If You Stay

by Courtney Cole

  than to be with you. To wake up beside you for the rest of my life. I am so grateful that you stuck by me for as long as you did. And all I want to know now is what I can do to make you stick with me again? You name it and I’ll do it. Anything.”

  He waits, his eyes glued to mine and I feel overwhelmed by emotion, completely choked up.

  “I haven’t waited too long?” I finally manage to say. Pax looks surprised.

  “What do you mean?” he asks bewilderedly. “Of course not. I said I would wait forever for you. I meant it.”

  Tears are streaming down my cheeks as I launch myself into his arms. We fold into each other and I bury myself against his chest. He smells the same, like the outdoors and the fresh air. I inhale him and then he tilts my chin up, his lips meeting mine.

  As I lose myself in his kiss, I know that I never want to be anywhere but here, wrapped in Pax’s arms.

  It’s where I belong.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Pax

  Mila sleeps curled on my lap. We’ve been curled up on the couch together all day and now into the evening. Her head is resting against my chest, and so it is with extreme caution that I reach for the phone, careful not to jostle her around and wake her.

  Speaking softly, I order an enormous amount of Chinese food for delivery. Looking down at Mila, I quickly add dessert to our order. She needs to eat. She’s lost weight. The curves that used to fit perfectly into my hands have become too thin.

  As I hang up the phone, I feel guilty about that. She was under stress because of me.

  Staring down, I stroke the hair away from her brow, watching her lips puff out with each breath. It’s a trait about her that is cute as hell. She seems so innocent, like a child. She chooses this moment to open her eyes. They widen as she realizes that I’m awake.

  “Hi,” she murmurs, sitting up. I keep my arms wrapped around her.

  “Hi,” I tell her with a smile. “Did you sleep well?”

  She nods guiltily, like she’s ashamed of sleeping the day away.

  “You needed the sleep,” I tell her. “You haven’t been taking care of yourself.”

  She looks sheepish. “I had trouble sleeping,” she answers defensively.

  “I know,” I tell her softly. “I did, too. But we’ll sleep better now, I promise.”

  She stares at me. “Have your nightmares gone away?”

  “Surprisingly, yes,” I answer. “For the most part. I’ve had a couple since I was hypnotized, but not many. Even though it’s been painful, remembering everything really was cathartic. Once I started talking about it and processing it, I’ve been able to put some of my issues to bed.”

  “You must be talented,” she tells me, taking my words from a long time ago. “Sometimes issues don’t want to sleep.”

  I smile. “You’re right. Sometimes issues are insomniacs from hell. But mine are behaving for now. Let’s hope they stay that way.”

  “I’m sure they will,” Mila answers confidently. “Because you’re talented. You’ll whip them into shape.”

  She snuggles into my neck and I pull her even closer. “I don’t think I’m ever going to let you off my lap,” I tell her. “So I hope you’re comfortable.”

  She giggles. “You say that now, until your legs fall asleep.”

  “You let me worry about that,” I tell her. “You weigh five pounds now. And by the way, we have food coming. You’re going to eat all of it.”

  She giggles again. “You let me worry about that.”

  But after the delivery guy comes and I let Mila get off my lap, she does end up eating everything I put on her plate. I try to make her take seconds, but she refuses. I let it slide. I’ll have all the time in the world now to feed her.

  “I have something for you,” I tell her as we put our dishes into the dishwasher. She straightens up.

  “Oh? I don’t need anything, though. I have everything I need now.”

  And by that, she means me. My heart swells.

  “I have everything I need now, too,” I assure her. “And you’re never going anywhere which is why I’m giving this to you.”

  She stares at me curiously and I lead her to the second floor, positioning her in front of a closed door.

  “You’re giving me a guest bedroom?” she cocks an eyebrow as she turns to look at me. “You don’t want to sleep with me anymore?”

  “Just open the door, Sassy Pants.”

  She smiles and turns the knob, pushing it open. And then she gasps.

  I transformed a guest room into a studio for her. An entire wall of windows face the lake, flooding the room with light. Two easels, built-in shelves filled with every possible art supply she could ever need, a sitting area and I even had skylights installed for nights when the moon is overhead.

  Mila is frozen.

  “Aren’t you going to say anything?” I ask. “Cat got your tongue?”

  She smiles slowly, mischievously. “I thought we already established that the cat most definitely doesn’t have my tongue.”

