Текст книги "Song of the Fireflies"

Автор книги: J. A. Redmerski

Соавторы: J. A. Redmerski
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Текущая страница: 11 (всего у книги 21 страниц)

“She beats the shit out of you?” Bray asked with an air of serious disbelief.

Tate threw his head back and laughed. Then he flicked what was left of the cigarette across the parking lot. “Well, I let her, of course. I like it, she likes it but pretends she doesn’t. It all works out.” He shrugged and added, “So what do you say? Go back home or stay with us for just one more week and help keep me sane before I have to crawl back into that nut-suffocating suit?” He cocked his head to one side thoughtfully.

“You work in a suit?” Bray asked, her eyebrows drawing inward.

I admit, I was just as astonished by the possibility as she appeared to be.

Tate smiled with teeth. “Yeah. Unfortunately.”

Jen slid the window down on the Jeep and yelled, “Baby, come on! Your gas light just dinged!”

Tate looked back at us with what I thought he meant as being puppy-dog eyes, but he looked more confident and impish than innocent.

I thought about it for a moment. Bray looked like she was holding her breath the whole time.

“All right,” I said, and both of their faces lit up. “But seriously, man, talk to Caleb. I know you’re his brother and all, but if he fucks up like that again, and Bray or I are involved, I won’t come to you for permission to beat the fuck out of him.”

Tate nodded. “It’s a deal.”

We shook on it and were on our way to Panama City.

Chapter Twenty Elias

Panama City was the turning point. I didn’t think that things could get any worse, but lately rock bottom was just never the bottom anymore. We had stayed there for four days, and the week Tate had left of his vacation time was suspiciously extended.

It began on Sunday night when Tate got a phone call. We had been staying at the house of one of Caleb’s friends, Adam. He was someone Caleb apparently had gone to college with. Like Tate and his job, I never took Caleb for the college type. Come to find out he had to drop out when he was sent to prison after that thing with the girl in Miami that Tate had mentioned to me previously.

Adam’s house was several miles from the beach. I was glad for that, because I was getting sick of looking at the ocean and dusting sand out of my shoes.

I missed home. As much as I wanted to be with Bray, I missed the summer river parties and the southern lakes. I missed my mom’s fried chicken on Friday nights. I missed hanging out in a friend’s backyard with a beer and listening to the crickets and frogs with their strangely calming melodious racket during long summer nights. And the fireflies. Always the fireflies. But what I missed the most was my quiet life, the one where I went to work every day and came home to my own apartment and could kick back and watch television. I didn’t have to worry about anything except maybe Mitchell. But he was fixable. This situation, I knew, wasn’t.

As I sat on the back porch of Adam’s house in Panama City, listening to Tate get upset while on that phone call, I pictured being home. I wondered—every single day, in fact—what life would’ve been like if that night at the river had never happened. I thought of Bray and how she came back into my life, and how everything was so perfect, the way I had always imagined it. A part of me couldn’t help but blame her for how everything ended up… destroyed. I felt guilty for thinking that way, not only because it was half my fault, but because I didn’t want to feel that way about her at all. I loved her so much. But I had begun to feel a lot of anger and resentment toward her, too. I… OK, I started to realize that Bray, despite all that I loved about her, was ruining her life and selfishly taking me down with her. And my tolerance for forgiveness was beginning to fade.

It was my fault as much as it was hers, but I had tried on several occasions to talk some sense into her. I tried to get her to go back. I knew I never should’ve let her leave in the first place. But I was weak in that moment, standing next to Jana’s body with Bray next to me shattered and lost and afraid and in so much pain. It was a fucking mistake to run with her. I know. I fucking know it more than anyone. But I couldn’t take back what I had done. All I could do was try to fix it along the way. But Bray fought me at every turn and for that I began to feel resentment.

“Listen, man,” Tate said into his cell phone pressed to his ear. “I’ll get it, all right? No—No, just hear me out. I’ll bring it myself. I can leave first thing in the morning after the bank opens and I can be in Corpus Christi by tomorrow night. Yeah. This is my cell phone number. Don’t call Caleb about anything. No, just let me deal with it.” He began to nod heavily as if wanting the call be over with already. “I know, man. Do me a favor and don’t deal with him anymore.” A few more nods and broken sentences and he hung up. I saw his teeth grinding as the cell phone disappeared in his fist. I thought he was going to smash it on the concrete beam holding up the porch roof, but he calmed himself at the last second.

