A few minutes later, Jackson walks back into the living room with two steaming mugs and a puppy trailing behind him with a brand new toy in his mouth. I shoot a look at Jax, and he just shrugs with a bright smile on his face because we both know he can’t help himself when it comes to spoiling our little guy.
Once he hands me one of the mugs, I nearly moan from how good the warm ceramic feels against my freezing fingers. After I’m situated back under Jax’s arm, I bring the mug up to my face and breathe in the mixture of chocolate, cinnamon, and cream.
“You make the best hot chocolate,” I declare, sighing in contentment.
“Facts,” he agrees with a chuckle.
We sit there in comfortable silence as we watch the flames dance, only the sounds of the crackling fire filling the room until I sit forward to set my mug down on the coffee table and shift my frail body so my head is in his lap. I love laying like this with him so I can gaze into his gorgeous sea glass eyes. I get lost in them for a few moments before mine begin to water and I whisper, “How will you remember me?”
Jax’s head rears back at my question. “What do you mean? I’m not going to have to remember you, Tae. You’re here”—he places his one hand over his heart and cups my face with his other—“you’rerighthere. And you’re always going to be here.”
Emotion swells behind my eyelids as I close them in an attempt to hide how little faith I have in what he’s just said.Because what if I’m not? What if I don’t get to grow old with him? What if I don’t get to see if our two embryos will become our beautiful babies? What if his arms wrapped around me aren’t the first thing I feel in the morning and the last before I fall asleep?
Since my last treatment, I’m the most physically drained I’ve been since my diagnosis. No amount of rest could prepare me for the toll the chemo would take on my body. The exhaustion paralyzes me, chaining me to my bed for most of the day.
Shaking my head, tears stream down my cheeks as I open them and admit, “I don’t think I’ve got this. I’m so scared of leaving you, J, but my body is failing me—failingus. My cancer is the biggest thief of all because I think it’s going to steal a life with you from me.”
“It’s not—” he starts, but I cut him off.
“Promise me something?”
“I don’t like when you do this,” he tells me, wiping at my tears with his thumb so lovingly it causes the tears to fall faster as his own eyes water.
“Promise me you’ll remember me carefree and wild. Promise me you won’t remember me like this”—a choked sob escapes my lips—“never like this.”
Jax looks at me with a mix of devotion and desperation as tears trail down his cheeks. “I’ll remember you with rain-soaked hair as we ran wild and free through the field behind my house. I’ll remember you with sun-kissed skin and ice cream in hand on the day you married me. I’ll remember you in neon lights and beneath a blanket of stars. I’ll remember you on the ice singing and watching me play. I’ll remember you on stage at your first solo sold-out show. I’ll remember every damn moment spent with you, and I’ll do it with you beside me because there’s not a chance in hell I’m letting you leave me again, Taevin. I refuse to sit here and think about what our life could’ve been when you’llbe beside me as we discover all of what our love could be—what itwillbe.”
Tears spill more rapidly down my cheeks now, blurring my vision so I can barely see his face breaking.
“I think it’s time you promise me something,” he rasps, tears spilling down his face.
“Anything,” I whisper between hiccups.
“Promise me eternity together. Because when you go, I go, baby. Whether it’s here or heaven, I’ll never not be by your side.”
I shake my head furiously. “Don’t you dare say that.”
“Then don’t you dare talk about leaving me.” His voice is shaky but stern.
My chin quivers with a mixture of frustration and fear. “If cancer takes me, you can’t let it take you too. Please don’t say things like that. I promise I’ll never willingly leave you, so long as you promise to keep living for the both of us if I can’t be here with you.”
I try to turn in his arms to give him a hug but a sharp, stabbing pain has me grabbing my stomach and curling in on myself. “Ouch!”
“T! What’s wrong?” Jax questions, looking me over frantically.
Breathing through the pain, I grit out, “I’m not sure. I had a sharp pain in my stomach, but it’s dulling a bit now.”
Jax lifts me in his arms. “Let’s go to the bedroom and lie down.”
Out of the corner of my eye I catch sight of softly glowing lights just outside the front windows.
“What’s that?” I ask.
“We can go look later if you’re feeling better or tomorrow morning,” he tells me, starting for our bedroom.
“The pain is already feeling better. It’s done that a few times today and each time my stomach has felt better a few minuteslater.” I wiggle in his arms so he’ll put me down. “Come show me.”
Grabbing his hand in mine, I lead us to the front door where we put on our shoes and coats before going outside.
