It means everything to me.
I did the right thing not pulling the plug on this. I even did the right thing calling her mom and having her talk me down from completely throwing the plan under the bus. I’ve made everything okay again. Done something right.
Putting all of this together, I knew she wouldn’t have enough time to eat and look for the presents I left, so the last one; the present she needs to find in order to lead her to our meeting place, now’s the time I have to hide it.
I’ve already made sure that Dillon is at the ready. He won’t be her first call, but when Eric, Cadence, Sarah and Grace make themselves unavailable to help, he’s going to be the one to step in.
When I first put the plan together, it was going to be me getting her there, but the minute the idea of a scavenger hunt hit, it became obvious it couldn’t be. That left Dillon. I could have easily had Grace do it, but I figured it would be better having someone not as attached to the outcome.
Dillon might want this night to be awesome, but not because he’s invested in any way. He’d want it because it would be something that would make his two friends happy. With Grace, it’s more than that, so Dillon driving her there it is.
Making sure I’ve given myself enough time after Belle leaves so I don’t end up getting nailed making the run from across the street, I move out from my hiding spot and make quick work getting to the door and sliding my way inside.
The final present, it’s a big one. It’s something that I decided to do right after I left and came to Toronto, but that didn’t go through until about two days ago.
Grabbing a blank piece of paper from the printer and making my way over to the bar, I pull a stool out and throw my body on it, more than a little ready to write out the final note that will bring her the rest of the way in this anniversary adventure. Where the other notes had come easily, this one doesn’t and after staring at the page for more than a few minutes, the blankness of it glaring and taunting me, I give up.
In order to write this the way I want, I need something. It’s obviously something that’s not here in front of me or even in the house at all.
I need her.
Sliding my phone out of my pocket, thankful that over the last year nothing has happened to it, I pull up the screen that will give me exactly what I need.
Pushing play and watching the scene unfold in front of me, it works its magic.
Picking up the pen while the sound of her laughter plays on repeat in the background, I start writing and I don’t stop until every word that I want to say is filling the page.
The same way she has in every other instance in my life, Belle has given me exactly what I need and now the only thing left to do is place this where I need it to be and wait for her to come home and find it.
It’s time for our anniversary to really begin.
Belle
When I race through the door a few hours later, practically running the entire way home in order to give myself enough time to find the final two presents, the first thing I notice is that there’s printer paper on the bar. Paper that definitely wasn’t there when I left earlier.
Picking it up, I see that it’s blank and a feeling of dread sets in.
Kayden’s in Toronto and other than me, he’s the only one with a key to the house, which means whoever put this here had to have broken in. I’m scared at the thought of someone else being in the house, but the paper being the only thing that’s out of the ordinary, it’s confusing.
Who would break into a house just to use some paper?
Not having an answer and not wanting to be a sitting duck in case someone’s here that shouldn’t be, I move around the bar into the kitchen and open the pantry cupboard.
When Kayden left at the end of the summer, my fear of being completely alone more than I could stand, I stashed an old baseball bat I found in here.
In all the weeks since he’s been gone I’ve never once had to use it, but if there’s someone in the house right now, there’s no way they’re going to get the better of me. Grabbing it out and holding it up high, I slowly make my way back around until I’m in the center of the living room, able to see anything and everything that might be happening in the hall.
Moving slowly, swallowing the fear that’s building, I take steps down the hall and using the bat push both Dean’s and Kayden’s doors open. Clearing both rooms, catching sight of the bathroom from my spot in Kayden’s doorway, content that there’s no one here, I finally release the breath I’d been holding on to since I picked up the bat minutes before.
Maybe Kayden coming home is a good thing after all if I’m freaked by a little paper on the bar.
Putting the bat back where I found it, I close the pantry and balling up the scrap paper and tossing it in the recycling bin, put my focus on the whole reason I came back so quickly.
Kayden’s presents.
Two of them that I still need to find before I can figure out what else he has planned for me.
Eliminating the bathroom, assuming since it’s a place that I wouldn’t normally put things, I’m pretty sure Kayden wouldn’t either, it leaves me with the living room and his new bedroom.
Making my way back down the hall, this time less concerned with my speed, I peek around before stepping all the way in again. My eyes fall first to the picture frames lining the mahogany dresser and who’s in them.
Us.
One frame after another, some of me alone smiling and others of the two of us. Memories of our year together. Instances I never want to forget because sometimes it almost feels like they’re a dream.
Opening each drawer, looking around inside and finding nothing but clothes and the random junk drawer Kayden uses for emptying his pockets and even sometimes the contents of his backseat, I don’t see anything that would stand out as a present. Taking another look around, I move over to the bed before sitting down and opening the drawer of the bedside table.
