I feel the curve of his smile against my shoulder. “Ry challenged me to see who could eat the most. We were bored, and teenage boys do stupid things.”
Yes, they do. I don’t know what Christopher said to him yet, but he and I are going to have a very long talk about it tonight.
“Who won?” I ask.
“Me. I think I ate about twenty packets at one time. I became a human version of the Coke and Mentos experiment. It was not pretty.”
I chuckle, sharing the same memory. “I lost. But I did win the marshmallow challenge, the one where you have to say ‘bubbly bunny’ after each marshmallow. Not the tiny ones, either. The jumbo-sized ones.”
Fallon drops his head and rests his cheek in the bend of my shoulder. “God, I fucking miss him.”
I do, too. So damn much.
“Do you want to go see him?” I ask.
Ryder wanted to be buried here, on our land, so he could be close to us. We chose the wildflower field down the hill from the house where a lone magnolia tree grows. I visit him every morning to watch the sunrise.
“I’d love to.”
Grasping his forearms, I take a shuddering inhalation. “Fallon?”
“Hmm?” he hums against my skin.
The thump of my pulse counts down the seconds it takes for me to say, “Stay.”
That one word is steeped with so many nuances. Stay for dinner. Stay with me. Stay forever.
His chest expands when he breathes in deeply. “Not going anywhere.”
Chapter Eleven
ELIZABETH
I Like You Messy
With my hands full,I use my foot to hook the front door closed.
“The stars are most definitely out tonight,” I comment, gazing out at the night sky.
Dinner was…interesting. Charlotte didn’t take a breath the entire time as she talked Fallon’s ear off. But her smiles were a mile wide, and her excitement palpable. I haven’t seen her so happy in a long time.
When Marcus could slip in a word, he and Fallon bonded over horsepower and all things cars. Christopher, on the other hand, sat hunched over his plate, brooding quietly and barely touching his food. I decided to leave our talk for tomorrow. I’m too tired to argue with a stubborn seventeen-year-old tonight. I’m barely able to keep my eyes open as it is.
“Knox is on his way,” Fallon says, putting his phone away.
“After all this time, I’m still not used to calling him that.” Knox will always be Seamus in my mind. The lanky teenage kid with green eyes we met at the women’s center in New York, who grew into a wonderful man and became a good friend. I handFallon his beer before joining him on the bench swing. “I can drive you home,” I offer, but it gets lost in my yawn.
Fallon drapes an arm over the back of the swing and takes a sip of his pale ale. “You’re not going to make it another five minutes.”
“Or you can take my car.”
“Appreciate the offer. Kids asleep?”
I yawn again. “Hardly. Summer vacation for Christopher and Charlotte means bedtime at the crack of dawn. Marcus has to get up early to open the garage, so he usually conks out around ten.”
“I’m glad he decided to roost and stay close to home,” Fallon says.
I look out over the front lawn. Landscaping lights illuminate all the flower beds and line the drive. I’ll need to go to the hardware store to get a new sprinkler head to replace the one that’s broken. I’ve been putting it off, but the small patch of wilting flowers confirms that I need to do it sooner rather than later.
