I prayed the ones I’d scratched out on the roof would be enough.
His tongue tickled the seam of my mouth and I opened to let him tumble inside. My hands traced down the sweeping curve of his back then danced up the valley of his spine.
He leaned in to kiss over top of my left pec, as his hands wrapped up and around my shoulders. I moaned as his kiss reached beneath my skin, down deep into my heart. My hands wandered to the back of his neck and urged him to straighten, then pulled his lips to mine.
Every inch of him pressed to me, every inch helped keep me from falling apart. From losing the calm determine that had come with the subtle snap inside me.
“There is no bright white. There is no God. There is you. At the end of things, it is you,” I murmured his words to him, brushing my lips across his and he trembled in time with the syllables.
“Take me,” he begged.
“No,” I answered as my hands tried to memorize each inch of him. “Be with me.”
He smiled against my lips. “Now that I can do.”
The weight of his body pressed against me, the grooves of the palm digging into my back. My fingers found small script to trace on Conrad’s body.
Passion. A single word, the very embodiment of the man I loved. He was loud and brash, comedian and poet. His life was as full as his smile. And the moments like these…
I purred as he nibble on my collar bone, tracing words between his nips. He drug his hands down the washboard of my stomach, slowly, letting his fingers split apart and spread through dips. I pushed my hands into his hair as an answer, tousling his wild locks and letting coconut loose to play on the breeze.
Kiss after kiss after kiss. My lips, beneath his ear. A bite to my bottom lip, a tug on his nipple. And still more kisses. A never ending dance between the two of us.
He pressed on the waistband of my shorts and warm air caressed my naked skin. My cock pressed up against him, cradled against the cotton of his boxer briefs, craving against his skin. His body moved against mine, a slow and steady wave pulling at my shore. Every rub, every glide fueled the want inside me. The want of him. The want to save him.
I memorized the slick of his lips beneath the soft ruffle of his mustache. The way his tongue twisted with mine. The way my name came a litany on his lips.
I worshiped the dips and grooves of his body as I pushed his briefs to the ground, letting my hands flow down the sides of his thighs and back up and over the curve of his ass. My fingers trace my favorite lines of poetry as I went, landing back on my tattoo.
The cadence of his heart and the rise and fall of his ribs were the sounds that filled my soul. The ones that would stay there ever after.
There is no bright white. There is no God. There is you. At the end of things, it is you.
“Can I?” he whispered.
I just kissed him in answer. As if it was the answer to every question he’d ever asked. Gently, he twisted me, his hands relishing my warm skin as he did, goosebumping each inch as he went. I reached for the palm behind me, if only to steady my shaking knees.
He pressed a single ardent kiss to the valley of my spine before his hands caressed my ass. The velvet hard of his cock slid in between my cheeks just before he pulled me apart. Once, twice, three times he gently thrust.
“I love you,” I whispered into the night and the man behind me shuddered and wrapped his arms around me, holding my heart beneath his hands. “It’s the greatest peace I’ve ever known.”
“You’re the greatest piece I’ve ever known.” He smacked my ass playfully and laughed low and husky but I felt the warmth of his tears as they pooled down my back.
His cock nudged against me but Conrad’s grip wouldn’t lessen, not even to press inside. I reached around and grabbed him, stroking his length before I lined him up myself. He took the encouragement and pressed in.
I groaned and reached back further to hold him, to pull him in. He settled in deep, the curve of his hips hugged my backside. Like this, we fit so well, him just a hair bit shorter. All the better to flutter kisses across my shoulders and up my neck as he liked to do.
And inside…
Conrad filled me, stretched me, but knew how to find every single sensitive spot inside me. He knew how to press the cum-button inside me. He knew when. And fuck did he make every single moment in between so good.
He inched in the last little bit, making my stomach drop and my toes curl. His hands finally broke their hold and slid down me. He gripped me and started stroking, his hands working their own breed of magic as he twitched inside me. Twitched but didn’t thrust.
“Conrad,” I moaned as his hands began to work on me.
He answered by leaning in to kiss my neck.
Slowly he pulled out, then pressed equally unhurried. He thrust leisurely, moving at a pace of pure savor and restraint. His hands tormented me at the same delectable pace, tugging on me, his other hand sliding lower.
With a whimper I leaned my head down to the back of my hands, hoping that it was enough support to keep me standing.
“I got you baby.” His words and lips brushed against my skin.
He picked up pace. Each roll of his hips still deliberate, still a full pull in and out, but harder. More aggressive. The way he stroked me didn’t change aside from him twisting, adding a flick of the wrist.
I told myself to breathe. To feel each and every feeling. Relish each of the slightest touch. My lungs heaved all the faster.
And then he picked up pace.
“Fuck,” I swore as my fingers clutched the palm all the harder.
He dropped my shaft and balls and braced his hands against my body, one below my belly button and one above my heart. He pulled my body closer, making each thrust deeper. He became brutal with my body. Punishing me with his pace.
I loved it. I loved knowing he would destroy me with passion if he could. He’d light me on fire and watch me burn.
The swing and sway of my cock was damn near painful as he kept at it. I would have rubbed myself if I thought I could stand for a single heartbeat.
Conrad howled at the moon behind me, his breath rustling the tail ends of my hair. His fingers curled into my body. Our skin was developing that sheen of sex and sweat. The sounds of our bodies as they abused and accepted. Even the wind added to the symphony a soft sweet song on the wind.
We could have been fucking for five minutes or for all of eternity. Each touch, each thrust was it’s own universe. Each moment was something worth living for. And dying for.
He could have my body, maybe tonight would make him feel as if he always had it. As if he owned it. With each roll of the hips he claimed me. Over and over and over. What a way to disintegrate…
A weak smile tugged at my lips. I couldn’t manage anything concrete. I couldn’t manage much of anything.
“I’m gonna come,” he barked rough in my ear.
I nodded as best I could where my head hung toward my flexing arms. A moment later his bod stilled inside of me and his well broke. The heat rushed into me, both from his orgasm and boiling over from what I’d gotten from him. The worship, the absolution.
He gasped for breath behind me and made his hands hold my glistening skin all the tighter. The same tidal wave hadn’t ripped though me, but the desperation had left me just as ragged and wild.
“Pie, Conrad, please,” I gasped.
Wordlessly, he pulled out of me. The heat of his dripping cum was the first thing I registered. The sound of his knees hitting the jungle floor, the crinkle of leaves beneath his body. When I twisted, my body still sagged against the trunk of the tree behind me. He was bent beneath me, shoulders wildly heaving, gorgeous dick semi-hard between beautifully inked thighs, dripping beneath him.
