Slow Burn

by K. Bromberg

  “I wish I may, I wish I might, have this wish I wish tonight,” I say, repeating our dandelion duo mantra. “I wish for time so I can make a thousand more wishes on my own.” Then I close my eyes and blow as hard as I can. I open them to watch the seeds take flight and dance across the breeze. And I can’t help but waste one of those wishes right now as I wish to be one of them, free and in flight without a worry.

  “Time is precious, Haddie,” Danny says off to my right as I continue to watch the dandelion seeds.

  “Waste it wisely,” I finish Lex’s motto for him.

  And I’ve already wasted too much of it.

  Chapter 29

  BECKS

  The percussion section in my head has finally quieted down some as I sit on the balcony. I’m slowly fading into recovery sleep, feet propped up on the railing, and a bottle of water in my hand.

  My mind whirls a million miles an hour, after spending the better part of the morning on my laptop doing Google searches on mastectomies and what to expect as the caregiver when helping someone going through chemo and radiation.

  Scary fucking shit.

  Basically kill you to try to cure you.

  You’d think modern medicine would have a better solution than this, but I guess you take the tried-and-true route until you need to take a different one. Stick to what works and all that.

  And it’d better work. No ifs, ands, or buts.

  Now I just need to see her. Hold her. Tell her face-to-face the gloves are on, and I’m waiting in the ring.

  Then the first of many waiting games will begin.

  After she apologized for not telling me, Ry promised to call the minute she heard from her. She said she thought Haddie was visiting Lexi and already had her brother-in-law on the way to see if she was at the cemetery and to make sure she was okay.

  I put the cap back on the water bottle and lower my hat over my eyes. My phone alerts me to a text—probably the hundredth of the day between Ry, Colton, and myself—so I don’t have any expectations when I lift it up to look at the screen. But when I do, the gas is knocked from my tank.

  Meet me in the ring?

  The smile spreads wide on my face, the response giving me so much more than the simple request it reads as. I tell myself to calm the fuck down, that we’ve been here before, and that if she gets spooked, she’ll run again.

  But that doesn’t stop the surge of relief that comes.

  I scramble to respond, pissed when the doorbell rings because answering this text is ten times more important. “Come in,” I yell, head down and focused on texting her back.

  Rex lifts his head to look toward the door, and I’m just about to hit SEND when I look up and drop the phone with a loud clatter on the table.

  Haddie stands in the doorway of the patio, shorts, tank top, sweatshirt tied around her waist, but it’s when I come to her feet that I’m knocked off my stride.

  Damn.

  She’s wearing a pair of pink flip-flops.

  I shove away my mom’s stupid-ass dream about the shoes—she’s just being crazy, after all—but I can’t help the lingering notion that this was meant to be. That my mom just might be right. I draw my eyes up from Haddie’s feet to take in her hair pulled back in a clip, cheeks flushed, and eyes red and swollen from crying.

  She looks like she’s been to Hell and back, but I’ve never thought her more beautiful than right now.

  Her eyes hold mine. So many emotions are in her gaze, but the ones I see and hold on to like a green flag on race day are the hope, the acceptance, the resolve that’s there.

  I rise from my chair, not wanting to take my eyes off her for a single second, taking in everything about her, and make my way to her, heart pounding, smile widening.

  I hope she feels this—whatever this is between us—because I feel like every single part of me wants to prove to her—right here, right now—how much I love her. How much I’m going to be there for her.

  When I get close to her, my feet falter as I notice the story in her eyes—I can see it clear as day now—and I just hope she lets me help write its happily ever after.

  Chapter 30

  Becks walks toward me, the muscles of his bare torso bunching with each step, a cautious smile on his face, and every part of me knows this is the right decision. That I want him, need him beside me. That he’s good for me.

  My bottom lip trembles as he closes the distance, shame taking the lead among my emotions for causing all of this trouble when it didn’t need to be there. I control the urge to step toward him; I want to let him make the first move, see if now that he knows what an absolute mess I am, he still wants me.

