Page 55 of Wire

“I bet you want to run for the hills now, huh? No one wants a broken man with nightmares.”

“Well, that’s where you’re in luck. My perfect man has girly curls, a jacked up back from sitting too long, and can’t sleep through the night. So, it looks like you’re stuck with me.”

He huffs a breath at my joke, but his shoulders are still tight with tension.

“Wire, did you check the cameras before you joined me in the shower earlier?”

He goes quiet and I now know that he didn’t. I thought he came to shower a lot quicker than I expected, so I’m guessing he skipped his usual routine.

“Why don’t you jump up and we’ll look at them together, yeah? I know that I’ll rest a little easier knowing that everything and everyone is all good.”

He raises his head to look me in the eye and I raise my brows back at him, like I do to the little boys at the library that don’t really want to do something, but will do with enough egging on.

“Fine. I’m not sure I like this bossy Remy,”

“You love her,” I say as I slap his ass on the way to put on his oversize tee. Just because we are in our private space doesn’t mean that we have to have our naked bits on the seats.

I sit in my chair next to his, pull my legs up and wrap my arms around my knees to watch my love.

“Can I ask you something?”

He turns his gorgeous hazel eyes on me. “Of course, ask away.”

“Why is your Shadow Wrath name St Margarita?”

He throws his head back and laughs, the rich sound washing over me. “My first name is Saint.”

My bow furrows. “Wait, what?” Thinking back to what I know about Wire, it suddenly clicks. “You were born on Christmas day!”

He rolls his eyes. “Yup. And because Momma is creative, or nuts, she decided she didn’t want to name me Nick. So I got Saint.”

“Wait, but what about the margarita part?”

“You know my last name.”

“Yeah, it’s Harvey.”

“My dad used to say that it was his great grandfather that made up the Harvey Wallbanger. So I just chose the only other cocktail name I knew of at 13 years of age.”

“Wow, we were really basic as little kids, huh? Mine is an exact word substitute for my real name.”

I watch as Wire’s perfect man brows furrow a moment, his lips moving noiselessly before his head snaps up, and he laughs again.

“Fuck, how the hell did it take us so long to figure it out?”

“We didn’t. Chewy did.”

“And she’ll hold that over us for the rest of our lives, you know.” He grins at me, and I can’t help but cup his cheek. Heleans into my touch for a moment before pulling away, shaking himself off and making his nightly checks.

He’s beautiful and thinks he’s broken. That came through loud and clear in our messages over the years, but to me he’s not broken. Just a little bent. And with love, care, and security cameras and gadgets, we can work through this together and create something amazing. I know because the more cameras he checks, the more his shoulders relax, the tension in his face eases and the stress in his body melts away.

He turns to look at me, his eyes darting around my face before settling on my eyes.

“I love you, Remy. For always.”

“I love you, Saint. For always.”

And just like that, the last of the tension fades away as we laugh at how dorky we are.