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Something else that I’d learned about “that night’—‘that night’ being one of the worst nights of my life—from Fran a few days later.
Madden’s eyes returned to me, having once again slipped over my shoulder to focus on the man at my back. My man.
“You’re a good woman, Mavis Romano. Always remember that.”
He touched my cheek and was gone, leaving me in a wave of sadness at his retreat.
“Hey, where’s my dad going?”
I turned to see Sophia and Clementine both staring at me with curiosity.
I swallowed. “He needed a minute.”
Sophia’s eyes went sad instantly.
But it was Clementine’s reaction that surprised me.
She was…ravaged.
In fact, she looked like she’d been poleaxed in the stomach at the thought of Madden hurting.
I shook my head and steered away from them, knowing that was one thing that I did not need to get into the middle of.
Heading back to Murphy, I was surprised to see that the crowd around him had almost tripled in size.
Everyone was happy to have him back.
Even more importantly, Murphy’s face had the biggest smile I’d seen on him since he’d woken up.
I stood back and listened to his story, rolling my eyes each time he embellished a little.
“…she had to straight up drag me through the house by my shirt collar and my arms. Thank God she had smooth wood floors.” He paused. “I still have a scar on my shoulder from where my shoulder caught on something on the way out the door.”
He turned around so that everyone could see the funny-shaped scar.
I had no idea what had caught on him during that horrific time. I hadn’t even noticed he’d been bleeding, to be honest.
But I’d do it over and over again, creating more and more scars on his perfect body, if it kept him alive.
“Hey,” Soren’s wife, Nola, said. “It’s in the shape of an M. Are you sure she didn’t put it there on you on purpose? Like a brand?”
Murphy’s eyes turned to me, and they gleamed with amusement.
“I don’t know, Nola,” I teased, my eyes staying connected with my man’s. “But I’d do it over and over again, filling his body with weird M-shaped scars, if it kept him here on Earth with me.”
Something strange came over Murphy’s eyes then. They went a little distant as they focused on something only he’d seen.
I watched for a few long seconds as he smiled a secret smile, and I knew that he was thinking about that place he’d gone after he’d died.
He’d told me a few times about it, how the place beyond this life was something so beautiful that he couldn’t describe it. How, when he left it, he was sad.
Ever since he’d ‘left’ that place, he’d treated Earth and his knowledge that one day he would leave as a temporary stop gap in his life. He told me, when we finally made it to that place together, that our lives would just be so much better than they were now.
And, since I couldn’t imagine anything being more perfect than it was right then, with my son in his arms, and a smile on his face, married to the man I loved? Well, I’d just have to trust him.
“God, you’re annoying.”
We all stopped talking as Schultz stomped into the room with a woman yelling at his back.
“And don’t think that I’ll give you another ride home with that attitude!” the woman declared as she yelled out her window at a retreating Schultz.
The door to the gym finally swung closed, and the woman in the car growled, baring her teeth, before rolling the window to her truck up and driving away sedately.
“She was hot.” We all turned to find Haggard leaning against a rig, looking relaxed and content with being on the outside of the conversation. “Who was that, Schultz?”
Schultz stopped and narrowed his eyes at Haggard. “None of your damn business, Coach.”
My eyebrows lifted at that. “Whoa.”
“You have a problem with me?” Haggard asked way too casually.
Schultz sighed, then looked at Haggard apologetically. “No, you just had the ill-timed comment that served to piss me off even more. I’m sorry.” He scrubbed his hands down his face. “That’s my partner, and I’m trying really fuckin’ hard not to wring her neck.”
With that parting comment, he left.
But it was Murphy who said, “I had that same problem, and I married it.”
My lips twitched as I walked over and leaned down until my mouth was inches away from Murphy’s.
Vlad tried to push my face away, but I persevered and got that kiss.
“Love you, Mavis.”
I pinched his ear. “I can’t believe you just called me a problem.”
“You’re my most favorite problem,” he teased.
I rolled my eyes, then sat down on the black mat next to my family.
And together, we enjoyed the rest of our night at the gym, talking about everything and anything under the sun.