I grabbed myself, stroking hard and fast, knowing what would get me off. He reached for me and I couldn’t decide if I wanted him to take over or stay away. My mental capacity was shot.
He made the decision for us, grabbing my thighs and moving for my tip. His tongue darted toward me, lapping at my far too sensitive head. He savored the pre-cum dripping from me as his big hands gripped my thighs, his thumbs circling so high on my thighs.
I didn’t have time to warn him. I was falling into the precipice of orgasm too hard and too fast. My whole body tensed beneath his hands, I jerked against the tree, and then every sensation in the known world ran right through me.
His big lips were waiting for me and suddenly coated with me. His throat bobbed as he swallowed what little shot into his mouth. The part of me that was vaguely conscious noticed how much of my jizz dripped down his chin and onto his chest. How much of me coated him.
I was still breathless when I deflated against the palm behind me. He sagged forward and nestled against my thigh. That kind of heat was almost more dangerous than the full fucking passion. It was a slow smolder that reached so much deeper, burned so much hotter.
He stood, my cum still coating him and all but fell into me. I snatched his lips in a brutal kiss and my hands braced against his chest. The sticky of me covered my fingers. I couldn’t help myself when I traced wild in my release across the left side of his chest.
“I’ll keep you safe,” he murmured.
I couldn’t answer. Not when the reality was that I would keep him safe and that I prayed he’d be wild. I prayed that he’d live.
Everything tonight was perfect. Pristine. It was the way we should always make love or fuck or firmly grasp the life before us. It was everything I wanted to know of mortality. It was everything perfect in this world.
There were no words. Not to tell him what I’d decided, what my last gift would be to him. Not to explain tonight, the real beauty in it. Or even the depth of the well of feelings I’d found for him. There was nothing left for m to give Conrad beside the letter I’d written, the shards of my soul that I’d bared.
Except…
There in the shimmering moonlight, I recited his poem, the words etched forever in my being, maybe carved into my bones.
“There is no bright white. There is no God. There is you. At the end of things, it is you.” Tears welled in my eyes, sorrow choked my throat. “It is you filling up the ether, the in-between. There is no pain except my chest as it yearns for you, my fingers will to touch. But there you are. Again and again and again.
“I do not know whether my soul is destined for hell or heaven. But I do not fear the pursuit of evil or the acknowledgment of good. You will be there. Wild and safe. You will be there and there will be peace.”
His tears shown against his skin as he nestled into my chest, there beneath the moonlight. The moonlight that knew that truth.
*****
The soft sunlight spilled in the windows and wrapped around me, cocooning me in a bubble of quiet. Conrad didn’t even flinch as I slid out of bed. Cole and Elle were silent where they slept in the hammock.
I laid out the three letters for them on the table, each one addressed in blood pricked from the tip of my fingertip, containing the words that seeped from my heart. As I propped each one up, my eyes sweet over the person that I loved.
My Cupcake. My Fucktart. My Cream Pie.
My best friend. My angel wings. My love.
I would do this for them. I would do this because love was more than whisper touches, stolen glances, even deep devouring thrusts. Love was this.
Each slow and steady breath, each controlled and practiced movement helped me pack my motorcycle. Grenades, dynamite, guns, knives. A war machine. Too much death, too much destruction were at my fingertips. I was at peace purging them from Conrad’s life, from the fringes of Cole’s shadow. These demons would be so far away from Elle, from her baby.
And with the vision of a beautiful baby, tight in her mother’s scarred arms, looking up into her father’s serene green eyes, in some coordinated once that her uncle picked out, I rode down the pot-holed drive one last time.
*****
“Come with me.” I pressed the gun into the girl’s back and swallowed the bile that rose up in my throat.
On the beach, stumbling courtesy of tequila, she’d been more than happy to be the weight around my neck, the lips searching for mine. I almost screwed it up because I wouldn’t let her kiss me. I couldn’t meet the reaper tasting of anything but Conrad.
When she wouldn’t come quietly, I cracked the butt of my gun across the back of her head and caught her as she crumpled into my arms. Her breathing went shallow as I slung her over my bike. I willed my own jagged breaths to match Conrad’s from earlier. To remember the notes and beats of his last song.
I drove as a lone soldier into Miguel’s compound. Past the electrified chainlink I wouldn’t zap myself on. Past the concrete I wouldn’t bust down. Past the pit that would claim me and wrap me in death and darkness. Not this time. They all just nodded and waved me on.
“It’s late,” Miguel said by way of a greeting when I carried the limp body across his threshold.
“Do I get a first taste?”
The question turned my stomach but it was the only way I could save them. The only way I could try.
“I didn’t think your tastes leaned that way.”
“I like to help myself at the buffet,” I snarled and threw her caveman style over my shoulder.
I prayed for forgiveness as my fingers slid up her skirt and into her pussy in plain view of Miguel. I held his gaze as I pressed into her and stroked as if she was my velvet toy. This was for Conrad. For Cole. For that little pony I would never meet. My fingers pressed harder into the front wall of her and she moaned even barely conscious across my shoulder.
“Well then,” he shrugged, “go feast.” He stepped aside with a sweeping gesture down toward the basement.
I descended into hell for the last time. A girl and as much explosive as I could strap to me toured the layers of inferno. Each step brought us somewhere deeper, darker, but I felt the still shining moon keeping me company outside.
As soon as we were alone, I slid her off my shoulder and onto the muddy floor. She groaned and rolled her head side to side.
“Wake up,” I commanded. Her eyes fluttered in response. “Wake up, sweetheart,” I crooned just before I slapped her hard across her face.
“Ouch!” she bellowed and her hand flew to clasp her cheek.
“Sorry,” I murmured as sweet and calm as I could manage. “But I need your help.”
She surveyed the room, and as soon as she laid eyes on the whipped and chained girls, she shoved back, scrambling away from me.
“I know how this looks, but you’re the one that can save them. And I’m the one that can save you.”
She studied me and some of the tension melted from her body.
“The sooner we unlock them, the sooner you can lead them down the road,” I said as I started unbuckling the girl next to me. She collapsed but I gathered her in my arms and helped her find her Bambi legs.
“And you’ll be coming with us?” the blonde I’d brought in finally asked.
“Not this time.” I softened and sweetness dripped from my words. I’d kept hope in my heart despite it all.
We worked side by side for about 45 minutes. Her gathering her strength and the girls we set free. I whispered softly to her, outlining what she was to do, where she was to run. What they would have to do when the time came. How they could find Cole and Elle if they need help.