“I know it’s none of my business, Tate, but why are you still covering for him? Sounds like some serious shit.”

He sat down heavily in the empty wrought-iron chair. The cell phone clanked against the matching table as he tossed it carelessly on top. He ran both hands over the top of his head and let out a long, aggravated breath.

“And why are you covering for her?”

His question shocked me motionless. I don’t think anything moved other than my eyes for a long while. It wasn’t the manner in which he said it—there wasn’t any bitterness to his tone—but that he said it at all. Because he knew more about me and Bray than I assumed he did.

“Maybe I’m out of line,” Tate went on, “or I have no idea what I’m talking about, but in my opinion”—he pointed at me—“I think you’d do anything for that girl.”

“I guess I would,” I admitted.

“The question is, how far would you go?”

I looked away and thought about it. Then I turned back and said, “Probably as far as you’d go for your brother.”

Tate nodded, slouched down a little in the chair with his long legs splayed out in front of him, his fingers locked over his stomach. “Then you just answered your own question. Why are you two running, anyway?”

“Who said we’re running from anything?”

Tate smiled faintly and shook his head. “It’s kind of obvious. Even though your car and your shit was stolen—which, by the way, you never got the police involved in—I haven’t seen either one of you try to call anyone back in Indiana. No Hey Mom, we’re doin’ great, or Yeah, bro, we’ve been partying with this masochist pothead and his asshole brother, but we’re still alive.” He laughed and then shook his finger at me. “You’re not homeless—you’re both too groomed and healthy for that. What did you do, Elias? Or rather, what did she do?”

I looked away from his eyes and began staring at a porch light on the other side of the street.

Tate raised his back from the chair and leaned over, letting his hands dangle between his knees. “No disrespect, but your girlfriend, fiancée, whatever, she’s a loose cannon. Don’t get me wrong, I think she’s a great girl from what I know about her. But she seems unstable.”

I wanted to punch him, but my conscience wouldn’t let me. I knew what he was saying wasn’t far off the mark. So I sucked it up and left it alone.

He leaned back in the chair again and locked his hands behind his head. “I guess sometimes good people do bad things, almost always in the name of love.” He laughed lightly. “But after all is said and done, is what we do really ‘bad’ or just necessary?”

Tate surprised me the more I got to know him. I wondered how he got where he was when he had such a strong hold on his own life despite all the partying he did, but then I realized that he and I weren’t really so different.

“It’s all right if you two don’t want to go to Texas,” he said. “It’s probably better that you don’t, anyway. Maybe Adam will let you stay here until I get back.”

Then suddenly he added as if an afterthought, “Well, whatever you’re covering up for her, by now you’re probably in as much trouble as she is.”

What just happened? I thought as I stared right through Tate. Just minutes ago I was full of resentment and had started to envision my next conversation with Bray. I was going to lay down the law and tell her that I was going home and she was going with me if I had to drag her back kicking and screaming. But out of nowhere, the resentment was gone. I now realized Tate was in a similar situation with Caleb, and I wasn’t so alone in my plight. I wasn’t the only guy running around doing stupid things for a person that he happened to love. Maybe I took Tate’s words and subconsciously twisted them into advice, because deep down I was struggling to find justification for what I had done and what I continued to do.

I never asked Tate exactly what Caleb did to warrant a trip to Corpus Christi. I didn’t think it was right, since I wouldn’t tell him anymore than I had about us, so it was only fair. But I left Tate at the table that night with a new outlook of moving forward with Bray. I still knew that what we were doing was wrong, but I wanted desperately to find another way out of it. I couldn’t let Bray go to prison. Like Tate had said about Caleb, she wouldn’t make it in there.

So from that point on, I made it my mission to use the time we were away with Tate to figure out how to get her out of this. It wasn’t just about running anymore. What I was doing now had purpose.

Later that night, after Tate and Caleb argued behind closed doors in the guest bedroom, the only agreement the two of them came to was that Johanna and Grace had to go back to Norfolk. Everyone in the house heard the conversation:

“Dammit, Caleb! Why do I keep having to bail you out of shit? You owe this guy eight thousand dollars. What’d you do with the money, Caleb? You know what, I don’t even wanna know.”

A loud bang vibrated down the hallway. I could imagine it being Tate’s fist against the wall inside the room.

