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“We always said we’d do it together. What can I do? It was your dream, too, Riggs.”
And a part of me thinks this might be it, the small bit of acceptance and acknowledgment of the fact that we have a potential future together.
It’s fucking beautiful.
But it makes me want to do other things than work on fixing floorboards.
“You can help by getting your ass into your bed right now,” I say, dipping my mouth to her neck as I press my hips to hers. She giggles in a way that heals something in me.
“What?”
“And as much as I like you in my hoodie, take it off. The rest of it, too.”
“Riggins!” she says in a squeal as my hand snakes up her shirt, my lips sucking on the spot beneath her ear.
“Got a lot of dreams to make happen, but we’ve got even more time to make up for.”
“It’s…. boring,” she says, looking around the room we just finished to her exact specifications.
I laugh, the sound deep and echoing around the empty room. God, it feels good, laughing from my soul, the way I always did with her.
“Well, little star, it’s exactly how you wanted it.” And it is. Dark, thick hardwood planks for the floors, basic, clean baseboards, white walls, and gold hardware on the doors. Nothing special, nothing like Stella or what I would have picked for my bright, colorful girl, but it is what she picked out for herself. After a lifetime of someone else choosing things for her, deciding what she could and should wear or decorate or listen to, she needed the ability to choose for herself even if I knew it wasn’ther.
“It’s just so…” She walks out of arms reach to the center of the room, and I watch her as she walks in circles, looking around with a confused look. I lean in the doorway, crossing my ankles and my arms on my chest, watching her mull it over, trying to find the right words. “Boring. Plain.”
“Well, still, it is white walls,” I say with a smirk, and I have to fight it so as not to spread into a grin when she sends a glare in my direction.
God, I missed this so much.Missed Stella being herself around me and so unafraid to give me shit. I missed having her as a friend, but when she suggested being friends, I think I knew that would never be enough for me.
“I know, you ass. I just… I don’t know. It’s not me.”
“No, it’s not.” She keeps looking around, screwing up her face like she’s trying to decide what’s wrong, what’s missing. “What are you thinking, little star?”
“Color,” she says instantly, a distracted tone in her words. “Lots of it.”
“Then let’s go get some color,” I say, stepping out of the door frame and moving until she’s in front of me. I pull her into my arms. “Let’s go get some color, baby.”
Her body softens in my hands, her arms moving and draping around my shoulders, a small smile playing on her lips. I kiss her, pressing my lips to hers in a way that once felt expected, natural, normal.
I used to take her kisses for granted, take the way she felt in my arms for granted, because it was all I ever knew. She was all I ever knew, and I had never even thought about a life without her.
Then I lost her.
So, as I kiss her, I make sure to file this and every other kiss she gives me away.
I’m watching her race up and down the aisles of the home improvement store we’re in, a pep in her step I haven’t seen since she was a kid, long before the tour. It makes me wonder just how long it’s been like this, how I missed how much she’s been suffering even when she was mine, even before I fell into the depths of alcoholism.
“Look at this one!” she says with a smile, holding up a pink swatch. “It would be so cute with this one.” She lifts a bright yellow and then a deeper, darker green. “Flowers!”
“Flowers?”
“Along the baseboards. A little field of flowers. Like the ones that grow in the clearing in the spring and summer.” Stella smiles at me, adding moments of our life, our secrets and the bones of who we are into a room in her house.
“Whatever you want, Stell,” I say, crossing my arms over the handle of the orange cart filled with painting supplies as she grabs more swatches, excitement, and happiness on her face.
A few minutes pass, and I stay there, watching her, a peace I haven’t felt in too long running through me as she grabs colors and puts them together, occasionally shaking or nodding her head.
I missed Stella being Stella, not anxious to plan the future, not lost in the past. It’s something I know I’ll need to fight to keep, but for now, I’m happy to just live here, bask in the warmth of her happiness.