Each word was soothing, a price I was willing to pay in exchange for the redemption Conrad had given me. The life that Cole had. The love of Elle.
“When I first saw you, there was something so dark and dangerous about you,” the girl murmured just before she slid out of the ajar basement window. “I thought it was the exciting kind. And too fast it turned to the scary kind.”
“I’m sorry for that.” I looked unwavering into her eyes and her whole face softened.
“Thank you.” She smiled. “But now all I can think is that you’re dark like the night, a dark all the better to see the stars.”
Emotion balled up in my throat and moonlight trembled on the silver droplets in the corners of my eyes. I simply smiled at her and nodded. As she turned with the last of Miguel’s broken girls, I swore I saw big beautiful whit wings unfurl from her back. My body shuddered at the shadow trick and I felt like something unfurled from my own knotted back.
I remembered the magic thick in the air the night we’d rescued Elle. The unexplainable and the coincidences. When I took a deep breath I could have swore feathers ruffled behind me in time with my flexing spine. I could have sworn I smelled warm coconut and the salt of ocean water. I could have sworn I felt fingertips tracing words on my skin.
Whether it was there or not, whether I’d ever figured out what to believe about that night, I surrendered to the bewitching feel. I was grateful for the small mercies that night. I was indebted to it now, a glamour that kept me company and unafraid.
Magic that kept me companion as I walked up a few stairs to most vulnerable part of the house, lit the fuse, and prayed.
There is no bright white.
There is no God. There is you.
At the end of things, it is you.
It is you filling up the ether, the in-between.
There is no pain except my chest as it yearns for you, my fingers will to touch.
But there you are.
Again and again and again.
I do not know whether my soul is destined for hell or heaven. But I do not fear the pursuit of evil or the acknowledgment of good.
You will be there.
Wild and safe.
You will be there and there will be peace.
Part Eleven
The Aftermath
CONRAD
The world shuddered beneath me and I shot up, already reaching for the man beside me. The earth quaked again when I realized he wasn’t there and that the sheets were cold. My eyes flitted around, searching for him.
The house shook a third time and my heart cracked. I couldn’t breathe, and I didn’t know why. Or couldn’t admit it.
“Where is he?” Cole’s voice accompanied the swoosh of the sliding glass door. “Where the fuck is he, Conrad?” Panic ratcheted up in his voice.
“What are you talking about?” My voice matched his, my heart threatening to punch through my chest.
Cole was fixated on unwrinkled sheets beside me, his shoulders rolling.
“There’s smoke,” Elle said softly from the open doorframe, her eyes downcast.
I scrambled from the sheets and Cole barreled toward the open door. He slid in the slightly damp mud just beyond the patio. I did too, hooking onto his arm to skid to a stop beside him.
Sure enough, the smoke cloud billowed up over the canopy of the jungle, thick, dark. And heavy. So heavy. Despite it’s height.
“Thats the direction…” Cole started, his words fait and faltering.
“It can’t be,” I gasped, finding air harder here than it was deep underwater. “He wouldn’t.”
But the dots were starting to connect. The things he’d said to me last night, the way it had been between us.
“Where’s his bike?” Cole crashed to his knees at the edge of the driveway.
I knew. I’d known before the first tumble of the world moments earlier. I’d felt his absence. That was what had woken me, a slip of his soul from where it held mine.
None of us spoke. If Elle and Cole were like me, their insides were busy burning down to ash and soot, leaving similar plumes of smoke inside their chests. Even my tongue tasted of burning flesh and broken dreams.
What would I be now that my insides were razed? How would I ever build something up inside of me again?
“We have to go. We have to find him. He needs our help.” Cole screamed even though he crumbled further, his hands finding the muck beneath his knees as he all but balled in on himself.
Elle crouched down, blanketing him with her body, but I saw it for what it was—trying to keep his fracturing body from falling into fragments. She reached up and wove her fingers into my limp ones, squeezing with all the strength she still had. That grip was the only thing that kept me from drowning in the rippling fate around me.
“We’ll go,” she said, tears thick in her words. “We’ll find him.”
His body.
That was the shadow of her sentence. The weight upon my soul.
“He’s not—”
“Shut up. Shut the ever living fuck up,” Cole screeched, his body throbbing beneath Elle’s sturdy hug.
His tears started to fall a moment later, streams and rivulets down his cheeks. Elle buried her face into the side of his neck and she dug her fingers into mine. The agony in his voice, the pour of water down his cheeks, said he knew damn well that Horse wasn’t…
I stalled the rough ball of glass in my throat.
We sat there in an awkward pile on the muddy drive adjusting to the hollowness inside. It could have been a single heartbeat or two trillion of them. My world had bottomed out, my soul burnt to a crisp and everything else was empty. Empty. Empty. All the space he’d taken up was just a fucking void.
The only thing I knew was that Elle held tight to me. That her small warmth kept my lungs sipping in shallow breaths. Kept me from slipping into the abyss that loomed just beside me. The abyss that wanted to consume me whole.
“Should we…?” Elle finally broke the silence. “I mean I think he’d like it here.” She tried to clear her throat. “To be here.” She sobbed a single soul-shaking sob. “In the end.” Her words were still choked. “With you.”
I was numb. And if the entirety of my being wasn’t warped and senseless, the pain would have been all-consuming.
“I’ll drive,” she murmured as she stood from Cole’s shoulders and turned to hold me.
I couldn’t bring myself to hug her back. Nothing in me worked. Nothing in me felt. Elle ushered me into the backseat of the Charger and I collapsed across the backseat. I rolled onto my back on the bench seat and stared at the cream ceiling. Stared but didn’t see.
The car rumbled to life beneath me but I still couldn’t hold on to the life seeping from beneath my fingertips. From my mouth and eyes and heart. Oh God my heart…
I wanted to cry. To rage at the world as I turned away from it, but I was tuck. I couldn’t feel. So I simply watched the shadows dissipate across the ceiling. Trees and street poles and buildings and the whole of the world, now nothing but whirring shadows.
“Detener. Detener,” a voice shouted in through the open window as Elle slowed on the street. “No puedes pasar esta es una investigación activa.”
Elle didn’t speak a lick of Spanish, I needed to sit up and translate, but I was still paralyzed with fear and fury and anger. I was still in free fall.
“Por favor,” Cole begged, none of the harsh left in his voice, defeat lacing at word. “Por favor, mi amigo está ahí. Mi mejor amigo. Él es quien derribó el edificio. Él es…”
Cole spoke perfect Spanish, but the words, the words that explained that Horse was in there, what Horse had done… I wished with everything I had that I couldn’t understand them. That they didn’t carve me up into small pieces. Or that the next ones weren’t a million times worse.