Where I expect to find it empty, it’s not and it’s when I pull out the papers inside, along with another CD case that I realize I’ve found present number two.
Written in black marker across the front of the CD are two words.
Play Me.
Fingers firmly grasped around the papers I have yet to read, I head back out of the room and across the hall into mine. Making a beeline for the desk, I slide the disc drive open and place it gently inside. Hearing the familiar hum of the laptop as it boots up whatever is on the disc, I slide myself down in the chair and wait until the entire screen turns black. The video program opens up and a gigantic play arrow lands in the middle of the screen.
Clicking on it, I watch as a video I’ve never seen before starts playing.
It’s one of me running my hands through my hair, looking straight ahead and smiling, even going so far as to laugh while my hair whips around my head because of the wind swirling around me.
What is this? When was it taken? Why don’t I remember this?
It’s only when it ends a few seconds later that I look down at the two papers in my hand. One another note from Kayden, like the first one I found earlier and the other, another reminder of our time together last fall.
Two perforated pages with my handwriting, complete with smiley faces.
He kept them.
Placing them on the desk after wiping at my eyes, the reality of seeing these pages again hitting me a lot harder than I was expecting, I pick up the other paper and read his current words.
Isabelle
This is a two part present! Knowing you, I’m pretty sure you watched the video first so I’ll explain what it is and why it means so much to me.
The day you made the voice file, it altered the course for me. One day when we were outside together, I made the video. At the time, you caught me and I told you I was taking your picture, but that wasn’t the truth. The video with your laughter, your smile and how natural it all was, it’s how I always want to remember you. My air. My reason, at her most natural.
; The papers are a little different. At the time I had no idea why I kept them, but with us about to celebrate one year together, it’s never been clearer. Right from the first happy face, you put me under your spell and whether it’s a year from now or ten, I never want to forget the exact moment it happened.
The exact moment you saved me from drowning.
“Actions speak louder than words ever could, Kayden.”
The final present awaits you, but here’s a hint. It’s not in the house.
I don’t know how long it’s been since I read the words, but it’s like time’s completely frozen. The world is completely still.
There’s so much he told me after we got together, about how my words affected him and made him see things in a different way, but he never told me this. All I’ve ever wanted in my life leading up to the day Kayden came back into it was for one person to break the mold and be different than what was expected of them.
One person to step up, accept and understand and after watching the video and reading Kayden’s words, I see it coming to life.
He’s the one.
Wiping at my eyes for what feels like the hundredth time since I came into the room, I close the lid to the laptop and make my way out until I’m again standing in the living room.
His final clue said that the present wouldn’t be in the house, which only leaves out front or the backyard.
Making my way over to the window, I pull up the blinds and take in the small area. The trees in the far corner and the picnic table just off to the left. Whatever he’s got out there, it’s obviously not going to be sitting front and center for me to find so making my way to the screen door, I push through it until I’m standing on the back steps.
At one point when we were younger, I remember being over here. I don’t remember much of being inside the house, but I do remember being right where I am now. Daphne liked flowers and even though the flowers are long gone, there’s a large patch of old soil in the left of the yard and it’s where I head to first.
I see the green metal watering can first, but moving in closer, I see movement underneath it. More white paper, lifting slightly with the breeze. Kneeling down until my legs are digging into the ground, I lift the can and pull up the papers underneath, but not before seeing the words on a small magnet resting on the side of the can.
Home is where our story begins.
It’s worn and a little dirty in the corners so I know that even if these papers are Kayden’s final present, this magnet didn’t play a part in it, but the way it makes me feel seeing them leaves no doubt in my mind that they were meant for me to find.
Home, whether it was mine or the one I find myself in now was where our story started and I just know that it will be where the story ends too.
Getting back to my feet and making my way back over to the stairs, I sit down and start reading.
You’ve found the final present! Before you look under the paper to see what it might be, there’s something I want to say to you first.
“Welcome Home.”
Two of the most beautiful words in the English language and the two words that may mean even more to me than I love you.
I know you don’t believe this, but you are my home, Isabelle Reagan. My safe place to land, my preserver when I’m drowning and my air when I can’t breathe. When I’m with you, I’m home.
Go now. Unwrap my present and then come back because listed on the back of this paper is the location of where you need to be at 7.
I love you Belle and I can’t wait to see you.
Happy Anniversary.
I’m a cheater. I flip the paper over the minute I’ve read the final words because even though I want to know what the present is and why he chose it to be the last one, where I need to be in order to see him matters more.
The address on the page, I’m not familiar with it. I can’t say that I find that surprising considering how protective my mom was about letting me go out before I moved over here. There aren’t a lot of places I’ve been to unless it’s been with Eric and his parents so the excitement I had over finally learning where I’d be going tonight starts to fade.