“I hope he doesn’t tear my place up,” Adam said from the couch. He was a tall, skinny guy with sandy-brown hair and stylish black-rimmed glasses that made him look like a stereotypical intellect sipping a latte.

“We’re leaving in the morning,” I heard Tate say with a demanding edge in his voice. “I’m going to pay this guy off and then I’m done. I’m fucking done, little brother. Eight thousand dollars is about all I have left in savings.”

“Nobody asked you to bail me out.”

“If I don’t, who will, Caleb? Dad? You’ve already milked him dry of his savings. Kyle? Shit, bro, if he finds out I’m helping you he’s going to kick my ass. Everly? Baby sister is siding with Kyle, bro. I’m all you’ve got left.”

Then he said, “Why don’t you just call Mom? Talk to her and see how she’s doing? You haven’t called her in a year. You know she’ll let you move back in. You can get away from all that bullshit. Get a decent job and start putting your life back together. Maybe Cera will take you—”

“Don’t even go there,” Caleb snapped. “Just don’t—”

A long, dark silence lingered.

“I think it’s time you sent Johanna and Grace home,” Tate said. “It’s not a good idea to take them to Corpus Christi.”

“Yeah, and what about your new freeloader friends out there?”

“I don’t know yet,” Tate said. “But you need to worry about you and this shit you’ve gotten us into. Send the girls home.”

“I’ll take them to the bus station tonight,” Caleb said.

Grace and Bray locked eyes from across the room upon hearing that. They both looked dejected. But I could tell right away that Bray was forcibly trying to hide the fact that she was utterly heartbroken. I hated to see it. I hated to know that the one person Bray was closest to besides me was about to walk out of her life and that there wasn’t anything I could do about it.

Thirty minutes later after the arguing and Tate scouring the house and outside in the yard for his keys, Bray and Grace were saying their good-byes.

“Here’s my number,” Grace said as she slipped a torn-off piece of a magazine page into Bray’s hand. “Call me when you get back to Indiana. Maybe we can visit sometime.” They fell into a tight embrace.

“As soon as I get another cell phone, I’ll call you with my number,” Bray said.

I could tell that Bray was on the verge of tears. They hadn’t known each other long, but they’d bonded, and Bray always had a hard time bonding with people. Besides me, Lissa had been her closest friend growing up, and it turned out that Lissa wasn’t as close to Bray as she thought she was. As I stood there watching the two of them say good-bye, I thought to myself how I wished it could’ve been different, that they could’ve met under better circumstances. Because I knew that once Grace walked out that door, they’d never see each other again.

Chapter Twenty-One Elias

Caleb drove Grace and Johanna to the bus station.

Adam came strolling out of the shower wearing a pair of black running shorts and a towel draped around the back of his neck.

“Since Caleb will be chickless tonight, he can have the couch,” Adam said, drying the back of his hair. Then he pointed at Bray and me. “You’re welcome to crash in the office. The couch bed in there is really comfortable.” He stopped just before he made his way down the hall. “Though if I were you I’d change the sheets.”

This was good news. I didn’t think I could sleep another night crammed onto the couch in the den with Bray like we had the past few nights at Adam’s.

Adam disappeared inside his bedroom like he did at the same time every night. Tate was outside on the back porch again. All of us thought it best to just stay out of his way while he was seething over this thing with Caleb. Except for Jen, of course, who was outside trying to talk to him and calm him down. Even she knew better than to act her usual abusive self around him while he was like this.

Secretly, I envied the two of them, the chaotic yet strong relationship they had.

I wanted to be alone with Bray for a while. I got up and took her hand. “Want to go for a walk?”

She smiled up at me. It was such an innocent and sweet smile that I felt even guiltier for the resentment I was feeling.

“Lead the way,” she said and placed her hand into mine.

We left the house and walked down the street for a long time, then we cut through a parking lot toward a baseball field. There were two light poles near the chain-link fence at the end of the field that cast a dull gray glow over the dirt and white painted lines. We slipped through an unlocked gate near a dugout and walked out past the pitcher’s mound and sat down on the grass.

“I hate it that Grace had to go,” I told her.

She laid down beside me on the grass and looked up toward the sky. Thick clouds completely covered the stars. I sat upright next to her with my legs angled upward. I picked at a few blades of grass and rolled them in my fingertips.

“Yeah,” Bray said with a trace of sadness in her voice. “But I still have you.”

