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“Vincent, but everyone called him Vin or Vinnie.”
“What did you call him?”
“Dad.”
He gives me an oh-come-on look with an exaggerated roll of his eyes that brings back his boyish charm.
“He was my dad.”
“He’s still your dad, Cassidy.”
“I know.” It’s just that if I don’t remind myself that he’s not here often enough, then it hits me harder when I pick up the phone to talk to him and he’s not there anymore. Or when Bernadette answers the door, and he doesn’t pop up behind her to take my coat and funnel a tea down my throat before I’ve even made it inside. “My nan calls him Vinnie. I suppose that’s what I would’ve called him, too, other than Dad.”
“Vinnie,” he repeats as he carves Dad’s name on the candle with the end of the matchstick, then holds it out to me.
“You know, by logic, if you believe in God, you believe that he is all-seeing and all-knowing, so you don’t need to mark the candle.”
“Maybe, but that’s your dad’s candle, so it’s got your dad’s name on it.”
“Aww, you were the kid that had his name on his pencils, weren’t you?”
“Well, duh.” He scoffs with a grin. “I like to mark what’s mine.”
A flash of heat spears through me when he cuts a suggestive glance down to my groin where I’m still sore from last night. Enough so that walking here wasn’t the most fun experience, and he took it upon himself to piggyback me part of the way.
“Are you trying to get us struck down or something? Fornication is a sin, you know.”
“Not what you were saying last night.”
A shaky breath whooshes from my lungs when he grips the back of my sweatshirt, twisting it around his hand as he steps behind me and tugs my back to his front. The sudden ebb of organ music fills the darkened nook, burrowing deep into my bones as Leif brushes his lips over my nape. His other hand flattens to the front of my hips, holding me to him with every step he guides me towards the flickering candles in front of us.
Like this, it’s impossible to think beyond the here and now. Consequences and what-ifs don’t exist. It’s only me, him, the light trace of his open-mouthed kisses on my neck, and his body holding mine. A melange of darkness and light, sadness and joy, agony and delight.
I know he feels it all too, with the hot, tremulous breaths that seep into my skin, and the tension in his muscles. It really does feel like if he keeps holding on to me like this, we might just be forever.
“Leif,” I whisper, placing the candle down on the metal rung of the candle display.
“Yes, sweetheart?”
His face dips to the side of mine, so that when I twist a fraction in his arms, our noses brush.
“Promise you’ll always hold me like this?”
“Yes.”
“Forever?”
“Yes.”
“Swear you’ll never let go?”
“Cassidy, I will hold you beyond forever.”
My heart fists at his words. “And when I push you away?”
“I vow on everything that’s holy to hold on tighter still.” He coils his arm tighter around my hips, twisting my sweatshirt harder around his fist at my back.
“When we fight?”
