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Sometimes we get things wrong for lots of different reasons. Bad timing, bad choices, bad attitudes, anything can cause the breakdown of a relationship. Not just lovers—friendships fall apart all the time because of lack of communication or effort. Sometimes people just grow apart. But sometimes those people can come back together if they put the work in.
Coming back here was not ideal, but here I am happier than I have ever been. Leaving Harmony Hollow was not about getting away from my sickly sweet and sexually expressive parents. It was not about getting away from Bran or some bad memories. I just always hoped for bigger landscapes, for sweeping views of the world in all its glory.
Sitting out on the balcony at Bran’s place, I see my hometown in all its glory. It is a cool spring day, and we were promised rain. The sprawling lawns around us shimmer with morning dew and birds chirp, waking up their little ones and anyone within earshot. I sip at my coffee, pulling Bran’s robe tighter around me and burying my nose in the plush collar, breathing his scent deep into my lungs. Better than spring rain or morning dew.
Today I meet with Gabe again to scout locations for the gallery he hopes to open. He hopes to set it here in town, but he has not ruled out opening it up over in Crystal Cove. It is just what I want—working with local artists to showcase their work and mine—but for the first time, I am hesitant to take a leap.
Crystal Cove is close enough I could commute from here if I had to. It was the cool place to go to when we were younger, and I hear it’s grown in recent years. New shops and locales, just like all the new hot spots here in Harmony Hollow. Curled up on an Adirondack chair on Bran’s balcony, knees brought to my chest, I consider how hard it would be to make a commute work.
Getting a gallery going will be long hours. Lots of hitting those new hotspots looking for artists. Maybe even trips to True Ridge or Silver Shores. It will take all my focus away from what is going on here at home. Not just with Bran—which right now has honestly become my priority—but with Hails and the kids too.
Since spending time with Milo and Millie, I cannot get enough of those cuties. Hails has not announced it yet, but we’re all sure she is pregnant with a third baby, and I want to be here for that. I was barely around when the other babies were born, and I missed so much. Being with them makes me wistful for what have could have been.
“What has you up so early, babe?” Bran’s sleepy voice calls and I smile into my coffee as the fluttery feeling erupts in my chest. All these years later, and he still makes me feel like I did when I was fifteen.
Turning, I see him at the French doors that open from the bedroom. His hair is mussed, a days’ growth of beard dusts his sharp jaw, and his eyes are sleepy. Shirtless in just loose joggers that bunch at his knees, he is sexy and adorable at the same time. I swallow hard as I meet his gaze, grinning at him.
“Just enjoying the calm before the storm,” I answer, tipping my head back against the chair behind me to gaze up at him.
Bran flashes a crooked smile that takes me back to the way I felt when we were teens pretending we were just best friends. When he would look at me, sometimes I thought there was more. We had our own world going on, the two of us, and no one else, not even Connor could get in when we didn’t want them to.
Now all this time later it feels as if our world has grown, expanded in ways I never would have expected. We don’t need to fill the quiet with words. One seems to sense what the other is feeling before they even confirm it, knowing what the other half of ourselves needs and wants before they do.
“It will be some storm,” he says softly, reaching out to stroke my hair from my face, his eyes on the skies.
His words tell me what he is not saying. What he will not say. A rainstorm is not what we need to weather together. He worries about another spike in fighting or miscommunication with the two of us. Another drought of connection. A flood of anger and resentment before the tornado of being torn apart.
Bran fears we won’t survive another storm.
He shows it in the desperation of his touch lately. In the way he clings to me until the very last second when we embrace. His kisses last longer, his mouth claiming mine with an urgency that should scare me. He is intense and insecure with me these days but none of it scares me, none of it worries me.
We were drowning when we tried before—drowning in our connection, our need for one another, and our absolute fascination with what we thought we could be together. People around us—my parents, Hails and Connor for example—had storied romances and yet we learned nothing from them.
When you find your person, time and place does not matter.
Mistakes may happen, harsh words or petulant attitudes may be thrown at one another—but none of it is enough to keep you from what matters most. From the person who matters to you most. Unless you let it, the way we did for so long.
All of our mistakes and harsh words and childish ways, we used them like ammunition. We loaded our weapons and fired away because we somehow missed what was right in front of us. No argument, no interference, and no distance could change what now I know is true.
We are inevitable, the two of us—even if we fumbled a few times. Hell, even if we fumble a few times more.
“Storms wash it all away,” I say gently, reaching out to grasp his hand and tug him closer.
Kneeling beside me, he burrows his face into my neck and wraps thick arms around me. I sigh and sink into him. It is the place I belong and the place I most feel like myself. Wrapped up in him. Once I thought we were just young kids who could never make what we felt last. Age and years of feeling half awake, half complete, have shown me otherwise.
“I love you,” his voice trembles and I realize his entire body does too.
“I love you,” I whisper against his temple before I press soft, lingering kisses over his brow, his forehead, his nose, his eyes.
Before he can scoop me up and take me back to bed where he thinks he can show me that I need him—and I do, but I need him everywhere—I pull back. I remind him about my meeting and kiss away the shadows that darken his handsome face.
“I will be back soon, I promise,” I assure him, letting him lift me and carry me to the bedroom.
Bran lets out a sound of agreement, but I can tell he does not like me going off on a Saturday without him. Since I have been home, he has given me all the time he can, but Saturdays was always our day. No football, no practice, no lingering over sketches or paintings, we always kept that day for each other.
“Well maybe I will cook some of those egg rolls you love, and we can watch a movie tonight?”
“Yes! I love your egg rolls, babe,” I agree excitedly, bobbing my head, “Gabe and I will be done before you even get them cooking, I promise. Maybe I even make it back in time for you to finally teach me how,” I tease, grinning up at him as I wrap my warms around his trim waist and kiss the defined muscles of his abs.