  But once he gets within a few feet, he stops, and I can see him try to pull back to allow me to set the pace. His eyes reflect relief, hope, love … but I can also see him try to guard his emotions, hold them in. We stand here, and I tell myself that I did this to us so it’s his first step to make, but after a few moments with everything I want so damn close, my resolve flies out the window.

  Within seconds I’m in his arms, and I’m not sure which one of us made the move, and I really don’t care because it feels so damn good. “I’m so sorry,” falls from my mouth over and over again as he squeezes me so tight, I can’t breathe except to repeat my apologies.

  He just keeps repeating for me to “Shh, baby” over and over until he pulls back and frames my face with his hands and presses a kiss to my lips in between our repeated phrases. Tears are coursing down my cheeks, and I don’t care because all I care about is his mouth on mine, his arms around me, my name on his lips.

  He looks at me, his eyes asking before his mouth does. “Haddie?” Are you sure? Can I do this with you? You ready to fight with me beside you? Every single question is there in the way he says my name.

  I nod my head to him, leaning forward to kiss him to reinforce my response. His heart is thundering against mine, his hands a welcome comfort against my tearstained cheeks as I press my tongue between his lips. I moan when our tongues touch and begin to dance that slow seductive reconnection.

  I know it’s only been a week, but I feel like it’s been forever.

  My hands move over his bare torso, hungry and fearful all at once. My mind is still hoping he doesn’t reject me, despite his kiss, his touch, his continuous murmurs of encouragement telling me otherwise. My teeth pull and scrape against his bottom lip and he gives me a groan of satisfaction that encourages me to keep going.

  “Haddie,” he pants as he tries to stop kissing me but continues doing it nonetheless.

  “Mm-hmm?” My hands slip behind the waistband of his board shorts and squeeze the swell above his ass.

  “Had,” he groans, “we need to talk.”

  I still my hands, my lips against his, and pull back so that I can look into his eyes. I slide my hands up his torso, earning me a hiss of his breath until they frame his face. “Yes, we do need to talk. And I’ll talk all night with you … answer every question, apologize seven ways from Sunday,” I tell him, leaning forward and pressing my lips to his, “but right now I want you, Beckett.”

  I can see the skepticism flicker through his eyes, the immediate doubt that we’re back where we started on day one. I rein in my need—to feel for the right reasons for the first time in what seems like forever rather than to use it to chase away the pain—and realize that I might be making the decision to step into the ring, but it’s not fair to keep him continually against the ropes.

  He’s right.

  As much as I want to cement our connection with the physical desire between us, we need to talk. I groan when I step back from the warmth of his body and exhale a shaky breath. I stare at the hollow of his throat for a second, suddenly nervous to speak with him because now this is all real.

  “You’re right,” I finally say, my voice soft and heart pounding. I look up to him and meet his eyes. “You deserve some explanations.” Tears pool in my eyes because as much as I know I want this, I never thought how I was going to e
xplain myself without sounding like a damn idiot.

  “Come here,” he says, putting his hands on my hips and pulling me into him so that I’m back against the firmness of his body. “I just want to hold you for a minute, okay? Just give me this because right now you don’t need to explain shit except for why you’re never going to do this to us again.”

  And I choke on the sob because my mind immediately goes there—to the poison in my body and how I might not have a choice whether I do or don’t hurt us again. But he said us, which allows me to quiet my head and snuggle a little farther into his comforting warmth.

  He sighs when he catches what he said and how I took it, and squeezes me a little tighter to emphasize his words. “Not now, Haddie. Don’t think about it now. There are going to be plenty of moments, plenty of days where the cancer is going to get between you and me, but don’t let it ruin this moment. Because right now, you’re just this heartbreakingly gorgeous woman full of fire and spunk, and I’m this mild mannered guy who’s missed the hell out of you. You’re not sick, and I’m not healthy…. We just are.”

