Maybe, just maybe, these were the missing pieces to the map that would help them find theirway home.
One thing was for sure. She was his North Star.
The one thing helping him begin to find himself.
After all this time.
“She’s more than that,” he said, only because he wouldn’t say those words for the first time to Walker.
“All right,” Walker said. “My bad.”
Walker’s phone rang, and his shoulders went tense.
“I swear to God, if that’s Addison, I am going to set this barn on fire so that she can’t use it for her wedding. I will wait until you’re done with your prom.”
“Don’t let her run you, Walker,” Zane said, knowing he was being a little bit of an asshole, but not really caring because Walker had come in here for the express purpose of being one to Zane.
“If this weren’t a customer service situation, you bet your ass she would be getting an unfiltered response from me. And she’s honestly about on the verge of getting it for real anyway.”
He picked up the phone and began to walk out of the barn. “Addison. So great to hear from you. How unexpected.” His voice trailed off and away, and Zane looked back around at the decorations.
He felt certainty bloom in his chest.
He loved her.
It was enough to make him want to fall to his knees. He loved her.
He had lived a whole life of darkness, a life that was almost a mockery of the miraculous, and he had found love.
Even if she didn’t love him back, even if she didn’t want to be with him, the fact that he could love somebody else was a gift.
It felt like something he would hold to his chest and treasure always.
How could he not?
He loved her.
Love was a light in the darkness that was his existence, a light he had never expected to find.
Even if it didn’t come back his way, just feeling it was enough.
And he knew that he would never be able to explain that to somebody who hadn’t lived the way that he did.
Who hadn’t found himself alone in his home, his family lost to him forever. Or holding his grandmother’s hand as she slipped away in a hospital room when he was nineteen, and he found himself truly alone on this earth.
Or in foxholes and under artillery fire.
He had been in darkness.
So he knew how to recognize the light.
And it was what would guide him home.
Chapter Twenty-Three
She had spent the night at her place on Saturday night, and now she was just waiting for Zane to come and pick her up at the prescribed time that he had sent to her via text.
Her hair was in loose waves, and she had bright pink lipstick on to match the dress. She had painted her nails a matching fuchsia, also, and she realized that she had never done this before. She had never dressed up and anticipated somebody coming to pick her up.
