Page 50 of Chasing Infinity

Addison looks down at her fingers, picking at the cuticle. “I might like other flavors too. Nothing like…outrageous though.”

“Well, we’ll have to explore that, hm?” I murmur to her, leaning over and pressing a kiss to her cheek. “I’ll never do anything you’re not comfortable with.”

Her hazel eyes meet mine, and they sparkle with trust and something else I can’t quite name. “I like that idea.”

I shoot her a grin and reach for the last slice of pizza. Not long after, we find ourselves snuggled up together in her bed. Her head is resting on my chest, tracing the outline of my tattoo. I start to run my fingers through her long hair again, loving the way her silky strands feel.

“Do you miss your mom?” she asks me out of the blue.

I still my hand in her hair, frowning. “That was random.”

“Sorry, I was just thinking about how great it’s been having you back in town, but then I remembered what brought you here in the first place. We haven’t really talked about it much since the funeral.”

I start stroking her hair again, turning my eyes up towards the ceiling. “Yeah, I miss her. She was another woman I let down in my life. I didn’t really stay in touch for a while after I left.”

“Did you talk to her at all?”

“A few times,” I admit. “More recently, I’d say in the last year or so.”

“Did you know that she—?”

“No,” I tell her abruptly, wishing we could change the subject. “It never came up.”

“She was a kind woman,” Parks says wistfully. “She was always nice to me whenever our paths crossed. Even after you left, if I ran into her, she would make a point to speak with me, as if she was checking up.”

I smile to myself. I didn’t know she had been doing that, but it doesn’t surprise me. “She knew how important you were to me.”

“Were?” Addison teases me, tilting her head up to look at me.

I glance down at her and smirk. “How important youare.”

Her plump lips pull apart in a broad smile, but it quickly falls, and she starts retracing my tattoo, heavier topics still weighing on her mind. “Have you cried?”

Despite my best attempts to keep it in, I chuckle slightly. “No, I don’t cry.”

“We both know that’s not true,” she pokes me. “I think it would help. When my parents died, I didn’t feel like I was ready to move forward until I cried about it. Like really cried.”

“You had a lot going on at that time,” I recall, moving my hand from her head down to her back and soothing my touch along her spine.

“And you don’t have a lot going on right now?” she questions. “You’re still in the middle of whatever you’re trying to do, holding the weight of the world on your shoulders. All by yourself.”

I don’t respond, letting her words linger. I know she’s right, and if I could manage to get myself to cry and grieve, I would. But that’s simply not necessary right now. Addison’s fingers are light on my skin as she travels the spans of the ink on my chest. I close my eyes, letting her touch calm me.

“What was your favorite thing about her?”

Her question settles over me, and I open my eyes again, trying to think of all the good qualities that made up Catherine McCoy. There are too many to choose from, but one in particular needles at me more than the others.

“She is—wasprotective.”

Addison hums in approval. “That must be where you get it from.”

My lips twitch, and I glance down at her, warmth blooming in my chest. “It must be.”

“I like that,” she whispers and then falls silent.

We lay together for a while, neither of us saying anything. There’s something to be said about simplybeingwith the person that means so much to you. There were more times than I could count when I would be lying in my apartment in New York, all alone, wishing that I had her there with me. I would close my eyes and imagine this exact moment.

I’ve spent so long running from this, running from her. Though my intentions were admirable, I can’t help but accept that I prevented us from having and sharing moments like these together. Just like Parks said a few hours ago, all those years that we could’ve had together, memories, and quiet moments like these are simply…gone.

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