Page 23 of No Second Chances

“What do you think, Nox?” The laughter in her voice fills the air around her and every single child watches her, just as enraptured as I am. “Do you think I should touch the ax?”

“I’m gonna murder a firefighter,” Remy mutters quietly.

“Not before I do,” I counter.

Josh is decked out in full gear, with his helmet on the table in front of him and his ax in his hand. The suspenders for his uniform hang down almost to the ground, and I’m about ready to throw professionalism out the window and drag him away from the woman at his side.

The thought of Kennedy with Josh or anyone else is normally enough to send me in the opposite direction. But I can’t run away in the middle of lunch with Nox and the other kids who invited us to eat with them. Even if their food tastes like three-day-old leftovers. For the first time since Nox’s attack, I’m close to Kennedy where she isn’t running away or crying, and I’m not about to leave until I have to. No matter what is going on around us.

“I don’t think axes are cool.” Nox brings all the people around him to attention with his statement, and both Remy and I find ourselves sitting on the edge of our seats. “I mean, a bunch of firefighters came when our house caught on fire and that was cool. But my dad and uncle both have guns. An ax wouldn’t beat a gun.” He scratches his blond head, and while all the kids start debating which is better, Remy tilts his head to the side so that we are almost touching.

“I’m gonna buy that kid anything he wants. Literally anything.”

“Same.”

“But,” Nox goes on, and again the kids around him fall silent. “My aunt has a machete, and I think that’s better than either of them.”

“A machete?” A little girl with bright-blue eyes and a blond pigtail sitting across the table from me gasps. “I want a machete. They’re huge!” I narrow my eyes as I realize that she is the same girl who threw a crayon at me earlier.

“I do too!” Nox agrees eagerly with a toothy smile.

And that’s how both the firefighter and the police are practically thrown aside for Kennedy and her machete. Honestly, though, it is kind of nice to just sit in the background and watch everything going on around me.

“Is it pink?” the same little girl across our table calls out.

“No.” Kennedy laughs. “I don’t like pink.” Her nose wrinkles as she turns almost all the way around so that she can see the little girl. “Oh, Ella. I didn’t realize it was you.” Her face breaks out in a huge smile. “I’ll tell your momma that you want a pink machete, if you want me to.”

“Oh my gosh, yes, Ms. Kennedy.”

Kennedy’s eyes slide over Ella, landing on me, and everything around us vanishes into thin air. The noise of children talking and dishes clanging together fade to nothing. I’ll be damned if my heart doesn’t skip a fuckin’ beat too, because all of a sudden I can’t even pull air into my lungs. The time that passes doesn’t matter, because in her eyes, I see everything that matters to me. And all the reasons I’ve been running from her for the past six years melt away, leaving just the two of us alone in that moment.

Her pain, her love, all the rage at what we could have had shines through her expressive face. The face I see in my dreams every single night. The only thing that matters to me after Danny died.

She’s beautiful. Danny’s haunting words from so long ago strike me like a lightning bolt. One day, the two of you are gonna make beautiful babies.

Right before our deployment. Before everything exploded into pain and disaster.

I will never believe in fate, miracles, or any of that bullshit. But Kennedy? Until the day I die, I will always believe in her. And the look of pure longing, unexplainable love on her face, decimates every single excuse I’ll ever have about staying away from her.

“About fuckin’ time,” Remy mutters next to me. “And I thought I was pigheaded.”

I open my mouth to tell him to go to hell or to shut up, anything, but I can’t get the words out. He is right. And there isn’t anything I can say that will change that. He’s been telling me since the day after Danny’s funeral that Kennedy will be there, that she is mine. I’m the idiot.

While Remy keeps rambling next to me, I run a hand over my chin, trying to figure out what to say or what to do next. Kennedy’s eyes don’t leave mine, an open mix of confusion and love that she doesn’t bother trying to hide or disguise. Until the firefighter taps her shoulder and Kennedy blinks. When she opens them again, it is all gone. All the love, the pain, the rage, the hate. The future I could see in her eyes disappears just like that. And I get a taste of what it is like for her when I pretend that I don’t love her more than anything.

Any other day, and I’d let it. I’d be thankful that she wouldn’t think about me. Any other day, and I’d be okay losing the woman I love more than my next breath.

But something changes in that cafeteria. Something I’ll never be able to figure out. I can’t live without her. I have never been able to. There is a reason I sit outside her house at night. A reason that I never even try to find someone to fill the hole in my life that only wants her.

I just don’t know how I’ll be able to live with her. Not with my problems. Not with the way I can’t trust myself not to hurt her. There are times that I think I’ll hurt myself when I don’t come out of a nightmare until I’m on the verge of destruction. How can I share that life with her? How can I give her forever if I may not be there to hold her through the years?

“What do you think?” Josh’s annoying voice breaks the silence and I want to punch him in the face for the way he is staring at Kennedy. He doesn’t deserve her. He can’t have her.

She’s mine.

My heart thumps loudly against my chest as the realization sinks in. Kennedy has always been mine. Always. While seconds tick by, my heart rate just keeps going up and I fight against the urge to press my fist against my chest until the pain subsides. I don’t care in the slightest that I sound like a caveman, following the woman I love around, ready to hit her over the head and take her home. If I thought it would be that easy, I’d carry Kennedy off right then.

“I don’t know,” Kennedy answers him with a hesitant smile, and my heart drops into my feet.

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