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“That was supposed to be for you,” I playfully admonish him in a low tone as I look up through my lashes to see his smile come back to his handsome face.
“That was for me, silly girl,” he growls down at me before placing a light kiss to my lips.
16
KALEB
I’m about to do something crazy. Crazy, yet so incredibly right on so many levels. After I brought Luna to orgasm last night, I switched places with her and had her ride me, still in my t-shirt. Looking up at her, she seemed to shift from the girl I knew from my summers into some unbelievable young woman that I'd never met, yet had always known. Then after she came again, I laid her underneath me and looked down at her as I made love to her slowly. The gold rings around her irises were alight with all the things I’ve ever thought or felt about her.
After we both came, I sent her off to sleep, skirting my fingers over her back like I had the night before. And as I almost fell asleep myself right next to her, something clicked, snapping me back to consciousness. I wouldn’t call it an epiphany, but it was a crystalizing moment of clarity, where both my head and my heart seemed to come together after a lifetime apart.
She asked me to take her home. And when we got there, she came into the bathroom in nothing but my t-shirt, as if we’d been living together in love all along. And then… she took care of me. Without saying a word or asking me a thing, she somehow knew what I needed and just did it. If that’s not a next of kin, I don’t know what is.
She may have only come back into my life a couple of days ago, but she’s always been a part of it. And now, she’s all I have left – and besides that, she’s my person. My family. The one I could always depend on, and never do without. This house could burn down while I’m gone, but she’d still be my home to come back to.
If something happens to me, I don’t want that piece of shit to know. He doesn’t get to know my business or my whereabouts. I will rise from hell if he’s the one they give my folded-up flag to, and I will haunt the ever-living shit out of him if Pop’s house his and business – my house and business – get left to that motherfucker.
And so, with Luna fast asleep in my bed, I got up and went into the spare bedroom, pulling the big chest-like box out from under the double bed. With a flashlight, I rummaged through all of Pop’s old mementos, barely pausing when I found any pictures with my dad in them. If anything, those only stoked the fire within me to find what I was looking for.
And now I hold it in my fingers as I stare out the kitchen window at the backyard, where Luna sits sipping her coffee in the early morning sunshine. The golden rays reflect off her shiny brown hair, making the streaks of purple that lie underneath stand out with a glimmer. Her back is to me as she sits with her bare legs through the tire swing, still in my goddamn shirt. She’s doing nothing but enjoying the quiet morning and gazing out at nothing, just content to appreciate the nature around her, and it both kills me and gives me life.
I’m not what I’d consider a spiritual guy, but I swear that this sight… it was made just for me. The time to do this is now.
Opening the back screen door, my heart hammers in my chest as I make my way down the porch steps. It’s crazy how what I’m about to face overseas hardly scares me, but what the next moment holds has my adrenaline running rampant through my veins.
“Hey, silly girl.” I try to sound warm and casual as I announce my presence, and like the darling she’s always been, she tilts her head back to look at me almost upside down, and flashes me a smile, warmer than the sun beating down from the sky.
“Morning,” she greets me, before sitting back up and taking another sip of coffee.
Fuck, it makes my heart ache and only enforces the rightness of what I plan to do. The only thing is, I have no idea; no words for segueing into it. Then again, everything about mine and Luna’s relationship has been unconventional; never adhering to any traditional format. And so, I just go for it, taking a hold of the swing and turning her gently towards me before I crouch down in the dewy morning grass in front of her.
“What’s up?” she asks, leaning her chin on her arm, looking completely nonchalant as if she’s just waiting for me to tell her about last night’s Pistons game.
I swallow hard, as if trying to get my heart out of my throat and back down in my chest before looking up at her. Here goes.
“Will you marry me?” I ask, my nerves slightly rattling my voice, but I try to keep it steady.
Luna freezes, her smile still in place, but her eyes seem to glaze over, staring right through me. She finally blinks as if snapping out of a trance, and then looks away with an amused giggle. “Shut up,” she scoffs, taking another drink of coffee, and I can’t help but chuckle a little myself. This is completely out of nowhere, not to mention not at all how most guys go about this sort of thing.
I take a moment to find a way to get her to understand this isn’t a joke. “I’m… I’m actually serious,” I squint up at her against the sun’s bright rays.
Her smile drops slightly, and her brows stitch together like she’s trying to figure out a complicated riddle. “What the–” She’s cut off by her own dropping of her coffee cup. “Shit!” she hisses under her breath as it lands on the grass with a thud, the rest of the light brown liquid spilling out. “Kaleb…” she looks back to me, pinning me with a serious glare. “What the hell is going on?”
“Well, I’m proposing to you,” I chuckle out cynically, trying not to fall deep into any emotional rabbit hole that might open up and try to swallow me.
“But… Kaleb…” he’s sputtering like a car engine that’s out of gas – only in her case, it’s words. “Okay, Kaleb, please back up.” She motions with her hands, almost choking on the words she was able to conjure. Her eyes are overshadowed with confusion, and they’re starting to get glassy. “Please,” she puffs out, her breathing getting shallow, like she’s panicking. I don’t understand, where is this coming from.”
“You’re all I have,” I explain gently, laying a hand on her leg and sweeping my thumb across her skin. “Ryan’s a dumbass who’s fucked up in the head, but he wasn’t wrong last night. If something happens to me overseas, there’s no one that will know about it except maybe my father. Can you understand how wrong that is?” I raise my eyebrows to her and tilt my head to get her to look at me.
Luna nods her head while pulling more crisp morning air into her lungs. “I do, but, Kaleb… get married? We don’t even know what this is!” she explains, waving a hand between the two of us. “We just found each other two days ago, we don’t know where this will go…”
“We don’t have to,” I say softly, trying to calm her as I raise my hand to her cheek.
“We’re twenty-one, Kaleb. We’re practically still kids!” she exclaims, and I can hear her stifle a sob in her throat. “I’m sitting in a tire swing for fuck’s sake!”
She’s getting more emotional than I anticipated, and I lean up to place a kiss on her forehead, trying to reassure her before I continue.
“I know this is so new between us, but what we have also goes way back. You’re the only person that I can count on, that I can trust if anything happens. I want you to be the one that gets information about me, and I know it’s like asking for the moon, but I want it to be you that makes sure the house and the shop get taken care of. I don’t care what you’d do with it, just so long as my piece of shit father doesn’t lay a finger on any of it. That’s all.”
