Page 139 of The Space Between
I cannot lose another woman I love.
I press my forehead to hers. She smells like chalkboard dust and grapefruit body spray and something I can’t name that feels likehome. It guts me.
“Come on,” I rasp. “I need to get you home. We’re in my truck in front of the damn school.”
CHAPTER 24
Blakelyn
The river’s low now.
The water rolls slow and clear beneath the pale morning sky, shadows of tall oaks stretch long across the bank. Summer’s fire has burned itself out, and September feels like a breath caught between seasons. The mornings are slightly cooler… softer… and so am I.
I’m not the same woman who pulled up in a beat-up Honda in June with her life packed into a trunkful of boxes.
I stand on his front porch in his flannel shirt, a mug of coffee warming both my hands, and my bare feet flat on the wood. The same porch where I first saw him—Gruene Cavanaugh, my next-door ghost of a neighbor, broken and beautiful and angry at the world.
He’s still all those things. He’s still carved from grief and stubborn silence, but now... he’s mine. And I’m his.
I think about that as I sip my coffee, my eyes finding the rippling curve of the river beyond the trees. It’s quiet except for the birds, and I swear I can still feel last night on my skin—his breath at my ear, the weight of him pressing me into themattress, the sound he made when I told him I loved him again, just to hear him say it back.
He says it like it hurts… like it’s dangerous… like it might kill him to say it and kill him even worse not to.
But he says it… every damn day. In the early morning first thing and in the dark of the night while lying beside me. He stays.
This morning, I woke before he did but I stayed wrapped around him until the sky began to pinken. I felt every inhale, every twitch of muscle, every time his arms tightened like he couldn’t let go of me, even in his sleep.
I watch the breeze stir through the leaves and wonder what it means to finally be building something from the ashes instead of just surviving in them.
That’s what we’ve been doing.
Slowly. Messily. Honestly.
Two people learning how to love in the aftermath of what nearly killed us.
I hear footsteps behind me. Heavy. Familiar. His.
His arm slides around my waist, his chest pressing to my back, and I sink into it like second nature. “You’re not wearing anything under this shirt,” he murmurs into my neck, his voice thick from sleep.
“Nope.” I murmur, arching back against him.
He hums. “Dangerous.”
I grin, turning my head just enough to glance up at him. “You’re not exactly safe either.”
His eyes are heavy-lidded and full of things I still don’t know how to name but there’s softness too. Warmth… a steady hum beneath all the wreckage. His lips brush over my temple before he exhales against my cheek.
“You okay?” he asks.
I nod. “Better than okay” I reply. And I mean it.
For the first time in months—maybe years—I don’t feel like I’m running. I don’t feel like I’m disappearing. I’m grounded. Alive. Right here. Right where I want to be… where I’m meant to be.
“School?” He asks, nuzzling my neck. My body instantly responds. It always does.
“Later,” I groan. “We’ve got time.”
His hand slides lower over my stomach before curving over my hip. His finger trails over the inside of my thighs and parts them.
