“I’m sorry it took so long.”
“You shouldn’t apologize.I didn’t take that step, you did.So, I’ll amend.I’m glad you quit backing away and I’m glad you made me quitdoing it too.”
In response, he swept his thumb along her cheekbone.
“Do you want to go to Iceland?”she asked.
“Sure,” he answered.
“Zambia?”
“Definitely.”
She smiled up at him, twisted and fit herself to him so shewas lying sideways on his chest, her arms around him, cheek to his shirt,cuddled in.
“It feels better, being freaked with you here,” shewhispered.“Rather than freaked and not knowing where you were and who you werewith.”
He again agreed, “Yeah,” because that was the God’s honesttruth.
“I like your brother, he’s protective of you and it’ssweet.”
“Mm-hmm.”
“And Georgie is rad.”
“She really is.”
“And I don’t know what Carolyn’s gig was, but she’sobviously pulling it together and she loves her sister, and cares enough aboutyou to change where you guys are.”
That had become apparent as the night wore on.
“I think we’ll get there,” he said.
“Yeah.That says a lot about you, you know, that you’d bewilling to get past that for her and for your family.”
He wasn’t sure what to say about that except, “Well, it’sfamily.”
They got quiet again.
Archie broke it.
“I felt, like, locked.”
Jag didn’t know what that meant, so he asked, “Sorry, baby?”
“In my grief.Like, I was with Dad, and he was lost.AndElijah was a mess, but he was there physically.They were going through thesame thing I was.But I was locked in my grief.I had all these people aroundme, but I felt totally alone.And I couldn’t get out of that feeling, because Ididn’t think anyone would get it, where I was at.Not even Dad and Elijah.”
He curved both arms around her and held her tight.
She continued.
“And then I was at the funeral.I looked across the cemeteryand you were sitting there with your dad, and this opening started forming.”
Fuck.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
“And you came in,” she went on.
