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Maybe we can’t live forever. But I know down to my marrow—wherever his soul goes, mine will follow.
When Grayson speaks, his voice is as soft as a whisper. “If it is real, I’ll find you in the next life.” I inhale a shuddering breath, looking at his outline in the dark. I don’t need light to know the man beside me. I know him as I know the beat of my heart. And if, as he says, there is a next life? I have no doubt he’ll find me there. I lift Grayson’s hand again, my lips brushing his skin. “I’ll be waiting.”
“I love you, Grayson Fox. With everything I am and everything I will be. Don’t ever forget that.”
“More than all the stars,” I tell him, my own love so vast I ache with it.
“Kiss me, my love. I have caught you. And I shall have my prize.”
“It was…the very start.” Lee’s eyes trace over my face, as if trying to read me. To understand. “The start of what?” My answer for him is simple, although it’s not simple at all. “The first time I fell in love.”
“Do you believe in fate, Caspian?” I smile at the question returned to me. He must know the answer, but I give it still. “Yes. Do you?” “I’m starting to.”
“I would be a fool to ignore all that simply because I felt…blindsided by your arrival in my life. To ignore how brave you’ve been with me. How your excitement makes me happy in turn. How I’m fairly certain I more than like you, and I don’t know what that means or where we go from here, but I know I don’t want you gone. That’s the last thing I want.”
“Well, you know what they say about shooting stars.” “What’s that?” “When you see one, you have to make a wish.”
Make a wish, huh? What would I wish for when it comes to Caspian? His voice floats into my mind. “I’m yours.” I blow out a slow breath as I realize I have my answer. That. I want precisely that.
“But if that’s how you feel about love,” I finally manage, “then I count myself lucky to be the person you were searching for.”
“I told you I believe you,” I remind him. He nods. “So however it is you love me, I’ll do my absolute best to love you back just the same.”
I think Caspian was right. Our choices matter. Every one of them. And I’ve already made my choice.
I would be his friend, his confidant, his loyal supporter. I would wait for him, bleed for him as I know he would do for me. I would love him with every one of my last breaths. There is not a world, not a lifetime, in which I am not his. Utterly and singularly.
I want to weep. Want to cry and laugh and scream at the sky that I’ve found him. I’ve found him, and he’s mine, and he will always be mine.
“Don’t you see, Lee? I have nothing to fear because I know exactly what’s waiting for me.” “Because fate decided it?” “No.” The one word is vehement. Sure. “Because I chose it. Chose you. And you chose me. No matter what comes between us or what tries to tear us apart, I will always find you. And I will always choose you again. Fate did not make me fall in love, Lee Donovan. You did that.”
“I don’t want to forget again.” There’s a hitch in his breath before he kisses me, harder than before. His eyes are shining when he leans back. “Remember me now, my warrior heart. It’s all you can do.”
There’s no giving this man up. No getting over him, not that I’d want to. We were always supposed to find our way here. I believe him in that. There’s a word for it. One we’ve both been dancing around. Soulmates. Maybe this isn’t the first time I’ve fallen in love with Caspian Wilder. But it’s a first for me.
“Caspian,” I croak. “Tell me again. Tell me who you are to me.” His fingers dig against mine, blue eyes flashing. “I’m yours. Forever, Lee. I’m yours.”
“Even when we’re old and gray, bring me here? Bring me to the stars?” Arthur lifts our joined hands to brush a kiss against my knuckles, his lips familiar and so very warm. His voice, when he speaks, is full of a devotion I can feel in every beat of my heart. “My husband. My love. One day, you and I will dance amongst them. Just you wait and see.”
“Did you know when you look at the stars, you’re looking back in time?” He shakes his head, a slow roll against the decking. “By the time the light reaches us, years have passed. Decades, even. You’re seeing something from another lifetime.” “Caspian…” “When I look at the stars, Lee, all I see is you. My past. My present. My future. Every future on every star yet to shine. Always, it’s you.”
There are flashes in my mind. Cameras shuttering and a booming laugh, a finger tapping the freckles on my nose, and my friend smiling at me as if I’m his whole entire world. A room encased in glass, snow falling gently outside the panes and candles all around as my husband asks me to guide him in a dance. A flickering oil lamp and heat-slick skin moving together, pleasure rising sharp and sweet, the roofless hideaway failing to keep out the cold but warm words pressed to my skin speaking of love and a forever I desperately wish to see. There’s a time so long ago much of its history is lost,
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“I believe in you, my love. Which is why I can say with absolute certainty… I love you. In this and every life.”
I wanted to be caught. Caught and kept close. I wanted to be loved, and I was. For millennia. Time and time again. And I’ll be loved still, for an eternity to come.
“This and every life,” I repeat. My own promise. My own vow. The absolute and utter truth. “I am yours, my warrior. And I will love you until everything goes dark.”
“I am Leandros,” I offer, not yet letting go. “Your name?” He nods his head shortly. “Aster, my good warrior.” “Aster? Your parents named you for the stars?” His shrug is slight. “Fitting,” I say, bringing his hand up. “You have stars in your eyes with the way they shine.” He pulls in a soft breath when I bow my head, my lips brushing his skin. “It is my absolute honor, Aster, to have met you in this life.”
“Soon, my star.” Aster purses his lips at such familiarity, but his eyes tell me he’s pleased to hear it. He nods his head once more. “My warrior.”
Tomorrow. Tomorrow is a new day. I cannot say for certain what it will hold, but I feel in the deepest parts of me that from now forward my life has branched on a new path, one of many possible outcomes. My tomorrow is not the same as it might have otherwise been had I missed Aster. A single encounter, and hope sits in my heart. Whatever the next day brings, and the one after that, my future has certainly been changed. Irrevocably. Miraculously. Forevermore.
