A Thousand Boy Kisses(53)

I cleared it with a kiss.

Rune turned into me, tucking his head into the crook of my neck. I wrapped my hand around his head, holding him close.

Rune’s back rose with a deep inhale. “I brought you here tonight to remind you of when we were happy. When we were inseparable, best friends and more. But—”

He cut his words off. I gently pushed back his head to look at his face “What?” I asked. “Please, tell me. I promise I’m okay.”

He searched my eyes, then stared across the still water. When his gaze returned to me, he asked, “But what if this is the last time we ever get to do this?”

Pushing myself between him and the railing, I took the cigarette from his hand and threw it into the creek. Standing on my tiptoes, I took both his cheeks in my hands. “Then we had tonight,” I asserted. Rune’s face winced at my words. “We’ve had this memory. We’ve had this cherished moment.” My head tipped to the side and a nostalgic smile pulled on my lips. “I used to know a boy, a boy I loved with my whole heart, who lived for a single moment. Who told me that a single moment could change the world. It could change someone’s life. That one moment could make someone’s life, in that brief second, infinitely better or infinitely worse.”

He closed his eyes, but I continued to speak. “This, tonight, being at this creek with you again,” I said, feeling a sense of peace fill my soul, “remembering my mamaw and why I loved her so much … it has made my life infinitely better. This moment, given to me by you, I will remember always. I will take it with me to … wherever I go.”

Rune’s eyes opened. I pulled him down further. “You gave me tonight. You’ve returned. We can’t change the facts, we can’t change our fates, but we can still live. We can live as hard and as fast as we can while we have these days before us. We can be us again: Poppy and Rune.”

I didn’t think he would say anything in return, so it surprised me and filled me with incredible hope when he said, “Our final adventure.”

The perfect way to phrase it, I thought. “Our final adventure,” I whispered into the night, an unprecedented joy infusing my body. Rune’s arms snaked around my waist. “With one amendment,” I said. Rune frowned.

Smoothing the crease on his forehead, I said, “This life’s final adventure. Because I know, with unwavering faith, that we’ll be together again. Even when this adventure is over, a greater one awaits us on the other side. And Rune, there would be no heaven if you weren’t back in my arms someday.”

All six feet four of Rune Kristiansen braced against me. And I held him. I held him until he calmed. When he pulled back, I asked, “So, Rune Kristiansen, Viking from Norway, are you with me?”

Despite himself, Rune laughed. Laughed when I held out my hand for him to shake. Rune, my Scandinavian bad boy with a face made by the angels, slipped his hand into mine and we shook on our promise. Twice. Like my mamaw taught me.

“I’m with you,” he said. I felt his vow all the way to my toes.

“Ma’am, sir?” I looked over Rune’s shoulder to see the server holding our check. “We’re closing up,” he explained.

“You okay?” I asked Rune, signaling to the server that we were coming.

Rune nodded, his heavy brows pushing his face back into his familiar scowl. I imitated how he looked by scrunching my face. Rune, unable to resist, gave me his good-humored smirk. “Only you,” he said, more to himself than to me, “Poppymin.” Slipping his hand back into mine, he slowly guided me to the front of the shack.

When we were back in the car, Rune turned on the engine and said, “We have one more place to go.”

“Another memorable moment?”

As we pulled out onto the road, Rune took my hand in his across the console and replied, “I hope so, Poppymin. I hope so.”



*



It took us a while to drive back to town. We didn’t talk much. I had come to understand that Rune was quieter than he used to be. Not that he was exactly an extrovert before. He was always introverted and quiet. He fit nicely the image of the brooding artist, head always juggling places and landscapes he wanted to capture on film.

Moments.

We had traveled only a mile or so down the road when Rune turned the radio on. He told me to pick any station I wanted. And when I quietly sang, his fingers tightened just that bit more in mine.

A yawn escaped my mouth as we approached the edge of town, but I fought to keep my eyes open. I wanted to know where he was taking me.

When we stopped outside the Dixon Theater, my pulse took flight. This was the theater I had always dreamed of performing at. It was the theater I had always wanted to return to when I was older, as part of a professional orchestra. To my home town.

Rune cut the engine, and I stared up at the impressive stone theater. “Rune, what are we doing here?”

Rune released my hand and opened his door. “Come with me.”

Frowning, but my heart racing so impossibly hard, I opened my door to follow him. Rune took my hand and led me to the front entrance.

It was late on a Sunday night, but he led us straight through the front doors. As soon as we entered the dim foyer, I heard the faint sounds of Puccini playing in the background.

My hand tightened in Rune’s. He glanced down at me, a smirk on his lips. “Rune,” I whispered, as he led me up the opulent staircase. “Where are we going?”