by Aly Martinez
My body roared to life, and an unbelievable calm washed over me.
It was warm and dense, a vast difference from the empty chill I usually carried. Eventually, it would overtake me and I’d be forced to recognize it. But, until then, I was going to lie back and let it grow.
We sat like that for several minutes.
Bumper-to-bumper traffic.
My lips to her forehead.
Her hand clinging to my arm.
But she was right.
We had done it in the light.
* * *
Sunlight poured in through the curtains when I was suddenly dragged out of sleep by a knock at my front door.
I was on my side, knees bent, hand tucked under my pillow, one leg over the covers, the other under, but even after I’d pried my eyes open, I was still very much in a dream world.
A hard, naked body was pressed against my back, one arm stretched out beneath my neck, the other wrapped around my ribs, his hand holding my breast, his heat enveloping me.
Porter had surprised me the night before by announcing that he’d not only taken the night off (to spend with me), but that he’d also asked his mom and dad to stay with his kids so we could have a whole twenty-four hours to ourselves. My heart had nearly leapt from my chest, and my body had definitely leapt into his arms. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been that excited about something.
We’d worn clothes for all of thirty minutes total that night. And that hadn’t included drinking beers and eating Chinese food on my couch. (Begrudgingly, Porter had agreed to put pants on before opening the door for the delivery guy.)
I smiled and rolled against him, praying that whoever was at the door would disappear.
“What time is it?” he murmured without opening his eyes.
I lifted my head off his arm to look at the clock on the nightstand. “Eight fifteen.”
“Mmmm,” he purred sleepily. “Too early.”
I pecked the tip of his nose. “See, this is what happens when you insist on the four-a.m. quickie.”
His lids were still closed as he said, “Don’t you dare try to blame me. You initiated that.”
I grinned. I totally had. But I’d woken up much in the same way as I had moments earlier, only this time, it wasn’t just Porter’s hard body that was pressed up against me.
I kissed him again, this time on the lips—morning breath be damned.
He smiled and finally lifted his lids. “Morning.”
“Morning,” I breathed, running my hand over the top of his messy, blond hair.
“How’d you sleep?” he asked.
A pang of sadness hit my stomach.
Better than I will tonight when you go home.
“Good.”
“Good. Then let’s do it again,” he said, nuzzling his head into the pillow before closing his eyes.
I chuckled and propped my head up with an elbow to the bed.
Porter was gorgeous, even at eight in the morning, with a thick layer of scruff covering his jaw and sleep—and sex—mussed hair. But it was the man inside that had captivated me so completely. The world was still spinning, but for the first time, I didn’t feel the overwhelming need to keep up. Time moved slower when we were together.
Over the last few weeks, another of my fingers had slipped off the cliff, but my grip was still firm. Progress was progress though, no matter how small it was. I’d stopped going to the park and my old house. The urge was still there, but it almost felt liberating not to give in to it.
I’d known Porter for all of a month and I was leaps and bounds closer to reclaiming my life than I had been in ten years. And the most amazing part of all was that I was doing it by myself—with him at my side.
Porter lived by the rules. He never asked me questions, though I still told him answers. And, when I gave them to him, he didn’t judge my truths. He had this incredible knack for recognizing the exact moment I’d escape into my head to distract myself from the pain of whatever had triggered me. And he’d patiently wait there for me to return. He never once gave me a reason to fake a smile. He’d just hold my hand and let me be. If I wanted to open up, I did. If I didn’t, that was okay too. But I was never alone in the darkness. Not while he was there—even if that was only on the other end of a phone call.
But, right then, after having spent the night laughing, making love until the wee hours of the morning, and falling asleep wrapped in his arms, I felt something I had never experienced stir inside me.
And I didn’t mean that I hadn’t experienced it in the ten years since my world had fallen dark.
This particular something inside me was the likes I’d never felt in my entire life.
And it was the most beautiful something of all.
My nose stung as I pressed my lips together, fighting against the inevitable.
“Stop staring at me,” he grumbled without opening his eyes.
I smiled, and it forced a single tear to slide down my cheek. I brushed it away and said, “It’s just that you’re really ugly in the mornings.”
He chuckled and pulled me down so my head rested on his pillow. “That’s not what you said at four a.m.”
Closing my eyes, I tried to forget the reason I’d woken up in the first place, but there was another loud knock at the door.
Porter’s eyes shot open. “You expecting company?”
“You’re here. Rita is most likely shacked up with your brother. And my mom has a strict Saturday-morning-mimosa routine in which she doesn’t leave the house until noon. So, no.”
He twisted his lips. “You think it’s one of the neighbors needing a bolster in morale?”
Exaggerating a groan, I rolled out of his arms and stood up. “Probably. Let me get my bra and panties on and see what I can do.”
He laughed and sat up, his heated gaze following me as I ambled to my dresser, pulled out a T-shirt and sleep pants, and shrugged them on.
He grazed his teeth over his bottom lip. “Get rid of the clothes before you come back in here. My x-ray vision isn’t what it used to be.”
I smiled. “You used to have x-ray vision?”