“Your friend,” the officer started in broken English, “es un hero.”
*****
My friend the hero, my best friend that was the Hulk and Batman and Iron Man, my love that held my heart, was buried beneath a pile of debris.
After being allowed in, after Cole and Elle searching through the rubble while the sun rose and shifted across the sky, after sitting, cradling my head in my hands to keep it attached, we hadn’t found him. Beautiful, broken him.
I crashed to my knees and let the concrete reverberate up through my bones, the pain was the only thing that made this real.
He was lost, and likely covered in the chalky ash and bits of building. Who knew if his sharp jaw still sported his perfectly trimmed, close cut beard, if his lips were still perfectly plump. Who knew if he was bathed in blood. Gods above or Satan below didn’t care that I needed to know. I needed to cherish a last glimpse at that man, I needed to bend down and kiss those lips.
A single kiss of true love to wake us all from this unending nightmare.
But Horse had told me so many times. This wasn’t a fairy tale. The world didn’t end in happily ever after. It just ended.
We had just ended.
Agony in the form of a sob ripped out of my chest. And before I knew it, the rest of the tears did too. The sounds clawed at my insides, the water washing away what was left of me on the outside.
Cole knelt down beside me, his face already glistening in tears. His big bear paw came up and around my shoulder, pulling me into his side. The two of us sat amongst the debris and cried over the man we’d loved. The man we’d lost.
It wasn’t until delicate little bird fingers fluttered over the rocks in my line of sight did I shake myself from the haze. Elle knelt across from us, tears flowing unabashedly down her cheeks, as she lifted the rocks one by one and tossed them aside. She didn’t look up at either of us, just at her hands as she worked. Her shoulders shook, sending tremors to her fingers. When she kept them busy, she was her steady self, but when she didn’t carry the weight of his missing body in her hands, they’d hesitate over the stones shake with the anguish coursing through all three of us.
After a few deep breaths, Cole started to do the same. Helping her with the heavier pieces until we’d dug out a basin between us.
Horse, savage and pure, beastly and brutal, was no where to be found. Only his sacrifice remained.
My heart had been to heavy to help lift =but I let my quaking fingers brush the dust of the from my surroundings. There had to be flesh there, there had to be a color beside stone cold gray.
“You were wild, why couldn’t I keep you safe?” My hand move automatically over my heart, to the tattoo marking the place that would always be his, as I all but screamed into the void. “I don’t even know if you found peace.”
My tormented cry had Elle and Cole lunging across the hole that barely dented the ruin around us. But they were the only one that heard it, not another soul, divine, demon or otherwise heard my call.
*****
I hadn’t spoken since I’d railed at the gods in the ruin of a filthy empire. An empire Horse had cleansed. I didn’t know what it would sound like anymore, but I knew it wouldn’t sound like mine.
Matter of fact, I didn’t think any of us had. Mercifully, the rumble of the engine had replaced the harrowing silence and filled the need to speak. It filled up the emptiness that driving away from his body had left me with. It all came back the second Elle turned the key in the ignition. The silence sucked all the air from the car, from my very lungs.
“I miss him so much I can’t breathe,” Elle murmured as she slumped down around the steering wheel. Her words were spoke from three different souls.
Cole was the first to move and with a weight I’d never noticed on his shoulders, he rounded the hood. All too gently, he pulled Elle from the front seat and cradled her to his chest. Something cracked inside me, something I didn’t know was left to break. I’d never have the man to lift me up, to keep me from falling to my quaking again.
“We’re in this together, Conrad,” Cole said softly as he pulled up the seat and reached for em in the backseat.
His hand was grounding, if only for a moment. I let him take it and pull me into the hollow house that used to be my home. We all stood there, taking a singular heavy breath, surveying the shadow that had fallen over the once bright paradise.
That’s when we noticed the letters.
One for each of us, addressed in Horse’s cramped handwriting, propped on the small nook table. One for each of us, as if he had known.
Cole set Elle down softly on her toes and the three of us stood in a line, staring at the messages. I wasn’t sure if I was ready to read it, I wasn’t sure if I ever would be.
But they were all we had left…
*****
My lovely little Elle, my dove, my Fucktart,
As a kid I would have gone to the ends of the earth to protect what Cole held dear. I could only think of me as I related to him. But as a man, I died to protect what I hold infinitely deeper in my heart. You.
You nestled down in my soul that first night and cracked the darkness living there.
It was supposed to be sex, a way back to Cole’s bed, but all too quickly it became more. So much more. You were innocent but chose to love a monster anyways, chose to see the beauty and the good. In that I learned of forgiveness. You chose to live and die for someone else, to kill to keep them safe. I don’t know if I knew that selfless kind of love before you, but I know damn well that you’re the reason I recognize it in the end.
When I found out you were pregnant, my heart burst, and for once not with hurt. See, that’s what you’ve always been to me. Something so searingly bright and beautiful, love sharp and strong.
Tell Cole. Tell him that the family he always wanted was always here, and that it’s just going to get bigger. Remind him he’s going to be a good dad, because if he loves anything half as much as he does you, or did me… He’s going to be a tad overprotective. Let him be. I wish I could see that baby, push those sunshine gold curls away from little cherub cheeks. You’ll do it for me, right?
Look out for Conrad. He won’t understand, not at first. He’s the only one that hasn’t laid his life down yet. I pray with me out of the picture he’ll never have to. But that means he’s the only one that isn’t sure it’s worth it. I know. Beyond a shadow of a doubt. I’d do it over and over and over again. Just like I know you would.
You’ve always been the strongest one amongst us. You held us up. Keep doing it, Tart, you’re the only one that can. I died because you’re strong enough to do it. I died because you’ll love them just as fiercely as I did. I died because I love you.
~Horse
*****
Cole,
Fuck dude. This was not the way it was supposed to end. Though I don’t know that any of it was supposed to go this way. I wasn’t supposed to lie and cheat. To do drugs and murder. To covet my best friend, his girl and her best friend. I wasn’t supposed to be a monster. Yet, I don’t think I can bring myself to regret any of it.
These are the things that brought me you. And Callum. And Elle. And in the end, Conrad.
Each step down this rocky path, each aching step, brought me here. And here is a place of love and forgiveness. Weird, I know, to say that I die in the name of love, but I do. The wicked, the running, has to stop. You knew it years before me, you paid the price in blood, but you didn’t understand what you were buying. You thought time, you thought freedom. And now, here I am, doing the same but I know I’m buying forgiveness and forever.
