Every rational part of my brain screamed that it was a bad idea. That every act of intimacy we shared would make it harder when she inevitably went back to Texas, back to her life without me.
And I’d be here, even more broken than before, with new memories to torture myself with during the long Colorado nights.
I’d lie awake wondering if she’d met someone else—someone who made her happy, who didn’t retreat to the clubhouse when shit got complicated, who knew how to say the right words instead of hiding behind silence and distance.
But who was I to deny her anything when she looked at me like that? When she said please in a tone that had always been my undoing?
“Yeah,” I breathed, lifting my hips so she could tug my jeans down. “Yeah, okay, baby.”
She smiled—soft and real and tinged with the same melancholy I felt—before sliding off my lap and settling between my knees.
It was most definitely a mistake. Hell, everything about the past three days had been a mistake. But when her mouth closed around me, hot and perfect and familiar, I couldn’t bring myself to care.
The movie played on behind her—Scrooge learning his lessons about love and redemption and second chances—while I raked my fingers through her hair and tried not to think about how this was just another Ghost of Christmas Past we were creating. Another memory that would haunt me through all the Christmases yet to come.
But for now, I let myself have it. Let myself pretend that redemption was possible, that second chances weren’t just fiction, that the woman I’d loved since I was seventeen might somehow find her way back to loving me, too.
Even if it was just for tonight.
14
kelsey
The strangled soundthat tore me from sleep wasn’t human. It came from somewhere deep and primal, the kind of noise wounded animals made in the throes of death. My body knew before my brain caught up—muscles locking, lungs seizing, adrenaline flooding my veins.
Beside me, Teddy thrashed against the sheets, his breathing ragged and broken. Moonlight reflected off the snow-covered ground beyond the windows, enough for me to see his familiar features twisted into something haunted. His lips moved, forming words I couldn’t quite?—
“Levi. No, no, please?—”
My entire body went rigid.
This wasn’t a medical emergency. It wasn’t a heart attack or stroke or any of the things my sleep-addled brain had initially supplied. This was worse—something I recognized with the kind of bone-deep knowing that came from having lived through it once already.
It was the same dream that had plagued me for the past two and a half years. The nightmare that had broken everything beyond repair. The weight of our son’s body in Teddy’s arms. The paramedics whowouldn’t meet our eyes. The terrible finality of hospital doors closing, of time running out, of all the words we’d never get to say.
My hand hovered in the air between us, fingers trembling. I should touch him—should pull him out of whatever hell his subconscious had dragged him into. But I couldn’t make myself move, couldn’t bridge those final inches.
“Teddy,” I managed, though it came out small and scared, nothing like the comforting, steady tone I’d been aiming for.
He didn’t respond, lost in whatever horror was playing out behind his eyelids. His chest heaved with each labored breath, sweat beading on his forehead despite the December chill seeping through the windows.
I forced myself to reach out, my fingers barely grazing his arm. “Teddy, wake up.”
He lurched upright so violently I nearly fell off the bed. His eyes—wild, unseeing—stared right through me, the same way they had that night. Like I wasn’t really there. Like maybe I’d never been there at all.
My ribcage tightened around my lungs, squeezing until each breath became a conscious effort. The room seemed to tilt on its axis, walls pressing closer while simultaneously stretching away. My ears filled with a roaring sound that had nothing to do with the wind outside.
No. Not now. Not here.
I slid from the mattress on legs that felt disconnected from my body, my hands already moving to smooth the rumpled sheets.
Fix it. Make it neat. Make it right.
If I could just get the corners tucked properly, if I could just straighten the comforter, maybe everything would stop spinning.
“Kels?” Teddy called out, his voice still rough with sleep.
I couldn’t look at him. Couldn’t risk seeing that devastation on his face again. Instead, I focused on the pillows, fluffing each one before positioning them against the headboard. One task, then another. That was how you survived. That was how you kept going when your body forgot how to work.
