Always and Forever

by Soraya Lane

  “Fancy fried calamari?” she asked with a laugh. “I’ve been wanting to order it for over two weeks now but just thinking about eating it made me feel like I was being unfaithful to you.”

  Matt wrapped an arm around her and she tucked tight into him. Back in her happy place. “I say that sounds like the best damn idea I’ve heard in a long time.”

  “Would you have forgiven me?” she asked with a laugh.

  “Sweetheart, I’d forgive you a lot of things, but eating calamari without me? Not a chance. Definite grounds for divorce.”

  Lisa laughed. “I guess you’ll have to take my word for it that I kept my mouth shut, then.”

  They sat in the poolside restaurant, the air warm and balmy as the waiter brought them both beers.

  “I don’t want to ruin the moment, but there’s just so much I want to say,” Lisa told him. “Is that okay?”

  “Yeah, it’s definitely okay.”

  She was craving a fresh start, wanted to get everything out in the open.

  “Can I start though?” he asked.

  “Yeah, sure,” she murmured, wrapping her arms around herself as she sat back in the chair, eyes never leaving his.

  “I’ve kept so much inside, locked away from you,” Matt told her. “When my mom died, I went running into the hospital, and it wasn’t until I saw her body and touched her that it hit me. I’d thought that she was going to be okay, even when her hair fell out and she started to get so small because she’d lost so much weight. I just wouldn’t, or maybe couldn’t, accept it.”

  “I wish I’d asked you about this. I wish you’d confided in me,” Lisa said.

  “But I didn’t want to talk to you about it. I wanted us to be happy, and when I was with you I could forget about all that and it made me feel good. I felt better that way. It was like you were this beautiful, passionate, fun girl, and everything about you made me want more out of life, because I wanted to be with you. You were the best thing that happened to me and I didn’t want to burst that bubble by thinking about what I’d lost.”

  “I wish I’d known more, though,” she said, blinking away tears. “I can’t believe I never asked you more, that after all this time we never talked about how you felt when you lost her or what you went through.”

  “You were so young when we met, Lis. And we had so much fun. We always have,” Matt said. “I’ve been carrying around so much guilt for the way I treated my dad, but I just never got the words out to tell him I was sorry. I tried to make up for it, but I never said it. And then you got cancer and everything I felt with Mom came back, only a hundred times worse.”

  Lisa thought about the way he’d held her hand in the hospital, kissed her and smiled and tried so hard to act like everything was okay. The way he’d refused to accept that she might not make it, that there was any other option other than to save her life.

  “You must have been so scared when I went into surgery,” she said.

  “Yeah, I was.” Matt said, voice husky. “I’d seen someone I love get taken by a cancer so similar to yours, and it was killing me to see you like that. That very first day we were told the news, I was terrified of losing you, because I knew what that kind of loss felt like and I didn’t think I could survive it again.”

  Lisa filled her lungs, breathed deep over and over, the pain hitting her in waves. “That’s why you said from the very beginning that you’d do anything to save me, that it was no choice to you.”

  Matt nodded, pain etched in his face. “I couldn’t lose you, Lisa. I couldn’t go through that again. I couldn’t lose the person that had made me happy again. Not for a second time.”

  “I’m sorry,” she sobbed, throwing herself against him, holding him tight, her arms wrapped around him. “All I could think about was the baby and all you could think about was losing me. And the more I think about what our child could have gone through, knowing he’d effectively been my death sentence? It’s horrid.”

  “I wanted him, Lis, you need to believe that. I wanted to be a dad so damn bad, but not if the price was you.” He was stroking her head now, his fingers running through her hair. “Never if the price was you.”

  “How do we move forward? How do we deal with never being parents?”

  Matt’s breath was deep; she felt the rise of his chest against her face. “We just take it one day at a time.”

  “Really?” she asked, pushing up so she could look at him.

  “Really.”

  “I don’t want you to blame me—I don’t ever want you to wish that you’d left me for someone you could have a family with.”

