Page 96 of Wilder Love
“I’ve been reading your letters,” he said conversationally.
The mushroom cap slipped out of my fingers and the point of the wooden skewer stabbed my index finger. “Ow. Shit.”
“Slippery suckers,” Shane said, guiding my finger to his mouth and sucking away the drops of blood, his eyes on mine. Today his eyes were green.
“You’re drinking my blood.”
“Mm.” He released my hand and I stared at him for a beat then moved over to the sink and washed my hands. Drying them on a towel, I returned to my spot in front of the chopping board.
“So… how many have you read?” I asked, stabbing a cherry tomato.
“All of them.”
My head snapped up. “All of them?”
He smiled. “Every single beautiful word you wrote.”
I gave up all pretenses of helping with the dinner prep and leaned my hip against the counter, studying his profile. “Are you okay?”
Shane stacked the kebabs on a tray to take out to the grill and then he turned to face me, and he looked different to me somehow, a little bit more like the old Shane. Like some of the weight had lifted from his shoulders. Or maybe I was imagining it. He gave me a soft smile and cradled my face in his hands, his eyes locking onto mine.
“I’m sorry I didn’t read them sooner. I did miss you. I did think about you. Every day. Every hour. You were always with me. And I never hated you, Remy. I never could. I hated myself. For leaving you. For ruining the future we could have had together.” His thumbs brushed away the tears falling down my cheeks. “Forgive me.”
“Shane, there’s nothing to forgive.” I wrapped my hands around his wrists.
“One day at a time?”
“Okay,” I whispered.
He held me against him, and he bent his head to kiss me. I melted into him as my fingers tangled in his hair. My mouth opened to his and our tongues met, exploring the taste of each other. Inhaling each other’s scent like a forgotten memory. It was a forever kind of kiss, and I thought that this was how it should have been the first time we saw each other again. It didn’t feel like a goodbye. Not at all. It felt like a promise.
37
Shane
“What made you want to get into demolition work?” I asked Miguel when we stopped for our lunch break. Let’s face it, it was a valid question. What kid dreams of cleaning up the debris from a demolished building? Yet, the dude was always cheerful. Acted like there was nothing he’d rather be doing than hauling away broken cinderblocks and rusted pipes.
He gave me a funny look. “Pays the bills. Keeps my wife and kids fed with a roof over their heads. What more could a man want?”
What more indeed. What was a man if he couldn’t even provide for the people he loved? If he couldn’t protect them from all the shit in the world?
“You know what you gotta do?” Miguel said, making himself more comfortable, settling in for a chat on the tailgate of my Jeep.
“Enlighten me.”
“You need to lay off that tofu shit,” he said, eying my lunch—tofu, brown rice, and leafy greens.
I laughed and cast an eye at his lunch—leftover fried chicken and some other fried food I couldn’t identify.
“You think I’d be happier if I ate fried chicken?”
“Couldn’t hurt to try,” he said, wiping the grease off his fingers with a lemon-scented wet wipe, no doubt supplied by his wife.
“Huh.” My eyes wandered to the graffitied wall next to my Jeep.Jesus Saves.Drugs Kill. Fuck You, Cocksucker. Getting mixed messages here.
I wiped the sweat off my forehead with the back of my arm and chugged a bottle of water while Miguel imparted more of his wisdom.
“You need to pray,” Miguel said. “Whatever you need, God will hear you.”
