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“Oh, no you won’t.” He grabs me by the arms and pulls me up to standing.
“Yes. I will. I’ll die before we get there.” I flail dramatically and he laughs.
“It’ll feel great and if you get tired, I promise I’ll carry you back home via piggyback.” He reaches into my luggage and rummages around until he finds my sneakers. He peeks inside. “Still a size seven,” he says before he hands them to me.
“How do you remember my shoe size?” I ask and take them grudgingly from him.
“You left those shoes in the hallway of my parent’s house thirteen years ago.”
I cover my mouth with my hand and stare at him wide-eyed. “Has it really been that long?”
“Yeah. It has. And I’ll never ever be able to say sorry in a way that truly conveys just how shitty I feel about that night.” His eyes are soft, full of regret and they search mine as if he’s expecting to see the same thing reflected in them.
But it’s not. Not even a little.
“Remi, that night was humiliating, hurtful, and I wish it had never happened. I know if you had to do it again, you would do things differently. But I stopped asking what if a long time ago. Everything happens for a reason. We might not be here, now, if it hadn’t.” I grab hold of his hands.
“I guess.” He sounds unconvinced and he breaks eyes contact.
I drop his hands so I can cup his precious face and he looks at me again.
“Bianca is reason enough for me to know why I went through that. She’s a special kid. I was meant to be her mom. Paul was meant to be her dad.” I gentle my voice when I say those words, but he flinches anyway.
“She helped me find the courage to live a life that wasn’t a lie. And that’s what, in the end, brought us back together. Like you said, we had to walk that walk, right?”
“I guess. And you’re right about asking what if, I just hate that I hurt you, Kal. You. Of all people. I’m not sure that I’ll ever forgive myself.” The pain in his voice tears at me and I wish I could take it away.
“All’s well that ends well. I have a feeling that we’re going to end well…” I press a kiss to his mouth and he grips my side and dips his tongue between my lips.
“I love that little freckle on the top, it kills me.” He flicks my lip with his tongue and presses soft, small kisses to it.
His touch, light and fleeting as it is, makes me giddy. I rise up on my toes and slip my arms around his neck. “Well, why don’t we skip that run and kiss the calories away?”
He pulls my arms down and grins. “I’d almost forgotten. Thanks for the reminder.”
“Me and my big mouth,” I grumble.
He frowns at me in exaggerated reproach. “Hey, I happen to like that mouth, watch how you talk about it.” He slaps my ass before he strolls out of the room and calls over his shoulder.
“Hurry up, we’ll need to stretch and warm up before we head out.”
29
TIME
REMI
“You okay?”
My question is met with a wheezing sound that sounds like a groan, but I think is actually a “fuck you.”
Kal’s been cursing me out for the last mile and a half. The return trip has really highlighted the slopes in the terrain, we’ve run uphill for most of the journey that leads to the house.
“Want me to carry you?”
She comes to a dead stop and bends over, hands on her knees and squints up at me. Her face is red and her hair, soaked with sweat, sticks to her face. She pants as she peers up at me, and she looks pissed.
“Is that a yes?”
