Page 44 of Return By Fire

It’s well after the sun’s gone down like a fireball in a prelude to the quiet of the night rising. Not all that long since Dean flung me as high as the moon and then caught me back in his arms. I run my hand through the hair on his chest. “I love you.”

He tips my face up so he can study my face. “And I love you, Jedidiah. Now, always. There, here. It doesn’t matter. That won’t change.”

His words bring tears to my eyes. “What am I supposed to do when I need to hear your voice?”

“Call.”

“When I want your arms around me?”

“Call.”

“When I...”

“Jed. I’ll be here. You know that. Just please, stop talking about it.”

My face scrunches when he lays a finger across my lips. “Don’t be cruel. Considering how full my heart feels right now, I don’t want to think about you flying away.”

“What’s cruel is to find love and to know there’s no choice but to leave it.”

He rolls on top of me, giving my hands free access to his body. “That’s the choice we made when we fell in love. We always knew you had to leave. I don’t regret a moment of our love. Do you?”

I shake my head with a sense of understanding.

He leans down and grazes his nose against mine before pushing to his feet and holding out his hand. “Come on. Let’s go below.”

I reach up and grip it, letting him pull me to my feet. Loping an arm around his waist, I can’t imagine the word goodbye falling from my lips.

It might be the worst thing I’ll ever hear.

* * *

I was wrong.

Two weeks later, the worst sound comes from my own phone. It’s the sound of my alarm going off the first morning after I’ve worked a shift at Smith’s since I returned to Alaska. I groan and roll in my bed seeking Dean’s warm body to curve into only to find he’s not there.

I let out an agonized moan of heartbreak. My arm comes up to hide my eyes from the sunlight. Why does the fucking day have to be so beautiful? All it makes me want to do is share it with Dean. “This isn’t how it’s supposed to be.”

That’s when Maris crawls into bed with me. “Why did you come back, Jed?”

Sniffling, I try to get my emotions under control so I can meet her with some semblance of pride. She snuggles next to me, much like she did when I used to read her stories as a kid. Off-handedly, she remarks, “I hear summer never really ends in Florida.”

Her words are like a silent body blow to my aching heart. “I guess it doesn’t.”

“Tell me why,” she persists.

“Because I have responsibilities here!” I shout. When she doesn’t say anything, I say, “The bar isn’t solely your responsibility.”

“Hmm,” is her only response.

“What do you mean by ‘hmm’?” I demand angrily.

Maris props herself up on her elbows to glare down at me—giving me back my own emotions tenfold. “Does he love you?”

“Yes, but...”

“Stop right there. Life is too short to use the word ‘but’ when it comes to love. Do. You. Love. Him?”

“So much that I cried from the moment I boarded the plane to the moment we touched down,” I confess.

---