“My period is coming soon.”
A kiss to the top of my head. “Uh huh.”
“I’m not normally a crier. It’s just…. The kind of thing that tugs on your heartstrings.”
“I know all about that.” He nuzzles my hair.
I'm glad he does know all about that, because I don’t know anything anymore. I always prided myself on keeping my head on straight. Now it’s spinning.
Memories of this summer flash through my mind. Swimming in cool water in the sizzling summer heat. Whiskey kisses. His pen and his hands on my skin beneath the fireworks.
It's the weight of his hat on my head and the way he looked at me from that stage like I was the only person in the room. It's pancake batter on the ceiling and trail rides and chasing each other through the sweetgrass, laughing until our lungs hurt.
I've fallen in love with this little boy who loves me back with his whole heart.
I've fallen in love with his cowboy father so completely that New York now feels like someone else's dream.
As we walk away from Jonah’s room, Walker takes my hand. He doesn’t let go. Not as he leads me down the hallway to the bedroom. Not until he closes the door and pushes me up against it does he let go of my hand, and it’s only to cup my face as he pulls me to him for a kiss.
We spend our last night together making love slow and intense, no words between us.
I try to memorize every part of the experience. The drag of his calloused hands across my body. His mouth on my throat, my breasts, my pussy, lingering like he can keep the morning from coming if he takes his time. The feel of those muscles honed by hard labor as he moves between my thighs, pressing me into the mattress with every slow roll of his hips. Those malachite-green eyes on my face, drinking me in as I come apart beneath him.
He wakes me up in the middle of the night to do it again, and one last time in the morning before the sun rises.
Afterwards we lie in bed and watch the sun come up over the mountains, his body warm and solid against my back, his arm heavy around my waist.
I think about saying it.
I love you.
But he's already said everything I need to hear on that porch swing.
Or rather, he didn’t say the one thing I did need to hear.
So I stay quiet. Watch the mountains turn from purple to gold and let myself have this one last perfect moment before it's over.
And then the sun is all the way up and it's time to go to the airport and say goodbye.
Chapter 41
See You Later
WALKER
Thousands of times, I’ve stood at a microphone and played my heart out like I was having the time of my life, even through the worst times of my life.
I know how to hold it together in public.
I’ve performed through a lot of terrible things.
But pretending like I’m okay when the love of my life is leaving me behind, maybe forever, might just be the worst thing I’ve had to make it through.
Acting like I’m not falling apart right now is the greatest performance I’ve ever given.
The airport in Marble Falls is small. One terminal, a handful of gates, the kind of airport where you could walk to the planes from the parking lot. I pull up to the curb and cut the engine and we all sit there for a second, nobody moving, like we've agreed without saying so to take just one more minute before this becomes real.
Then Sadie unbuckles her seatbelt.
