“Just...be,” he said.
“Okay, it sounds stupid as hell when someone else says it aloud, but?—”
“No, no...I can’t remember the last time I could just...be,” he said, sounding mystified by the very idea. “I don’t even know what thatmeans.”
“Do you want to figure it out?” I asked him softly.
“If you’re there? Yes, please, yes.”
“Then we’ll do that. Together.”
“They accepted me. Slowly, a little bitterly in Mason and Moira’s case, but they accepted me.”
“They did.”
“And you...you came for me. Saved me.”
“You saved me. It’s what you do when you love someone. And we’re going to keep doing that. Not all the time, and I sure as fuck hope not in the same way... but in other ways. Little ways.”
“Like when it hits you that you fuckingdied?”
“Mhmm, or when it hits you that you were willing to blow yourself up to save us when you could have had this instead.”
“When you realize that maybe it’s time for a career change?”
“And when you realize that the family really does love you.”
“Sounds hard.”
“Probably gonna suck like hell sometimes.”
“But we’ve got each other.”
“Damn right.”
“Good.”
EPILOGUE
Five years later
Warmth. Softness, but a comforting firmness. Light.
I winced, ugh, light.
Cracking open my eyes, I peered at the window right next to the bed and wondered, not for the first time, why we’d decided not to get better curtains when neither of us liked to get up to sunlight glaring into our eyes.
Or eye in my case.
I quickly discovered what the weight pressing down on me was, not for the first time, and it had better not be the last either. I staved off the now persistent cry of my bladder to lie there so his arm could stay on my waist. He had curled his arm up along my stomach so his hand could rest against my chest. It was funny, neither of us liked falling asleep together because we always ended up overheating and sticking together, no matter how cool we kept the room. Yet more often than not, one of us would wake up to him forcefully cuddling me, holding me close as if he were afraid I might disappear in his sleep.
I didn’t mind.
A weight shifted at my feet, and I smiled. Meow had been a pitiful creature that Dom had seen online while scrollingthrough Facebook a few months ago. The stray turned rescue was being advertised to a good home with no other pets, and we fit the bill perfectly. She had lived a hard life, missing a leg, an eye, having only half of one ear left, and a jaw that was forever lopsided from being dislocated and never allowed to heal right.
Her appearance had been so off-putting that people had repeatedly passed her by. The ad Dom had seen said she was desperate for a loving, quiet home that would show her the patience and gentleness she desperately needed. And that she had been there for almost a year, but without a home, they would have to put her down. So we had driven to pick her up from a small town north of Cresson Point. The mangy animal had pissed all over the backseat of my car and had hidden under a table the first day she was in the house.
Dom had never given up on her, though. Always sitting on the floor with her, keeping a distance so she could see him without feeling crowded. He talked to her gently, leaving her treats and food whenever he left her. Eventually, she started coming out, seeking him out mostly, but always keeping a close eye on me. And when she asked for attention the first time, it hadn’t been Dom, but me she sought out for a soft pet on the head before she retreated and took another two hours to approach Dom this time. Now the not-so-mangy mutt was curled up between us, and would hop up with the joy of a child when we finally got up.
