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“No,” I murmur as I bring my lips to where his heart is and kiss the flower tattoo. It’s mine.Heis mine. I pull away to meet his eyes. “Look at us.”
He smiles, brushing a strand of hair off my face. “Yeah, petal, look at us.”
I lean into his hand that cups my face and close my eyes, dissipating at his touch. There is silence again, but it’s healing, it’s tangible with our love.
“How did we end up here in this mess?” I ask as I drag my fingers through Kai’s hair. I can’t stop touching him.
“God must have decided, ‘I’ll take these two, send them through hell, so that when they finally meet again, they know they are forever bound to each other.’”
We both laugh, and I bury my face in his neck.
Kai brings his lips to my ear, and his whisper is as playful as it is promising. “You are mine forever, petal.”
I drag my lips down his neck, then across his chest, find the flower tattoo and kiss it again, then kiss the butterfly wing, whispering a prayer in my mind.
This evening is strange and beautiful. It’s a stream of words and feelings and kisses that erase any awkwardness that was ever there before.
“I want to be strong for you, Kai,” I say. Maybe it's an apology. “I want to be the girl who stands up for what she wants, for the person she loves.” And not the one who stood between him and his best friend, turning his life into a living hell and leaving him behind. I swallow back the words. “It’s unfair,” I whisper. “Life is unfair. And everything that happened to you and me.”
“Callie, look at me.” His fingers under my chin tilt my face up. “You can’t look toward the future when you live in the past. I am not your past, baby girl. We were never together in the past. I was meant to be your future. I would have given everything I have to be here with you. I don’t have anything, but now I have you. And it’s perfect.”
“I wish it wasn’t like this—me confessing to you in a place like this,” I mumble, and we both chuckle.
Kai’s face lights up when he grins. It’s rare. Even when we got together back on the Eastside, he held back his cheerfulness like it was a sin. Now, when we are in the worst mess possible, he finally opens up. I wish we had a thousand years together so I could make him smile like this.
“Yeah, we have some stories, you and I, huh?” His grin doesn’t go away.
“Stories for our grandkids, for sure,” I say the popular joke, and my heart stalls at the realization what I just said.
I purse my lips and look away quickly, then feel Kai’s fingers under my chin, tilting my face to look at him.
His dark eyes are sparkling and smiling. “I like the way you think, Callie Mays.”
I chuckle, embarrassed, wanting to look away, but he holds my chin in place. “I really, really do, petal.Ourgrandkids, yeah?”
It’s petal now, and his chuckle drowns in my kiss as I attack him with a fluttering heart.
His words make my head spin. I’ve never wanted anything as much as living my life side by side with this amazing man. Who, just to be clear, turned my life upside down more times than I can count.
Kai pulls away, teasing me with soft kisses. “This”—he motions around—“is not the craziest thing that happened to us.”
“No, it’s definitely not.” I bury my face in his neck, inhaling him, soaking him in while I can. “I love you.”
“I love you, too. I want you to do something for me.”
“Anything.” I mean it.
“When this is over, I want you to draw a tattoo for me.”
My lips stretch in a smile. “If we get out of this…”
“Hey.” His hooked finger taps me under my chin in that endearing gesture of his. “I saidwhennotif.”
I grin, my eyes dropping to his body. “You don’t have anymore room.”
“I do. And I want a tattoo that will remind me of what we went through.”
“Deal.”