  His words wind their way into my soul, take hold of my heart and start tying double knots in the ropes he’s looped there that connect me back to him. And for the first time, fear doesn’t fuel anything because he’s right: We have to live in this moment, appreciate this moment, just he and I.

  City and Country.

  The longer we stand there wrapped around each other, the easier it is to believe that we can do this. That I can let him in wholeheartedly and trust that he’ll make the best decisions for himself.

  Regardless, I still feel that it’s important to make sure he’s well-informed so that he knows what he’s getting into.

  “Becks, can we talk?”

  He chuckles, the sound a welcome reverberation against my chest. “Now you’re starting to sound like me.”

  “Funny …”

  He pulls me with him toward the patio furniture protected from the sun under a trellis. He doesn’t release me but rather keeps his arm around me and guides me to sit on the couch so that I’m cradled in his lap, my back against the arm of it and my legs lying across his thighs. He looks at me, eyes narrowing, the ghost of a lopsided smirk tugging up one corner of his mouth.

  “Hi,” he says, and I can’t help the smile that spreads across my lips, my stomach fluttering with anticipation from feeling such a different type of emotion than I have over the past few weeks.

  “Hi.”

  He leans forward and presses one of his signature Beckett kisses to my lips. The most innocent brush of lips, but it leaves you feeling like he’s just opened you, stolen a piece of your heart, and is never going to give it back. And that’s a good thing because he doesn’t need to steal bits and pieces of it anymore…. No, I’m ready to hand it over wholeheartedly.

  “I have a few things I need to say—explanations, apologies—so I’d appreciate it if you let me say them, okay?”

  He nods his head to me and leans back some before licking his lips and raising his eyebrows to tell me that the floor is mine.

  Or rather the ring.

  “I watched Lexi die. Day by day, breath by breath. And when I wasn’t watching her, I was busy watching Danny fall apart. We were all devastated when she died, but he lost himself for a while. And then there’s Maddie and everything she’s gone through….” My voice fades off as I try to get a grip on my emotions so that I can get through this without breaking down because I really need Becks not to just listen to me, but to really hear me.

  He runs a hand up and down my bare leg, my concentration so fierce to keep it all together that I don’t even realize he’s doing it until I feel the ache unfurl in my center. I welcome the feeling but know I can’t sate it until I finish this.

  I’m trying to turn over a new leaf. Talk, then action; reason, then lust.

  “So after Lex died, of course, the worry turned to me in my family. I’d already thought about it, already knew deep down, somehow that I had the same fate.” He starts to shake his head and correct me, but I stop him by bringing my finger to his lips. “Not the dying part, but the breast cancer part. It all weighed heavy on me, stole me from myself really. Then one night after I picked the broken pieces of Danny off his living room floor, knowing he’d never really be whole again, I swore I’d never do that to someone. I’d never let anyone get close enough to me so that when I eventually got sick, they’d have to suffer like Danny did. I vowed to protect the people I cared about, the people who had choices to avoid being in that situation … to never let someone love me….” The first tear falls over and slides down my cheek.

  “Haddie.” My name is a sigh on his lips as he reaches up and wipes the tear away before I shake my head for him to leave it. He can’t touch me or I’ll fall apart, and I can’t fall apart yet. I need to finish this before I can break. Then I can use him—use us—to help fortify myself so we can move forward.

  “I know, but it made perfect sense to me. And then you happened.” I look at him and see so many things that I never expected, most of which are the parts of me I’d lost with Lexi’s death. “I don’t know how to explain what … how you …”

  “You don’t need to because I feel the same.” He scrunches his head down so that his eyes are even with mine.

  “No, I do need to,” I explain, finding my words again. “You told me you loved me, and I stood there and shoved you away. I hurt you on purpose, and that has eaten at me. All I wanted to do was to call you and tell you I was sorry, that I didn’t mean what I said, but I was trying to protect you from this.” I put my hands out in front of my chest, my eyes closing momentarily while I try to figure out how else to emphasize how sorry I am.

