Chapter 8 - The Morning After
The house was quiet, but it was a different kind of quiet now.
Not the low, heavy hum of a refrigerator waiting for the power to go out. Not the cold, lonely silence of a two-year exile. It was the warm, breathing silence of a home that was finally whole.
It was 4:07 in the morning.
Exactly two months to the minute since the phone call that had changed everything.
I lay awake in the master bed, staring up at the glass ceiling where the stars were slowly fading into the pale blue wash of an approaching dawn. I wasn't sleeping, but I wasn't restless either.
Beside me, Nico stirred.
Without opening his eyes, his arm reached across the mattress, his heavy, calloused hand finding my waist and pulling me flush against his chest. His breathing was slow and deep, the steady rhythm of a man who no ghosts could reach anymore.
“Are you awake?” he murmured, his voice thick with sleep, rumbling against my shoulder.
“Yes,” I whispered, turning over to face him.
Nico opened his eyes, the dark, intense gaze softening instantly when he saw me. He reached up, gently brushing a strand of hair away from my face.
“What are you thinking about?” he asked softly.
“I was just thinking about that phone call,” I admitted, a small smile playing on my lips. “Two months ago, I was standing in a hospital hallway thinking my world was ending.”
Nico pulled me a fraction closer, burying his face in the crook of my neck, his lips brushing against my skin.
“It wasn't an ending, Claire,” he whispered, his voice vibrating through me. “It was the only way I could ever find my way back to you.”
Down the hall, from the baby monitor sitting on the nightstand, came a soft, familiar rustle—the sound of a three-year-old tossing in his sleep, getting ready to narrate his own existence at full volume the second the sun crested the hills.
Nico let out a low chuckle, pressing one last lingering kiss to my shoulder.
“He’s going to wake up in ten minutes,” Nico noted.
May you like
“I know,” I replied, wrapping my arms around his broad shoulders, pulling him down until our lips met.
The quiet was gone, and for the first time in my life, I wouldn't have traded it for the world.
