I let out a soft chuckle, relieved and a little in awe I was able to so soon after feeling so thoroughly torn open earlier, but not needing to be told twice. When I pulled up by my place, I found him sitting on the back porch steps, phone up to his ear. The sight of him alone had relief flood through me, so strongly it nearly made me breathless. Before I knew it, I was out of the truck and making my way toward him, somehow knowing the only place I’d finally feel put back together again was in his arms.
Jackson stood the moment I’d parked and was already halfway to me by the time I’d shut my door. He pulled me into him with an intensity that might’ve looked like we’d been separated for much longer than the eight hours it’d been, but I could have cried with the rightness of being back in his arms.
“Wanna tell me what happened?” he whispered into the crook of my neck.
“Later,” I grunted, rubbing my nose along the shell of his ear and loving how he tugged me against him just a little bit tighter for it. “Will you stay with me?”
“Always.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
JACKSON
“Don’t let it drop on that end!” Tucker called, his voice seeming disembodied behind the wall of foam and fabric that separated us.
“I’ve got it!” I grunted back, pressing my face into the mattress as an extra means of support while we shuffled our way up the back porch steps. “You know, when I told you I wanted to be face down in the mattress for you, I didn’t mean it like this!”
A low, rumbly chuckle came from my man as we inched our way through the back door. “You need to be careful what you wish for, Sunshine,” Tucker teased, his voice sounding so open and free. The use of the new nickname he’d been calling me pinballed around inside my chest cavity, stirring up all sorts of emotions, but only the good ones.
It’d been a week since Tucker had called me after his session, and remembering the sheer vulnerability dripping off him when he’d walked right into my arms still made my heart squeeze just thinking about it. When he’d gotten out of his truck, those whiskey-colored eyes were red-rimmed and watery, but there’d been somethingunderneath those unshed tears I hadn’t been able to place. But then what I was seeing hit me like a freight train.
Resolve.
It shifted the energy around him in a way I wouldn’t have noticed if I hadn’t been there to witness both sides of him. Tucker’s grief had weighed him down like a physical entity clinging to his back, but somewhere between when he’d left for his appointment and when he’d come home, that weight had started to lift. Maybe it’d been that his perception of what his grief represented changed, or it simply could have been he finally accepted he was ready to move on. Either way, the man I loved had looked lighter as he sought me out for comfort.
“Before I can start fucking you into the mattress, we need to get said mattress into the house!” Tucker’s voice came again, pulling me from my thoughts, and I couldn’t help but grin.
I’d been spending more nights at Tucker’s place ever since he began going to grief counseling, but it wasn’t until after his last session that he decided it was time to change out the bed. The mattress had been over ten years old when Raleigh had passed, so Tucker had been well over-due for a change, but he hadn’t been ready. Hopefully he’d have better quality sleep on this new one.
His insomnia was slowly getting better. There hadn’t been any more dreams of Raleigh since the last one, at least not to my knowledge. After what his therapist had spoken with him about, I could tell his entire outlook on his dreams had changed. He still struggled—caught between wanting to see Raleigh again and wanting to move forward—but every day seemed to be better than the last. And I couldn’t deny how fucking nice it was to wake with him in my arms.
It took us another five minutes of maneuvering, full of squatting and twisting ourselves in awkward positions to get the king-sized bed through the backdoor, followed by another round of us squabbling back and forth as we got it into Tucker’s room.
“Oh my god…” I groaned, flopping down face-first onto the unmade mattress after we’d gotten it into the frame. “That did not need to be as complicated as you made it.”
Tucker scoffed, and I felt the bed dip as he sat down on the other side from me. “You’re going to be thanking me in ten years for making sure you lift things with your legs instead of your back. All these guys are going to be complaining of back pain like old men, and you’ll be out there feeling like a million bucks.”
My grin spread over my lips as my stomach fluttered, and I rolled my head to the side to glance up at him. “Won’t really matter if you’re following through on blowing out my back on a regular basis.”
“Fuck you. Stop making jokes you don’t plan to follow through on.” He huffed as his lips tilted upward in what was undeniably a smile, and it only made my own become impossibly wider.
“Who ever said it was a joke?” I laughed, knowing full well if he ever wanted that from me, I’d be more than willing. Despite my teasing though, his words hit a soft spot in my heart, and I shifted onto my back with my gaze still fixed on him.
“Ten years from now, huh?” I said casually a few moments later, lifting my arms to rest behind my head.
The corners of Tucker’s eyes softened as he nodded, not needing me to elaborate. “Yeah. Longer, maybe, if you don’t get tired of me before then.”
“I don’t even think that’s possible,” I breathed, suddenly struck by the sincerity shimmering in those gorgeous, amber-colored eyes. “I… I didn’t know you were thinking about a future for us.”
Tucker let out a slow breath as he leaned back on his hands, looking up at the ceiling as if collecting his thoughts. “I told you that before you showed up, I couldn’t even consider my future. I was living second by second pretty reluctantly. But then you came to Juniper Grove and… I don’t know. Suddenly I was thinking about getting to see you the next morning, and then what your week would look like. When you talked about staying here permanently, I could picture it, and it just felt so right. Even before things between us changed, you being here felt right.”
My pulse thrummed in my chest as he talked, but when his eyes met mine, it was like all the oxygen in my lungs was sucked away. I’d never seen him look so at peace before.
“So if I’m being honest, I’ve always been thinking of a future with you,” he said softly.
Emotion sat high in my throat as he looked down on me with the gentlest expression, and before my brain could catch up to what my body was doing, I was already sitting up to wrap my hand around the back of his neck to pull him toward me.
He came easily, letting out an appreciative sound when our lips crashed into each other, and I drank it down. Our kisses were tender and unhurried at first, each one sending little shivers down my spine, and I fell into the bliss of it till Tucker shifted.