  Memories from the night on my kitchen floor stir my groin and I quickly think of other things. Dead puppies, nuns, cold fish.

  Once my groin is under control, I tug on her hand, leading her from shelf to shelf.

  “I wanted you to have everything you would need to paint here,” I tell her. “Did I forget anything?”

  She spins around, looking at everything.

  “This is amazing,” she breathes. “You didn’t forget a thing. But you must’ve been working on this for a while. What if… what if we hadn’t worked things out?”

  I wrap my arms around her from behind.

  “That wasn’t an option,” I answer. “It was never an option. Love never fails, Mila. And I’ll never fail you again. That’s a promise.”

  I pull her around so that she is looking at me with her gorgeous green eyes.

  “Mila, that day in your shop almost crushed me. When you said no to me, I didn’t know if I would survive it, but I knew I had to. I knew that I had to change, for me and for you. And I think I have. I’m still working on it… it’s going to be a process. But I’m willing to put in the work. Forever, if that’s what it takes. So…I’m going to ask you again, babe. Stay with me. Stay with me here in my house. It’s only a five minute drive to your shop when it’s open. And you can use this studio for your art. I promise to try not to snore. And to put the toilet seat down. Most of the time, anyway. Just stay with me. Please. I never want to be away from you again.”

  Mila stares at me, her eyes glittering. “On one condition.”

  I feel the breath freeze on my lips. “Name it.”

  “I get to paint you nude any time I want.”

  A chuckle rumbles through my chest and I grab her, crushing my lips to hers.

  “Any time,” I mumble against her mouth. “You can do anything to me at all, actually. Nude or otherwise.”

  She laughs and I lift her up. Her legs wrap around my waist…right where they belong as her fingers rake through my hair.

  “Yes,” she tells me breathlessly. “Yes. I’ll stay with you.”

  We tumble to the floor, grasping at each other, breathing each other in. Mila’s tongue slips into my mouth, her breath sweet and warm. Her hands clutch me, pulling me closer and closer.

  Her legs are wrapped around me and I moan as she strokes me. Then my lips are on her neck, her collarbone, her breasts. After a few heated minutes, she pulls my face back up to hers.

  With her forehead pressed to mine, she whispers, “I love you.”

  I grin against her lips.

  “I know.”

  I quickly roll over with her in my arms and I hover above her before I slide my hand between her legs. She is panting within a minute and calling my name within two.

  I smile again and as she pulls me to her, I enter her slowly and sweetly.

  I groan from the sheer, raw pleasure of it.

  The amount of love in this room is incredible; it is thick and alm
ost tangible. It is mind-blowing to me. I’ve never made love to any other woman before. It was always fucking in its most primal. It was never like this…so achingly sweet.

  Until now.

  With each stroke that I take, warmth swells in my chest until I feel I can’t contain it. I clutch Mila to me gently, not wanting to release her even for a moment. And when I am finally throbbing into her, I wrap her in my arms and we stay enmeshed together for what seems like forever, sticky and wet.

  “That was perfect,” she tells me sleepily, her fingers playing with mine.

  “You’re perfect,” I answer, closing my eyes. I don’t even worry about the fact that it’s a pussy thing to say. It’s the truth.

  Mila snuggles into my side and lays her head on my chest. Eventually her breathing grows rhythmic as she slips into sleep and I hover on the edge of drifting off myself.

  My last conscious thought is that Mila did what she promised. She chased my nightmares away. It’s because of her that I even went to see Dr. Tyler. If I hadn’t, I never would have remembered what happened to my mother. And if I hadn’t remembered that, I never would have fixed the hole in my heart.

  I never would have been whole.

  Mila did that.

  I’ll never tell her because she would just wave her hand and tell me that I’m the one who fixed things, that I put in the work. She never takes enough credit. So I’ll just have to love her every day of her life as a thank you. It’s enough that I know the truth.

  And I’ll never hide from the truth again.

  It can’t hurt me anymore.

  Epilogue

  Twelve Months Later

  Mila

  The letter that I hold in my hands is old and yellowed and precious. Tears blur my vision as I read it and I slowly wipe them away, careful not to smudge my makeup. I set it aside and look up at my sister.

  “So much has happened this year,” I say softly. Maddy nods in agreement.

  “Yeah,” she agrees with a laugh. “Who would have thought that I’d actually grow to love Pax?”