  Matt laughed, a quiet, warm laugh that sent goose pimples across her skin. “Baby, I don’t want to leave you now and I doubt I ever will. The time apart was good for us because we both lost a lot this year, but one thing I don’t want to lose is you.”

  Lisa tucked into him again, cocooned against his body. “I’m sorry I shot you down so fast about adoption. I just . . .”

  “It was way too soon. I don’t care about all that—I was just trying to make you happy, to make you see that we still had options. To try to help you see that you could still be a mom if you wanted it.”

  “Is it okay if we don’t?” she asked quietly. “I just want to be the two of us for a while, maybe forever, to just be us and start afresh. I don’t want to talk about what else we could do.”

  “Yeah, that’s fine by me,” Matt said, dropping a kiss into her hair that felt so warm and comforting. She’d missed his touch. He might not have opened up about his feelings a lot before, but he’d always touched her, always made her feel loved. “All the more of you for me to enjoy without sharing, right?”

  She smiled. “I just want to be me for a bit. To remind myself how lucky I am to be alive, to enjoy hanging out with you. I need to make peace with what happened before thinking about anything else. Or anyone else.”

  “I do have one confession to make,” Matt said. “And I can’t go back on my word, so you have to say yes.”

  Lisa groaned. “What? Please don’t tell me you’ve gone crazy buying anything for the house or . . .”

  He held up his hand, interrupting her. “While you were gone, I promised Blue a sibling. A four-legged one.”

  Lisa burst out laughing and Matt joined in. She loved that they could be so serious one minute and he could make her laugh the next—it might have annoyed her when she was wallowing in her grief, but she wouldn’t trade it for anything right now. But a sibling for Blue? “I guess as long as it’s a rescue pup. And you’ve already told me that I don’t have a choice in the matter, right?”

  Matt tipped her face up, his fingers nestled beneath her chin. “I love you, Lisa. I love you so damn much. And not just because you’re letting me get a puppy.”

  “I love you, too,” she whispered back. “Although you’ll have to love me from the floor when we’re back home, ’cause there’ll be no room for you in the bed between Blue, me and the new pup.”

  Matt groaned. “I knew there was a catch. No puppy then!”

  Lisa knew it wasn’t going to be easy, but she felt more at peace with her life and within herself than she had in longer than she could remember.

  “Tell me we’re going to be okay?” she murmured, gazing up at him.

  Matt held her close, one hand stroking up and down her back. “I promise you, we’re going to be okay.”

  She had a feeling this time that it was a promise he could keep.

  34.

  Matt looked out at the blue water, sparkling and looking more movie scene than reality. The sand beneath his toes was almost white, and when he turned back to the resort, everything else was white, too. The seemingly hundreds of sun loungers and umbrellas were placed in rows to face the pool, which he knew from his early morning walk was the perfect place to look out at the ocean.

  “Wait up!”

  A flash of bright pink caught his eye and Lisa came rushing toward him, past the pool and out onto the sand. Her eyes were bright
, smile wide as she landed at his side, breathless but grinning.

  “What did I miss?” she asked.

  “Blue sky, blue water, white sand, no noise . . .” He laughed. “Same as yesterday, only better.”

  “Sounds like bliss.”

  Matt felt like a weight had lifted from him, one he hadn’t even realized he’d been carrying around for so long, and looking at Lisa only reminded him of how good things were starting to feel.

  “I love it here,” Lisa said as she slid her arm around him. “This place has been good for me, for us. A new special place, maybe?”

  Matt kissed her cheek. It had been rough acknowledging that they weren’t unbreakable after so many years of all their friends and family teasing them about how loved up they were, how they were the couple everyone wanted to be, but it had been worth it. It was like a more grown-up version of what they’d had instead of the easygoing childhood romance they’d begun with.

