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Damn.
“You’re going to be married to me for at least fifty years. Do you hear me? Fifty. I won’t accept anything less. You’re going to hold my hand when we’re both old and gray. You’re going to give me babies. I need them, and Harley and Desi need them. They have an army of older brothers and sisters, they need to enjoy getting to be the older ones for a change,” she huffs and then she sits down. That’s when I see the sadness on her face.
Toi…
I can’t get my throat to work. I can’t make her hear me.
“Harley needs you, Marcum. All of us do, sweetheart—but he really does. Cherry did so much to him, things I’m just finding out. He’s having nightmare after nightmare… He needs you to pull through this. He’s blaming himself and it doesn’t matter how much I reassure him… He thinks you don’t love him anymore. At first I thought that was because of me, but last night he told me you weren’t his father. Cherry told him that he and Desi weren’t really yours. I swear if that bitch wasn’t already rotting in hell, I’d hunt her down and send her there myself. I hope her and Alvaro are keeping each other company.”
Toi…
I try again, still unable to say the word, though I think I at least managed a squeak this time.
Toi lays her head on my chest, her arm reaching out to hug me.
“I miss you so much, Marcum,” she whispers, and it sounds like she’s crying. “I was just lying about the doctor. I don’t want anyone else. Just you… I just… need you. I want the life we’re supposed to have together … I want our babies… and I want pictures… I want so many pictures of us together, of our lives together, that we barely have room to store them all. I want our life together, Marcum…” She keeps whispering and this time I know she’s crying because her body shakes against me.
She’s hurting and it’s my fault.
“Hush for me, Dragonfly.”
I manage to get the words out… or maybe just one of them. I don’t know, but it’s there. Toi’s body goes completely still and then she turns to look at me.
“You’re awake!” she squeals. She sits up immediately and both her hands go to frame my face. “You’re awake!” There’s so much joy on her face. It’s beautiful and then she brings her lips to mine and gives me some of that beauty in just her touch.78Marcum“If this isn’t real, don’t wake me up,” Toi whispers when I walk in from the bathroom.
I was released from the hospital this morning and it’s been an exhausting day—but beautiful, because I made Toi my wife today. I had Maxwell set it up and when we got to the club the preacher was here, there were decorations everywhere and on each table was a fucking camera. I’m still not a hundred percent, but after being in the hospital and then rehabilitation for almost four months, I’m a fuck of a lot better.
She’s sitting on my bed—our bed. She’s wearing one of my T-shirts and nothing else and all around her are polaroid pictures from our wedding. Pictures our friends took, pictures of our ceremony, of our dancing… of us. The joy on her face feeds that need inside of me to give her everything good I can. To feed it, because it needs to grow. I give her that. I give her joy and I want to make sure that’s all she gets from now on.
“You’re not dreaming, Dragonfly. I told you, I’m giving you nothing but good now. I’m going to bust my ass to give you everything you want.”
“You already have, Marcum. You gave me you. That’s all I need,” she says, standing up, and she wraps her arms around my neck, my shirt riding up on her thighs as she stretches. I grab her ass and pull her against me, holding her there, and take her kiss.
“And pictures,” I remind her, grinning down at her when we break apart.
“Beautiful pictures, though I’m afraid you overdid it today,” she says and she turns around, gathering the mountains of pictures on the bed, putting them back in the basket she has them in.
I watch her for a few minutes, teasing me with that ass, my shirt just skirting the curves of her cheeks. I haven’t had her in three fucking months and my body might not have been in the shape to have her, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t ache for her just the same.
I came close to dying… too fucking close. Toi’s love brought me through. I tell her that all the time, but she doesn’t believe me. It’s true, just the same. I fought to come back to her and to be the man she needs. I fought even though my body was tired of the fight.
