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Holt’s arms wrapped around me, his lips pressed to my temple, and his deep blue eyes shining. The cheesy grin on my face said it all: My happiest place was always in his arms.
That was the gift of knowing someone all your life. You got to see every incarnation of them. I had a lifetime of chuckles to play over and over—from little boy to teenager to man.
With Holt, I could simply be.
When Holt had snuck up on me, I’d let out the most pitiful chirping noise—not even a scream or a shriek. He’d pulled me into a hug, his warm, strong body cocooning mine, and said, “Don’t worry, Cricket. I’ll scare the ghosts away.”
He’d come to mean safety to me long before we ever became a couple. Looked out for me since before I could walk. But it was more than that.
Our whole lives were forever entwined. I had all the incarnations of his chuckle, and I wasn’t letting go.
“I’ll watch every twilight with you. Every moonrise, too.”
“Don’t leave things left unsaid. Even if you’re scared as hell to say them.”
“It isn’t words she needs from me.” It was atonement. But I couldn’t give Wren anything that would heal the wounds I’d caused for not being there during the one moment she’d needed me the most.
“You’re the most amazing, kind, beautiful person I’ve ever known. If they can’t see that, then it’s their loss.”
“I know what I like. Is that so bad?” Holt brushed the hair out of my eyes and tipped my face up to meet his. “Not if I’m one of those things.”
His eyes sparked with intensity. “I love you, Cricket. With everything I have.” Everything in me soared. “I love you, too. I always have.” He grinned, the devastating kind that always took me out at the knees. “We’re gonna have a beautiful life.” He said it with such certainty that I believed every word.
everything about them is just so pure and precious
She’d been beautiful when I’d fallen in love with her. But now? It was the kind of beauty that branded you. Looking at her and truly seeing? You’d never be the same.
My favorite moments were just her and me in the bed of my truck, staring up at the stars.
You thought you’d pay any price if you could just make the pain stop.
But when you turned off the pain, you turned off the pleasure. You couldn’t appreciate the way the moon glimmered on the lake. Or how a piece of chocolate tasted as it melted on your tongue. You missed the joy of friends wrapping you in so much love you thought you might drown in it.
I’d already concluded a long time ago that I would never love someone the way I’d loved Wren—the way I still loved her. Because it didn’t matter if it had been ten days or ten years. A love like that ruined you for all others.
“I know he hurt you, but he was a kid, too. What happened to him, finding you like he did…it can twist a person up.”
there are as many sides to a story as those who’ve lived it.”
“He broke me, Law. Worse than that bullet.
Kerry often told this story of two-year-old Holt toddling over, transfixed by the baby with the hazel eyes. She said he used to stand guard over me, not letting anyone close until they proved their good intentions.
I’d been half in love with Holt Hartley since I could walk.
He’d said that he’d always loved me but that the love just looked different at each point in our lives. I’d thought that would continue forever, never realizing he could simply walk away.
Our gazes locked. An entire lifetime passed in a matter of heartbeats—years full of how Holt would’ve teased our babies, tossing them high and letting the giggles rain down around us. Years full of watching them grow and making that football team of a family we’d always wanted.
“It’ll hurt so much more if you touch me.” Tears streamed down her face as she struggled for breath. “I can’t. I thought I could, but I can’t. I can’t see what we could’ve had. I can’t watch you move back here, fall in love with another woman, and give her all my dreams. I can’t.”
“Cricket.” Her nickname only made Wren cry harder. “Don’t. I know I wasn’t enough, but I can’t be reminded of that every day. I can’t do it.”
“You were everything to me. It was my job to keep you safe. To take care of you.” “We were supposed to take care of each other. That doesn’t mean it was your job to be my human shield.”
“I don’t give a damn about the five minutes you missed that night. I give a damn about the last ten years you threw away.”
“I know it hurts, Birdie. And you’ve got a right to that pain. But think how much he must have cut himself when he walked away from you. Now, he’s out there alone, half a world away, with nothing but ghosts to keep him company.”
“I’ve never known two people who loved each other more. Not even my parents. The way you two always were around each other… Like you could sense where the other was at all times and if they needed something,”—he took a breath—“you were giving it to the other before anyone else could blink.”
“Forgive yourself. Let this go before it destroys you.”
“So, you didn’t leave me alone.” Not until he walked away and didn’t look back.
It’s impossible. Accidents happen. Horrible tragedies. Evil. That’s life. What matters is sticking with the people you love through it all.”
Someone swung my chair around. I couldn’t make out the face, only a blurry form. It was the scent that told me everything. Pine with a hint of spice. I didn’t think, I simply threw myself at Holt. His arms wrapped around me. I wasn’t sure if I was crying or simply shaking but Holt was my anchor. The only way I could stay in the here and now. He held me, and he didn’t let go.
It was easier to think Holt had stayed away because he hadn’t wanted me, not because he’d loved me too much. Easier to think that he hadn’t thought about me once since he’d left, not that he’d kept tabs and been a ghost around the edges of my life.
Then one guttural sob pierced the air, and my chest cracked right along with it. Another sounded, a third on its heels. There was a brokenness to the noise that I’d never heard in all my life. A brokenness that had been living in Wren since that day ten years ago. A brokenness I’d left her alone in.
“I’ve got you.” I felt the words against my skin as much as I heard them, a gentle brand that sliced to my very core. “Do you?” I choked out, my voice raw. Holt held me tighter against him. “I’m so sorry, Cricket. You’ll never know how much. I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.”
It wasn’t just one action or whispered prayer. It was all of it, coming together from the boy he had been to the man he was now.
His hands brushed my wet hair out of my face. “Tell me what you need, Cricket. Anything.” “I need you.”
This kiss was different. It was a mix of deepest want and coming home.
Holt broke away from the kiss, but his mouth still hovered over mine. “Tell me you’re sure.” I brought my eyes to his, letting him see the truth burning there. “I’m sure.”
Then he leaned over me. Holt pressed his lips to the scar over my heart. That heart seized in a stuttering beat.
“Your strength only makes you more beautiful,” he said hoarsely, his lips still skimming.
His tongue flicked out, tracing my nipple. “Your skin is like heaven—silk and you.”
Holt pressed a kiss to one cheek, then the other, before moving to my forehead and finally my lips. “Thank you for trusting me.”
“Are you with me?” Holt growled, his hand dipping between us, thumb circling my clit. “With. You.”
Whispers in the air all around us. Whispers of him. Of us. Of the past. Of the present. Of forever.
Both of us trying not to miss a single thing. Because a fear still lived down deep; one that told me the whispers of him would be all I ever had.
My lips trailed down Wren’s spine. She let out a sleepy little moan that had me grinning against her skin. “Morning.”
“I missed that sound.” “My laugh?” She nodded, her fingers ghosting over my throat. “I thought I’d have all your chuckles. That I’d know what it sounded like at every stage of life.”