  “I know this sounds way too ‘romance novel’ to come from me, but I heard a song awhile back that reminded me of you,” Matt said, clearing his throat, knowing it was stupid to be embarrassed about saying something romantic to his wife. “I want you as my beginning, middle and end, Lisa. I honestly mean that.”

  She hugged him tight, her face turned up to him, smile wide. “I want that too, Matty. I know it’s going to be a different middle and end than we’d imagined, but I’m starting to be okay with that.”

  “Good,” he said, pulling her in for a kiss, arm looped around her as he held her near. “Because I want that, too.”

  “Hey, did you talk to your dad when you were home? Talk about how you felt, open up about what you told me the other day?”

  “Yup,” Matt said. “I have you to thank for that, because when you pushed me away, I turned to him, and I couldn’t keep it all in any longer.”

  She hugged him again. “Good. We need to move forward with everything out in the open. No regrets, no secrets.”

  They strolled a bit longer, toes digging into the soft white sand.

  “Would you mind if we kept the nursery for a bit longer? I know we’re not going to be using it, but I think I need to spend some time in there. Think about our baby and make peace with that at home, make sure I’ve dealt with it.” Lisa pushed out a loud sigh. “I can still imagine myself sitting there on the armchair, holding a baby wrapped in a blue blanket. I need to deal with that rather than bottle it up.”

  “Want to do it together?” Matt asked, knowing that he needed to let a lot of his thoughts and regrets go, too. “I think I could do with spending some time in there, too. We closed the door that day but I think I need to open it again and go in. With you.”

  “Yeah, I’d like that.”

  They walked a bit longer, in silence, the only sounds the ocean beside them and the birds circling above.

  “Come with me,” Matt said, hearing the gruffness of his voice.

  “Why?” she asked as she followed him.

  “Because I want to stop talking and start dreaming about our future,” he replied. “I fully intend on taking you on a real road trip in the very near future in that shiny red Cadillac of ours.”

  Lisa was laughing as he dragged her along by the hand. “Where are you taking me? You know I hate surprises.”

  “What are you talking about? You love my surprises!” He listened to her groan and ignored her.

  The beach was pristine so Matt couldn’t find a stick to etch the words in the sand that he’d wanted to. Instead, he bent down in the damp sand and put three fingers together to trace the letters, starting with his name. Then he spelled out Lisa’s name directly beneath it, before encircling them both in a big heart.

  “That’s so beautiful,” she said, tears twinkling in her eyes.

  “I hardly ever saw you cry, in all our years together, until that first cancer diagnosis,” Matt said, rubbing his thumb gently across her skin to wipe the tears away. “That’s why I always thought you were unbreakable, so damn strong that you would always be okay. It’s why I struggled so hard with everything that was happening to you, because the only other person I’d ever seen with such strength was my mom.”

  “And now I’m a big crybaby all the time,” she said, shaking her head.

  “No, you’re not,” Matt told her. “I just hope that from now on you don’t have so much to cry about, that’s all.”

  He pulled her close, dropping his mouth over hers. Their lips moved in perfect harmony, the ocean lapping behind them, threatening to wipe out their names in the sand as they embraced. Matt’s hands ran down her body, skimming her hips, landed on her butt and stayed there.

  “I’d like to scoop you up and carry you back to our room,” he muttered.

  Lisa giggled and slapped her hands on his butt. “That sounds good.”

  “Race you,” Matt whispered, slapping her butt.

  Lisa jogged ahead, looking over her shoulder, smiling as she stayed just far enough in front of him, teasing him. It was the woman he’d always known; the smiling, carefree, constantly happy beach-blonde who’d stolen his heart when he hadn’t even known he had a heart. He’d always loved Lisa, but seeing her suffer from the moment of that diagnosis through to the termination and everything else that came after it had been rough. Trying to be the guy who could hold it together, who was strong enough for both of them—that had been harder than rough: it had almost broken him.

  But he had his Lisa back now. His girl. And he was going to make the most of every damn day they had.

  “Wait up, beautiful,” he called.

