“How are you feeling?” she asked.
I looked at her face in the morning light — tired, muddy, completely unguarded, looking at me with the same eyes I had fallen in love with in a shelter four years ago.
“Absolutely fine,” I said. “Better than fine.”
She took my hand.
I reached up with my good arm and brushed my fingers across her cheek, where one of the mud streaks was. She didn’t pull away. She turned her face slightly into my hand, and then she took it in both of hers and pressed her lips to my knuckles, and I stared at the ceiling for a moment.
“Briggs came while you were sleeping,” she said. “They’ve arrested Scarlett, Pablo, and the others.”
“All of them?”
“All of them. And apparently the confrontation in the forest created enough of a traceable trail that they was able to locate three more cartel members in Florida.” she paused. “They’ll be arrested within the week. Briggs said it’s over. The threat to me — to both of us — it’s done.”
She was quiet for a moment.
“It’s done,” I repeated.
“Which means I have no reason to stay. I’ve created enough disruption in your life, Camila. I’m sorry for all of it.”
“Jason.”
I stopped.
“I’ve been thinking,” she said. She looked down at our joined hands, then back up at me. “I have some things to sort out in Florida. Close up some loose ends. The last time I checked—” a small pause, “—the seat next to me on the flight home was empty.”
I looked at her.
“I was wondering,” she continued, carefully, “if you wanted to take it. We could go to Florida together.” She stopped. “We could gohometogether.”
I didn’t register it initially, and then the magnitude of that word hit me like a punch in the gut.
Home.Not Florida. Home.
“I want to go home,” she said quietly. “I want to go home with you, Jason.”
I opened my mouth. “Thank—”
“Don’t thank me,” she said immediately. “I can already see you’re about to say something completely over the top.”
“I was going to—”
“You were going to thank me, and then you were going to list everything I did for you, and you were going to get emotional, and frankly neither of us looks presentable enough for that right now.” She gestured at herself, the mud, Audrey’s enormous trousers, and the shoelace.
“I don’t want to cry right now. I have mud on my face.”
“You look beautiful.”
“I have a shoelace holding up someone else’s trousers.”
“Still beautiful.”
She looked at me for a moment.
“Thankyou,” she said. “For protecting me. For not leaving when I told you to. For the tent, and the camomile tea, and the clown outfit.” Her voice softened. “For Sparkles. For every vow you made to me when we got married, Jason. You kept every one of them, even when I didn’t know you were keeping them.”
I had nothing adequate to say to that.
