“Saying ‘you’re not stupid’ is broody and sweet?” I asked.
Her expression flattened. “You know what I mean.”
“I can quote romance novels if that’s what you would prefer,” I said.
A quiet chuckle left her, and she stood on her toes to kiss me. “No,” she finally decided. “No, you’re perfect.”
I kissed her a little longer then, letting the hot water beat on my back, relishing her taste and the smell of the vanilla rose shampoo she’d used already.
“Are you ready for today?” I asked when we’d parted.
“Yeah,” she said. “I’m ready to put it all behind me, to start new,” and her hands pressed on my chest, eyes lifting to mine. “To only remember life with you.”
Lana was waiting for us when we finally emerged from the shower—after I devoured Chloe with morning praise, bending to my knees and holding her leg over my shoulder, lifting her against the wall and embedding my length inside her until neither of us could take it anymore.
“God, you two are loud,” Lana said, grinning as she sipped her tea and checked her emails.
Chloe’s gaze darted to me, and I winked at her in response, then took down two coffee mugs from the cabinet.
“After Ez and Raegan’s wedding, you can tell us how loud Zayn is,” Chloe said.
“I would've loved to have been physically introduced to him before the wedding,” Lana said. “Although, texting with him has been fun.”
Chloe glanced at me. “You gave him her number?”
I shook my head, pouring oat milk into both mugs. “He’s the CFO of a major dating app that loves having fun more than anyone I know,” I said. “I’m sure she didn’t have to do much digging to find him.”
Lana was smiling smugly behind her cup when Chloe looked at her. Her long, tightly curled hair was pulled atop her head behind a silk scarf this morning, as it had been nearly every morning for the last three weeks, though this was the brightest scarf I had seen on her thus far. She had taken her therapy appointments with patients online while there, usually sitting out on the balcony or in the private guest room if Chloe and I were home.
“Do you have any patients this morning?” Chloe asked Lana.
Lana gave her a look, and Chloe snickered softly, apparently remembering what day it was. I loved that the weight of today had slipped from her mind, even if it was only for a moment.
“Right. Well, what time do you want to leave then?” Chloe asked.
“Hour or so?” Lana replied. “How long do you think it will take us to get there,” she asked me.
I handed Chloe her coffee. “A few hours,” I said, glancing at my clock. “We should get moving soon.”
The drive up the coast to where they wanted to go took three hours, which didn’t include stopping at Chloe’s storage locker for her dress.
Chloe and Lana sat in the back seat, the wind blowing their hair as Lana sang the words to every song on the radio. And while I thought Chloe might join in, she only smiled at Lana occasionally and hugged that dress to her chest like a safety blanket.
I let the pair do their thing once we arrived at the empty beach. Seeing Chloe in that wedding dress made every muscle within me come alive. She was stunning. The dress fit and accentuated her body in the best way. Our eyes met when she had it on, and she gave me a small smile before Lana tugged her arm and pulled her toward the crashing waves.
One step into that salty water and the dress was forever ruined.
Lana made sure to document the ruination with her phone, though I knew better than to think she would have posted the photos anywhere.
They lit it on fire an hour after in one of the fire pits the park had buried in the sand and watched as the thing practically melted away. Lana hugged her arms around her best friend as she let go of that past—of a person and a life that never deserved her.
And that night, I held Chloe a little tighter than I had in the weeks before. That hesitation that had lingered between us was finally gone. That part of her life was over, and this new one was just beginning.
I wish I had been happy with that. I should have been. I should have let it go. But every time I looked at her, I thought of all the years we had spent apart, of the centuries I’d spent without remembering that I’d once been married.
I needed to know what had happened, who had taken her. It was bound to drive me to the brink of insanity if I didn’t.
We drove Lana to the airport two days later. She would have stayed, but she kept saying her cat would forget her if she stayed away much longer. We would be seeing her in a few weeks anyway, so she and Chloe’s goodbye wasn’t as hard as it would be after that.
