I hate that I didn’t know. I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you.” I soak in his embrace—his warmth, his strength… his love—for as long as I can before I finally feel the need to pull away.
Stepping out of his hold, I bring my palms to my flushed cheeks. “I know I told you this before, but this was one of the times I tried to contact you. I sent a letter to the prison for you, but you never got it.”
He gives a dismayed shake of his head. “That’s right. I didn’t,” he rasps.
