Page 57 of Shattered Echoes

"I'm serious, Col," I murmur, brushing the pad of my thumb over the silken hollow beneath her lower lip. "For the first time in as long as I can remember, I feel like everything's finally falling into place, all because you came into my world when you did."

Her smile takes on an almost tremulous quality as she leans into my caress, the shadowed hollows beneath her eyes luminous. "You have it backward, Antonio. After everything, you're the one who helped me find my center again."

I huff out a soft, wry chuckle even as my chest constricts with a fresh swell of emotion. I pull Colette closer until our bodies are pressed tight against each other, fingers framing the nape to bring her mouth to mine in a purifying kiss. She whimpers into the gentle sweep of my lips, body melting into the hard brackets of my arms and chest in utter surrender.

We exchange slow, tender caresses for long, suspended minutes, each brush of skin against skin intimate at the same time. When I tear my mouth from hers with a ragged inhale, her eyes are hooded with an expression of pure, unguarded adoration that sucker punches me right in the goddamn soul.

"Thank you," I whisper, conviction blazing in my veins as I lean my forehead against hers. "For everything."

In the reflective stillness that falls, I feel rather than see the barest upturn of Colette's lips. She loops her arms around my neck to hold me tighter, cradled against her body in a way that screams of acceptance and belonging I could have fathomed even a month ago.

The torrent of fragments and revelations crashing over me are enough to steal my breath all over again. But rather than causing me to falter or backpedal, I hold on to Colette with renewed determination, because this time I have no intention of running.

Not from her. Not from the daunting, humbling scope of what we share. Not from the future suddenly stretching out before us in brilliant, unbridled possibility. We finally release each other long enough to breathe and head into the house.

She’s right about one thing; I can either waste precious time thinking about how and when this thing we share will end. Or I could just allow myself to feel and enjoy the time we have shared. I choose to live in the moment, and I push every other thought out of my mind.

“I’m going to make some dinner,” she says, tying her hair in a bun. “Would you like to join me in the kitchen?”

I kiss her forehead, but shake my head. “I’d love to, but not tonight. Tonight, there’s something I need to do. Something I’ve not done in a long time.”

With a last kiss, I withdraw from the kitchen and head to my bedroom upstairs. I find my guitar case in the exact spot it has been for the last two months, untouched. I unzip the leather case and pull out my guitar, feeling the familiar grain of the wood. I return downstairs and find a comfortable position on the porch, crossing my feet on the railing.

Leaning back, I twist the pegs on the guitar, tuning it and plucking the strings. Satisfied, I shut my eyes and play. And this time, I feel my music return to me, like a long-lost friend.

19

Colette

The morning sunlight filters through the bedroom curtains, casting a soft, hazy glow over Antonio's sleeping form beside me. I trace the planes of his face with my gaze, drinking in the boyish innocence that settles over his features in slumber. The hard lines of his jaw are softened, the worry creasing his brow smoothed into tranquility.

In these hushed moments before the demands of the day encroach, he looks almost…at peace. A sight I've become accustomed to over the weeks and months we've shared. My chest constricts with a complicated swell of emotions as I watch the steady rise and fall of Antonio's bare torso, his muscular frame shrouded by the tangled sheets.

Love, affection, desire. All those delicate, nuanced embers blazing brightly, chasing away the omnipresent chill that used to pervade my bones. And beneath it all, an ember far more elusive, but no less potent in its intensity. One I've been avoiding, even in the quiet recesses of my consciousness, too terrified to feel substance or a name.

Hope.

After so long adrift in a wasteland of trauma, despair, and emptiness, hope is the most daunting, unfamiliar sensation of all. The hope of rebuilding my life is almost too overwhelming to contemplate and yet, with Antonio by my side, I can dare to envision a future filled with hope and promise, a future where I can heal, grow, and thrive.

And yet, with each day that Antonio remains by my side—both of us battered but unbowed by our own storms—my resolve grows stronger, just as our bond deepens.

His affection for me shines through in every touch, every shared smile, every lingering look. An immutable force that illuminates my fractured spirit and bolsters my most fragile pieces.

My fingertips ache to reach out and trace the beloved contours of his face, to absorb his vitality through our joined skin. But I resist the urge, not wanting to disturb his hard-won rest.

As sleep takes hold of Antonio, I watch him lose the battle to exhaustion after hours spent making music poured from his heart and singing until his voice grew hoarse and strained with fatigue.

Since meeting him again, Antonio had been wandering in the desolate hinterlands of his own personal hell–the cyclical black hole of addiction and self-loathing robbing him of the spark that makes him dynamic.

To witness him finding his way back to his core of passion and inspiration is enough to leave me dizzy with elation. As if I could somehow absorb his creativity through nothing more than the intensity of my presence alone.

In those fleeting moments, Antonio's smoldering gaze would lift to pin me in place, leaving my face flushed and glowing with the fevered light of a man immersed in his art. I swear I was left hushed and spellbound.

A sudden burst of birdsong drifting in from the open window interrupts my quiet reverie. I blink, then shake myself back to the present with a self-deprecating quirk of my lips.

But as my gaze lands on Antonio's slumbering features once more, the tightness coiled in my chest returns in full force. I suck in a sharp inhale, wishing that I could share these cascading realizations and confessions with him and not be shrouded in the guarded silences and assumptions we've both adopted as second nature.

Almost as if expecting my internal struggle, Antonio lets out a low rumble as he stirs beside me. Dark lashes flutter against his cheekbone before those whiskey-warm eyes are blinking open, soft and unfocused, full lips curving into a sleepy smile as he registers my presence.

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