Thick & Thin (Thin Love, #3)(4)
She belonged with us. I knew that. She always had, even more than a decade before when she first came into our lives out of necessity and stayed because she needed us as much as we needed her.
Ohana. Always.
Despite the small shock of the impromptu proposal, my folks walked up the aisle with my siblings tagging behind; I held back. I wasn’t ready to talk to Aly yet. I wasn’t strong enough. As I watched my family on stage, I noticed proudly that there were no judgments, in spite of the long stare Koa shot at Ethan and the way Makana rolled her eyes when the man tipped his knuckle under her chin. Aly took the offered hugs and kisses, letting my family congratulate her because that’s what you do—support, nurture, love even when you’re damn scared. Even when the person you love is throwing away their happiness with both hands. Watching them all up on that stage, seeing the way they looked at each other, seeing how Aly held onto my mom’s hand and interacted with my siblings, made my chest hurt. Would this end too with her marriage?
Aly and I were like a gentle, constant ripple, ever widening, intersecting to pull toward each other. Our friends, our family, our lives were connected, always would be and could be ignored, overshadowed by life, by the selfish pursuit to build ourselves into something resembling accomplishment, but what we were, who we were together would never go away. That ripple touched so much of who we had become; of who we were.
The noise around the auditorium still buzzed even though the crowd thinned. Still, my family lingered, and I stepped in the shadows, near the lobby, waiting for them to say their goodbyes.
There was nothing for it. How could I stand there watching, waiting and not take her in? Not remember the way her back arched when I slid inside her? Not remember the tight grip of her body over mine, the peppering of sounds—pleasure, surrender all coalescing into a song she sang just for me anytime I loved her. The way she held my hand no matter where we were. How her smile was all the encouragement I needed when I was tired, when my body ached from how badly I wrecked it on the field.
There wasn’t an inch of her body that I wasn’t familiar with. There wasn’t an expression she made that I couldn’t interpret. There wasn’t a happy memory in my past that didn’t involve her. She’d come into my life when everything was cold and lifeless and broke me from that darkness.
She’d been mine, body and soul, and watching her now—that sweet heart-shaped face, those full, perfect lips, I realized just how much her walking away four years ago still affected me.
It still hurt like hell.
I wouldn’t speak to her, not yet. Not with an audience. What I had to say was for Aly alone. So when they left, my parents didn’t ask why I wanted to grab a cab instead of go with them. They knew. They understood when I stayed back, disappeared backstage, into the last dressing room on the right—the one she always took—as the auditorium emptied and the cleaning crew began the task of clearing away the programs and sweeping the glitter and rhinestones and sweat from the stage.
Aly always stayed behind after a recital was over, waiting for the scenery to be broken down and the props put into her SUV. She’d always hang back to make sure none of the kids had left anything behind and to collect the things that were. Despite the ridiculous amounts she paid to contract the venue for a recital, Aly was a control freak and had to make sure things were handled for herself. Watching her from the doorway as she moved around the dressing room, I wondered how long I had with her. Would this Ethan guy stick around while she finished her work? I was hard to miss and she had to have told him about our relationship. Hell, six years is a long time to be with someone. There was no way my name had never come up. He had to have seen me tonight and maybe he expected me to keep my distance, to let them enjoy their new engagement.
He’d be disappointed.
Her arms were full. No flowers now. No congratulatory shit that weighed down those toned arms. Aly was in instructor mode, boss of the studio, stuffing programs into her bag and forgotten dance shoes into a plastic blue box with a click lid. The dressing room was dark, lit only by the yellow lights around the make-up tables and what eked in from the hallway.
Her movement cast shadows as she packed away the mess in her arms. A pair of abandoned shoes escaped her grasp to fall at her feet, and I couldn’t help but marvel as the tight, form-fitting dress she wore slid over her muscular legs when she bent to pick them up. I ached to touch her. Just one kiss against her shoulder, maybe a small graze of my fingers over her hips. It had been so damn long.
“If you’re going to lurk,” Aly said, back still facing me, “the least you could do is say hello.” When she turned, that giant rock on her left hand glinted against the table light and she watched me trying so hard to keep my gaze from that ring.
Two steps toward me and Aly held her fingers together behind her back, sparing me the reminder that she was someone else’s now. “Ransom…”
“Hello.” The greeting came out slow, annunciated with a lot of attitude, but when I stepped just inches from her, watching, I got that it hadn’t bothered her. Maybe she was too caught up in the way I leaned forward, greeting her with a brief kiss on her cheek. “Hello.” The word came out in a small growl, just the slightest breath against her ear.
Attraction, chemistry, it had never been a problem for us. We were combustible, two crackling fuses waiting to be ignited and generally the matches came out the second we ended up in the same room together. Standing there, smelling her perfume, catching the small hitch her in breath when I grazed her bare arm with my fingers, when she moved her eyes, locking her gaze on my mouth, I realized that crackling energy had not been extinguished.