Sienna

Okay, I got it this time. I swear to you, I got it this time. There is no way anything is going to bring me down again. It’s like I’m standing at the top of the mountain and this time the wind is at my face. Not my back. Not pushing me off. Isn’t that great? The best part of it all is that I’m in complete control of this now. No help. No doctors giving me coping ideas or breathing tricks. No fucking way. Sorry. I shouldn’t use that language. Not around our daughter, you know? I’m going to be a great father. I mean… I think I’ve got this all figured out. I can do the diapers. Wait. Is she still in diapers? I’m trying to figure out how old she is now. I sort of lost time there for a bit. Sometimes I think it’s been a week since I last saw you. Or maybe a hundred years. Depending on if you ask my heart or my mind. Wow. They are so different sometimes, aren’t they? I feel like I can breathe again. Now, I won’t lie to you, Marcy. I will never lie to you. I have medicines I have to take. But these are good ones. These are the ones I need. These are the ones that keep me on the ledge instead of jumping to see what it feels like. These are the ones…

I folded up the letter and smiled.

This was the wrong thing to do. The wrong thing. The wrong time. The wrong place.

But here’s the deal… I wasn’t taking this stuff with me.

I wasn’t going to do it.

I’d listened to the doctors preach to me about my heart for hours and days. When I was released from the hospital I was given a regime of aspirin and diet which made me laugh a little because I wasn’t exactly the one not taking care of herself. I had to go through some rehabilitation and constantly get checked to make sure my heart wasn’t stressed. I had Kace next to me every second he had to spare. He had spent the last week moving everything into our new apartment by himself, making me promise him I wouldn’t lift a finger.

That didn’t mean I couldn’t help though.

I stuck the corner of the piece of paper into the apple cinnamon candle flame and watched it quickly catch.

Don’t worry, I had the candle on an old cookie tray so when the paper caught fire, I just dropped it and watched it burn. There was a nice collection of black ashy paper from all the other letters I had burned.

I was not taking this with me. My father was gone before I knew him. My mother was gone before I really got to know her. My grandmother insisted on living alone and suffering through her last days. That was on them. Not me. I would never know the real story of my parents. If they really loved each other or if it was just this intense physical thing that was more of an addiction than a want. There was no fantasy waiting in the background either. Which meant that I had the entire world to myself now. It was open and clear. And every single path led to…

Beep. Beep. Beep.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

I jumped up and hurried toward the smoke detector. I grabbed a yellow towel off the counter and waved it around my head to break up the smoke.

Last thing I needed was a neighbor to hear it and call the fire department because I was emotionally burning letters from my addict father to my alcoholic mother.

I waved my arm and felt my chest tighten a little.

I paused and the smoke detector kept beeping.

“Dammit,” I growled.

The door opened and I looked back to see Kace coming inside.

His eyes surveyed the entire scene and he didn’t say a word. Which made me love him even more. He simply walked by the kitchen counter, raising an eyebrow at the candle and the burning piece of paper. He walked next to me and reached up, twisting the smoke detector off the wall and opening the side to disconnect the battery.

“Finally,” I said. “That hurts my ears.”

“I’m not going to ask,” Kace said.

“I’m burning letters.”

“I didn’t ask, darlin’.”

“I’m telling you.” I grinned. “I don’t want to take any of this with me. I want to get rid of it for good. No moving it. No letting anyone else see it.”

“Right. Makes sense to me. We don’t need that shit, right?”

“I figure it’s only fair.”

“Fair?”

“You lost the house,” I said. “It burned. That was the dream you wanted and knew it would never happen. So this is my dream. You know? Being young and thinking all these amazing things about my father. Refusing the truth. Picturing a day when he’d show up and we’d be a family again. But it never happened.”

Kace put an arm around me and hugged me. “You’re beautiful, Sienna.” He sniffed the air. “I smell apples and burned paper.”

“Don’t forget the cinnamon,” I said.”

“Right. Cinnamon.” He sniffed the air again. “There is it. Yum.”

“Yum,” I said with a laugh. “You’re so weird sometimes.”

“I’m weird?” Kace asked. “You’re burning paper with a candle. And you set off the smoke detector. What would you have done if I hadn’t come through that door?”

“Wasn’t the first time it went off,” I said.

“Of course not,” he said, shaking his head. “You amaze me more and more each day, darlin’.”

“Good. Is our new place ready?”

