Page 83 of For Keeps. For Always.

One that can only be purged through healing and space.

25

BROOKS

AGE 26 (TWO YEARS LATER)

“Where to next, mate?”

I lean back in my chair, weariness catching up with me as I nurse the black beer giving me heartburn.

“The homeland.”

Home.

Such a strange and foreign concept. No place has ever called to me permanently. Sure, myfamilyhome is situated in the United States. But no one place has ever felt like mine.

Wanderlust and work have held me hostage for as long as I can remember now.

“Where will you go?”

“Anywhere,” she dreams. “Everywhere.”

She’s the only thing that ever felt like mine. No matter where I was in the world, if I was connected to Henley, I was grounded.

“Nice. Whereabouts exactly?”

I clear my throat. “Originally from Denver, may hit that up first. Family is in Lake Geneva, though.”

Jack nods his head, the froth of his beer decorating his top lip before he licks it away.

After my six-month stint in Siberia, I needed something to clear my mind. More, I needed something to pull me out of my own head.

Henley hated me.

I knew it would happen.

Knew the moment I gave in to temptation and fucked her well into the early hours of the morning following Addy’s wedding that I’d come to regret it.

She seemed ready to go all in on the dance floor, and although I knew I couldn’t give it to her, I took what I could at the moment, needing to claim something of her before I was forced away from her once again.

Forced may be a slight exaggeration.

But it was fucking Siberia, and truth be told, I didn’t trust her enough to give up on my dreams.

Jesus. What an opportunity. I spent one hundred and seventy-six days exploring the remote parts of Russia. I found myself amongst mountain ranges one day, then walking across an obscure tundra the next, moving into a forest of evergreens after closing my eyes. I was overwhelmed and elated but mourning.

I missed Henley.

I missed the way she tasted and the way she moaned my name.

I missed the catch in her breath as she came and the way her body shook underneath me.

I missed her smile and her laughter and her perpetual fucking frown.

I craved the way she looked at me and the odd way in which she’d talk at times.

I longed for her.

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