And for the last time.
Thank you. You’ll never know how much it means to us to have this. I stare at the text from Stella’s mother with a bittersweet smile. On my directive, Rylee had sent them Stella’s camera along with the final images on her memory card. Since her last personal effects helped me be able to say good-bye to her, I thought they might add some sort of closure for them as well.
My finger hovers over the text, reflex taking over so that I’m pulling up the photos from that last morning together. Broad smiles and genuine happiness. And no matter how long I stare at our picture, I can’t seem to find any closure when it comes to Beaux.
When the phone rings, it startles me from the trance the image holds over me.
“Rafe.”
“Hey, man, how you doing?” he asks in that sympathetic tone that reminds me of wilting flowers after a funeraclass="underline" pathetic, what people deem necessary, but something the person they’re intended for doesn’t need.
I wish people would stop asking me that. I’ve only spoken to my sister and parents and now Rafe, and every single damn conversation starts out this way. “I’m doing.”
“Good.” An uncomfortable silence fills the line while I wait out the purpose for the phone call.
“Did you need something?”
“Nah. Just wanted to check in with you,” he says.
“Thanks.” Quiet falls again, and even without him saying it, I know why he’s calling, glad that he knows me well enough that even though I said I quit, I might not have really quit. “I’m not ready yet. May not ever be, to be honest.”
“Mmm-hmm.”
“Might be ready, but for domestic stories. I don’t know,” I answer his unspoken questions.
“Good to know, but I really was just calling to make sure you’re okay.”
“I’ll get there.”
We talk a bit more, nothing of any importance, no mention of where I am or when I’m going home, but when we hang up, I find my mind wandering to the bottle of bubbles on my makeshift desk in this little cabin beside my laptop. I debate writing, but there are just too many memories today, too many things that have made my chest ache and my thoughts wander to what ifs. And the only way to fix that is to sleep so that I can dream again. Grief may change shape, but it never ends.
Chapter 33
Three weeks later
She’s so beautiful, it hurts sometimes to look at her.
I glance up from the bed to see Beaux standing at the edge of it, hair down, eyes on me, a soft smile on her face.
“Tanner,” she whispers as she sits down beside me. The mattress springs squeak, and we both laugh at the memory. She leans over, her hair tickles my face as it falls down to my chest, but I forget all about it the minute her lips brush mine. Her kiss tastes like her, like everything I’ve ever wanted, like forever.
The dream should end now. It always does, leaving me wanting more of everything – her presence, her kiss, her perfume, her warmth – but this time it keeps going. I know I’m dreaming. I tell myself not to wake up and ruin it, because this is more than I’ve ever had before, and therefore it’s one more thing to hold tighter to, one more thing to coax me to sleep and wake me up every day.
Our kiss continues with soft lips and murmured moans as her fingers thread through my hair, and as much as I want to remember every single nuance of the dream, I also want to lose myself to the moment, to feel her love one more time.
“Beaux.” I say her name between kisses, so many things I want to say and confess, but at the same time I’m afraid if I push my own agenda, the dream will end. “I miss you so much,” I murmur against her lips and can feel hers turn up in a smile.
“Tanner,” she says again, trying to pull away and look into my eyes, but I don’t let her because the silk of her hair on my hands and the warmth of her breath against my cheeks just feel too damn bittersweet to let go just yet. “Tanner,” she repeats.
Even in slumber, I hold tightly to the sound of Beaux’s voice saying my name. My mind is playing tricks on me. It has to be mixing the memory of her coming back from that first embed mission and that desperation I felt wanting to see her again with the constant loss I feel now.
“This is real. I’m alive. It’s me.”
That hazy state I’m immersed in between wake and sleep disappears in an instant, and yet I still can’t believe that I’m awake because there’s no possible way. Once I open my eyes, a startled gasp fills the room and shock jump-starts my heart from the depths of loneliness and despair when I look into green eyes that have filled my dreams for so long.
“Beaux?” My voice sounds nothing like my own: It’s full of incredulity, hope, disbelief, shock.
She bites her bottom lip, and tears well in her eyes as she nods her head cautiously like I’m going to be mad at her. I’m mad all right but only in the crazy sense because this just isn’t possible.
We caress each other’s cheeks, faces inches apart as we stare into each other’s eyes. It’s what I’ve wished for, what I’ve told the powers that be that I’d trade anything and everything for to happen… but how is this real? I can feel her skin, smell her perfume, see the love in her eyes. Moments that feel like hours pass as I start to believe this could be real.
“Is it really you?” I ask, wanting to look around me, make sure I haven’t been transported to another place and time, but am afraid of taking my eyes off her for just one second in case she should vanish.
“I’m so sorry,” she says, pressing her lips to mine, and this time I believe it, believe it’s real, believe it’s her. “We had to fake my death, had to erase my cover so I could have a life,” she murmurs in between deep kisses, each sentence solidifying the reality that I’m no longer dreaming. “With you.”
And on her last word, my heart that had fractured into a million pieces transforms itself into a living, beating, vibrant part of me again. There are so many questions I need to ask, so many things to understand about how and why, but that’s for later… much later because right now my dream has come true.
“You came back to me,” I whisper against her lips as my hands slide down her body and pull her tightly to me, because even air isn’t welcome in the space between us.
“I always will,” she murmurs as I taste salt in our kiss from the tears of happiness that we’re both crying.
And I can’t help it, because this is the second chance I never thought I’d get, so I take the kiss deeper, heart pounding with need, and my body reeling with greed.