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I inhale a deep and filling breath, his scent filling my nose and encouraging me to press forward. He needs to know now, not later.
“I was married.” I start, my voice shaky as I meet his widening eyes. “High school sweethearts,” I try to get the words to tumble from my lips, but the longer I take, the more I see Rex retreating. His eyes are impossibly wide, his breath coming in short spurts, as he searches my face for answers to the questions I know he’s assuming.
“Babe,” he breathes, then shakes his head as if catching himself. “Fuck, can I even call you that?” Rex falls back and sits in the bed next to me, his forearm propped up on his knee and effectively cutting himself off from me. “Shit, I’ve done some questionable shit, but never …” He clears his throat, his hands running through his hair in exasperation. “Never on purpose.”
“Rex. I was married.Was.” I nearly choke on the words as I, too, sit up and pull the sheets up to cover myself.
I’m messing this up. I’m a mess. I shouldn’t be here.
“Aria,” He starts to speak with a deep resolve, words I know are going to hurt, so I do what I can to muster my emotions and cut him off with an outstretched hand
“Rex,” I demand his attention, I need him to look at me. When he finally bites his bottom lip and flares his nostrils, butlooks at me, I grab his tense bicep and unload myself all over him. “He fucking died, Rex. I married my high school sweetheart and he fucking died.”
The fallen look I see next is one that I’m used to seeing. One I try to avoid at all costs when I meet anyone new. It’s one that even my sisters looked at me with for way too fucking long, and I burst into tears when I see the pity, the pure empathy, shine across his face.
It’s the look that people give you when they say they’re sorry for your loss, even though they have no fucking idea what it’s like. They have no idea how to be sorry enough. Or how it feels to bury your husband who was supposed to be in the prime of his fucking life. Who had promised to be there through sickness and health for me, too.
But he wasn’t.
I hate the arms that wrap around me in a comfort that no one can really provide, the sympathy hugs and arm rubs. And I hate the things that I think and that I feel for my past. I hate even more that I feel guilt for trying to move on after only five short years.
To me … five years has seemed like a lifetime ago, yet just yesterday.
I was reminded of that feeling in the weeks that I didn’t hear from Rex. And as he holds me now, absorbs my sobs and shakes like they’re his to carry, I no longer feel a distaste for the reaction. I welcome his hold on me with arms that snake around his naked and tattooed torso. I welcome the sweet words he whispers in my ear that begin to calm my soul and bring the tears to a gentle flow over a whitewater rapid.
His hair sticks to my lips and blocks out the rest of the world and for just a moment, all is quiet.
Rex holds me—no, he cradles me—pulling me in his lap and rocking. His hand encases my face, keeping me against his pec as he rains kisses along the top of my head.
“I’m so sorry, babe.” He whispers to me. “I know that doesn’t mean shit, but I can’t even imagine losing someone.” He kisses me between words. My head, my face. My lips. “Jesus, please tell me it wasn’t like two days ago.” He sighs but kisses me again anyways. I roll my eyes but answer into his lips as they meet mine again.
“Five years,” I whisper, meeting his eyes, searching them for the fear, for the emotion, for the reason he runs from me like most others do.
“God,” He exhales, slow, encasing my face in his hands. “You’ve carried this for five fucking years?” When I nod, he presses his forehead to mine, his lids fluttering closed. “My chest aches for you, babe.”
I … I love that he isn’t asking a thousand questions about it. I also love that he isn’t pushing from me like I’m damaged goods with too much baggage to carry.
He’s empathetic in a good way, so much so that I feel warmth flooding my own aching chest. I feel shit I haven’t felt since Chip left. Not until Rex stumbled into my life and crooked an inked finger in my direction.
Rex admits something most others don’t … that he’s legitimate and unable to compare it to his own experiences. He doesn’t diminish how I feel with retellings of his own losses.
Dogs, great-grandmothers … you’d be surprised how people try to relate.
I know they mean well, mean no ill intentions. It just…
It doesn’t help.
“Thank you,” I whisper. I don’t want this to change, or to end. The tenderness he shares with me speaks to the cracks in my soul and brings life back into me.
“That’s a huge share.” He grabs my hand and kisses the backs of my knuckles. “Thank you for trusting me with it.” His eyes shine with emotion, a connection I’ve been dying for since Chip got sick.
I reach up, cup his face in my hands and bring his lips to mine. It’s gentle at first, soft and sweet. The longer we stay connected, though, the more intense it feels. He presses harder into me, his tongue probing my lips, asking for access that I grant. Rex tilts my head back and ravishes me with such fervor, I’m breathless.
With a heaving chest, he pulls back and does a once-over of my nakedness that I’d long forgotten about.
It’s amazing how he undoes me, distracts me, makes me feel full.
“Babe,” his voice is almost a groan. “I need to feed you.” He breathes, the air washing over my face with his closeness. “And then I need to make love to you.”
