AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Let me call him.” She holds the phone to her ear. “Nothing.”
I groan in frustration. “This isn’t happening,” I say more to myself than her. “How does someone just up and leave like that!”
“Well, he’s been planning this for a while,” she tells me as if though I should know this. People plan trips all the time. Bo has as much right to vacation as anyone else.
Of course, I wished he’d have told me. But really, why would he have? Especially after I specifically told him to leave me alone! In my head, I’m screaming as hard as I can, though for Mrs. Jensen’s sake, I try very hard to reign in my reaction.
“Hold on, he sent it to me here,” she pulls on the readers that have been hanging from her pearl necklace and grabs her phone off the coffee table. It takes a lot not to pull the thing out of her hands and scroll through her texts myself. “Well, maybe he didn’t send me anything. Oh, here it is.” She squints into the phone, pulling it closer and further until she finds a distance she can read in. “Oh, look, his flight won’t leave for another three hours. Maybe you can still catch him. Now why did I think he was leaving this morning?”
“Thank you, Mrs. Jensen!” I yell back, already halfway out the door.
“Good luck, darlin’.”
I’m sure there is something on the news about this weather, but as I rarely watch grownup television, I had no idea to avoid the interstate because a monsoon would affect traffic so much that it would take me twice as long to get to Bo’s house.
His truck is gone, and I know that means he is, too. But I don’t care. My car skids to a halt on the muddy gravel and I am out running towards the door.
“Bo! Bo!” I scream as I pound on the wood, sobbing from the fear that I may have lost him.
I should have told him he’s the one. I need him. I love him.
The rain is slowing, along with the pounding of my fists on the door. Partly because I’m giving up, partly because they hurt.
Finally, after a long while, both the rain and I give up. Everything in my being refuses to let go, but at some point I would have to.
Defeated and lost, I turn to the drive, for the first time noting my soggy sneakers and muddied jeans. Skirting the culprit, a deep rut full of brown water, I walk to my car.
Streams flow down my face, both from my soaked and stringy hair and from the tears flowing so freely now.
As I sit in my car ready to take my soggy shoes off, I hear the deep rumble in the distance, and I stop to listen. It’s a familiar sound that has me racing down to the street, where I see a large black truck coming my way. My heart in my throat, I run towards it as fast as my squishy feet will take me.
The truck stops in the middle of the road, and I can see Bo inside staring at me, almost like he’s trying to determine whether I’m an apparition or something real. Then deciding I’m really there, he jumps from his vehicle and runs to me.
“Cris!” he calls to me and I fling myself into his arms. His lips are upon mine, and I feel the hot steel of his truck as he pushes me against the hood.
When he pulls away, I see that he’s crying, too. Maybe he has been for a while because his eyes are red and puffy.
“I thought you’d left,” I say to him, my hands roaming his arms, his chest. I, too, need to know that he’s real. That this is real.
“I did. My flight’s been delayed until tomorrow because of a nasty storm coming our way. I leave first thing.”
“I’m sorry, Bo. I should have told you, but I wanted to talk to Owen about it first. It seemed the right thing to do. Until I found out you up and left, and I thought I’d screwed up again and I would never…”
“No, I’m sorry. I should have given you more time. I should have been more understanding.”
I nod my head as he wipes two fat tears away with his thumbs. “So what did you want to tell me?” he asks with a smile, because he knows what I’ll say, but he wants to hear it.
“I love you, Bo. Beyond anything I’ve ever felt. It’s you. I can’t live without you.”
He kisses me before I can say anything more. The fire he ignites every time consumes me, and as he lifts me to him I wrap my legs around his waist. I kiss him with every fiber of my being, my heart and my soul.
Bo walks us back to his house and practically kicks the door open.
There is nothing but us now, nothing that can hold us back from giving ourselves in every way possible. Everything is so different. His touch is more intense, his kiss so much deeper. This time, instead of clinging to him for fear that I may never hold him again, I cling to him because I can. And when he tosses me onto the couch, I let go, knowing he’ll still be there. Still come to me.
In his face, I see the same relief. There is also something else I see in his eyes that hadn’t been there as I watch him carefully, standing in front of me undressing. The knowledge that I am his and only his.
“You have too much clothes on,chère,” he reminds me with a gleam in his eye as he kneels down to the couch. “Makes me feel vulnerable.”
