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As we both start to come down together, I drape my body over his, burying my face in his neck.
“Can I touch you now?” he whispers.
“Yes.”
With that, he wraps his arms around me, squeezing me tightly against him. My heart practically stutters in my chest, and when I lift up to smile down at him, he kisses my lips.
If you had told me three months ago this would happen, I would have told you, you were crazy. I never saw love in the cards for me. I couldn’t imagine fitting with someone the way I fit with Beau. We’re an unlikely and ridiculous couple, but that’s what makes us all the more perfect for each other.
Beau doesn’t just let me be myself, but he loves me for it.
Rule #40: Don’t be afraid of goodbyes.
Beau
My dad loads the suitcases in the back of Maggie’s car and the trunk closes with a finality that I’ve been waiting for all week. This is it. We had to move everything back a few days after the attack, even though I would have been ready the day after. I can’t remember the last time I was so anxiously awaiting something like this move.
The moving company already took off with the boxes of stuff we’re taking, but since the apartment we’re moving into is furnished, we’re leaving her furniture here with the house. It’s a big downsize for her, to move from this giant house to an apartment in the downtown Phoenix area, but she seems ecstatic about it.
I don’t see it as a downsize, she said, and I can see what she means. This house always seemed like the thing she was supposed to do, but it never quite fit her, or us.
“That’s everything,” my dad says with one hand on the back of her car, almost as if he doesn’t want to let it go. When his eyes drift up toward my face, I see a hint of dread in his expression.
I clap a hand on his shoulder. “We’ll see you guys in two weeks, right?”
“We’ll be there,” he replies. Charlie approaches, wrapping her arms around his waist and nuzzling up against his side.
“Can’t wait to see it,” she adds with a smile.
“Yeah, me too,” I say, awkwardly scratching the back of my head. We’re just gonna talk about the sex clubs we own like it’s no big deal now. Weird how things come around. This is definitely going to take some getting used to.
When Maggie and Gwen walk outside with Sophie between them, my heart sinks. Sophie won’t look up, her hair hanging in her face to hide her expression from me.
“Let us know when you get there,” my dad says, and I swallow the emotion building in my throat as I nod toward him.
“We will,” Maggie replies for me.
“Hey, kid,” I call toward Sophie. “Come inside with me. I got something for you.”
When she looks up at me with interest on her face, I smile. Then I throw my arm around her and drag her toward the house. Sitting on the kitchen counter is a large white envelope, so I pick it up and hand it to her.
“It’s kind of stupid, but I had it made last week and thought you’d like it.”
“What is it?” she asks in that awkward fifteen-year-old way she often talks.
“Open it,” I say, shoving her shoulder.
As she rips open the top and pulls out the colorful eight-by-ten print inside, my spine straightens with anticipation. Her eyes focus on the character on the page, pink and blue cotton candy hair, longer on one side than the other, with elf ears, a sparkling sage green robe, and a staff in her hand with a shimmering crystal at the top.
“Holy shit,” she stutters as her fingers glide over the print. “Is this me?”
“Well, it’s you as your badass D&D character. I drew it when I was bored in the hospital, but I had to do the original on a notepad with a pen since Maggie wouldn’t let me use my tablet because it was bad for my head.”
She laughs at that, but her eyes stay down on the picture in her hands. That emotion building in my throat is getting worse. Fuck, I didn’t think this would be so hard. She’s just a kid, and to be totally honest, I only started hanging out with her because I felt bad for the way things went down with Charlie. I hated the idea of Sophie hating me.
That may have been why I started taking her to game night and ice cream, but that’s not why I kept doing it. I kept hanging out with Sophie because, while I was a pissy, bitter, self-absorbed man-child, who never had the guts to admit when I was wrong, Sophie gave me a chance to change her first impression of me. I actually started to like myself when I was around her.
While my dad was busy protecting me from the truth, Sophie didn’t sugarcoat shit. She wasn’t afraid to give it to me straight. If I was being a dick, she’d tell me. If I was wrong, she’d tell me. And since I wanted to be the kind of guy she felt safe with, I wasn’t afraid to change for the better.
