Ben's hand reached out. Slowly. So slowly that Kelly could track each inch of progress. His fingers reached outward, open and steady, and made contact with the barrel of the gun. Not grabbing. Not wrenching. Just touching. A gentle, firm pressure that said, Let me take this. You don't need it anymore.
A sound tore out of Ethan Walters. It started somewhere deep in his chest and clawed its way up through his throat, and it was the sound of a man letting go of something he'd been holding for a long time. Grief and rage and love and loss, all compressed into a single, broken cry that echoed off the parked cars and disappeared into the warm night air.
His fingers opened. The gun shifted from his hand to Ben's. A transfer so quiet it was almost anticlimactic. No struggle. Nodramatic moment. Just a weapon changing possession with the gentleness of a handshake.
Ethan's knees buckled. He went down on the asphalt the same way Rob had, but differently. Rob had collapsed from fear. Ethan collapsed from emptiness. He folded forward, his hands on the ground, his forehead nearly touching the pavement, and he wept with the kind of abandon that most adults never allow themselves.
So much pain.
Ben stepped back with the gun held carefully, pointing it at the ground, his finger nowhere near the trigger. He was breathing hard. Kelly could see his chest rising and falling from twenty feet away. The calm hadn't cracked, but it was costing him. The effort of that performance, because it was a performance no matter how real it had been, was written in every line of his body.
Two police cruisers tore into the parking lot, tires screeching on asphalt, light bars painting everything in alternating red and blue. Officers emerged with weapons drawn, shouting commands that overlapped into a wall of authoritative noise. The floodlight's white glare suddenly competed with the strobing colors, and the parking lot that had been so quiet and private became loud and public, full of people who needed answers.
Did they even know what questions to ask? This town had been closing its eyes for a hell of a long time.
Maybe it was time to wake up.
It was chaos in that parking lot, cops yelling along with Celia, Trevor, her parents, and his parents, as well. Ben had taken oneof the officers aside and talked to him for a few minutes, but Kelly couldn’t hear what he’d said from her vantage point. She only knew that the cop had nodded as if he understood, and then Rob was being hauled unceremoniously to his feet and being cuffed while Ethan was speaking with another cop a few feet away.
It was then that Ben’s attention swung her way, his intense gaze going straight to her. His long legs ate up the distance between them, and she moved toward him, too, not wanting to wait any longer to make sure that he was okay.
She couldn’t just see it with her eyes. She had to make sure, feel that he was real and alive.
He opened his arms, and Kelly crashed into him with enough force to make him take a step backward. He was alive and real and okay, and she said a silent prayer of thanks. This night could have turned out very differently.
They held on to each other as the mayhem swirled around them. Both of them shaking, which she found oddly comforting because it meant she wasn't the only one falling apart. Ben's arms were tight around her, one hand on the back of her head, pressing her against his shoulder.
She could feel his heart slamming against his ribs. The controlled calm from a few minutes ago was gone. Whatever reservoir of composure he'd been drawing from had run dry, and what remained was a man who was trembling and holding her like the ground might open up and swallow one of them.
"I love you," she said. It came out muffled against his shirt, graceless and unrehearsed and completely without preamble.
No buildup. No romantic lighting. No swell of music. Just three words spoken into wrinkled cotton in a parking lot that smelled like car exhaust and asphalt.
She felt his arms tighten around her.
"I love you, too,” he said, and his voice was rough in a way she'd never heard before. Raw. Like the words had been scraped out of him. "Of course I do. I couldn't stand the thought of something happening to you. When I walked toward that gun, the only thing I kept thinking was that you were behind that car and you were safe."
Kelly pulled back far enough to look at his face. His eyes were red. His hair was a disaster. He looked like he'd aged five years in the last thirty minutes.
He was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen.
"You walked toward a gun," she said.
"I know."
"That was incredibly stupid."
"I know that too."
She kissed him. Quick and fierce, with the taste of salt from both their tears. Not a romantic kiss. A necessary one. The kind of kiss that existed not to express love but to confirm that both people were still alive and still here and still choosing each other in the middle of absolute catastrophe.
They pulled apart at the sound of voices. An officer had a few more questions and asked if they needed any medical attention.
They gave their brief story once again, and the head officer asked whether they would be willing to come to the station to give a recorded version. They quickly agreed, ready to leave the venue and the wedding far behind. It had been an emotional night, and it was still far from over.
There were more voices and footsteps, and Kelly turned toward the gate and watched the wedding pour into the parking lot, a confused stream of people in formal wear blinking at the police lights and the commotion.
Aunt Carol had her phone out, already filming. Uncle Gary was somehow still holding a drink. Trevor's grandmother, who may or may not have been asleep during the ceremony, was verymuch awake now and being guided by a groomsman who looked overwhelmed.