He winked. “How else do you think I see you in the dark?”
“Wouldn’t that be night vision?”
He stared off into the distance. “Well, what do you know? My superhuman abilities are multiplying.”
My lips twitched as I rolled my eyes. “Okay, Captain America. While I get the door, why don’t you try to unlock the powers that will enable you to put some pants on and start the coffee maker?”
“Captain America doesn’t really have any powers besides his strength and a shield.”
“Okay, then how about you use the shield to cover your ass while you get up and use your extra-strong finger to press the button on the coffee maker.”
He barked a laugh at the same time I heard her voice.
“Charlotte?” she called from my living room. “Honey? It’s Mom. I used my key, but just a heads-up, Tom’s with me. So maybe put on some clothes before coming out.”
“Shit,” I breathed.
Porter’s eyes got wide, and he scrambled from the bed, whispering, “What happened to mimosas?”
I shrugged and turned to the door. “No clue. But I’d highly suggest pants rather than the shield now.”
Smiling, I listened to Porter’s laughter fade behind the closed door as I headed down the hall. When I reached the living room, I found Tom and my mom standing in the entryway.
My lips fell as I took in my mom’s ashen face, and Tom’s arm anchored around her shoulders, his face equally pale.
Oh God.
Flashing my gaze between them, alarm bells screaming in my ears, I asked, “What’s wrong?”
“Honey, we need to talk,” she whispered, clutching her arms to her chest as if she were warding off a chill in the air. And, for the way the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end and goose bumps pebbled my skin, she might have been.
I looked at Tom, my v
oice thick as I asked, “What’s going on?”
“Charlotte,” he started, only to stop when his eyes flicked to something over my shoulder. “Shit. Sorry. I didn’t realize you had company.”
My mother slapped a hand over her chest, and her eyes filled with tears, but she wasn’t looking at Porter. She was watching me, and her regret was palpable. “Oh God. He’s the guy who made you so happy at the restaurant.”
Porter’s arm snaked around my hips from behind and I felt his lips in my hair, but not even his warmth against my back could drive away the frigid air swirling around the room.
“Hi. I’m Porter Reese. Nice to meet—”
I didn’t let him finish. “Tom?” I prompted, taking a step forward.
Tom’s eyebrows furrowed and he cut his gaze away uncomfortably.
My lungs began to burn, and my pulse spiked. There was only one reason I could think of to explain why Tom and my mom had shown up at my place at eight in the morning, looking like they’d seen a ghost.
And, suddenly, I was terrified they had.
Tom’s gaze flicked back to mine, and his arm tensed around my mom. “We should talk in private, Charlotte.”
I shook my head as my skin began to tingle. “Tell me.”
Tom looked over my shoulder at Porter. “I’m gonna need you to leave, son.”
I blinked, and then all of the oxygen was stolen from the room.
This was it. The truth that was going to set me free and then make me want to die.
My body became solid, but as my soul turned to liquid, I found myself drowning in everything I had once been.
Porter’s front once again hit my back and his arms closed in around me, careful and insulating. But not even Porter’s darkness could protect me from this.
“Not happening,” Porter replied gruffly.
“Tell me,” I choked.
“Honey…” my mother started, pausing long enough to collect herself before continuing. “This is a private—”
“Tell me!” I yelled. What started as a chin quiver quickly worked its way down to a full-body shake as adrenaline ravaged my system.
My mother jumped and Tom instinctively took a step toward me, but it was Porter who kept me on my feet.
“Breathe,” he urged into the top of my hair as he attempted to tuck me into his side, but I was having none of it.
I didn’t want comfort. I wanted the answers, but I was afraid I wanted different answers than they were going to give me.
Pushing out of Porter’s arms, I stood on my own two shaking legs just like I had the day my boy had been taken and looked Tom directly in the eye. “Please.”
He sucked in a sharp breath, straightened his back, and then gave me the words I was so desperate to hear. “The body of a baby was uncovered at a construction site they were breaking ground on late last night.”
My chest caved in, and a wave of nausea rolled in my stomach.
There it was.
The moment I’d been waiting so long for.
The words I’d prayed so many times I’d never hear. And then, years later, the ones that I prayed would finally allow me to let go.
“Is it him?” I asked without actually feeling anything.
Porter got close again, hovering without touching me.
My mom reached out, tears pouring from her eyes.
Tom’s face contorted as if I’d asked him to shoot me.
And I stood there, pleading for someone to finally end my nightmare.
“We don’t have a cause of death or positive ID yet, but—” Out of his back pocket, Tom produced a photo and lifted it my way.
I slapped a hand over my mouth, and the ground rumbled beneath my feet. The past roared to life even as I clung to the present. I would have recognized that pacifier clip anywhere. It had been last seen clipped to the front of my son’s shirt. I’d had it custom made for him before I’d even known he was a boy. Call it mother’s intuition or whatever, but I’d felt it in my bones.
He had been my son.
And, now, he was gone.
