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She rises to her tiptoes, her lips finding mine. The way she kisses me is different. It’s tinged with regret, and I lift her into my arms. Alanna wraps her legs around my hips as I carry her to our bedroom, her lips never leaving mine. “Do you have any idea how scared I was?” I whisper against her lips. “When you went missing, Ricardo and other residents went searching for you, but you were nowhere to be found. I nearly went crazy trying to find you.”
“I’m sorry,” she whispers. “I’m here now, Si. I’m here, and I’m never leaving you again. You’ll never be alone again, I promise.”
I lay her down on our bed and climb on top of her, covering her body with mine. “You can’t,” I tell her. “You can’t ever leave me again, Alanna. I barely survived it the first time, and my heart took another beating when I walked in here to find you packing your bags.”
She cups my cheek and looks into my eyes. “I didn’t know what to believe, Si. Ryan…”
I tense, and she looks away, guilt marring her beautiful face. I thread my hand through her hair and tilt her face back toward mine. “It’s okay, baby. Your heart was always mine, whether you wanted to admit it or not.”
She looks into my eyes, a tear rolling down her face. “Forgive me,” she whispers. “Please forgive me, Si. I was chasing the closest thing to you I could find, and meeting you again was the start of the end for Ryan and I. You’re the only one I’ve ever loved, Si.”
I smile at her, the feeling bittersweet. “There’s nothing to forgive, Ray. If you dating him truly changed anything for me, I’d have let you go the moment I found out about the two of you.”
I turn us over so we’re both on our side, facing each other. It’s strange, because she’s been here all along, yet the way she looks at me today is different. It truly ishernow.
“I’m so proud of you,” she tells me, her gaze roaming over my face. She traces the contours of my face with the tip of her fingers, and the way she smiles at me has my heart skipping a beat. “This home, everything you’ve built. You did everything you told me you would. Si, you even kept some of the promises you once made me, all without me even realizing. Buying me a dress to change into before a date? The diamond necklace you gave me on my birthday? Even the bedroom we’re in now is so similar to all of my Pinterest inspiration boards. You’ve made both of our dreams come true, and I couldn’t be more proud. I’m so sorry I wasn’t by your side throughout the years, Si.”
It’s so surreal to have my Ray lying here with me. Until now, I didn’t even realize just how much I still missed her, even when she was here with me. “I did it for us,” I admit. “I did it because I knew that someday you’d be here with me.”
“When you told me you were the man of my dreams, you meant it, huh?”
I chuckle, my nose brushing past hers. “In more ways than one.”
She bursts out laughing and pushes against my shoulder, making me roll onto my back before she climbs on top of me. “I have so many questions about the last couple of years, and there’s so much that still doesn’t make sense to me, but it can wait.”
I smile at her, my hands wrapping around her waist. “Is that so? Well, you did find your first love. I suppose this is the part where you ride off into the sunset with the man of your dreams, leaving me heartbroken?”
She narrows her eyes at me and shakes her head. “I can’t believe you teased me like that when you knew it was you all along!”
I burst out laughing, my heart overflowing with happiness. This, right here, right now. This is the future I always envisioned.
“I’m not one for riding into the sunset, Si,” Alanna says, a teasing smirk on her face. “But I’m definitely up for riding you until sunrise.”
My cock hardens at her words, and I tighten my grip on her waist. “Then ride me, Ray.”
ChapterEighty
Alanna
Silas holds my hand in his as we walk into the cemetery where both our parents have been laid to rest. “Remember the day we first met?” I ask.
He glances at me and nods. “Even then, you were a ray of sunshine on a cloudy day. You were just a child, and you still managed to make me smile. I wonder if it was destiny, you know?”
I nod and tighten my grip on his hand. “I used to think about this a lot, back when we were in the shelter. I wondered about fate and destiny, and how things could’ve turned out the way they did for you and I. I think of it even more now. The way we fell apart, the way we found our way back to each other. How could that be anything short of destiny?”
“Maybe I’m crazy, but I’d like to think it was our parents,” he says, his voice soft. “I didn’t even used to believe in this kind of stuff, but over the years I’ve come to wonder if perhaps they’re watching over us, gently guiding us along our way, supporting us in the only way they can. It can’t be a coincidence that I met you that day, and that we met again at the shelter.”
I look up at him, my heart heavy. “The way we keep finding our way back to each other… I think it’s fate, Silas. Maybe I’m a little bit of a hopeless romantic, but if soulmates exist, then you are mine. I have no doubt.”
He smiles at me as we walk over to my parents’ graves. I’m oddly nervous as we round the corner. The last couple of days have been tough. I’ve had the worst headaches as I tried my best to make sense of all the memories I lost, grief hitting me as though it was fresh all over again. It’s hard to grieve a person the world seems to have forgotten, but at least Silas was there for me, holding me each time it got too hard. I spent many nights crying myself to sleep, my heart breaking not just over the loss of my father and the choice he made, but also everything Silas and I lost, everything I put him through. The guilt has been hard to stomach, and though he’s tried his best to reassure me, I can’t shake the remorse I feel.
“Mom, Dad,” I murmur, my eyes roaming over their spotless tombstones. “This is Silas, and you would have really loved him. I’d introduce him to you as my boyfriend, but that doesn’t seem like quite enough to describe what he means to me.”
Silas wraps his arms around me, his touch comforting. I lean into him, my heart breaking all over again.
“I suppose you’ve seen him throughout the years, haven’t you? He’s taken better care of you than I could at the time.” Silas maintained my parents’ graves in my absence, ensuring the tombstones were kept clean and going as far as having flowers delivered weekly. I don’t know what I did to deserve him, but I’m going to spend the rest of my life repaying him for everything he’s done for me.
“Dad,” I whisper. “He’s the one who saved your truck. Remember when I told you that I had to sell it? Silas bought it back for you, and he’s taken really good care of it. If not for that beloved truck of yours, I might still be living as a shell of myself, feeling like I’m incomplete. In the end, it was both Silas and you that saved me, in more ways than one.”
