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Chapter 1

The Proposal

My fingers moved fast but quietly across the keys of ht so it wasn’t so blaring I’d woken up in theto finish the chapter in ress in his relationship with my mom Much of what I’d written was conjecture since I only knew the basic history of iven them, had takenwriting in a way I had never before

This often ht type-fests and despite the fact that I was partially consumed by their story, I was also veryto act as he would and not wake him up

I’d been typing for just over an hour and finally I’d co the file, I shut the laptop down and stared at it for a while Breathing in and out, slowly, evenly, I controlled the wound inside of ht on the loss of my parents, ofgash Before my considerate bedfellow, I’d have sewn that cut coent over it Now I felt it I just didn’t let it overwhel hole

Braden helped a lot with that

My considerate bedfellow

As

I smiled and turned in my chair to look at him in the dark room His bare back was uncovered, the sheets drawn up to his waist, his long legs tangled in them in the middle of the bed We didn’t have “sides of the bed ” Braden was a cuddler—he insisted we didn’t need sides

He’d had an exhausting day yesterday He’d called , and then he had been pulled into sohtclub Fire, which turned out not to be such an eement When he’d returned home I must have already fallen asleep but I wasn’t surprised that I woke up in his arms Or that he’d been so tired he didn’t wake up when I extricated myself from his embrace

Gazing longingly at hisarms, I wanted to slip back into bed and wrap hi face in profile I stopped myself I was afraid I’d wake him up and he obviously needed his rest

Standing up slowly so my chair wouldn’t squeak, I tiptoed in the dark across to the bed and very gently easedconstantly to make sure I hadn’t woken him as I pulled the sheets back up over me I lay down on my side, my hand tucked under my cheek, and I stared at him

He was beautiful

Just looking at him caused a different kind of ache inside of me

This was aand hard to keepus This was a man who understood I could be difficult and stubborn and a little bit irrational (okay,lot irrational), and still lovedthem so I wouldn’t be vulnerable to heartbreak that even noasn’t the gushy, ele day that she loved him

But Braden knew I loved him

Soh, if he knehim sleep made me scary happy, breathless even I wondered if he knew that he was absolutely, without a doubt, everything to me

Usually that wasn’t so it out loud, and if I admitted it out loud and then lost that person, then I couldn’t pretend I’d never felt so much for them in the first place But that was the old me Dr Pritchard, my therapist, wouldn’t be happy with

I wouldn’t be happy with me

Worse, Braden wouldn’t be happy with me

I snuggled a little closer, just needing to feel the heat froainst my skin My eyes dropped to his mouth, his beautiful s to me

I was everything to Braden I knew this because he told me so He never made me doubt how much I meant to him

“Is there a reason you’re over there and I’m over here?” he suddenly muttered, his eyes still shut

I’d jerked back at the sound of his voice but was now s s with his as he draped a strong arhed Content

“I’ve been awake for the past ten et your arse back in beside me ”

I snorted at his disgruntled tone

His war et what you needed to get down?”

“Mmmhmm Finished my chapter ”