A dark, guilt-ridden part of my soul died as I stared at the picture of that blue-and-white-polka-dot ribbon, the pacifier he had once suckled still connected to the end, five letters monogrammed in thick block font to form what I now knew was the most painful word in the English language.
Lucas.
And then, suddenly, even though I’d had ten years of warning, the world finally stopped.
* * *
I had no idea what was in that picture, but it wasn’t hard to follow the bouncing ball, though it was impossible to grasp the reality of it all.
Her son was dead. They’d found his body, which had been buried for God only knew how long while she’d spent ten years living and breathing but buried right alongside him.
He wasn’t even my child and the pain was damn near crippling. I couldn’t imagine the hurricane blowing inside her.
When she stumbled on weak legs, colliding with my chest, I couldn’t gather her in my arms fast enough. Turning her, I supported her weight. Her back arched as she curved her front against mine. Her heart raced and her chest heaved as the unfathomable devoured her. And, through it all, I did the only thing I could. I held her tight, waiting for her to explode and cursing the moment when her guttural cries would tear through the room like a tornado of devastation, leveling us all.
I would have given anything to carry her back to the bedroom. To hit rewind and go back to when she had been peacefully sleeping at my side. Her breathing even. Her heart slow. Her body languid. Her mind still. The scars on her soul temporarily forgotten.
The truth was I could hold her until my arms fell off, but I couldn’t make this better for her. Part of her had been missing long before I’d met her, but the grieving process was just getting started, and there was absolutely nothing I could do to soften that blow.
But that didn’t mean I wasn’t going to try.
She didn’t scream.
She didn’t cry.
She didn’t wail or shake her fist at the heavens.
She didn’t even move.
“I’m here,” I mumbled into the top of her hair, repeatedly kissing the side of her face. “I’ll stop with you. It’s just me and you, Charlotte.”
She didn’t respond. Honestly, I wasn’t even sure she was breathing anymore.
She was still.
Utterly. Completely. Eerily so.
“Honey.” Her mom appeared beside us.
My muscles tensed as my body screamed in objection, but when Charlotte pivoted in her direction, I let her go.
Charlotte didn’t move into her mother’s open arms.
Stepping away from us both, she stated, “I need coffee.” And then, robotically, she tilted her head back to catch my gaze. “You want some?”
Calm. Cool. Collected.
Not a tear in sight. Steady hands. Square shoulders.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
It wasn’t just her face anymore. Her whole aura was blank. Not even I could find the emotion hidden within.
It was worse than the cries I’d expected because it was the first time since I’d met Charlotte that I realized there wasn’t even enough of her left to explode.
“Charlotte,” I rasped. “Come back, sweetheart.”
But I didn’t mean physically. She was gone, and it scared the hell out of me.
Reaching out to catch her hand, I tangled our fingers together, desperately trying to get a read on her. She didn’t grip it tight with anxiety. Nor did she give it a sweet squeeze. But, worst of all, she didn’t even pull it away in an attempt to hide.
She just held it, limp and loose.
Physically there but mentally and emotionally a million miles away.
I moved closer, worry ricocheting inside me, and whispered, “Let’s go sit in the darkness.”
She offered me a reassuring smile so fake that it appeared as though it were made of plastic. “Let’s stay in the light today, Porter.”
&
nbsp; I searched her face. “I don’t know where you are right now, but I promise you this isn’t the light. Let me in. I’ll come with you, wherever you want to go. I’m there.”
After pulling her hand from mine, she rested her palms on my chest. Then, keeping her gaze down, she absently traced the seam at the neck of my T-shirt. “I’ve been waiting a long time to know where my baby was. Now, I know. This is as close to the light as I’m ever going to get.”
The breath rushing from my lungs felt as though I’d been hit with a sledgehammer.
She had a point. A sad, depressing, tragic point. But a point nonetheless.
I held her empty gaze, searching for a glimmer of the woman I’d been falling in love with over the last month, but if she was in there, I couldn’t be sure.
Unfortunately, she didn’t give me long to look. Spinning, she briskly headed for the kitchen.
“Charlotte, let me get the coffee,” her mom said, following after her.
I stood frozen, unable to move.
Everyone reacted different to tragedy. I knew this firsthand. Hell, I’d fought a pond one time.
But this was different, and I had no fucking idea what to do.
Did I give her space?
Did I follow her and insist she talk to me?
Did I carry her to the bedroom, close the blinds, and force her into the darkness confessional with me?
If I stuck with the rules, my only option was to wait for her to come to me, but that felt like the impossible.
But, if I broke them, I risked breaking her too.
I watched her over the bar as she plundered around her small kitchen. Her mother frantically tried to stop her, but Charlotte ignored her pleas and went about gathering coffee, retrieving mugs from the cabinet, filling the carafe with water, and then pouring it into the machine. Her face was emotionless, and her movements were smooth, not at all jerky or rough with distress. She was on autopilot.
When she’d finished filling two mugs to the brim, she hand-delivered one to me in the exact same spot she’d left me, but this time, she was standing an arm’s length away.
I took the coffee but kept my gaze trained on hers and said the only thing I could think of. “Let me in.”