You’re going to be angry with me—you have a knack for being angry—but Elle will calm you down. She’ll soothe that tempest brewing back behind my favorite green eyes. And she is the reason I’ll face your anger in the afterlife. Love her so damn hard it hurts. Love her so damn much you’d died for her. And then don’t you ever fucking do it. She needs you too much.
Be there for Conrad. He’s the other side of your same coin. You’ll know how to love him as soon as you let yourself. I’ll come down there and kick your ass if you don’t. Help him heal his heart, don’t leave him stranded.
Please don’t think I left you. I’ve carried you in my heart since I was eleven. I don’t know how to be me without holding on to you. I have a funny feeling you’re the same way.
Look up at the telephone wires and smile, I’ll be hanging up there, watching over you. I kinda like knowing that your guardian angel has a lot of practice.
I love you, always have, always will.
~Horse
*****
Conrad,
I’m scared. And I can’t tell them that. They never knew that part of me, that was only ever just for you. So many things were only ever just for you. I’m scared of the pain, but I’ve been hurt before. I’m scared I’ll fail, and failing at this is your life on the line. I’m scared you won’t understand, you won’t forgive me…
I know you wanted to be Cinderella and Prince Charming but I was always more of a Romeo and Juliet kind of guy. Feuding families, blood, a love worth dying for. You are worth dying for.
The days you gave me were stolen gifts, each and every one. It was worth living for moments with you. Moments when we fought, moments when we fucked. Moments when you saw each shadowed corner of my heart and loved me anyway. I was never meant for that kind of love, and yet you gave it to me anyway. Thank you.
I’ve been here before, in the pain and agony that weighs on your chest making it hard to breathe. It becomes the mud that sucks your feet down and keeps you rooted too. I’ve sulked in the shadow after loss. It’s easy to surrender to that darkness. Please don’t. You are the sunshine in my universe. The surf and sand and coconut creme. You are the unending bright.
You get more than one great love in this life. I’ve seen it. I’ve lived it. Someday, I will just be a Horse shaped stamp on your heart. Your heart that will someday be ready to take a chance again. Do it. You were my second chance and you filled up an aching, empty man.
I go to my death reciting your words. They are my strength, they are my devotion, and I’m not afraid, because you are right. At the end of all things, there is no fear, no fury, just love. Just you. And I can’t wait to see you again.
Be wild. Be free. Be mine, but then let me go.
~Horse
*****
I looked up and the same tears washed down their faces as mine. Sorrow filled the room, the fourth, living, breathing being there. But somehow the forlorn fits, as if Horse’s brooding and broken heart is still in the room. Rain began to pelt the windows of the cottage, and I knew exactly when the sun had slipped away.
“You know in Avengers when Iron Man takes catches that missile and flies it up through the wormhole?” Cole broke the silence, his words garbled and tear-stained, but there was a tinge hope in his voice. “How he called Pepper on the way, to tell her that he loved her?”
Elle sniffled a yes. I gracelessly wiped my tears away and nodded.
“These are our phone calls. That was our missile.” He let out a massive sob then the saddest smile I’ve ever seen.
“They did it in Wonder Woman too.” Elle’s little bird voice was so broken. “He took the bomb on the plane so she could still save the world. He told her he loved her but that it had to be him.” She clutched at the letter and pulled it to her heart.
Every movie we’d watched snuggled on the couch flashed before my eyes. I’d always loved the character rushing off to save the one that they loved, I’d always wanted to be loved that much. And here I was, the recipient of the greatest sacrifice love could make, and all I wanted was him. Back. In my arms. Forever. Even if it meant a simple, domestic and boring life.
But Superman didn’t exist. He couldn’t spin the world back on it’s axis and bring last night back to me. Bring Horse back to me. Superman didn’t exist but one thing was for sure. Heroes did.
“He was the best of us. Of all of us.” I choked back my own wild sobs and folded my letter into my wallet and slid it into my back pocket. “He was the superhero all along.”
HORSE
Conrad was wrong. At the end of things I found Callum. Smiling.
I’d forgotten how gorgeous he was.
His big, brawny body held none of the scars from the last time I held him. His shoulders, none of the burden. Time had muddied my memory of him. The deep cut of his muscles, the dark ink of his banded tattoos. The beam of his smile and the single curl that hung down toward his shining eyes. Those details had started to fade to shadow, but the man before me was vivid, beautiful, and radiating a comforting warmth.
“Hiya, babe.” His deep rasp voice was better than I remembered too, dulcet sounds that spoke directly to my soul.
“I missed you.” My words were automatic, riding on my deepest exhale.
“I was never far away.” He stepped toward me and my breath caught, only for me to swallow it completely when he pressed his hand to my heart. “I’m going to stay here when you go back too.”
“What?” The panic rose inside me and my hands flew to clutch at his hand where it pressed against my skin. “No.”
He smiled warmly before he gathered me against his chest with his free arm, keeping his other attached to my heart between us.
“It’s not your fate to die today, Horse,” he said softly as his nose grazed along my earlobe.
“What if I wanted to stay?”
I gulped when I thought about honestly choosing to stay here—wherever here was—and choosing to leave Cole, Elle, and the baby all over again. Choosing to never kiss Conrad again… Anguish twisted my heart.
“It’s okay, Horse.” His hand brushed across my shoulders and pushed back into my hair. “He’s a really lucky guy.”
“I’m the lucky one,” I said as I sagged into his body.
“Stop, okay? It’s enough.” He used his grip to pull me back and lean his forehead to mine. “You’re enough. And it’s time that you start believing it as much as we do.”
The tears streamed down my cheeks, my fingers dug into his flesh. I didn’t feel worthy of their love—of his—I never had been. I just knew they deserved my last breath, the full measure of my devotion.
“You shrugged off the darkness and slid out of your monstrous skin to become the man you were always supposed to be. The man that any of us would be honored to love.”
My hand left his chest and I pulled him in tighter and buried my face in the crook of his neck.
“I wish it was me,” he murmured against my skin, “but that’s not the way this thread was woven. I accepted that. I’m happy for you. And I want you to feel the same way. That’s why I’m here.”
“It gets hard somedays,” I confessed.
“To love passionately, you have to live ferociously.” He pressed a simple kiss to my temple. “And I think with Conrad, you’ll be inspired to do both. You’ll see them both as the gift they are not the burden they can sometimes be.”
Tears puddled against his skin where they started to fall from the corners of my eyes.