  Lisa turned again and stopped, walking backward, laughing at him. Just as he was reaching for her, wanting her, she moved out of his grasp again and he wasn’t about to chase and tackle her when someone would probably see and not realize they were joking around. But Mexico was the perfect place in the world to be, and Lisa was the perfect person to be sharing it with.

  “We could always go have some lunch,” she suggested, raising an eyebrow. “I know how you like to fill up before using all your energy.”

  She squealed as he made a grab for her, laughing so hard that he couldn’t help but join in.

  “Stop,” Lisa said, laughing, trying to push him away. But Matt was relentless. “Matt!” Her feet were bare against the cool porcelain tiles, the backs of her knees suddenly pressed against the soft white sheets of the bed.

  He pushed her back instead, standing over her as she fell back onto the bed. She was only wearing a little summer dress, so it didn’t take much for him to shove it up and have half of her bare straight away.

  “This is what I’ve been dreaming about,” he said. “My naked wife in Mexico.”

  “Oh really?” Lisa said with a laugh.

  “Yes, really,” he muttered, leaning over her, then falling forward, just missing crashing into her. “Shit!”

  Lisa happily took charge, taking over.

  “We need to go easy,” she said, softly kissing Matt’s lips as she bent forward. Lisa sat up slowly and grabbed the hem of his t-shirt, pulling it up. He obliged. “Take this slow.”

  “A little over two weeks apart and I’m not interested in slow,” Matt grumbled.

  Lisa didn’t let him keep speaking. She traced kisses across his abdomen, sucked and licked so slowly that it made him moan. And then she undid his shorts and pulled them down.

  Then she raised her arms as he nudged at her top, slipped out of her dress and pulled it over her head before throwing it away.

  “Damn, you’re gorgeous,” he growled.

  “I’ve missed you,” she suddenly said, falling down on top of him, arms wrapped around him, skin to skin.

  Lisa kissed him as tears fell from her lashes and merged with their lips, salty and full of love. The weeks without him had been so tough, almost impossible, but it was worth it for what they had now.

  “I love you, Matty.”

  “Good,” he said, hands tracing up and down her spine before slipping beneath the lace of her g
-string. “Because we’re Matt and Lisa, and we’ve got to keep on making all the other couples jealous, right?”

  She laughed against his mouth, tears long gone.

  They were Matt and Lisa. And they were going to make it.

  “So tell me,” Matt said, tracing invisible circles across her skin as they lay naked on the bed. It was so warm that they hadn’t bothered pulling the sheet up, their bodies no longer slick with sweat, slowly cooling beneath the overhead fan. “What are we going to do in Mexico? Because I’ve told my guys and your crew at work that we’re not coming home for at least two weeks.”

  She moaned when he stopped stroking her skin, curled tighter into him like a cat wanting to be petted. “I’m not even going to argue with you. I want to stay here forever. How about you teach me how to surf?” she asked.

  “Finally!” he said. “I’ll go rent the damn boards now!”

  Lisa laughed. “And I want to write our names in the sand every day for the next two weeks and drink margaritas every night.”

  “I’m loving you even more right now. You’re the perfect woman.”

  “You better believe it.” Lisa stretched out, brushing a kiss along his jaw as she changed position. “Because I want us to both learn paddle-boarding, too.”

  “You do all that, I’m gonna promise to tell you I love you every day for the rest of our lives.”

  “You know, I could get used to this new romantic version of my husband,” she murmured, running her fingers through his hair and stretching her naked body forward so she was brushing against him.

  “Dangerous move, baby, very dangerous move,” Matt growled.

  She laughed. “Maybe I like dangerous.”

  Matt kissed her, softly at first. She pushed into him, kissing him back, as hungry as he was.

  “We’re gonna do all those things,” he muttered, mouth pulled away from hers just enough to talk. “Every goddamn thing.”

  Lisa didn’t answer, her mouth hungrily searching out his again. What they’d had might not have been perfect, but if this was flawed, then he didn’t give a damn.