I smiled down at her. Tiny pieces of torn grass fell from my fingers and were carried off by the wind.

“Tate’s really pissed about whatever Caleb did,” I said.

“Yeah. He really is.”

Silence fell between us again. I reached down and pulled a couple more blades of grass from beside my shoe.

“Elias?”

“Yeah?”

“What did you really bring me out here for?”

I had been trying to figure out how to tell her and also trying to figure out if this was what I needed to do.

Her hand touched my arm. I looked down at her and smiled faintly.

“Elias?” she asked again, being very patient.

“I’m going to be your witness,” I said.

She rose up from the ground, a blank look in her eyes.

“What the hell do you mean?” She knew exactly what I meant.

“I can say that I was there when it happened.” Already she was beginning to shake her head no. “No one can prove otherwise. I’ll tell the police, a jury, whoever I need to, that I was there and I saw what happened and that it was an accident.”

“No,” she said with complete resolution in her eyes. “I won’t let you do that.”

“You don’t have to let me,” I said. “I’m going to be your witness.”

She stood up and crossed her arms with her back to me.

“Bray?”

She snapped around. “No! I said no!” Her arms fell at her sides and her face was wild with anger and concern. “What if they ask you to take a lie detector test? Or, they get us in separate rooms—because they will—and one of us slips up and tells them something different?” Her voice began to rise. “Jesus, Elias! One tiny detail, one seemingly insignificant detail and they have us. They’ll have you. They’re trained to spot things like that! They’re trained to trip us up!”

I stood up in front of her. “We have some time while we’re still with Tate to get the story straight. Make it simple and straightforward. Don’t include a bunch of small details. Just give them the basic picture and stick to it.”

“No. No fucking way.”

She turned her back to me again.

“We have to do something,” I said. “We can’t run for the rest of our lives, Bray. They’ll catch us sooner than later. The longer we run, the worse we make it for ourselves.”

She wouldn’t respond or look at me. I watched her from behind as her head fell over forward between her rigid shoulders, her arms crossed again tightly over her stomach.

“Then I’ll say it was me,” I added.

Even with her back to me I could tell her face had locked up along with the rest of her body, as her head rose solidly from between her shoulders, she slowly turned around. I had never seen her look so stunned before.

Both of her hands came out in a flash and she shoved me hard, but I didn’t fall. Then she grabbed my shoulders and shook me. “Don’t ever say that again. You fucking hear me, Elias? Don’t you ever say that!”

I just stared into her wild eyes, seemingly unfazed by her outburst. I needed to keep my cool, because one of us needed to be calm and it clearly wasn’t going to be her.

I reached up and tried to cup her face in my hands but she shoved them away.

“I can’t believe you said that!” she snapped.

“You can’t believe I said it, or that I’d actually do it?”

“It doesn’t matter. I won’t let you go down for me.”

She began to pace.

“I can’t go down for you, but you’ll let me go down with you?”

She froze. I knew my words would hurt her, but they needed to be said. Because it was exactly how I felt.

“There’s not that much of a difference, Brayelle.”

“Is that what this is about? You’re just trying to prove a point?” Resentment laced her voice.

“What point would that be?”

She shook her head with dismay. She couldn’t respond. Maybe she didn’t understand her own question, I didn’t know, but I admit even I was somewhat confused by my own. Did I just openly blame her? I thought to myself.

Not wanting her to feel that way even if it were true, I took her into my arms and kissed the top of her head.

“You’re not going to lie for me and say you were there and you’re not going to go down for me, either.”

“Then what am I doing here with you?” I asked calmly, surrendering, knowing that her resolve was unshakable.

“Maybe you shouldn’t be,” she shot back, but I knew it wasn’t something she wanted to say.

She stayed in my arms and didn’t try to pull away. I wouldn’t have let her if she did.

“Is that what you want, Elias? To leave?” She sighed and nuzzled her cheek against my chest muscle. “If you want to leave I’ll understand.” The pain was soft in her voice, but pain nonetheless. It wasn’t to make me feel guilty at all, but it did anyway.

“Well, I’m not leaving you,” I said. “But we need to figure out what we’re going to do. Partying every night and running around with Tate isn’t going to make this go away. A few more days. That’s it, Bray. We need to figure this out in a few more days, or we’re going back together and I’m going to be your witness.”

“You can’t do that.”

“If it’s the only option we have then I will do it.”

