Page 118 of Fall Into Me

The night was clear, and even though the last time we’d done this had been incredible for city limits, it had nothing on this moment, right here.

“Woah,” I breathed, my hand finding its way under Fane’s shirt to press against his stomach, and a little hum purred in my throat. There was something addictive about the very specific warmth that radiated off his skin.

The words were on my tongue. Three tiny words that had honestly always belonged to him, that he’d already given me. Freely. Many times over in so many different ways since he got here, and I’d been too scared to say for so many reasons.

There was a list of things I needed to give Fane. Things that had always been his, really. I might not have been able to give him everything—not yet—but I could start here.

I took a deep breath and said, “I have something to tell you.”

“Hit me.”

“I found Jerry at that shelter off Brumble Street.”

“The one with the inflatable tube man out front?”

“Yeah. It was on my rotation. I went into that one and maybe five others every week for like two months, and then one day there he was. When I saw him, the first thing I thought was, ‘Holy bananas, you belong to Fane.’”

“What?” He tried to shift his body, and I heard his heart start to pick up from where my ear was pressed to his chest, but I gripped him, holding him still.

“The night I left.” Fane went so still beside me his chest was hardly moving. “I was confused and lost and…I wanted to come home to you, but I couldn’t. So, I just drove around for hours. When the shelter opened, I went and picked him up, and then we headed straight to Darling. Then there I was, this single, super hot chick who now owned her ex-boyfriend’s dream dog.”

Fane’s bark of laughter launched out of him, waking up Jerry again, who let us know his displeasure with an aggravated huff. “Superhot.”

“I know, but quiet, please. This is my story.”

“Sorry,” he whispered, pulling me in closer.

“I guess what I’m saying is that he’s really always been yours.”

“You’re not joking.” He looked down at me, brows drawn in a tentative sort of hope that made me wish I’d told him this a long time ago.

“He’s mine too,” I said, smirking. “But he’s always been half yours. Just so you know.” After a beat, I added, “And I didn’t take off number three from the sex list.”

Fane groaned, rolling onto his side, pulling me back down into the blanket nest and peppering my face with kisses until I was a giggle, red faced mess and despite late hour, Fane pulled me close and yelled up into the sky, brimming full of stars of us, “This is the best night of my whole fucking life!”

35

Calista

After

After our last tour to Primrose Ranch, it was like the two years between us didn’t exist.

Those years didn’t exist in the spaces of time where he held me close and we watched TV on the couch. When I sat on the kitchen counter and we talked while he made a meal for us to share. When we rocked side to side around the living room to his favorite song and he quietly sang along to the lyrics with our hands clutched to his chest.

But then they also very much existed.

They existed in the lines etched into his face that hadn’t been there before. When he would work in the back corner of the café that I owned and built all on my own. In the way we’d both grown separately during our time apart, and with that came the realization that those parts of us had become strangers toone another. Different versions of who we’d been, learning one another all over again.

They existed in Jerry, who was between us at every possible moment, staring at Fane like he hung the moon. When he would look at me, his gray-blue eyes asking the question,He’s mine? I get to keep him, right?

On the couch, during walks, outside in the backyard where we’d looked up at the sky almost every night since that first time Fane had done it with the pillows from our bed, Jerry was there. Proud as all hell to be the center of attention, his soft snores the backing track to our quiet murmured conversations.

It felt perfect, but there were times when that perfection carried a weight.

It was hard not to feel it.

All the what-ifs on how it could have been different.

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