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“Quinn,” he gasped, his voice dark and guttural as he stared into my eyes and I saw his pupils dilate. He emptied himself into me, and then we both collapsed sideways on the couch, still wrapped around each other, exhausted and spent.
“Christ,” he gasped into my hair. “I fucking love you.”
I froze for a long moment. When I got the nerve up to look up at him, his eyes were closed and his lips were curved in a satisfied smirk, like a lion who had just had a big meal. I held my breath, waiting for him to open his eyes, to wonder why I hadn’t said it back. But when Callum did open his eyes, they were only filled with sleepy warmth.
“Upstairs?” he asked as though absolutely nothing strange had just happened.
“Upstairs,” I whispered, still out of breath from the intensity of both the orgasm and what he had said.
I waited all night–and we did make a night of it–for him to say something else about it, but he never did. By the time we were finally drifting off to sleep in each other’s arms, I had rationalized it out of my system. He hadn’t meant to say it. It was the heat of the moment. He wasn’treallyin love with me.
But to my surprise, instead of bringing me relief, the rationalization brought sadness.
I’d told Renee I’d take his body and leave his heart alone.
But what about mine?
CHAPTER 20
CALLUM
Iworked from home the next day. I told Quinn I had an appointment, and then I drove myself to the cemetery. The cemetery was one of the few places in town that wasn’t divided down the line. The dead mingled better than the living.
Because no one is worried about who has the bigger golf cart,” Renee would sneer if she were here.
The sun was striking off Emma’s picture, sending gold beams lancing into my eyes as I approached. I shaded them until I was close enough to see her. Beautiful, smiling, and eternally young. The grief hit me as hard as ever. It was just so damn unfair. So fucking senseless. A delivery truck had run a stop sign. She had just happened to be in the middle of the intersection. It had plowed right into the driver’s side door, pushed the car across into the opposite lane, crumpling it up like the beer cans my high school friends would smash against their head after they emptied a few too many.
My chest was a pressure oven. It had nearly killed me when Emma died. I felt the swampy stew of pain and sadness and lossswishing around in my chest cavity, heating up, compounding. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and waited for the inevitable manacle around my throat, for grief to shove its fingers up from my chest and stab the back of my eyeballs.
But to my surprise, when I closed my eyes, I felt soft, quiet sadness that was wholly different from my own. It was gentle, regretful, but it was muted. I took another deep breath, let it out. More of my toxic mixture of grief and pain lessened. The lighter, gentler grief took its place. Breath by breath, this happened, until my chest didn’t feel like someone had stuck the jaws of life between my ribs and was cranking it open.
I didn’t know what I believed in, but just now, I felt Emma. I stayed very still, as if any sudden movements would drive her away. I kept my eyes closed, and I reached out with all my senses.
The chitter of bird song.
Warm sun on my head, a cool breeze wrapping around my shoulders.
The smell of her perfume.
I had the urge to open my eyes and see if she was really standing there, but I forced myself to keep them closed.
For five full breaths, I smelled her perfume. I felt her beside me.
And then she was gone.
Really gone.
I opened my eyes and the world felt different. I’d come here out of guilt–I’d fallen in love with another woman when I swore Inever would. But I had found absolution. More than that, I’d found a sense that there was nothing to forgive.
I stayed longer than I ever had before. It was easy now. I didn’t feel like every second might actually kill me and leave Noah an orphan. I told the headstone–I didn’t really believe Emma was there anymore–everything I wanted to say to her, promised to bring Noah soon, and left feeling like a thousand pounds had shifted off my shoulders.
As I drove out of the cemetery gates, I should have turned right and followed the road back home. Instead, I turned left. I had the strange urge to drive around the whole town. I spent most of my time in Waterford–we had everything you needed. Grocery stores, gas stations, I could live my whole life there and never leave it. I should know–other than visiting Renee, I hardly ever did.
Now, though, I drove past our old high school where I’d met Emma. It struck me that now, with our brand spanking new Waterford High, I’d have never met her. She’d have gone to school on her side of town and I’d have stayed on mine. I turned into our neighborhood and rather than going straight to Renee’s house, I wound my way through the entire thing. Memories I’d long forgotten surfaced in my brain. I found myself grinning as they reminded me that I hadn’t always been so straight laced. Renee and Quinn didn’t remember because they were five, but I’d misspent some of my own youth right here between these five streets. My friends and I had also taken advantage of those wild, unfettered woods.
It had been a good place to grow up. We didn’t have a neighborhood patrol, but we had neighbors who always looked out for you. We didn’t have a huge community pool with waterslides and a snack bar, but we’d had a lake if you were willing to tromp through the woods for half a mile.
But then I’d fallen in love with Emma. I’d seen how the other half lived, and I’d liked it better. More importantly, I thought I had to live like that, too, if I wanted the beautiful blonde who came from it.