I placed my hands on her arms and took one step back, looking down into her tightened face. “Just promise me that,” I said. “If we don’t think of anything else, you’ll at least let me be your witness.”

“What if I’m lying? Would you still be my witness?”

That caught me off guard. “I know you’re not lying.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I trust you. And because I know you.”

Her gaze strayed, but it wasn’t because she was hiding anything.

“Just promise me that you’ll go along with it.”

She didn’t answer at first. I knew she didn’t want to. Finally, she nodded.

“Good,” I said and hugged her close to me again.

We stood there quietly for a moment. I had a feeling that even though she agreed, when the time came, if it ever did, there was a chance she might change her mind.

“Elias, what’s going on with Caleb and Tate?” she changed the subject. “What if this is our last stop with them? I doubt Adam will want us here after Caleb leaves. And besides, I’d feel weird about staying anyway.”

Yeah, so would I, I thought.

“I’ll talk to Tate,” I said. “Ask him to keep us around for a few more days at the most. Long enough for us to figure out our next move.”

Bray didn’t look convinced. “Yeah, but you heard him talking to Caleb. They sent Grace and Johanna back for a reason.”

“I know,” I said, but I knew she was right so it was all I said.

Thunder rumbled in the sky and the thick, dark clouds lit up in the distance, revealing what the tops of the trees looked like painted against the black backdrop that had shrouded them. The crawling branches that reached upward along the infinite dark looked ominous as the flash of light faded.

I felt a drop of rain. And then another.

“So much for a quiet walk together,” Bray said.

And just then, the sky opened up and it began to pour. Bray shrieked and tried to cover herself unsuccessfully with her arms and then the screaming turned into laughter. We were both drenched in under five seconds. The rain pounded down so fast and so hard that we had to shout over the noise to hear each other; each drop like a million nails being thrust into the dirt on the baseball field.

“It’s a long walk back!” I said.

Bray started spinning like a ballerina in the middle of the field. She laughed and raised her arms above her and turned her face upward toward the sky and just let the rain wash over her. She opened her mouth and spun around and around. I watched her for a moment, mesmerized by her innocence. I saw that little girl I met so long ago, running with me through that pasture without a worry in the world. Just seeing her like that, it made me smile, but deep down it also crushed me. I knew that she would never be that innocent again, that our life together would never be as carefree as it was when we were children.

“Dance with me!” she shouted.

“What?”

“Dance with me!”

I had heard her right the first time. I just didn’t understand why here, why now.

“There’s no music!” I said over the rain.

She grabbed my hand. “You don’t hear that?!” she said, motioning to the patter of rain and thunder around us.

She started spinning around me and I stood in the same spot following her until she grabbed both of my hands and pulled on them. Next thing I knew, we were spinning together, holding each other’s hands tightly and distributing equal weight on our arms. At first, I felt like an idiot and hoped Tate wasn’t spying, or worse, Caleb. But I was quickly lost in Bray’s laughter and her smile and her beautiful blue eyes. The thunder got louder, the lightning more intense. I was beginning to worry about us being out in the open like this, in the center of a baseball field just asking to be struck down by the finger of God. But soon, I didn’t care. We were those two innocent children again, living free and loving life. And not even lightning could ruin this moment. It wouldn’t dare.

We stopped spinning, and I twirled her around by her hands as I stood in place, and then I dipped her. Leaning over her body, I pressed my wet lips between her breasts as her white shirt was weighted down by the endless rain. I planted kisses up the center of her throat until I found her plump lips, dotted by droplets of rain. Rain washed in heavy rivulets over our faces, into our parted mouths. I searched her eyes staring back into mine, and I longed to taste her. In every way. Every square inch of her body. But right now, just her lips.

I raised her body back up and gazed into her eyes, my hands secure at her back and still holding up her weight. She smiled at me, that same bright and beautiful smile that never failed to instigate my own. I watched adoringly as the rain clung to her eyelashes and streamed down her cheeks and glistened on her lips. I would’ve given up anything to stay with her forever in this moment, blocking out the world around us and forgetting what awaited us out there.

I lifted her from the ground with my arms wrapped around her lower back and I kissed her deeply, savoring the taste of her warm tongue against mine.

Perfect. Beautiful. She could never shatter my image of her, no matter what she did.

