“I love you, Lucille.” Balthazar chuckles as he helps me and the little granny up while untangling the leashes from my ankles.
“Balthazar!” I weep as he pulls me into a hug.
“I never stopped loving you. You had to know that.” His comforting voice fills my insides with a warm, puddingy feeling.
And just like that, my dinner plans have changed again.
“Am I too late?” he asks, as he bites his lip. “Too late to tell you I was living a lie without you? Trying to protect myself and the boys.” He kisses my forehead as I melt into him. “All I’m trying to say is that my heart is confused without you. Matilda, I miss the fuck out of you.”
I squeeze my arms around his body, inhaling everything about him. “I guess you left me wondering a little at the end there.”
“There’s only one thing you should be wondering about.” He licks cream off my face.
“What’s that?” I giggle, having a moment of disbelief.
“You should be wondering how much sleep you’re going to lose tonight.”
“I don’t need to wonder.” I laugh as I look up at his roguish grin. “I’m planning on losing all of it.”
36
Balthazar
There is one word that stands the test of time and holds fast to the center of everything. Though everyone will try at least once in their life to move around this word, but in fact, unknowingly, they use it every moment of the day. Young or old, awake or in sleep, human or animal, this word stands fast. It belongs to everyone, to all living things, but no one can master it.
Gravity
The second I got her text about Cort, which was a day after he died, I knew what I needed to do. Get to her. Alfie came within an hour, and I was on my way to the airport moving faster than a bullet in pursuit. I caught the first flight because there wasn’t a chance this girl was getting away from me again. I’m going to give her every reason to come back with me and every reason to never want to leave.
Matilda. She’s not without scars, or cracks, but she moves around them like a ballet, while most of us might call it a hike through hell trying to mend ourselves. It was easy falling in love with her, because when she isn’t in the same room, I miss her. Every time she walks back in, she lights the space, along with everything inside me. I’m pretty sure she could give the sun more shine and the stars more sparkle. I guess love is something you can be sure of, when your brain and your heart are saying the same things. Just let go…fall.
“Matilda.” I groan as I push her against the wall the instant her apartment door slams behind us.
Clothing drops to the ground with our fast-moving fingers. Our tongues slide, wet and greedy, as we dive into each other.
“I missed you, I missed you, I missed you,” she whispers against my mouth as her hands run down my tightening abs.
I yank my belt open then pop my jeans button as she grabs my zipper. My cock aches to be inside her.
“Balthazar, you know what they say about good things?” She strokes my erection.
“That good things come to the man who tells his woman he loves her?”
“I was going to say to the man who’s going to fuck her silly.”
I growl as her nails dig into my back. “Boys fuck silly. Men fuck hard.”
“Good, I want it hard.”
“God, I need you, pretty eyes.” I rasp against her ear. “Need to taste you, need my cock in you. Get over here.”
I drag her leg over my thigh and receive a pleasure-filled, “Oh, god yes,” as my fingers settle inside her knickers. Then, as fast as I’m able, I tear them off.
“Can’t get to enough of you. Need all of you.” I kneel and open her legs to my tongue. Her hands dig into my shoulders as her hips bump against my mouth.
“Will you let me give you goose bumps?” My tongue thrusts into her and follows the wet line of her lips.
“Balthazar,” she says in a hoarse whisper, gripping my shoulders. “You gave me those a long time ago.” Her fingers run through my hair, landing on the back of my neck. She pulls me against her as her knee gives way while I lick every inch of her. Arching off the wall, moaning my name, she comes undone on my tongue.
After scrambling to my feet, I yank my briefs down and rub my stiff cock against her. I’m ready to explode. A jolt of energy shoots through me. She makes me feel alive, with all the hope in the world sitting in her heart, waiting for me to claim it. My primal urges go wild as I suck her neck and lift her onto my hips. I grab my cock with one hand, situating it at her slick opening as my other arm holds her. I charge hard into her, needing to fuck, needing to take everything I’ve been missing, needing to let her know this is all she’ll need for the rest of her life.
“You okay?” She begs for more while digging her hands into my back, thrusting her hips onto me. I drop us to the floor, push her legs back, and plunge into her using the wall and her shoulders to get deeper.
“Matilda, this is all I’ve ever needed. You.” I mark her neck with bites as sweat rolls down my forehead. Her breasts shake under me as she arches up and grabs my thighs, while letting go. Her moans push me into a roll of endless waves and my release as she tightens around me and says my name over and over.
My Matilda, back in my arms, owning my heart, taking me to the sweetest place I know: the center of her love-filled soul.
“I never would have predicted you coming here.”
“What were you predicting for us?” I lay my head on her chest, her heart beating in rapid fire, matching mine.
“I don’t know. I mean, when I left, we weren’t exactly on speaking terms—or anything for that matter. You made me leave your bed. You never answer my calls or texts. You abandoned me,” she says in a pout.
I lean onto my forearms and brush hair from her eyes. Then I place a kiss on her closed eyelids. “I had to. You know that. I wanted you so much, but what if things hadn’t turned out this way? What if Cort had lived and you guys… I can’t even think about you with another man. I had no choice but to shut you out. You didn’t just float into my life. You wrecked me. Shook me to my core. You call me a beast, but I’d call you the same.”
