Between Hello and Goodbye(91)

Kal thought for a moment, then nodded. “Yeah. I can. It feels like how mommy and daddy…” He buried his face in his arms and his little body shook with sobs.

I gathered him to me, and my tears mixed with the rainwater. I had no idea what to say. I wasn’t good at this. I’d never been in a situation this fraught with pain, where the slightest wrong word could make things a million times worse.

I closed my eyes for a second and stopped thinking. I breathed, blocked out the storm and the creaking house and just told him the truth.

“It’s a lot of changes, isn’t it?” I said, rocking Kal under the porch in the muddy filth. He nodded against me. “Change is hard. And scary. But you’re brave, Kal. You’re one of the bravest kids I’ve ever met.”

“I don’t feel brave. I feel scared.”

“That’s part of the deal. You’re scared but you do the hard stuff anyway. That’s what being brave is all about. And I’m going to tell you something else and then we really have to get out of here, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Your Uncle Asher needs you as much as you need him.”

He raised his mud-and-tear-streaked face. “He does?”

“Absolutely.” I nodded. “He’s tired all the time because he takes care of everyone but himself. But maybe if you guys take care of each other, you’ll be okay again.”

“Are you going to take care of him too?”

I swallowed. “I don’t know. It seems like Chloe…Miss Barnes is taking care of him.”

“Not anymore,” Kal said. “Tonight, Uncle Asher told her she had to leave. He said it was a mistake.”

I faced forward. “Oh.”

Footsteps sounded from the rain that was finally letting up. A flashlight beam swept over us.

“Kal? Faith?” Asher called, his voice ragged with fear and exhaustion.

“In here!” I called and looked to Kal. “Can we go home now?”

He thought for a moment and then nodded. “I guess so.”

“Thatta boy. You’re my hero.”

“Me? I thought only firefighters like Uncle Ash could be heroes.”

The tears threatened again but I forced them back. “They are. He is. But brave little boys can be too. One hundred percent.”

Brave little boys who lose everything and keep going.

Kal smiled and wiped his nose. “I like that.”

He crawled out from under the porch, and I followed. Asher was waiting for us, drenched and haggard, relief flooding his expression and tears filling his eyes. He dropped to his knees, head bowed, and the flashlight fell from his hands to splat in the mud. Kal rushed to him, threw his little arms around his neck. Asher wrapped his arms around the boy, both of them clutching one another, both sobbing. Both letting the storm break over them, finally.

I hung back, smiling, though my own eyes streamed watching that sweet little boy and my firefighter, wracked by grief and love at the same time.

Because in the end, they were the same thing .





Chapter Twenty-Seven



I drove us back to the house and waited in the kitchen while Asher had a few quiet words with Chloe. The rain had stopped, and she didn’t live far, so he felt it was safe enough to let her go. I don’t think she would’ve stayed anyway. The look she gave us when we came in said everything.

I felt bad for her. I couldn’t think of a greater torture than loving Asher Mackey and him not loving you back.

Asher took Kal upstairs to give him a bath and put him to bed while I made use of the downstairs shower and washed all the cold rain and mud off of me. I was covered head to toe thanks to my little foray under the porch.

After, I wrapped myself in a towel and went to the living room where Asher was waiting in sleep pants and an undershirt, having freshly showered too, his hair still damp. His eyes widened when he saw me and my almost-nakedness. I sat on the armrest of the couch, my palms on either side of me, as if bracing myself. For him.

“Faith…”

I shook my head. “Later,” I said, my voice thick, my entire body flooded with a hundred different emotions, one stronger than any other—pure, unadulterated love for him.

Asher read my meaning and his eyes darkened. “I didn’t touch her,” he said, his voice hoarse.

“I know,” I said and leaned back a little, my legs parting. “Come here and put your hands on me.”

Because I knew what he needed, and it wasn’t to have to rehash all of his pain and his reasons for doing when he did. We’d have time enough to talk later. Right then, in that moment, he needed relief. He’d let himself go with Kal in the rain, but I was going to give him another kind of release and show him he wasn’t going to have to do this alone. Not anymore.

Asher took a step toward me and then another until he was right in front of me. My heart pounded but I felt calm at the same time. Serene.

He raised his hands to my face, holding me reverently. But it wasn’t time for that, either.

I moved his hands down to my shoulders, to the edge of the towel. I watched him swallow, his Adam’s apple bobbing and then he sucked in a breath, and with one hand, undid the tuck in the terrycloth. The towel fell open.

Asher’s eyes flared again and then the next second, his mouth was on mine, kissing me with a need so powerful, it stole my breath. But I could take it. I wanted it. I wanted everything he had to give, so I grabbed him by the hips and pulled him to me. His erection strained against his flannel sleep pants, brushing against my nakedness. He grunted and kissed me harder—biting, deep kisses and I responded in kind. Mauling him. The need and want that had been simmering for so many weeks all poured out at once, turning us frenzied. We devoured each other whole.