He meant something.
And for the first time in a long time, I stopped wondering if we’d ever find our way back to each other.
We already had.
He was back.
And listening to him talk about heart monitors and dizzy spells put things into perspective. I’d spent years agonizing over the right time to tell him the truth, but none of that would matter if life decided to make a decision for us first.
I’d already learned how cruel timing could be. I’d buried both my parents before I was truly grown.
I did not have room in me to bury this man too.
I looked over at him and sighed.
“I kinda wanna hug you right now.”
His eyebrows lifted.
“Then come here.”
I laughed under my breath, shifted carefully through the mud, and climbed into his lap. His arms came around my waist the second I settled.
I tucked my face into his neck.
“You don’t get to scare me like that and act like it’s nothing,” I murmured. “You take the medicine. You rest. You let people do for you for once.Weneed you around.”
We. It slipped out before I could trade it for I. My heart knocked once, hard, but he only pulled me closer. He hadn’t caught it. Thank God.
“That what we doing now?” he asked into my hair. “You doing for me?”
I pulled back enough to look at him.
“What makes you think I haven’t been the whole time?”
His jaw ticked, and his eyes went darker, hungrier.
“Give me a kiss.”
I kissed him. And tried not to think about the day this island bubble would pop, and reality would be waiting, with everything I hadn’t told him still in it.
Night had fallenand the much-needed nap had rejuvenated me. Shit, the whole trip had. But I was missing home.
Ducane was knocked out beside me, snoring softly, worn all the way down. I lay there a minute watching his chest rise andfall, and thought about what he’d told me in that mud. His body giving out. A week on a monitor. How close the math had gotten without me ever knowing.
If he’d lost that fight, he’d have died not knowing.
The thought put me on my feet. I slipped from the sheets and out onto the terrace, where the night was warm and the water kept its slow rhythm against the rocks.
It wasn’t late back home. The green icon told me the family was still up and moving.
I pulled up the thread.
Me: little girlie, do you miss me?
The bubbles popped up fast. She’d been waiting.
Cady: SO much. When are you coming home