She chuckles as she pushes me, but I grab her hips and drag her with me as I land on my back.
“I told you, you were the one I loved,” she says. “I wanted to believe you didn’t love me, believe you weren’t brave enough to use those words, weren’t strong enough to endure what they mean. But I couldn’t because the only thing I really believed—and still do—is that I belong to you.”
“I know, love, but I couldn’t see straight once you told me he was alive. And I’m sorry for your loss. I’m sorry.”
She sits up, straddling my abs, her fingertips dragging over my damp chest. I cup her breasts and brush my thumbs across her tight, dark nipples.
“So, now what?” she asks.
With her face resting in my palms, I speak with no further thought. “Dare I burden you with full ownership of my soul?”
She cocks her head as she smiles. “Translation please?”
I huff out a breath, and her eyes grow wide. I will never let her go again.
“I motherfucking love you. I want your beautiful forevers…but I want your frightened-of-thunderstorms too.”
She nods as she takes a big breath. “I like the sound of that.”
“Not sure I deserve a girl like you, so imperfectly perfect, so filled with life and goodness. And while I may not deserve you, it’s not going to stop me from being audacious enough to take you and selfish enough to keep you. You make me do the little things. Smile, breathe easier, see what’s in front of me, ignore what’s behind me. You give answers to my questions, light to my darkness. You give my thoughts a voice. You give my love a home. At the end of the day, I just want to know that we’ve tasted all of life together. The bitter, the sweet, and the let’s-spice-things-up-a-little-bit. I hope you see what I see: you loving me forever.”
Her eyes shine as tears glide down h
er face alongside her nose. “You’re making my heart beat fast—crazy fast.” Her throat bobs as I take her hands in mine. “What are you going to do about that?”
She still wants me,I need to make this happen…for good. I need a yes.
“What would you like me to do about that?” I answer in tease. “I want you to come back with me, be the mother to my boys. I want you to be my wife. I realize I said all this before and then you landed on a Christmas tree. I also realize you’ve got this nice apartment and Wisconsin is not exactly Paris.”
“It’s not chopped liver, either.” She giggles. “Are you asking?” She pins her eyes shut for a second. As she opens them, she smiles as if she’s embarrassed by her question.
“Are you accepting?” I entwine my fingers with hers and feel our pulses match.
She nods and falls forward, her hands landing beside my head. “If you’re asking, I am.”
“Yes, I am. I’m asking you to marry me, Matilda.” My skin buzzes. I can hardly believe this is happening.
“Okay, oh my goodness. Yes, okay yes!” She squeals while nodding, then sits up and sobs out a laugh. “Did we just do that?” Her hands fly to her mouth. “What I think we did?”
I wrap my arms around her, not believing it myself. “Yup.” I nod. “I think we did.” I kiss her fingertips, her cheeks, her forehead. “You want me on my knees to make it even more official?” I chuckle.
“I think it’s damn official. I’m going to spend the rest of my life chasing light with you, Balthazar Cox.”
“Matilda, I love you. I fucking love you. I’m pretty sure I loved you when you walked into the farmhouse with Aesop as if it were normal to bring a donkey into the house.” Her face fills with a proud grin. “No, no. Back that up a stop. I think I loved you that first time at the feed mill when you tripped backward down the stairs then casually told Duke you were ‘just spoonin’ a bale.’ Yeah, I loved you then. And I kept on loving you, but for the life of me, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to convince you to be mine. I knew it, all right. I wanted to tell you right then, ‘Don’t give me all your secrets, let me discover you one beautiful scar after the next.’ I could tell you had them, because you were unguarded and raw. I wondered how many scars you had…too many or too few. Just enough.”
People like Matilda can share their souls freely because they sought their stars in their darkness, and that’s how they healed. “There are so many things, love. So many things about you. Like the way you smile against my mouth when we kiss, and how it makes me want to kiss you more.”
“You’re such a sap, my husband-to-be is a sap.”
“You can call me your fiancé, it’s okay.”
Her eyes sparkle, sending an adrenaline rush straight through me. “Yes, it is okay. Fiancé.”
“I love so much about you, especially that you’ve just told me you’ll be my wife. That you’ll be the mother to my children.”
37
Matilda
Some try to hide. Some try to cheat. But time will show. We always will meet.
Try as you might, to guess my name. I promise you’ll know when you I do claim.
Death
On our first day back to Wisconsin Balthazar and I move his clothing back into our shared room. The light feeling I have in my heart for the first time in a month has me skipping around with a permanent smile on my face. I’m hanging up the last of his shirts in the closet when my phone rings.
“Hey, I’m going to take this call, it’s my dad. I can’t wait to tell him we’re getting married!”
Balthazar shoots me a wink before I saunter out of the bedroom.
“Hey, Dad, how’s the bucket list going?”
“Great! We’ve checked off a handful of things. We’re in Arizona now, my god, it’s gorgeous! How are you doing since we last talked?”
