Page 107 of Here's to Tomorrow

“Nah, probably not.”

“Well, can I?” Joey pushes.

“Yeah, bug. We can even get some together for Rocky so we can play fetch later. Rae and I will help,” I tell her.

“You guys can use your sticks for Rocky. I’m saving mine for the dead bodies,” Joey tells us seriously.

That’s how we spend the rest of our day—wading in and out of the water, collecting sticks, playing with Rocky, and laughing.

* * *

Hours later, Rae and I are wrapped around one another in bed, exhausted from our day.

“I am so stuffed!” Rae exclaims. “That seafood Alfredo was amazing. I’m still in shock you cooked. Should I be worried about food poisoning?”

“Hey! Take that back,” I say, tickling her until she gasps out an apology. “That’s what I thought.”

“Ugh, you’re so smug. It’s such a turn-off.”

“You mean turn-on.” I smirk, and she hits me with a pillow. “Okay, settle down, spitfire.”

We snuggle into “our” position—her head on my chest and one leg thrown over both of mine. It’s not very comfortable for me but…anything for Rae.

We lie in silence for several minutes and I twirl her hair as she draws little patterns on my chest. Even though this is something simple that most couples do, I feel like it’s extra intimate somehow. I don’t know if it’s because of what we shared with one another earlier or if it’s from the way her fingers keep curling inward, like she’s clutching on to me.

Just when her patterns slow and her breathing starts evening out, making me think she’s falling asleep, she speaks.

“Hudson.”

“Rae.”

I feel her smile against my chest.

“Will you tell me more about you saving that little girl?”

“That hero thing totally revs your engine, doesn’t it?” I tease.

Her voice dripping with sarcasm, she says, “Ridiculously so.”

“There’s not much to tell. Some of it is fuzzy. I was nine and, like I said before, went to about a million beaches before my grandparents fell in love with this house, so I don’t even remember where it was,” I tell her. “Anyway, I was out collecting seashells and thought I heard a little girl screaming, so I took off running down the beach. What I happened upon wasn’t pretty. There was a woman and she was…well, just standing there staring out into the ocean as this little girl screamed and cried for help. I tried talking to the woman, yelling at her even, but nothing worked. So, I ran out into the ocean and pulled the little girl to the shore.”

I peek down at Rae when she doesn’t say anything. There’s a hard frown on her face, a perplexed bend to her brows.

“Well, what happened next?” she asks, looking up at me.

There’s sadness in her eyes. It makes me uneasy, but I continue. “The woman was gone by the time we hit the sand. Nowhere in sight. A man came rushing down the beach and snatched the little girl up. He was bawling and thanking me. I asked a million times over if the girl was okay and he just kept saying, ‘She’s breathing. Oh, thank god, she’s breathing.’ It was hard to watch and I didn’t know what else to do…so I left.”

Rae’s quiet for so long that I begin to drift off to sleep.

“Do you know what happened to the little girl?” she asks, sounding like she’s almost asleep herself.

I sigh because it’s something I’ve wondered myself over the years. “No, but I wish I had stayed to find out.”

“Me too,” she says softly.

It’s the last thing I hear before I give in to sleep.

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