“Yeah. I think we’re good to go. Just need to finish up here.”

I looked around the mostly empty apartment. I still had another month on the lease, which I was happy paying for because it meant I didn’t have to rush around. The doctors insisted that I needed to go slowly in life. That meant taking some time off work, which meant that I probably was going to need a new job soon. Which didn’t bother me at all. I got to see Ash, Candice, and Lexi. Maria even came to visit two days ago. She cried her eyes out and apologized for being such a terrible friend. Her dreams of the corporate life wasn’t what she thought and she wanted to move back closer and start over. I hugged her as she cried and then we talked about all the fun times we had in her apartment above the bar. Right up to the night where I stole her boombox and danced on the roof… the night I met Kace.

My apartment had a random chair in the middle of the floor on an old, chipped coffee table. The cable wire stuck out of the wall like a skinny, black snake. The walls were bare except for the silhouettes of where I had frames.

“You ready?” Kace asked.

“Soon,” I said. I looked up at him. “You mad at me?”

“Hell no, darlin’. You take all the time you need. I’m proud of you.” He touched my face. “You fought for this.”

“For you, Kace. If it wasn’t for you…”

“No, Sienna. You fought. For yourself. Because you know how precious life is. And it’s a hard ride. It’s a tough thing to go through.”

“This all could happen again.”

“I know that.”

“I’m like a… a clock counting down.”

“We all are. Every person we meet is waiting to die. Could be a day. Could be a month. Could be a hundred years.”

I swallowed hard. “You’ve been so supportive and romantic with this, Kace. But you have to know…”

“I know that I love you. And if you think for a second that a little heart thing is going to chase me away, you’re out of your mind. I’m here for the long haul. My heart is as damaged as yours, darlin’. That’s what makes us connect.” He moved his hands to my back and pulled me close for a hug. “Together, we make one hell of a heart.”

I took a deep breath and smiled.

He kept me calm. He kept me focused.

A few seconds later, Kace broke away. “Now… last time I remember you had some kind of melon scented candle. Where is it?”

“I think I left it under the sink,” I said.

“Perfect.”

“Why…”

He moved and got the candle.

I watched as he lit it and placed it next to the one I had burning.

He looked at me and nodded. “We doing this?”

“Doing this… you mean…”

“You said you’re not taking anything with you,” he said. “Let’s go.”

“You’re seriously going to stand there and burn letters with me?”

“What else could I possibly ever want to do on a day off?”

Kace grinned and winked.

He was the hottest damn guy I’d ever met in my life. His hands flat to the counter, his arms gently flexed with hard and tight muscle, his triceps looking like a horseshoe, the edge of the sleeve looking ready to burst open.

The scruff on his face desperate for a quick shave, but he spent all his time and worry on me. His eyes dark, slightly brooding, constantly flirting with me and only me. I saw him look at other people and it was like his eyes somehow changed.

I never thought it was possible for someone to look at you and just know they loved you. But that’s what Kace did for me. Did to me.

I stood next him and together we burned all the letters.

And every time the flame ignited the corner of a letter, he would tell me a story. A memory of his father. A memory of Andy. That’s when I realized he was doing the same thing.

Burning the bad memories.

To make room for the good ones.

* * *

“Why are we sitting on the floor?” I asked as I turned my head and looked over at Kace.

We were on the floor, the table full of mostly empty takeout containers.

I was curled up in a blanket with my back against the couch. Kace was next me, an arm around me, totally sucked into the silly romantic comedy I had put on after we were done eating.

“I don’t know,” Kace said. “We kind of ended up here.”

Mack and Evestopped by for dinner. The four of us sat, ate, drank, and laughed so hard that I actually started to cry a few times. The apartment was so cozy and so beautifully done. It didn’t feel real that it was my apartment. Our apartment. That we were going to live here as long as we wanted to.

We hung out with Mack and Eve for a few hours before they left to go upstairs to his place. That’s when I snuck on the movie and snuggled up next to Kace and wasted even more time. It was a strange feeling because after what happened with my heart, I thought I would want to make the most of every second of my life. But for me, that didn’t mean jumping out of an airplane or something crazy like that. It was simply doing what I wanted and that was finding the ultimate comfort near Kace.

“Did you hear Mack obsessing over the apartment?” I asked.

“Yeah. I think he was hard as he was talking.”

“Ew,” I said and slapped Kace’s arm.

He laughed. “I’m serious.”