“I couldn’t be that for you,” he continued, this time his chest shook and his lips trembled against my skin. “I wasn’t the bright light, I wasn’t the warm and wonderful you needed to keep you afloat. I’m sorry.”
I pulled back, desperate to look into his shimmering eyes, desperate to make him understand. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I didn’t love you the way you deserved. I’m sorry I wasn’t worthy.”
“Horse, stop. Stop all of that. You loved me far better than I deserved. And Cole too. That alone makes you worthy.” He cupped my cheeks in his big paws. “Your sacrifice for Elle, for that baby, for Conrad…was something infinitely more precious. Believe it makes you deserving. Please,” he begged, his tears still trembling on his lips. “Please,” he said stronger, more vehement, his body trembling a little. “Go back and be the man I never could, go back and love him with all your heart,” Callum all but screamed at me before he pressed his big beautiful lips to mine and kissed me with the breath of life.
*****
I sucked in a wild deep breath expecting it smell of Old Spice and warm flesh but instead choking on ash and dust. The empty brightness that had cocooned Callum and I was replaced by debris of wood and stone. Flame lapped at fragments of building nearby. There was a sharp ringing in my ears but otherwise the world was silent.
I had lived.
By some strange miracle or twist of fate, I was alive. And though I’d seen the afterlife, and in between, or some small sliver, I’d been given a second chance. The smell of roasted coconut danced on the breeze. Enticing me up, enticing me onward.
With a heavy groan and no small amount of pain, I shoved at the beams fallen on my body. I bellowed as I sat up, and fought my body’s urge to blackout. Instead the weird ripple down my back helped shake away the ache as if it were simply a skin to shed.
Fucking cats.
This was surreal, maybe a hallucination brought on by adrenaline or pain. Maybe I wasn’t alive after all… Or like the night we’d rescued Elle, something greater twinkled in the fabric of our story. Something woven into the very thread of our fates.
Cole had seemed half-cocked when he wished on paper cranes to keep his love, when he followed old crones that he swore were actually crows, but… I’d felt angel wings as they unfurled from my back when that girl looked at me as I set her free. And I’d been in a stairwell coming from the basement when the explosives went off; I should have been crushed. Instead, I had a cocoon around me, only a single wood beam shoved up against my side. Against, not inside.
“Help,” I called out only to have my sound dampened by the chaos around me. “Conrad,” I bellowed as loud as I could. He would be here, he would search, so I called again and again and again.
But no one came.
Each sound was absorbed by the ruin in front of my face. I knew damn well nothing had reached the surface. Where was the magic now? Where were those giant black wings of mine—
No sooner than I thought about the wings, accepted the inexplicable reality of them, did something seemed to sweep away debris from behind me, revealing a room that had been minimally damaged in the demolition.
“No. Fucking. Way.” Each word was punctuated with disbelief. And gratitude. Pure and utter gratitude.
I had to worm my way through the small opening cleared behind me then step and squat over and around fallen structures. Each small shift ached but for the first time I focused on being alive rather than on that constant hurt. My feet shuffled against the dirt and gravel but I made them keep going. I wanted nothing more.
And there at the end of the room, one single window stood open, a summer breeze blowing in. The beach fresh on the wind beckoned me.
I grabbed onto that window frame and pulled. I pulled with all my might. Slowly, I heaved my massive body our of the window, not quite sure how I managed to fit. I rolled out onto the stone pile beside me and took in the bright blue sky. The sky as vast and endless a blue as Elle’s eyes. Her eyes that I would see again.
I turned over with hope in my heart. Hope replacing all the wickedness and worry. Off in the distance, beyond destruction so complete there was no way I should have lived through it, was the jungle of green, in all the radiant shades that Cole’s eyes could be. Dancing and delighted in the breeze.
That magical damn breeze that smelled of Conrad and urged me toward him. Toward my fate, for only that was the only magic strong enough to tie me to this world when I’d accepted it wasn’t for me. Fate would show me Callum, would remind me, he wasn’t for me, and urge me on. Urge me to embrace what was every bit as much as what could be.
The world around me was quiet as I slowly turned to survey the real destruction I’d caused. It wasn’t destruction, it was decimation. Not a single living thing remained. The evidence that police had been there was taped around the perimeter, fluttering where it was tied to poles because there wasn’t even enough building to hold it up. I’d leveled Miguel’s compound, razed the earth around us. I shouldn’t have lived.
I shouldn’t have fucking lived, and yet, I did.
*****
It’s odd to take a walk after facing death, to be able to contemplate existence with every single footstep. I should have been watching over the world that I loved, not feeling the gravel crunch beneath my shoes or the warmth of the sun on my face.
My body ached but I’d physically searched for a wound before leaving the ruins and none were there outside of purpling bruises. I relished each smarting twinge and pang because pain was lonely really for the living. Pain meant I still could experience pleasure.
I smiled as step after step I trudged toward my home. My home that I’d built with the man I loved, that I’d get to see again. I closed my eyes and breathed in deep, feeling the smile spread across my face.
“Thank you,” I whispered to the heavens above, knowing Callum would hear.
Sun filtered in through the leaves that hugged the drive so tight, warming my skin. The dots of color from tropical flowers littering the sides of the drive we're better than any confetti thrown at a parade. I chuckled as I thought of Iron Man, how heroes often settled for nothing less than ticker tape.
But there would be no parade. There wouldn’t even be a welcome. They didn’t know I was coming. My feet shuffled to a stop on their own and worry balled in my throat.
Would they forgive me? For what I’d done. For leaving them. Fear nibbled at me. Fear and pain at the what if. What if they liked me better in dark sacrifice than in light and living?
“Horse?” My name was nothing more than a gasp on that same sea salt and coconut breeze that had brought me back. “Is that you?” Elle’s voice broke again, her question so obvious. Or am I seeing a ghost?
“Tart, let me explain…” I started.
She didn’t even hesitate before she ran to me. Her flip flops kicked up the red clay dust behind her and the world flushed in gold just behind her. Those giant doe eyes flashed silver just in front of her. Just before she crash laded into me in, her arms and legs wrapped around me in the most all consuming hug of my life. My arms immediately enveloped her.
“I had to Tart,” I murmured into her neck. “For you, for the baby—”
“Shut up,” she scolded despite the tears that punctuated her words. “I thought you were gone for good this time and I couldn’t bear the pain.”
My whole body relaxed into her steadying grip. “I never wanted to hurt you,” I whispered as I cradled the back of her head and kissed into the golden locks of my cherry Tart.
