by Jessica Roe
Regaining control of my body, I slam into her, grasping her face and smashing my lips to hers. She lets out a little squeak of surprise at the ferociousness of the kiss, and then a moan of relief as my arms go around her waist and lift her off the floor in my need to have her closer. I kiss her in a way I’ve never kissed anyone else my entire life.
“I love you,” I breathe into her mouth. “I love you so goddamned much.”
“I love you too, Nathan. More than anything.”
And we repeat those words over and over again between kisses and laughter; to make up for lost time, to reassure ourselves this is really happening, and just because we can.
Phee is mine. She’s mine now, and I will never, ever let her go again.
Epilogue
Ophelia
“THOUGHT I’D FIND you here.” Nathan’s voice startles me, but I smile up at him as he sits on the flat rock surface next to me. The Death Rock. The place where we began. I’ve been up here over an hour now, reveling in the peace, turning my face up towards the weak March sunshine as it casts a morning glow over the lake.
“Hey there.” I lean into his kiss, letting our lips brush, his tongue taste mine; slowly, languidly. We have all the time in the world now, there’s no need to rush. “How’d it go with your parents?”
Wrapping an arm around my shoulders, he pulls me in tight and rests his head against mine. The smell of his brown leather jacket surrounds me in the most reassuring way. “They. . .” I wait with bated breath as he pauses, searching for the words. “. . .invited us to dinner next week.”
I blink, then whip my head around to face him, searching for any signs of a prank. “You’re being serious!”
“Entirely.”
My mouth hangs open. “Well that. . .was unexpected.”
“Fuck yeah.” He nods his head up and down pensively, staring out over the lake. I can tell he’s reserved about this, but also, deep down, he’s hopeful. “I think maybe they’re finally ready to let go. I think. . .I think they don’t want to lose me. And they know they would, if they did anything to hurt you.”
I stroke the blond hair at the back of his neck with the tips of my fingers, love infusing my entire being. In this spot, and only this spot, his hair grows in tight little curls. It’s adorable. “Dinner then.” It’s not exactly something to look forward to, but I’ll do it, for him. “Sounds terrifying.”
He lets out an amused snort. “Almost as terrifying as drinks with your family last night. I spent the first hour shitting my pants expecting your dad to crush me in his gigantic fist the second your back was turned.”
That cracks me up, much to his bemusement. But his face when we’d showed up to meet Dad and Micah last night had been so frigging cute, all pale and grimacy. Resting my head on his shoulder, I soak in his warmth and smile when he can’t help but pull me closer, even though I offended him. “I missed you this morning.”
His warm lips press against my forehead. “Missed you too.”
It’s been a little over a week since the day I poured out my heart to Nathan, and this morning when he went to tell his parents about us was the first time we’ve been apart since then. Not gonna lie, most of the week has been spent in bed making up for lost time.
“C’mon,” he says, pushing himself up and helping me to my feet. We climb down the side of the rock, then Nathan leads me to the edge of the lake where a spray of new wildflowers have begun to grow again. Bending down, he picks three purple ones and hands me two.
“For Spencer,” he murmurs, dropping his flower into the water.
And now I see. It warms my heart. “For my mom,” I add, copying his actions and letting one of the flowers he gave me go.
The last wildflower sits in the palm of my hand, its petals so smooth and delicate against my skin that I barely feel them. Nathan brings my hand up and presses his lips against the flower with the gentlest of touches. “For our baby,” he whispers.
I close my eyes and nod, unable to speak. Together, we let the flower go. It drifts down to the water, hitting the surface with the smallest of ripples.
Nathan takes my hand and together we watch as the three flowers dance with one another, the moving water slowly pulling them away. One flower for each of the people we’ve loved and lost in the most painful ways imaginable. It’s time. Together, we let them go. We let the past go.
It’s a while before I can swallow down the lump in my throat and speak again. “So, what do we do now?” I ask, once the flowers have completely vanished from sight, no longer even tiny dots in the distance. I feel lighter now; every day I spend with Nathan I feel lighter and lighter. It’s as if I’m finding myself all over again. This time for real. And I’m not the only one – the brightness is returning to Nathan’s eyes. Every day he’s happier than the one before.
“I should probably get around to asking you out on a real date at some point,” he jokes, and I laugh because we’ve spent most of every day of the last week wrapped around one another naked – I think we might be past the first date stage now.
“That’d be nice.”
“Wait.” He turns to me and frowns. I want to kiss the two lines between his brows. “Shouldn’t you be the one doing the asking? You are the one who did the wooing, what with your big speech and all.”
“Exactly!” I grin and elbow him in the stomach. “I did all the hard work. It’s your turn. Get down on your knees and beg me to go to dinner with you.”
“Think you’ll find I’ve been doing a lot of hard work this week, if memory serves correctly,” he counters devilishly, lifting an eyebrow. If I were anyone else that would have had me blushing. “And most of that has been on my knees. You’re fucking insatiable, woman.”
“That is true,” I muse out loud, pretending to think. “Perhaps I should give you a break from all that hard work. You don’t want to have to do any more hard work in the near future, right?”
“You’re hard fucking work, you stubborn bitch,” he replies, but he can’t help grinning widely. Grabbing my waist beneath my red coat, he yanks me in close and kisses me, hard. It’s possessive; like he still feels the need to remind me I’m his. He can remind me all he wants. His tongue is hot against mine, in contrast to the cold air around us. He tastes good, like the hazelnut coffee he drinks. I grip him back and the kiss grows heated in a matter of seconds, so passionate my back arches and he has to hold me tight just to keep me from falling down. Losing myself in Nathan is so damn easy.
The trees sway behind us, the lake stirs in front of us. This place, it holds so much of us; our pasts, our loves, our losses. But more importantly it holds our present, and our future. A future that now promises more hope than I ever believed possible.
And this man, he is my future. There’s no one else like him, nothing like him.
Together we have hope. We have a future.
We have each other.
Finally.
Track List
Missing Pieces by IKSY
Ghost by Ella Henderson
Tip of My Tongue by The Civil Wars
Pain by Three Days Grace
I Wish It Would Rain by The Temptations
I Lived by OneRepublic
This story took me longer than I ever could have predicted to write, and to those of you have stuck around with me while I got it completed – thank you. Big, huge thank you, and then some more on top of that. Nothing Like Him would be nothing without the readers out there encouraging me on to get it finished.
Special thanks to an awesome musician by the name of IKSY, who does in fact exist and was kind enough to let me use his name in my book. If you’d like to have a listen to some of his stuff, you can find it here –
https://www.beatport.com/my-beatport?artists=525864
For more information about any of my books or if you have any questions, come find me at:
https://www.facebook.com/jessicaAroeauthor
https://twitter.com/JessicaARoe
http://jessicaroeblog
.blogspot.co.uk/
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/8151452.Jessica_Roe
I'd love to hear from you!
