She saw in his eyes that her words hit their mark. She may be regarded as the sweet one, but when it came to Eloise, this woman would speak with razor-sharp words and an honesty that could take him down.
He respected that.
He nodded a heavy head, hands resting on his narrow hips as he chose his words carefully.
"Turns out curses are meant to be broken," he finally replied and that small smile broke out on her face giving him a lifeline of hope.
"I could have told you that if you hadn't been an idiot."
Razor-sharp words.
He smiled.
"She here?"
She shook her head. "No, she's somewhere dealing with something."
He nodded again and looked around before his blue eyes came back to her. Ardent and sure. "I really need to talk to her, Ursula."
"I know. But she's facing a ghost she's been running from for a long time."
That made him take a step forward, a look of rapt attention and wanting to jump in to save her friend on his face. It warmed her heart. "I heard he's dead and she's safe." he said with alarm in his voice.
"If the 'he' you're referring to is Bentley Goran, then yes. But the 'he' I'm referring to is her dad. Today is the anniversary of his death." She looked up at the blackening sky. "Every year the sky cracks open and rains so hard I swear it's going to flood the world. Even when she and I weren't together it rained wherever I was," she said watching the swirling dark sky above them and her small smile was built around a memory. "It was the one time a year I felt so connected to her that I felt her in my bones."
"She doesn't talk about him much," he said. "I know they were close."
She turned her attention from where the sky was drawing its map of what was to come, to him.
"You know how being around her feels like...you're completely seen? Like, you don't have to throw your voice or make yourself bigger to be heard or seen."
He listened as she spoke of her friend.
"Her dad taught her that. He taught her that the most important thing is to leave people better than how you found them. And she learned. She is full of fire, my friend," she said with a laugh, "but watching that girl learn how to harness that fire and learn to dance with it and turn it to grace has been likewatching an artist become great. Her kind of love is impactful. It leaves something behind."
He felt every word like she was painting a picture of Eloise as they stood there.
"I didn't really understand this until too late, but the person that left the greatest impact on her and taught her how to be herself, the best version, died unexpectedly and I don't think she ever recovered. What I interpreted as her being strong and maybe stubborn was," she swallowed and shrugged sadly. "She never faced it. She can deal, and has dealt with, a lot in her life. But this was the one. His leaving too soon was the great pain that cut too much out of her." She ran her fingers over the baby-soft fuzz of a pink-orange peach as she untangled her own thoughts and offered them to this man who could very well love her favorite person how she deserved.
"You know, in our decades-long relationship, the times she got mad at me, like really got angry with me, was when I was accepting treatment she knew I didn't deserve. Or I accepted someone not giving me what I did deserve. There's something about a friend who will look you dead in the eye and demand you accept nothing less than what you're worth." She laughed and nodded as he watched her unfold. "It took me a while to figure it out, how she could get angry with me for allowing others to not love me well." It was actually grief. Grief that someone she saw as treasured and priceless would think someone giving Ursula a low-ball offer was enough. She looked at Taylor, whose eyes understood every word she spoke. Could feel them.
Understood the message she was sending in her own way.
Taylor White and Ursula Cambridge looked at each other silently as the heavens finally broke and rain started falling in a baptism. But there was a dare in her green eyes as she watched him swallow her words.
"I love her," he said.
She smiled and raised her hands to catch rain drops. "I know. But I'm not the one you need to tell."
He stepped closer to her, his hair getting wet, his blue eyes fierce. "But you're her person and if I don't have your blessing, then I'm going to have to win over two women. Which I am prepared to do," he said holding up both hands.
She threw him a peach. "I'm won over. That's why I called you. Go get her," she said. "I don't know where she is, though."
He smiled. "I think I do," he said and gave her a grateful smile before he went to find the woman who broke his curse.
30. The Storms That Heal
The world was soaked in emotion wrenched from the sky as rain and thunder made their grief known. Eloise felt it like it was a twin soul; all of the magic in the world had come together on this day to weep with her.
