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This was difficult for him to articulate. But he was doing it—because it mattered to him. And she’d listen as long as he needed her to. “Elmer like the glue, then.”
He nodded. “I was good at it. I liked being the guy the team needed because nobody ever had before. The rest of my team all had specialties that made them good at warfare but what I did was one hundred percent mental and one hundred percent necessary. And then I couldn’t do it anymore. I lost my stickiness. How do you fix that? It’s not like I suddenly couldn’t shoot straight anymore so maybe I practice and get better.”
A lot of things suddenly made sense. “You were trying to fix your stick-factor. That’s why you couldn’t leave.”
And she’d blatantly told him she hadn’t believed him when he’d said he would stay. The tremors turned into more of a sick wave. Why hadn’t he shared any of this with her? Because she’d been too busy trying to punish her sisters for abandoning her that she hadn’t paid attention to him?
“Among other things,” he admitted. “Leaving was what I always had to do as a kid when things changed and I figured I didn’t deserve a place in Superstition Springs if I couldn’t do what I’d always done for the team. So I had to go. But then I realized staying was the key. Because it meant owning up to my healing process and trying to forgive myself for leading my team back into the battlefield where ugly stuff happened.”
Tears pricked at her eyelids as she processed the pain laced through his voice and she could do nothing else but lay her lips on his in a tender kiss that hopefully communicated the swirl in her chest that had his name written all over it.
“But you came after me,” she choked out in a whisper. “Why?”
His lips curved up against hers. “Funny thing. I thought I had to stay to fix the stuff that had me screwed up after Syria, but you’d already started healing me. One rooftop encounter at a time. I was looking for a bigger splash, a sign. Something. I got that the moment Havana came home without you in the SUV.”
“Really?” When he nodded against her forehead, she murmured, “What was it?”
“Tristan smacked me across the back of the head and told me to get on a bus,” he admitted sheepishly. “See, he’s kind of mouthy, but that comes in handy when I need to hear something, like how staying wasn’t going to fix anything if I lost you.”
Dazed, she pulled back and stared at him as her heart squeezed. “What would you have done if I wasn’t sitting here in the bus station?”
“I’m not sure yet. I’d like to think that it doesn’t matter. We were destined to be together, so I found you.” His arms tightened around her and she hoped he never let go. “Why were you sitting here in the bus station?”
“Funny thing…” She smiled through sudden tears. “I didn’t want to go to Dulac after all. I’d rather live in a swamp with you.”
He laughed at her Shrek reference, as she’d intended. “You know this is how the whole thing was always going to end, right? Except for the part where the dragon eats the bad guy at the wedding scene. I’m pretty sure that’s not going to happen in our story.”
Wedding scene? Surely he didn’t mean that literally. But what if he did? The thought winged through her heart and she could think of nothing she’d like more than to put on a white dress and pledge to love Isaiah West for the rest of her days.
A grin split her face. “I’d be okay with the happily ever after part.”
“That’s reserved for after a whole lot more conversation about what’s going on in our hearts until we know we can overcome all of the things pulling us apart. But the deal is that we’re going to be in the same place at the same time from now on. No more running away from the problems. You leave, I go with you. I leave, same deal.”
One of his arms slipped from her waist and he held out his hand for her to shake. Solemnly, she took it and pumped once. “I like those terms.”
Everything wasn’t magically fixed just because he’d come after her. She got that. Neither was he saying it was going to be easy to navigate whatever came out of the impending conversation and she had no illusions about the fact that she had some issues to iron out too. But he was saying he was committed to working it out as long as they were together, and she could totally get on board with that.
“Where to?” he asked and glanced around the bus station, then pointed to the backpack slung over his shoulder. “I’m traveling light, so you tell me where we’re going.”
“Home,” she said decisively. “Helps that I realized that’s wherever you are.”
“Well, sweetheart, I told myself I’d try to be really understanding of whatever was driving you to leave Superstition Springs and that I’d be accommodating if you ended up in Timbuktu, but I draw the line at living in a bus station.”
She laughed even as her heart squished over the term sweetheart, pretty sure that would happen a lot from now on. “Let’s find the bus back to La Grange and then spend the night on the roof. Together.”
His eyes went wide and then softened into melty pools of blue and brown. “Now you’re talking.”
“We’re talking,” she corrected him. “That’s what the roof is all about after all. Though we might get to some other stuff too. If you talk fast.”
The thought nearly made her swoon. Yes to talking, yes to touching, yes to Isaiah. She didn’t need her sisters to admire her or for either of them to stay in Superstition Springs. She’d needed the fulfillment of charting her own destiny, of seizing happiness, and he’d given her the courage to do so.
“I’m liking the sound of this more and more.” But before she could pull away to go stand in line at the ticket window, he cupped her jaw and brought her lips up to his in a sweet kiss that busted every wall around her heart, then knit everything all back together again.
Isaiah West was the most beautiful human Aria had ever laid eyes on and somehow the stars had aligned to give them as many shots at getting this right as needed. No makeover required—except for the one in her heart, which had allowed her story to finally start.
Page one: Isaiah.
Epilogue
