Page 98 of The Finish Line

“I remember everything, Cecelia. Every word you said, every look you gave me. Your three kinds of laughs, the details of your dreams, the way your nostrils flare when you’re starting to get pissed. The sting of your slaps, the salt in your tears, the fit of your breasts in my hand. The feel of your mouth, the taste of your pussy, so which part do you need me to remind you of?”

“Shit.” Eyes burning, throat tightening, I unlock my car, get behind the wheel, turn the ignition, and put it into gear before racing out of the parking lot toward my broken king.

Stepping into the house fifteen minutes later, my world is transformed when I see dozens of soft tealights flickering throughout the house. My ears perk up as I try to identify the filtering music—old, melodic, and slow.

Beau greets me with a lick on my hand, and I bend down to scratch his ears before racing through the living room, following the sound of light clatter in the kitchen. Stepping in, I’m met by the sight of Tobias cooking, his muscular forearms on display as he drizzles olive oil into a pan before turning his sunset eyes to me, his lips lifting in greeting. “Late day?”

My eyes water as I picture him in Roman’s kitchen all those years ago. “Yeah, sorry, m-m-my phone died, and I don’t like driving home in the dark without it charged up, just in case. I mean, there’s a charger in my Audi, but I’m used to driving D-d-the Camaro.”

He frowns as I stumble through my excuse, my heart pounding as the elation I felt weeks ago from seeing him in that parking lot comes flooding back in. He studies me, looking completely relaxed, an untouched drink on the counter next to him. He walks over to where I stand and takes the purse from my shoulder, tossing it onto the counter before stepping closer and turning me in his arms to untie my apron.

“Wait,” I say, pulling a bulging jack-o-lantern bag of candy from my apron, my cheeks flushing when I turn and thrust it at him. “Happy Halloween.”

He gazes down at it, and his lips lift. “Thank you.”

“It’s silly, I know.”

“Not silly.” He nods over his shoulder, a sheepish smile playing on his own lips as I look over to the kitchen table full of... everything imaginable, most notably two pumpkins ripe for carving.

“You want to do Halloween with me?”

He nods emphatically, turning back to me, a frown in place when he sees the tears in my eyes.

“What’s wrong?”

“I love you,” I blurt out. “I’m sorry I’ve made this so hard on you.”

He searches my eyes. “No, Trésor, I deserv—”

“To be happy. We both do.”

He cups my face in his hands, relief in his eyes as I throw my arms around him and kiss him. He groans in surprise as I amplify the kiss, showing him just how hungry I am, and he tilts my head, diving deep as we stand in the middle of my kitchen and explore, a low moan leaving my throat as he gives in and grips the back of my shirt while pulling me tightly to his chest. He closes our kiss before I’m ready and turns me in the direction of my bedroom. “Go shower. We’ve much to do and a chess game to start. Hurry up.”

Taking his cue with a light slap on the ass and a little bounce in my heels, I walk through the living room to see he’s cleaned the house spotless and vacuumed. There’s not a thing out of place. The fire warms me as I walk by, the ambiance relaxing me further as I pause at the door of the bedroom to see that my desk has been cleared of clutter, the books shelved and organized. On top of my desk lays a leather-bound journal with freshly written script and a pen sitting next to it.

Cher Journal,

I met my grandfather, Abijah’s dad, when I was twenty-one at a park in Paris. He sent me an invite to join him at his table by way of messenger. He’d been watching over me for the years I’d been in Paris, something I took great comfort in after the fact. Before we met, I spent years searching for my mother’s relatives to help me and got the door slammed in my face due to being Abijah’s son. This was not the case with Abel.

My grandfather never once treated me as anything other than his beloved grandson. And he never once begrudged me for my mother’s abandonment of Abijah, either. After our initial meeting, he spent every Saturday with me for months, teaching me the game he held most dear to him while relaying to me everything he knew about life and the strategy of chess. I’ve always been a believer in the saying “listen to your elders”, and though he fit the criteria, he was far wiser than any other man I’ve encountered before and after I met him, with one exception—my brother.

With Abel, I felt a kinship close to that of my bond with my stepfather, Beau, and maybe a little bit more so, due to the blood relation.

I’ve always felt guilty about that.

But after years of living mostly in solitude in the city, I had someone, a friend by way of family.

He was an odd man and laughed about things I often didn’t understand at times without him explaining them. He lived on a diet of French bread, cheese, apples, and the strongest coffee imaginable and often demanded I bring all before playing our game.

It was fall of that year that I showed up at the park, a bag of his favorite things in hand, to discover our pieces still in play from the week before.

And I knew he was gone.

But what he left me with was a sense of family I hadn’t felt from anyone but Dom since my parents died. I cherish that time we had together. More often than not, I sensed he’d been a major player at one point in his life, and he’d alluded to it often without much detail, though he never really confessed. However, it was clear that there were many aspects of his life he was deeply ashamed of. The most haunting, that he was a militant father. Maybe I was his way of dealing with his grief in losing his only son, my company a reprieve for some of his pain. But for whatever reason he reached out—it was worth it to me just to knowhim.

I can’t remember his last words to me. And as a man with an extensive memory, that ironic and cruel fact baffles me to this day. I’m certain his goodbye that day was filled with warmth and subtle advice. Because despite the man he might have been, he died a kind man, a man I admired, and honestly, a man I began to love like family.

When I attended his funeral as his only living relative, I felt the strength of that lie and decided that, one day, I would seek out my birth father to try and get him the care he needed to honor Abel. I don’t know if I believe in the afterlife, but I want to because I don’t have a close living relative left, and it’s comforting to think they all may be reunited somewhere and waiting.

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