Reclaim (Release, #2)

by Aly Martinez

He chuckled and pressed his lips to the top of my head. “I’m the grasshopper clinging to your shirt, Nora.”

But as time passed and I got older, I realized I fell in love with a girl who had no idea how to be loved.”

“I’ll always love you. But it can’t be me. I know it now more than ever.” He caught a tear as it slipped from my eye. “I told you I would always come back, and I will keep that promise until the day I die, but what you need is someone who can be here for you. Someone who can stay. I can’t be the only one who knows about this, babe. These secrets are eating you away from the inside out. You gotta let it out. You gotta tell Joe the truth.”

But I swear to you, with my whole heart, not me, not Ramsey, not Thea, not Joe, regardless of what happened in the past, none of us would ever choose a world where you don’t exist.”

“He showed up on my doorstep a few years back. Right after Ramsey went to jail. I opened the door and Camden barely introduced himself before falling into a long, drawn-out dissertation about how I needed to let you move in with us.”

Fuck the candy. I was a Camden Cole girl, any and every way he came. Or at least I wanted to be.

“Hello, stranger,”

Our chemistry would always be there.

I spread her legs and in one fluid motion gave her ankles a tug, dragging her into my lap so that she was straddling me.

Nora. My Nora.

“You’re the only man I’ve ever thought about.” Her warm breath filled my every inhale. “Every night, Cam.”

“I’m clean,” I confessed. And because it was Nora, I didn’t even have it in me to be embarrassed when I admitted, “I haven’t been with anyone.” Her eyes grew wide. “No one?” “No one

“You know I love you, right?” she rushed out. My chest got tight. “I know.” “No, Cam. I mean I really, really love you. I always have.” “I know that too, babe. And I love you too. Always.”

“Show me what love feels like.”

I could never expect Nora to love me until she loved herself.

I’d spent many nights raging at the unfairness of finding my soul mate in a shattered girl I could never quite hold on to. But

“Please hear me when I say this. You were enough for me when you were eleven, barefoot and saving my life from frogs. You were enough for me at twelve, yelling at me for not choosing you, because whether you understand it or not, just knowing that someone cared if I chose them changed my entire outlook on life. You were enough for me at thirteen and fourteen and fifteen and sixteen, and fuck, Nora, you have been enough for me every single day of my life. Timing is everything and we’re not there yet. But don’t you ever fucking let me go. Do you hear me? Never

P.P.P.P.S. I’d rather be there with you.

And over the three years I’d been heading up the program, the money never stopped.

If and when I reached out to Camden Cole again, I wanted to be the woman he deserved.

“How the hell are you, stranger?”

But in my front right pocket, there was a folded up ten-dollar bill.

“Like, say, a donation to a brown bag lunch program for the students of Clovert or maybe an investigator to take down his nephew.”

Nora Stewart was standing on the other side of the threshold in the sexiest outfit I’d ever seen.

She was wearing my sweats—the ones she’d unabashedly stolen from me when she’d snuck out of my bed the one and only time we’d been together.

The bottoms were now frayed and there was a threadbare hole in the right knee, but they were mine. And she was wearing them. Five years later.

“Eyes up here, Stewart.”

“Uh, no. I told you I wasn’t available. You assumed I had a girlfriend and I didn’t correct you. Big difference.”

“Says the person who clearly hasn’t spent five years waiting for the woman they love to actually show up or reach out.”

“You finally got the chance?” he snapped, and from the way it sounded, so did his patience. “You’ve had five years of chances to see me. Every fucking day has been a chance for you to see me. But you took none of them.”

“The guy with the big forehead who always puts his arms around you and I can never see his fucking hand so I have no idea where he’s grabbing you and it literally devoured me every time you posted a picture of the two of you.”

An unlikely smile curled my lips. “You stalk my Instagram?” He rolled his eyes. “Don’t give me shit. It’s part of being on the hook.”

“Five years, five hundred years—it doesn’t matter. I want you, Nora. In my life. In my bed. At my side. Any and every way I can have you. I only want you. I

“You’re mine.” “I’ve always been yours,” I whispered. “Only yours.”

“Swear to me this is it. I can’t take another fucking goodbye. Never again. Do you understand me?”

“Yesss,” he hissed. “That’s it, baby. Oh, fuck, that’s it.”

“We’re finally gonna to do this, right? Me and you?”

I don’t want to be the hook anymore, Cam. I want to be a team for once.”

My roots have only ever been with you.”

“Hi,” Camden said, his front hitting my back, his hand going to my hip. “Oh my God,” Thea whispered.

“This is Mr. Cole. The attorney I told you about who helped at my parole hearing.”

“So? We haven’t been speaking for half our lives and I still love you.”

“You make me feel free.”

With the click of the door behind him, four people who had crawled through hell on their hands and knees were finally set free.

I know we’ve talked about taking things slow and getting to know each other again, but maybe one day we could raise our kids here—happy kids, kids who will never have to deal with the hell we went through. We can make new memories until this becomes their creek too.”

“That ten has always been a safety net for us. A way we could find each other and a reason to come back. It was what bound us to one another when we couldn’t be together in reality. We don’t need it anymore, Nora.

It’s you and me forever. From here on out. Every day.

What better way to use that money than to put it down as the first building block on our future together?”

“Oh, thank God,” I breathed, slapping a hand over my heart. “I’ve been sitting here for the last three hours trying to figure out how to ask you for a baby when I haven’t even proposed yet.”