“We will be near the ocean for me to get what I need.”
“But what if you want to go back? What if you go back to your family?”
He shakes his head. “I will not. Yes, I have to go back to check in and give them some sort of story of why I will not return, but… I never felt welcome there. That isn’t the life I want to live, I know that much.” Aliko cups my cheeks, making me look at him. “I want to be here, on land, with you.”
He doesn’t give me any time to respond; he leans down to kiss me and then all worry of him leaving disappears.
I drop the tablet beside me and wrap my arms around him. The kiss is deep, slow, but passionate. And when he finally pulls away, I rest my cheek on his chest and that’s how we stay for the rest of the night.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Aliko
Our last show of the tour.
It’s surreal.
I can’t believe we’re at the end of a whole tour—that we got here at all. It feels like it all went by way too fast. The memories will last forever, though.
It feels like just yesterday I was auditioning for The Unbound. Everything after that happened in a flash.
The crowd is cheering for longer than they have before. I can’t tell if that’s because it’s our last show, or because Kael has his kid strapped to his chest. Could be both.
The show, like all of our others, is electric. The crowd is loud and involved. We’re pulsing with energy while performing, andI think it could have been our best performance yet. The crowd screams and cheers long after we’re off the stage.
The line for the meet and greet is longer than it has been for any other show. We let them linger just a little longer than normal, knowing we won’t be doing this for a while. It’s bitter-sweet.
I’m looking forward to a break from the tour, to go to my new house and get Leif moved in. We’ve ordered so much furniture and have made plans for him to get his stuff moved. Within two weeks, we will be all settled in our house.
Our house.
We’re just finishing up our last photos when I see someone standing a short distance away, hanging back in the shadows. A parent, maybe?
I blink a few times to get a better view, because something about him feels off.
“Thank you so much for this,” a young girl says. She said she was thirteen and this is her first concert.
I give her a big smile. “Any time. Thanks for being a fan.”
She grins back, then hops off to her mother who is standing off to the side.
My gaze goes back to the man who hasn’t moved an inch.
I get a deep, sinking feeling in my gut.
No.
Impossible.
“We’re heading off,” Lucien says.
“See you later,” I mutter, not able to pull my gaze away from the man.
That feeling won’t go away, this dark feeling in my chest like a black hole opened up and is sucking all of the happiness from me.
Then it hits me all at once and I can’t breathe.
I should have known this would happen. Of course it would happen. I’m not so lucky.