Folding up the paper and sliding it down into the pocket of my pants, I focus my attention on the present. When I see the words across the top of the page and the two names that come directly after it, I’m floored.
It’s the deed to Kayden’s house, or at least the paperwork needed in order to change the occupants listed on it.
Kayden Walker is listed at the top in heavy block lettering and directly underneath it is my name. He’s applying to have me listed on the deed to his house.
His home.
Our home.
Running my eyes down the page, I catch sight of the sticky note filled with Kayden’s print.
Welcome Home Isabelle Reagan.
“Oh my god.”
I don’t know what to do with this. My mind is going a mile a minute thinking about what it all means.
It might seem strange to some people, but for me, from the moment I realized what I was feeling for Kayden, I’ve always just known that I want to spend the rest of my life with him.
He’s said a few times that he’s loved me since he was three or four and even though that seems crazy, with the way we grew up together, how close I remember being in the memories I do have of that time, it just makes sense. The way we are now is an extension of what we were then and it’s the most natural thing in the world.
As natural as it feels to want a life with Kayden in the future, seeing my name listed on an application for changes to his house, it’s scary. It’s like bringing the future into the present and even though I don’t have a lot of experience with relationships, I do know that if you move things too fast it usually doesn’t work out.
The last thing I want is for what I have with Kayden to end. For us to move too quickly and end up split apart a few years from now. When I say that I can see him in my future and that I want forever with him, I mean it.
Welcome Home Isabelle Reagan.
As scary as it is seeing those words, it’s also heartwarming. What he’s doing giving me this, it’s him letting me know in actions, not words that he wants us to be together forever.
Live together in this house, our home, for the rest of our lives.
It’s the most beautiful way of showing me how he feels that he could ever do aside from maybe getting down on one knee and proposing, but even thinking about taking a step like that right now makes my throat constrict. I want a future with Kayden. I’m determined to have one, but not by bringing the future slamming into our present.
Looking away from the paper and glancing at my watch, I realize that my time is almost up. I’ve got a little less than two hours to be at the address he gave me on the back of the paper.
That’s what I need to focus on right now. Signing these papers, making this final, it’s going to have to wait. My need to see him; stand in front of him and tell him exactly what everything he did today means to me, that’s where my focus needs to be.
It’s time for me to give Kayden his gift. The only thing in the world left that I can give him since he already has the rest of me so completely.
I just hope that when I get there, it’s a gift he’s going to be ready to receive. One that he’ll want. I’m not sure what I’ll do if he doesn’t.
Risk for reward, Isabelle.
Chapter Nineteen
Kayden
I dated a lot of different girls before Belle came back into my life.
I’m pretty damn sure every single one of them would have killed for me to act the way I am right now because it would have meant that they weren’t inconsequential. They would have felt special, like they mattered.
The sad reality is, they didn’t matter because when I dated them, I didn’t matter. My life at home was a mess, my attitude was in the toilet and I just didn’t give a fuck about anything or anyone. I was lost in translation.
Everything is different tonigh
t. I’m not lost anymore. I’m not drowning the way I was a year ago, desperate for saving. I’m whole. Complete. And it’s all because of her.
It’s been hours since I set up the scavenger hunt and it’s taken every ounce of my self-control not to bend, caving in completely and calling her.
With everything that’s happened with Dean, finding out about my mom and seeing her outside that hotel room, I’ve changed and there’s no way Belle hasn’t noticed. I’m just thankful that she was asleep the last night we were together. She didn’t witness the way I reacted when everything finally hit me.
There’s been one constant with me the entire time we’ve been together. I’ve always been the strong one. The protector. Breaking down, crying the way I did, it’s like a gigantic crack in that armor I’ve built so solidly around us. It’s a moment of weakness, which isn’t wrong, but it’s a way I never want her to see me.
Protecting Belle, being there for her in ways that no one else can, it’s what I’m meant to do and the thought of all of that changing if she knew just how hard I’ve been taking everything lately is too much. It just can’t happen. This is one change I don’t want.
Hopping up onto the trunk of the car, leaning across my knees and staring out toward the boardwalk, I soak up everything going on around me while I wait for Dillon to text and tell me that they’re on their way.
When I was here before, there were a lot more people walking the boardwalk. It’s slower now, more serene, which really does make it the perfect night.
I’ve got her. We’re on our way.
My heart stills reading his words, but before I can acknowledge the way it feels knowing she’s close, another text comes through and seeing it stirs something new inside of me.
The deed to your fucking house? Holy shit Kayden.
The only way for Dillon to know about the house, with me leaving it out when I was putting everything together, is for Belle to tell him. Knowing that she shared it with him when he picked her up, it’s intense.
All My Heart (Count On Me Book 4) Page 18
