The Long Way Home (Corps Security #6)(55)
“That’s really sweet of you to say, but I’m not sure you’re correct.”
“Sometimes all you need is a second for your life to change, darlin’. Just one second and you feel the winds start to pick up, giving you a hug while pushing you toward what you deserve.”
He gives me a smile, his whole face transforming, making him even more handsome than he already is. I nod, but don’t argue with him. I certainly know I’m a better version of myself when Zeke is around. When we clear the hall of the bathroom, seeing the men standing just outside leaning against a little glass wall, I watch the man I love relax a little the second he sees me. That tiny movement might as well back up the words his friend just told me.
Well, what do you know?
“I told you,” Sway says, leaning into me so he can speak quietly and just for me.
I loop my arm in his and smile at him, making his face soften. “Yeah, you sure did.”
“You” by Louyah
Liv is fretting.
I know she’s worried about what is coming, and I would be lying if I said I wasn’t as well.
The closer we get to the hotel and see how much Hope Town has changed since I left, the tighter my chest becomes. It feels like someone has reached into my chest and started squeezing.
That feeling hasn’t let up once since, either.
Davey left a little while ago and took Liv with him to get some provisions for the room—snacks, drinks, and a few toiletries we left behind. In reality, I needed her to go out so Sway could work his magic and take me the final step back to the man I was. Or as close as I can get. I’ve changed a lot over the years, but not enough that I won’t look pretty close to the man I was with some careful help of his hair tools. Older, harder, and weathered with the pain I’ve experienced in the time I’ve been gone has changed me. I wore my hair and my beard as a mask. A mask I need to shed not just for this reunion but also to be myself for the woman who owns me.
It wasn’t that I didn’t want her here. I seem to always want her with me. This, though, I needed to do alone. I’ve told myself it was because I didn’t want to turn her fretting into a full-blown worry session, but I know the truth now. Watching him through the mirror, I need this moment with my old friend just as much as I’m betting he does. I needed to face the past, myself, and be able to let him go.
“You sure about this, handsome?” Sway asks for the fifth time, still brushing his comb through my long hair. He’s been playing with it a lot more than he’s been brushing it, though.
“Needs to be done, Sway.”
“You know … ” He starts, trailing off while reaching to grab his scissors from where they had been resting on the tall cart that Davey rolled in for him when they arrived earlier. The silence ticked by. The whole time, he kept running his hands through my hair. Would have been weird, but damn, if it wasn’t relaxing.
I give him the time he needs and look over at the cart again. Sway says it holds everything he might ever need, but I’d put money on it holding a bunch of glitter in half the drawers.
“For so long, I couldn’t wait to get my hands on you. In the platonic sense, you dog.” He laughs when I look at him funny in the mirror he set up in this makeshift salon in the corner of the room. “Don’t you get old Sway wrong, you hunks are still oh-so hunky. Only now I have a hunky man of my own, and honey child, no way would I stray from my man no matter how hard you tried to get me.” He tosses his head back and hoots loudly at his own joke.
“Tell me about your husband. How did you meet?” I ask, too full of nervous energy to join in his hilarity but also genuinely wanting to know about his life now. I’m not touching the flirting bait he always loved to toss at myself or one of my former friends. Shameless. That’s just who Sway is. It’s oddly refreshing to know that hasn’t changed in the years that I’ve been away.
He keeps cutting my hair, not speaking. I watch as the long length falls with each snip.
Brush. Snip.
A blond piece falls to the floor.
Brush. Snip.
Pieces of the man I have become fall away to the floor with each bit of hair he releases to the floor.
Brush. Snip.
Pieces of the man I had been before fall into place with each cut he makes.
I was transfixed as I watched each piece he cut and the dance with the man I was and am warring out in the mirror. Each piece flutters to the floor, his pink-tipped fingernails twinkling all the while he is unaware of how mammoth this moment is. Who am I kidding … he knows. Hence the silence.
“He took Emmy’s place at Corps Security, honey buns,” Sway says softly. He doesn’t stop cutting and I look away from myself to focus on him and his dreary tone. I have just a moment to try to recall if I had ever heard him sound so … normal when he speaks again. “When you … well, when you died, honey.” He stops, dropping his arms to his sides and looking at me in the mirror.
Half my hair is still long on one side.
The other just looks like a mess.
Doesn’t matter, though. I can already see the change in my face.
Jesus.
What a mind fuck.
“After that, Emmy didn’t handle the aftermath that well. Most everyone will say that is the understatement of the millennium, but I digress. It was hard on everyone, but she carried a heavy load. She ran, but that dark prince of hers ran after her. Not saying it was perfect after that, but Maddox didn’t let her go, and they both healed a lot while they traveled their bumpy road. He didn’t give up on her, not once, no matter how hard she made it.”