Page 175
“Welcome to the madhouse,” Roxy tells her.
Echo laughs through the tears still clinging to her lashes. “Pretty sure I joined the madhouse weeks ago.”
“Yeah, but now you’re officially stuck with us.”
Raze reaches over and catches Roxy around the waist before she ends up sprawled across the table with Cali, hauling her back toward him while she protests.
Somewhere in the noise, Ivy is crying into Thorn’s shoulder, Ash is shouting something about ‘finally’ over the top of everyone, and Sentinel lifts his shot toward me with a grin.
My brothers are loud. The women are louder.
Someone knocks over a beer, Ruckus starts demanding another round before he’s even finished the first, and Echo is standing beside me laughing in the middle of all of it.
My Old Lady.
Yeah, I could get used to this.
Sentinel still hasn’t said a word, so I glance at him. His arms are folded, his jaw tight, and his eyes are suspiciously bright as they land on me and then Echo, and then back to me again. He doesn’t say a single thing. Just gives me one slow nod, the kind that means more than every smart-ass comment he’s ever aimed my way combined.
First time in living memory the winged bastard has been rendered speechless.
I can definitely get used to that.
***
The party keeps going until neither of us has any idea how many drinks have been poured or how many times Echo has been hugged, welcomed, threatened with embarrassing stories about me, or dragged into conversations she has absolutely no chance of escaping.
By the time we finally make it back to my room and shut the door behind us, the clubhouse is still going strong downstairs, laughter and music carrying faintly through the walls.
Echo leans back against the door and looks at me.
Just looks.
The smile she’s been wearing downstairs softens around the edges, and something heavier settles into her eyes.
“What?” I ask.
She shakes her head, but her throat moves before she pushes away from the door and comes closer. “You really meant all of that?”
“Every-fucking-word.”
Her eyes stay on mine, and when she smiles, it’s small and a little watery. “Say something else.”
My brow pulls down. “Something else?”
Her smile grows. “Anything.”
“You’re fucking weird.”
A laugh slips out of her, but she keeps staring at me. “I can hear you,” she says softly. “Really hear you. Not just the frequency I’ve been listening to beneath your silence. You.”
Ah. I get it now.
“Yeah, baby.”
Her eyes close for a second when my voice rolls over her, and when they open again, there’s so much emotion sitting there it hits me straight in the chest.
“I used to think I could hear you anyway. When you couldn’t talk.” She steps closer, flattening her palm against my chest. “I thought I was imagining it.”