“That’s gross. He really wants you to do the rest of the building.”

“Good for him.”

“You should.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re good at this stuff, Kace. And it’s a great job. You can do other buildings. You and Mack…”

He raised an eyebrow.

“Right,” I said. “I’ll shut my mouth.”

“Hey. I love you, darlin’. Don’t worry about that stuff though. We’re going to be fine. I’m not going to worry about tomorrow until it comes. When my feet hit the floor tomorrow morning, I’ll worry about it then.”

“Deal,” I said. “Do you want to see the end of this movie?”

“What? No. Hell no.”

I giggled, knowing that he wanted to see what happened.

I kicked off the blanket and climbed to my feet.

“You okay?” Kace asked.

“Yeah. I’ll be right back.”

I walked through the apartment, taking a deep breath, hugging myself for a second, taking it all in. At the bathroom, I paused. I gently opened the door and looked around. It was different now. It had stuff in it. A shower curtain. A small carpet on the floor. But this was where it happened. Where it all caught up to me and I almost…

“You’re fine, darlin’…”

I felt his hands touch my sides at the exact moment I needed it.

I shut my eyes and put my head back against his chest.

“Kace…”

“I know,” he whispered. “I know. You’re fine. You’re beautiful. We’ve got this together.”

I turned and looked up at him. I didn’t want to cry.

“Come on,” he said. “Let’s call it a night.”

Kace lifted me and Cassied me to the bedroom. He kicked open the door and took me to the bed. As he tried to put me down, I threw my arms around him and refused to let him go. That meant he came down to the bed with me. Our lips gently touched and things quickly grew hot. My toes curled tight and I grabbed my pants and hurried to inch them down.

“Darlin’, wait a second,” Kace said as we kept kissing.

I kept kicking my legs, saying goodbye to my pants and my panties, sending them off the bed.

“What?” I asked.

“Your heart…”

“Stop it,” I growled. I caught his hand and placed it to my lower belly. His rough and strong fingers touched just above my slit and I tingled everywhere. “I need you.”

“I don’t want you to get hurt,” he whispered.

I inched his hand down. The tip of his middle finger grazed the top of me.

My hips rocked a little.

“Kace, I need you to love me,” I said. “I don’t care what happens.”

“You’re fucking killing me,” he said.

“Good. Then we can kill each other.”

Kace curled his lip and kissed me again. His fingers eased between my legs, pressing against my folds. I groaned into his mouth as he softly applied pressure, opening my body for his taking. Two fingers entered me, making circles, curling at the perfect angle that forced my hips to thrust up, demanding more.

He slid his fingers out and came up, flirting with my clit, but only for a second. He eased his legs over mine and was then hovering over me. Using just one hand, he opened his jeans and pushed them down. I took the liberty of helping him, my hands clutching the sides of his jeans and shoving them down.

“Fuck, darlin’, I’ve been waiting for you for so long,” he whispered.

“I know,” I whispered back.

I clawed at the scruff on his face as he came down to kiss me again. He brought forward his lower half, touching me before entering me. Offering each inch of his body with care. He filled me to where I felt like I couldn’t breathe.

Our kiss paused as I gasped for air.

Kace inched away and looked into my eyes. “Are you okay?”

“Yes,” I said.

He pulled back and thrust forward. He was slow and masterful as he loved me.

“I love you, Kace,” I said.

“I love you, Sienna,” he said back as he moved forward again, taking himself to the hilt.

I let out a groan.

“Darlin’…”

“Shut up,” I groaned. I moved my hands to his back. “Shut up and go… take all of me, Kace. Right now.”

He gritted his teeth and hissed.

He started to speed up.

My heart started to race.

I wasn’t going to lie to myself and say I wasn’t worried. But it was worth it. To feel Kace having me. Our bodies connecting, slamming together, our first night in our first apartment together.

My hands spread wide, feeling the strong muscles of his back flexing as he came forward over and over. I buried my face into his neck, smelling his skin. His right hand touched my hip, holding me, squeezing as I felt him wanting to resist his deepest urges to go faster and harder. I wrapped my legs around him and pulled, letting him know it was okay.

It was all okay.

Everything was going to be okay.

Kace’s scruff tickled my cheek as he groaned. His breath tickled my ear.

“Tonight starts our forever,” he whispered to me.

He thrust forward harder than ever.

I was reduced to one word, which I screamed. It echoed throughout the room… my body… my heart… my everything.

“Yes.”