  “Had.” His hands are back on my face, directing it up so that I have no choice but to meet his eyes. “I told you I was in it for the fight. I wasn’t going anywhere. I still am and always will be.”

  He leans forward and kisses my forehead as we both accept the moment, the possible future, the definite fight we have ahead of us.

  “But aren’t you worried that you’re going to be with this girl who’s going to be a hot mess … who’s going to lose her hair, possibly be infertile, be sick all the time from chemo or radiation … who might not make it?” My voice breaks. My words sound so hollow, so foreign as I try to disengage myself from those truths that I hate to say but need to clarify nonetheless.

  “Montgomery.” I’m so in my own head momentarily that it takes the third or fourth attempt for me to hear him. Startled, my eyes flash back up to him. “I say this with all of the courtesy in the world … but shut the hell up. I don’t want to hear—”

  “I know, but it’s reality and reality is—”

  His hand goes playfully over my mouth so that the rest of my sentence sounds like a muffled garble. “Uh-uh. This is where you stay quiet, and I get to talk. Understood?” I hear the teasing in his tone but also hear the authority.

  I nod my head as he blows out a breath and runs his free hand through his hair before setting it back down on my bare thigh. “You don’t get it, do you?” He smiles softly and angles his head to stare at me, his thumb rubbing circles absently on my leg. “That first night … hell, you asked for no strings, but I knew if I had you, I’d only want more. Then I tried tying those damn strings any way I could, but you severed them just as quickly as I knotted them.” He shakes his head for a moment before meeting my eyes with a vivid clarity in his gaze. “You’re that once-in-a-lifetime type of woman, Haddie.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You’re the goddamn priceless Macallan.”

  I scrunch up my nose and look at him. Then our conversation from my doorstep weeks ago comes back to finally make sense of his words. The sincerity in his tone strikes me next, and his conviction has my chest constricting with the emotion I feel for him.

  “Well, at least I’m a good one,” I say, earning a smile from him.

  “The best.” He nods his head with a
murmured appreciation. “I wouldn’t care if you were a Two Buck Chuck bottle … I’ll pick you every time, Haddie. Scars, inability to have kids, bald, sick, emotional … you’re beautiful to me. Every single way. I’ll still pick you every goddamn time.” His eyes bore into mine. They dance with the same emotion his tone reflects. “There’s just always been something about you that I can’t resist….”

  Tears flood my eyes—and the overwhelming acceptance he’s just given me is undeserved but gives me the courage to start taping up the boxing gloves for the fight of my life.

  With him in my corner.

  And it’s funny. All along I’ve told him no strings—pushed him away the minute they even started to intertwine—so I never realized how liberating it would be when I willingly tied them myself.

  I start to become comfortable with the idea, accept it, and something he said at the farmhouse hits me.

  “It’s the click.”

  “Yes, the click,” he says with a soft chuckle. “But you know what? The click’s irrelevant now. The click was our initial connection. Now? Now it’s the clanking.”

  “Clanking?” What in the hell is he talking about?

  “Yep. It’s the sound the chains are making as I wrap them around your heart and shut the damn lock.” He flashes a cocky grin at me that does ridiculous things to my insides. “Screw the strings. They can be cut. I’m using chains to tie us together because it takes a hell of a lot more to break those.”

  I try to mask the girlie sigh that wants to fall from my lips in giddiness. “That sounds kind of kinky.” I raise my eyebrows at him, my heart full and the coil of desire only increasing.

  A slow smile spreads across his lips. “They sound a little unforgiving, but damn, City, we just might have to try that out. It kind of turns me on.”

  I lean forward and kiss him. “Promise?” I whisper, my lips moving against his.

  “I’ll promise you whatever you want as long as you tell me you’re not going to push me away again.” The playfulness in his eyes fades to solemnity. I can tell I’ve hurt him and hate myself for it.