Page 90 of Part & Parcel

When he glanced at Kelly, he got a nod in answer. He turned a little more, his grip on Kelly’s hand tightening.

“Since that first kiss, have you spent more time being happy? Or more time being sad, angry, and worried?”

Kelly ran his teeth over his bottom lip, his fingers fidgeting with Nick’s as his eyes searched Nick’s face. When he spoke, the sadness in his voice made Nick want to pull him closer and just hold him.Just hold on to him.“Why do I get the feeling you’re about to make a decision based on the answer I give you?”

“You said you’d answer honestly,” Nick managed to respond.

Kelly rolled his eyes and looked away. He shook his head, his jaw jumping and his body growing tense. “You know what, fuck you, Irish,” he snarled, glancing back at Nick. His eyes sparked in the moonlight. “If we had never kissed that night, if you had laughed it off and gone on your way, the last three years wouldstillhave been hard! I still would have spent six months agonizing over the fact that my brothers were off fighting while I was stuck at home. I still would have been worried sick and pissed off that you and Liam Bell were working together without ever asking one of us for our help! And I still would have been a fucking wreck at your bedside in Miami waiting for you to fucking wake up! Yeah, maybe I wouldn’t have spent so many nights in bed, lonely, waiting until I could be with you again, but you know what? At least I fucking had you to look forward to! Without you, without what we have, life would have been the same old stupid nothing, just day in and day out, and at least now I know what it’s like to have someone I want a future with. That sure as shit offsets anything you could possibly tell me is wrong with us.”

Nick was struggling to keep his eyes on Kelly as he ranted. He was so goddamn beautiful when he got worked up, he was like a storm on the horizon, filled with lightning and thunder and whitecaps and threatening to take your vessel down with him when he swept onto your decks.

Kelly began to fight with the blanket around his shoulders, still spitting out words as he tried to get the material off him. “You want to fucking push me away because you think you’re hurting me, you go ahead and do it. See how fucking much better it makes you feel when you go off trying to be a fucking island on your own. But know one thing. If you do that, if you send me away to save me, thenyouwill be my life’s biggest heartbreak. You won’t be saving me from anything. Just saving yourself.”

He finally managed to get the blanket off, and he rolled back and away from Nick, going over one shoulder to get to his knees. He knelt there, eyes flashing, teeth gritted as he stared.

Nick reached for him and snagged him by his shirt collar. Kelly tried to push his hand away, but Nick tightened his grip and gave Kelly a tug instead.

“What?” Kelly shouted.

“Don’t go,” Nick breathed. “I don’t want to be your heartbreak.”

Kelly studied him for a few seconds, and slowly his body relaxed, his eyes softening. He got to his hands and knees and crawled closer to Nick, and Nick pulled harder at his shirt to urge him the last few inches. Kelly’s lips met his a little more violently than he’d expected, and his balance wavered. Kelly grabbed him by both arms and dragged him backward.

Nick didn’t struggle, just let Kelly pull him away and lay him out on the wet concrete and sparse gravel when they got far enough away from the edge to be safe. Kelly snagged the blanket and threw it around his shoulders like a cape, then stretched out over Nick and kissed him again. The blanket fluttered to the rooftop as Nick clutched at Kelly and returned the kiss with everything he had to give to it.

“This is the last time we have this conversation,” Kelly growled.

Nick recognized his tone of voice, and it sent a shiver down his spine. He nodded jerkily, his breath stuttering. “As long as you don’t walk away from me again.”

Kelly cocked his head, looking like he was about to argue.

Nick dug his fingers into Kelly’s ribs. “I’d rather you lose your temper and get it out the same way we always have than watch you walk away. It hurts too fucking much,” he admitted. “We’ve had our language too many years to change it now.”

“Okay,” Kelly whispered.

“Promise me.”

Kelly pulled the blanket up over their heads and kissed him again. “I promise,” he murmured between kisses, and Nick wrapped his arms around him, finally feeling his heart unclench.

If another storm came through, at least Nick had Kelly to weather it with him.

Sidewinder stood amongst the neat rows of white marble that stretched as far as the eye could see. They stretched too far, there were too many, so many lives lost and remembered on the sacred ground of Arlington Cemetery.

Nick held Elias Sanchez’s last letter in both hands. The paper trembled in the breeze. It certainly wasn’t Nick’s hands trembling. It certainly wasn’t that.

Zane stood to the side, watching solemnly. He didn’t feel as if he belonged on this last task. It was too personal. Too hard.

“Who wants to go first?” Kelly finally asked. They all stood staring down at the headstone. No one answered him. No one moved.

After a solid minute of silence, the crinkling of the paper in Nick’s hands finally urged Kelly into action. He stepped forward, twisting his hands together, and cocked his head at Eli’s grave.

“The last words we had were over the phone,” he began. He closed his eyes and swallowed hard.

Zane had to strain to hear what he was saying, and he edged a little closer and placed his hand on the small of Ty’s back under the guise of offering silent support.

“We were talking about going hiking. He wanted to come to Colorado and spend a week at the camp.” Kelly snorted and smiled, glancing over his shoulders at the others. “He had a plan for an adventure trek. And he couldn’t even get it out because he was laughing so hard halfway through. You know that laugh he had, where his whole body shook and he started wheezing?”

The others chuckled and nodded. Digger wiped a hand over face, hiding his eyes behind his palm.

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