“When will you get it through your thick skull that the only real pain is losing you.” She was crying hard against my chest and I pulled back just enough to look her full in the face. Her smile was everything good and priceless in this world.
“Ladyface?” Cole called behind us. “Where’d you go?”
Elle’s eyes didn’t leave mine and the unbridled joy there had my smile matching hers.
“Ladylove?” Panic hitched up in Cole’s voice and she softened even further.
“Over here,” she called, unashamed of the way her voice broke.
I twisted us just enough to catch Cole’s gaze as he rounded the bank of trees and looked toward the sound of Elle’s voice. A single solitary sob escaped his throat before he was sprinting even faster toward us than Elle had. His Chuck Taylors in the same swirling dust as Elle’s was its own kind of homecoming.
His arms were around both of us like waves crashing on the sand, the power almost bowling me over. I couldn’t help but laugh, something so damn wonderful cracking within me, shedding any last little bit of sorrow and darkness left.
“I knew you couldn’t…” He trailed off, emotion choking him the way I’d rarely seen despite the world that we’d known. “I knew they wouldn’t dare…” He sniffled against my skin just before he pressed his lips to the dirt covered cotton of my shoulder.
“Yeah, Cupcake, I don’t know what deal you worked out and with which deity, but… Thank you. Thank you for including me in it.” I inched a hand out from around Elle and held him.
Their bodies beneath my hands were their own kind of miracle. Real muscle, strong bone. Fragile little hearts that fluttered barely caged chests.
“I fucking love you, Horse,” Cole murmured against my shoulder.
“With all of both our hearts,” Elle finished his thought then took a deep breath. “I think someone else needs a minute though.” She took the liberty of unwinding from me, seamlessly pulling Cole into her arms as she went. He sighed as he settled into her, the perfect puzzle pieces snapping together.
“Where is he?” I asked softly.
“Inside,” Elle replied just as timid. “He hasn’t felt much like getting out.” Her face was a mix between forlorn sadness and won’t-he-be-surprised smirk.
I nodded as I squared my shoulders and walked toward our home. The anticipation thrummed beneath my skin, the want of him something living and sharing my lungs. The terror of what he’d say, of how furious he’d be, taking up an equal and easily monstrous spot.
The moment I stepped onto the patio the warmth and wonder of Cole and Elle behind me fell away. The silhouette of Conrad was highlighted by the silk sheets of our bed, the sag of his shoulders accentuated. He didn’t even flinch with the slow steady pace of my footfalls.
Only one thing would pull him loose.
I cleared my throat and Conrad’s body shuddered but he didn’t turn. The way he balled in on himself said he wouldn’t. I studied his broad back for a moment, the inked curves and dips. I wanted to relearn those verses, rescripture them.
“Conrad?” His whole body tensed. “Cream pie,” I said all the more softly.
He sucked in a deep breath and I watched his whole body puff then tense, his muscles straining against whatever he was holding back.
So many words were on the tip of my tongue. Emotions and apologies and justifications. I love yous and I had to toos. But I could shove them out, I couldn’t form the words. So I waited for him, for his answer.
Ever so slowly, he turned, his hands clutching tight to the fabric in his hands. He paused on his back, still staring at the ceiling. The chest I loved to caress so much rose and fell so damn fast even his shoulders shook.
“Are you a ghost?” he asked quietly, his yes still not daring to meet mine.
“No,” I answered simply.
“Are you here for good?” He swallowed roughly in between his words.
“I hope so but I don’t think any of us are guaranteed a certain amount of time.” I stepped closer, my hands moving toward him even if he didn’t acknowledge me.
“Don’t you ever try and duck out early again,” he snarled, suddenly moving, a prowling cat as he turned, crouched and finally slunk toward me. “Don’t you ever leave me in the night.”
He kept his gaze focused on the center valley of my chest as he came to stand in front of me. His fingertips traced the contours beneath my filthy shirt.
“I had to,” I whispered lowly.
“No you fucking didn’t,” he roared as his hand fisted and thumped into my chest. “You didn’t have to leave me to the silence, or the cold of the world.” He punched into my chest again. “What did you expect me to do? Knit until my fingers fell off? Wish upon a star like Jiminy Cricket? Did you even think about me?” He decked me then, his knuckles connecting with my jaw in pure and anguished fury.
“Hey,” I shouted as I took the hit then scrambled to contain his wild limbs. He fought me, his hands desperate to pummel and claw at me, but I got around him and trapped those beautiful brawny arms. “Conrad, shhhhh. I’m sorry.”
He roared, still fighting in my arms, desperate to shrug me off.
“Conrad,” I bellowed and he paused long enough that I let him go. He turned, pinched his gaze and shoved at my chest all the same.
“Don’t you Conrad me!” His big shoulders shook again. “Do you know what it’s like? Do you know what it feels like for your soul to seep away?”
“Yes,” I replied as quietly as I possibly could, recalling Callum in his bittersweet perfection. “Yes, I do.” I reached for him again, this time just pulling him into me by the crook of his neck.
This time his hands wrapped up around my shoulders and he bent into the crook of my neck. Warm tears splashed against my skin and his fingers curled into my flesh. Unruly sobs wracked his body. I just held him tighter.
“I didn’t want to hurt you. I wanted to help you. Save you,” I murmured. “I wouldn’t leave you for anything less.”
He cried openly on my shoulder, his warm tears speckling the dirt of my shirt. my hands roved across every inch of his broad back
“How did you survive?” His voice was a broken thing. “How did I get to keep you?” His chest rattled against mine, his body trembled in my hands. His question wasn’t to me but to the gods above. The gods who had brought me back.
“Fate wanted me here,” I said softly as my arms squeezed him tight, as my arms collected all the fragments worth living for and cradled them in the bulk of my arms. “Fate always planned me for you.”
He let out a wild, soul shaking sob. Agony and ecstasy a combination swirled as competing forces in my arms. Torment and rapture were side by side in the perfect picture of a man in my arms.
“I swear to God if you ever do anything like that again, I will make the Joker look sane and Magneto like Mother Teresa.” He winced as he pulled me in tighter, his tears still softening my shirt. “I cannot lose you because you walk away from a face weathered by worry lines. I can’t lose you at all.”
I held him tighter, my hands clasped to the back of his head and the small of his back as I breathed in that beautiful burnt coconut scent that had become my home.
“I didn’t see you,” I whispered. “At the end of all things, it wasn’t you.” He tensed against my body, his sobs ceasing immediately. “But every force in the after life told me to come back, and come back to be with you.”