  I roll my eyes. “How could you not? He’s amazing. He’s done everything that he promised he would.”

  And he did. True to his word, Pax continued to see Dr. Tyler. He put in so much work on changing the way he handles things and communicates that I couldn’t be prouder of him, and our relationship couldn’t be more healthy or whole. He’s beautiful, inside and out. He completely gave up whiskey and drugs. The only thing he touches now is wine at dinner, with me.

  “I can’t believe he gave up Jack Daniels,” Madison says wryly, shaking her head. “That blew me away. Especially when all of that legal stuff was going on with his mother’s killer. It was so stressful. But he never even blinked. He didn’t mess up once. I have to say, I’m impressed with him, Sis. Truly.”

  I nod absently, thinking about how hard that ‘legal stuff’ had been for Pax to deal with.

  Leroy Ellison is the name of the mail man who violated Susanna Tate. DNA evidence proved it within a 99.900% level of accuracy and Pax identified him in a line-up, in addition to describing the snake tattoo on Leroy’s hip.

  Leroy is in jail now, awaiting trial. The Tate family attorneys don’t expect the trial to last long, since the evidence is conclusive.

  “And then, for his grandpa to turn up and try to make amends… Pax had so much pressure from every direction. I thought for sure he’d slip up. But he didn’t,” Madison says, staring at me.

  I have to admit, I had been a little nervous too. When William Alexander had showed up at Pax’s lake house and wanted to talk, I thought all kinds of shit was going to hit the fan. But he and Pax had taken a walk and talked through things.

  And over the course of the past year, as Pax’s head became clearer and less clouded by his past hurt, he had decided to take an interest in the family company. He will someday take it over when his grandfather dies.

  In the meantime, he is working from a home-office at the lake. He is learning the business and has met with his grandfather several times.

  In one of those meetings, his grandfather gave him an old box of letters, written from his mother to Pax, beginning with the day he was born.

  Maddy nods toward the letter sitting beside me.

  “What’s the deal with that letter, anyway?”

  “Apparently,” I explain, “When Paul moved Pax to Chicago, he left a bunch of Susanna’s stuff in their old house. He just couldn’t bring himself to throw it out. Pax’s grandfather sorted through it for him and when he did, he found a box of letters in Susanna’s closet.

  “I guess, when she was pregnant, she got emotional and hormonal and had decided to start writing Pax letters for special occasions in his life, in case anything ever happened to her. Paul said he teased her about it, but she did it anyway. It turned out, her foresight was a good idea.”

  “Oh my god,” Maddy breathes. “That gives me goose bumps. It’s amazing.”

  I nod. “I know. William kept them for Pax all of these years.”

  “Why did Pax want me to bring you that one this morning?” Maddy asks curiously.

  I flip it over and hold it up for her to see. She obviously hadn’t looked at it when she carried it in to me.

  The envelope is labeled, For Pax on his wedding day.

  His wedding day is today.

  Maddy’s eyes widen. “Oh, wow. What does it say?”

  My fingers shake as I read through the elegant writing once again, this time aloud for Madison. I struggle not to cry, because the words are just so beautiful.

  To my beautiful son,

  Looking at you now, as you toddle about my garden collecting caterpillars, I can’t imagine a day when you will be grown, when you will be a man. I can’t imagine a day when your tiny chubby hands will grow into big, slender ones like your father’s and that you will be one day be big enough to find a woman that you love.

  But I know that day will come, because days like that always do. You will be big and strong and beautiful and your wife will be lucky to have you. And you will be lucky to have her, too. Because anyone who captures your heart will be beautiful and amazing, as well. You will suit each other in every way. That is my hope for you.

  If you’re reading this, then I am not there with you. But I want you to know that my heart is there. My love is there. My love will always live on in you. And when you hold your children and your grandchildren, my love will pass through you to them, because love is never-ending. It goes on and on and on.

  My beautiful son, I love you. I hope that your married life is full of wonder and laughter and love. You deserve all of that and more. Please know that I am very proud of the man you have become. I know that even now, even as you are still a boy. I know it because of the potential that I already see in your eyes.

  Pax, don’t be upset that I’m gone. I believe in heaven, in a wonderful place full of forgiveness and love, and because of that, I know that I will see you again someday. Until that day, may your wife keep you happy and safe and loved.

  All my love,

  Forever,

  Your mother