We finally tore our lips apart, gasping for breath. Before we even caught our breath, we ran straight to the house and dove into the office where we would be sleeping that night. I immediately started to strip off her clothes, peeling her wet shirt from her skin. I just couldn’t get her undressed fast enough. I hardly ever moved my lips from hers when I tried to undress myself.

I urged her onto her hands and knees onto the couch bed, and I immediately positioned myself behind her. I leaned over her, laying my chest across her back, and I searched for her lips with my own.

We were still out of breath from running and the effort it took us to get out of our wet clothes, so we were breathless when we spoke.

“Do you remember what you said?” I whispered hotly onto her mouth from the side. I pressed my hard cock against her from behind and trailed my tongue down the back of her neck as I lay on top of her.

“What did I say?” she said breathily, her mouth constantly searching for mine.

I pressed myself against her again, and I felt her skin prickle with shivers underneath my naked body.

I bit her bottom lip. “That I could do anything to you I wanted.”

Just picturing it made my cock throb painfully.

“Y-Yes.” she shuddered.

Her hand came up and she wound her fingers through my hair.

“Did you mean it?”

“Yes, I meant it.” She gasped when I pressed against her this time. She knew what I wanted to do to her, that I wanted to explore her in ways I’d never explored her before.

“Elias…,” she said softly, cautiously.

I kissed her collarbone. “Yeah, baby?” I replied just as softly.

She paused for a moment. “I… well, I’ve never done this before.”

It wouldn’t have mattered to me if she had. The moment with her would still have been special. But knowing that I was going to be her first excited and elated me.

“I’ll be gentle,” I said with a caring smile in my voice. “I promise.”

She nodded. “OK.” Her voice was sweet and willing.

I lifted my chest from her back and reached up around her head, pulling the pillow out from under her cheek. It was soaked with rainwater from her hair. I couldn’t stop looking at her ass, the smooth, round shape of her cheeks that I wanted to dig my fingers into and slap a few times just to make them sting. But I focused on her needs first and helped her position the pillow underneath her belly.

I took my time with her, loosening her up and keeping her wet so it would hurt less. She whimpered when I slipped the second finger inside and she tightened around them. I kissed her back upward and along her spine, creating a path to her ear.

“Stop me if you change your mind,” I whispered and took her earlobe between my teeth, my fingers still moving carefully in and out of her ass. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

An unsteady breath shuddered through her lips and when she didn’t say no, I withdrew my fingers and gently placed the head of my cock at her entrance. She gasped sharply, and both of her hands began to clench the sheets. I slid myself inside her a little farther, and her whole body became stiff underneath me.

“Ow, ow, ow…,” she whined softly and I stopped.

Her legs were shaking, her hands grasping even more of the sheet into her fists. Her cheek lay pressed against the mattress, her lips parted and her breath getting heavier.

“I can stop, baby,” I said gently, wanting her to know that it was OK, that I wouldn’t be disappointed.

“No, no, don’t stop,” she whimpered.

“But if I’m hurting you…,” I said, worry lacing my voice.

She pushed her ass toward me, taking my cock a little more. She moaned and her thighs hardened in an instant. Then I saw her hand slip in between her legs.

“No,” I whispered and moved her hand away. “Let me do it.” I began to move my two middle fingers in a firm, circular motion on her clit, and then I felt her open up even more to me, almost every part of her body surrendering to mine. And when she still didn’t tell me to stop, I pushed my cock deeper inside her ass. God, she was so tight, constricting around me so hard that I felt my spine quiver. I threw my head back, a loud moan escaping my lips.

It didn’t take long and I succumbed to an intense climax. A deeper moan reverberated through my chest, and I pulled out and came on her backside. Bray collapsed onto her belly, and I went down beside her. I kissed along her spine, her shoulders, and her cheek as it lay pressed against the pillow. I combed her wet hair away from her neck with my fingers and kissed her there. And then I gently rolled her over onto her back and planted kisses along her collarbone and her throat and her breasts.

With her head tilted to the side, Bray smiled over at me.

“What is it?” I asked, hiding my impatience. I just wanted to know why she was smiling like that.

She reached her right hand over her body and touched my face. She traced her index finger lightly down the bridge of my nose and brushed the backs of her fingers down my cheek. “I’m just happy,” she said. “No matter what’s going on out there. Or what’s waiting for us. I’m happy right now.”

I smiled back at her and took her hand into mine and laid it on my chest.

“But that will take some getting used to,” she said with a smile in her voice.