His sobbed thudded against my chest and my heart responded in kind. I pressed my lips to his neck then used what waning strength I had to pull him to me. I would have consumed him body and soul if possible. I kissed him softly again, this time just below his ear then murmured, “It was always you.”
*****
Cole and Elle had left a few days ago, promising that this wasn’t goodbye, just see you soon. Conrad had made a comment about nine months or so and Elle almost ripped his head off. Laugher was the best pain, reminding me this was all real.
I had survived. I had lived.
Conrad hadn’t let me leave his sight since they’d found me. He’d barely let his skin part from some part of mine. I’d grown accustomed to the affection. To the way he stroked me, the way he made me purr.
The bed shifted beneath him before his hand fell away, and I groaned softly and twisted as best my aching, still-healing side would allow.
“Where are you going?” I let the new smile that seemed to hang on my face with ease spread wider as I watched his inked body move in the sunlight.
“To get this.” Conrad pulled his from a kitchen drawer.
My smile fell and I swallowed. Hard.
“Horse…” he started then let his words trail off. His eyes found mine and softened. “I don’t pretend to know what your life was like before I met you. I don’t pretend to understand.”
“What do you want me to tell you?”
“Nothing.” He smiled but it didn’t reach his eyes. “I just want you to know that it doesn’t matter. It never did. You don’t have to seek forgiveness through sacrifice. You never did.” He blew out a deep breath. “This,” he fanned himself lightly with the envelope, “can’t happen. You can’t shoulder those years by yourself.”
My throat bobbed, tears pricked at the corners of my eyes.
“I like to think you picked someone so big and beefy so we can shoulder it together.”
He pulled that easy laugh, that easy light from me.
“Together,” I repeated, lacing my hand into his and using it to push him back against the sheets.
“What is Thelma without Louise?” He smirked only to waggle his eyebrows at me.
“You’re just thinking of Brad Pitt between us now.” I laughed loud as I bent down and kissed my words tattooed above his heart.
“I don’t need Brad Pitt to make me hard when I have you.” He arched up and stole my lips, devouring them in a wild kiss. His tongue tumbled around with mine until my blood heated, my body burning for Conrad. He pulled back, flopping back to the mattress with a breathtaking smile. “I don’t need anything when I have you.”
“In that letter—”
“No don’t.” The sunshine fell from his face as he sucked in a breath to argue further. I pressed a single finger to his plump lips.
“Shhhhh,” I soothed. “In that letter, I said you were worth dying for.” It was his turn to swallow hard on something unspoken, the column of his thick neck bobbing, beckoning my tongue to trace the muscles etched there. “I was right,” I continued in a low and husky purr. “But what I didn’t see then, what I was blinded my until that night…” I bent and kissed him once, feeling his breath expand my lungs. “…was that you’re worth living for too.”
EPILOGUE
Five Years later
“It’s snowing!” A tiny screech and squeal preceded the pounding of tiny feet as Filly Ryan came whirling into the living room of the rental house. She plastered her face up against the glass a moment before she started singing “Do You Wanna Build A Snowman” from Frozen.
My goddaughter was a wild tangle of blonde hair, green eyes, whirling arms and legs and laughter. The pure and perfect happiness that radiated out from her had been infectious since the moment she was born. And when Cole and Elle had told me they were naming her after me, after the nobel act of defiance I’d made to save her… Well, my heart burst that day and each of the four people I loved more than life myself worked to piece me back together. Damn was the puzzle beautiful when they’d finished.
I smiled to myself.
“I do want to build a snowman!” Conrad came barreling into the room, and in a single moment, swooped Filly up and swirled her around.
The tinkling of giddy fairy-like laughter rang through the room, and mixed in with the booming laugh of my husband.
“But, Filly, I want to be Elsa this time. I’m tired of being Ana.” Conrad brought my niece down to nose level as he whined about who would be which Disney Princess.
Somethings never changed…
“Good luck with that, Conrad.” Cole swaggered into the room, his eyes immediately fixing on his daughter, finding her matching green swirls, the twin gaze to his own. “I’ve been Ana three times this week.”
I couldn’t help but bark out a laugh. Cole—Cole, the savage, demon, monster, Ryan—now spent his days playing make-believe.
“But Filly,” Conrad whined playfully, “I look so much better in blue ballgowns than you.”
Cole and I both laughed deep belly laughs at that.
“Boys don’t wear gowns, silly Conrad.”
“Boys can wear whatever they like,” Conrad answered and pecked her on the nose. “Just like girls.”
“Fine, if you have a sparkle blue dress in your closet, you can be Elsa. But we’re going to race to put them on.” She shoved against Conrad and he let her down so she could spin her wheels back to her temporary bedroom.
Cole handed me a glass of wine as he plopped down on the couch next to me.
“Did you ever think it would look like this?” he asked, as he unwound on the couch, each and every movement so easy, so relaxed.
“What?” I reclined back with the same comfort. “Paris? Christmas?” I choked back the emotion. “A family?”
“All of it.” Amazement was plain in his voice. “That first night we met, throwing shoes around those telephone wires, I said life didn’t give people like us a hand.” He stared down into his wine. “I was so wrong. It gave us so much more than that.”
Cole was right. There had been so many trials and tribulations but there had been so many triumphs too. Filly was chief amongst them. The way we’d been able to stick together and travel the world was no small miracle either. My days weren’t choked by darkness and depravity but rather magic. Ardor, intimacy and desire too. I felt the joy well in my chest.
“You two are getting sentimental in your old age.” Elle had snuck out of her studio and bent down to kiss first my cheek then Cole’s lips.
“Can you blame us? We didn’t really expect old age to be part of the deal.” Cole wrapped his arm up and around the back of her neck, keeping her lips pressed to his.
“You’ve promised to die of decrepit old age in bed right next to me. At the exact same moment I do, remember?” Elle smiled against his lips then kissed him all the harder when he nodded his assent.
When they broke away, she twisted and kissed the corner of my mouth, still smelling of the heady scent that swirled around the both of them, that reminded me of all the moments in our shared past. Of Christmas and pine and cookies too. Of everything good and pure in this world. Of what I’d kept at my side after all.
She smiled at me, big and beaming the way Elle always was, and in her I saw all the goodness she’d brought with her delicate touch. The return of my love. Something worth loving in return. Conrad. Filly. Once again, sunshine filtered into my world, unbridled, bright and brilliant. I couldn’t help but smile something warm and shy right back.
Her voice cracked the tiniest back as she pressed another sugar sweet kiss to my cheek. “While we’re at it, Horse, you better promise both of us the same thing, too.”