“What?”
“Why did you come here?”
Rubbing the nape of my neck, I felt shy. My stomach gave a slight whirl. She had always been the only person in the world to make me feel seen. “I came because I wanted to talk to you and things at the hospital were tense.”
She stood up then too, looking cold. I just wanted to hold her.
“When you started breathing again…I thought I loved hearing people chant my name more than anything in the world. Silver, hearing you breathe…that’s the only sound I ever want to hear again. I hate that my shitty past decisions might keep that from me.”
“Kelton Kline, you saved my life,” she shook her head, her curls giving a bounce.
“I’d do it again. I’ve been in love with you my whole life, Sassy Silver. The minute I met you in kindergarten…to the day I promised my mama I was going to marry you…”
She started to blush under my gaze. “What?”
“Yeah, Sassy. I’m gonna marry you one of these days. Might not be tomorrow but….you’re gonna make an honest Texan out of me.”
Time seemed to stand still and before I knew it, Silver was dancing up onto her tip toes. Her mouth inches from my own. The heat coming off the both of us would have melted steel.
“Stay with me tonight,” she whispered.
“You let me in tonight, I’m never leaving your side ever again.”
She pecked my lips, her next words hanging in the air became music to my ears. “I love you…”
“Damn, Sassy, you know how to bring a man to his knees don’t you?”
She rolled her eyes, in the way only the woman I loved could do and then turned and went up the stairs. I watched the sway of her hips, mesmerized for a moment. She stopped, turning to look back at me.
“Well…are you coming?”
Chuckling, I replied. “I am, and in about fifteen minutes so will you.”
She rolled her eyes again, but that this time I was hot on her heels. I was going to enjoy making love to this woman for the rest of our lives. Thoughts of engagement rings had already started to murmur like angel wings in the back of my mind.
Epilogue
Silver
My eyes tracked my mother’s movements as she finished reading the newspaper article from theSacramento Sun. Slowly, she folded up the newspaper. It became a blur of grey paper with words too tiny to make out. I’d been biting at the cuticle on my thumb nervous and Simone sat nearby.
“Your father…” She shook her head staring at me. “I felt like ….when I met her, this Dani…that she looked so much like you and Simone.”
Simone looked at our mother and then at me, “Mama are you trying to say, I have crazy eyes?”
“No, is she trying to sayWEhave crazy eyes?” I frowned.
My mom shook her head some more as the television in the living room roared to life. My stepfather was probably sitting down to a slice of pizza and a Sunday lifetime movie. It was something I loved about him. He had loved me and Simone as if we’d been his and he enjoyed LMN. The man could recitedThe Hand That Rocks theCradlelike a damn champ.
“He ruined that girl,” my mom shook her head. “She burned her mother up in a fire, and pushed…”
“Krista,” I finished the sentence for her referencing my long-deceased co-worker.
“And tried to take outKilla Kelsbefore he played again next season,” Simone gave me a look and a huge blushed began to cover my neck.
“I hope she’s at peace now,” my mom shook her head again.
“Well, I for one am not going to spend one more minute thinking about how it could’ve been me that she targeted,” Simone shrugged.