I circle around the kitchen table kicking one of the boys’ soccer balls as I walk. “I’m great actually. Better than great, I have some news.”
“You sound excited, lay it on me.”
My heart races before any words come out. I know based on the way Dad and I have been getting along he’ll be okay with my news. But still I have a moment of oh shit before I speak. “Balthazar and I are getting married!” I blurt it out so fast he may need me to say it again.
“Married? Married, well…that’s big news. You two ought to be excited! Congratulations.”
And breathe! Holy smokes, I just told my dad I’m marrying Lavinia’s man and he said congratulations. He must be in love. I hereby forgive him for all the asshole moments.
“Thanks, we’re really excited. We haven’t set a date, but we want a small ceremony, just family and a few close friends is all. How are you feeling? How’s Imogene?”
“You know, we’re both feeling all right. I think being together on this trip has been good for us. In fact, I have some news too. Imogene and I have done a lot of talking about end-of-life stuff as you can imagine. We’ve decided while we have the energy we’re taking the bull by the horns. We want to have a life celebration.”
“That’s cool, sounds like you. A party?” I grab the teakettle off the stove and fill it with water, then light the gas as I set it back down.
“Something like that. A going-away party. Small, just you and Balthazar, the boys, and Molly. Think you’d come out to Grand Canyon to join us? It would mean the world to us to have you here.”
“A party to celebrate your lives, of course we will! Sounds awesome.”
“Here’s the thing, honey. I’m not going to sugarcoat this. It really is a going-away party. We’re going to Thelma and Louise it!”
“You’re going to rob a bank or something?” I laugh. So does he. I don’t think I’ve ever heard him laugh so hard. After pulling the milk out of the fridge and ripping open a tea packet I slump into a chair at the table.
“Hell no. I’d never do something that crazy! We’re going to buy an old sports car and fly that fucker over the edge of the Grand Canyon at a hundred miles an hour as we hold hands and blast the radio. We’re going out big while we can! We have no interest in doing all those cancer drugs and end-of-life type things that’ll have us dying in our beds while wearing diapers. That’s not us. We’re going out in style!”
The silence is deafening for a few seconds. Then I swallow in realization. He’s not joking. Death is not a joking matter.
“You’re going to drive your car off a cliff? The Grand Canyon?” How can I possibly tell my father that it seems unfair to leave us that way? Unfair isn’t something you say to someone with cancer. Unfair is an untimely death when you thought you had another forty years in you.
“Yes we are, it’s what we both want to do while we still have the choice, while we still feel capable of it. The world is not going to stop when we die, Matilda.”
My head storms with questions as I bolt out of my chair. “Has Imogene called Balthazar yet?”
“She’s talking with him now.”
I press my fist against my temple and move it in circles. “When are you doing this, I mean. Sorry, that was weird. Um, it’s just. This is really morbid. You want us there watching… and the kids…you want them to see that? I don’t think so.” I clutch at my tightening throat.
“Why the hell not? It’s a celebration! We’ll have champagne and caviar and balloons and fireworks if we damn well please! What’s morbid about it? You want to see me die in my bed the way we watched your mother die? Maybe you don’t remember that. Let me tell you, if morbid has a face, her dying the way she did is it. I’m not going out like that. You can judge me, but I want you there.”
I take in a long breath. Maybe I can talk him down. Maybe they were drunk when they decided to do this. Fly off a cliff? How does that sound like a good idea? “Dad, maybe take some time and think this over.”
“What the hell do you think we’ve been doing as we’ve been driving cross-country?” he says tersely. “We have fucking talked this thing to death. It’s a done deal. Now, are you coming
or not? I don’t want to argue with you over this!”
The teapot whistles, shifting my attention from my shaking hands to the stovetop. “Of course, Dad. Of course I am.”
“How about this! Hey…now here’s an idea. How about you guys get married at the Grand Canyon as part of the celebration! We’ll all be together anyway!”
I grab the kettle and fill my mug, focusing on my breathing and my swallowing. Which feel laborious. Did I hear him right? Get married the day they drive a car off the Grand Canyon to their deaths. “Um, wow. I uh, Dad, I need to talk with Balthazar about that. I was thinking something small here on the lake. Something happy.”
“This will be happy, count on it! Honey, you decide what you want your party to be, but I’ll be paying for a really nice celebration out here and I think you guys tying the knot would make it even more special.”
I claw at my cheeks as I play the scenario out in my mind. No, that is simply not how I see myself getting married. “It’s a little grim for a wedding, don’t you think?”
“Matilda, try to see this from our point of view. A celebration of life! A beautiful end.”
“It’s suicide, Dad,” I shout. “Sorry, but it is.”
“Oh hell, child! Have you heard one word I’ve said?”
“I’m sorry.” Tears spring to my eyes then waterfall down my cheeks. “I’m just getting to know you, and now...you uh…”
“Honey, I know. I have no idea how much time I have left, please try to understand this from my perspective. I’ve never done anything small, I’m not about to change. Big is what I do!”
How To Tame Beasts And Other Wild Things Page 23
