The Brightest Sunset (The Darkest Sunrise #2)

“He’s going to get a heart, Porter. I can feel it.”

“I’m glad you can, because I’m not feeling anything these days but a whole lot of worry and dread,” I replied, swinging my legs over the side of the bed. But I found myself unable to get comfortable.

“Turn off the light, Porter,” she whispered.

I shook my head. “I can’t. I need to go feed Hannah dinner. Something with, like, an actual vegetable. Mom dropped her off earlier and I swear she had a lollipop stuck in her hair. I love my mom, but she takes the job of spoiling her grandkids seriously.”

She stared at me blankly. “Off, Porter.”

“It’s still daylight outside, Charlotte. I could turn all the lights in the house off and it wouldn’t never be dark enough.”

“Okay. You want to talk in the light?”

Suddenly, a lump of emotion lodged in my throat and I had to force the words around it. “Is this the light? Because it sure as hell doesn’t feel like it.”

“Everything is going to be okay. He’s asleep, baby. I feel really good about his stats—as a mother and a doctor.”

I shook my head. “See…that’s the problem. I felt really good yesterday. I was lecturing you on holding on to the happy times and not allowing the fears to consume you. And here I am, learning that it was a bunch of bullshit. Just because you don’t think about the future doesn’t mean it won’t one day become the present. I’ve known this day was coming for a long time with Travis. And I still feel like it came out of nowhere.” I turned my face away from the phone with hopes that she didn’t see me wiping my cheek on my shoulder.

Fuck. I was supposed to be the man here. I should have been the one taking care of my family. My woman. My son. Protecting them from the harsh realities of life.

And there I was, helpless and grounded like a fucking teenager who’d stayed out past his curfew.

I cleared my throat, but that pain-filled lump settled right back in. “And this waiting bullshit? That’s all I’ve been doing recently. Waiting on custody hearings. Waiting on the cops to clear my name. Waiting for the judge to allow me supervised visitation. And, now, I have to wait on someone to die so my child can get a goddamn heart? I mean, what the fuck am I supposed to do with that?”

She bit her bottom lip. “I don’t know. But I’m doing the exact same thing.”

“Swear to God, Charlotte. Tanner and I passed a fucking fender bender on the way home and my first thought was, oh maybe someone died. Who does that?”

“Desperate parents do that, baby. All the time. You aren’t alone in that guilt.”

My heart thundered in my ears as I confessed, “But that’s the thing. I don’t even feel guilty.” I rose from the bed and began pacing, holding the phone out in front of me even though I wished I could hurl it across the room.

“And you aren’t alone in that, either.”

“I feel like I’m losing my mind.”

“And you’re entitled to that. It’s been a tough two weeks for all of us. But the key words here are two weeks. A few weeks ago, I didn’t think I’d last a day in this hell. But we’ve made it through two weeks. And, now, we’re going to make it through the next two days. And then, together, with Travis and Hannah, we’re going to make it through the next however long it takes for him to get a heart. We can do this, Porter. And we will do this—because there is no other choice.”

I stopped pacing and allowed her words to infuse me. There had been a lot of days in my life, not just over the last two weeks, when I’d thought the world was going to swallow me. After Catherine died, I hadn’t had the first clue how I’d ever move past that kind of hurt and betrayal. But I had. And, through that, I’d found Charlotte.

The day I’d met her, I’d told myself that people entered our lives for a reason, and I was determined to figure out why she had come into mine. Logic told me it was because I’d needed her to treat my son. The more spiritual answer was that I was raising her son and the heavens saw it fit for us to figure that out. But, right then, as I stared at her on the phone, her brown eyes bright with love and her face strong and fearless, I decided that this was the reason she’d come into mine.

Without her, I’d still be lost in the hate and pain.

Without her, this would have been another source to feed the constant rage forever growing inside me.

Today would have come regardless if I’d met her or not. Travis had been fated to need that heart from the get-go. But Charlotte quieted my storm. She extinguished the fire. And she soothed my demons.

Without her, I’d be lost in darkness. Alone.

Sinking to the bed, I closed my eyes and willed my pulse to slow.

She stayed silent, in true Charlotte fashion, until I was ready to return to the world of rational thinking.

“Hi,” I whispered as I lifted my lids.

“Hi,” she whispered back.

“You stole my line with that whole ‘no other choice’ bit,” I told her, my smile tight.

“Then take it back,” she told me. Her gorgeous grin felt like a drowning man’s first breath of air.

“There’s no other choice. He’s going to be okay.”

“And…” she prompted.

“And…” I drawled in question.

“And we’re going to stick together before, during, and after it happens.”

I fell back on the bed, holding her smiling face above me. “Well, that was a given. You are stuck with me for the rest of your life.”

“Good,” she smarted. “Ian will be happy to have the company.”

I barked a laugh. “Did I forget to mention that I swung by your place on my way home?”

“Porter,” she warned.

“Yeeeeaaaaah. I hate to be the one to break this to you, but there was an accident involving Ian.”

She laughed. “Porter, I swear I will hunt you down.”

“It seems he tripped into the shredder.”

“You are such a liar. One, I don’t have a shredder. And two, he’s, like, six feet tall and made of cardboard. No way he’s going to fit in a shredder.”

God, I loved this with her. Even stupid shit about her Ian Somerhalder cardboard cutout made me smile wider than I’d ever thought possible. It was fun and it was light, not at all like the suffocating shroud that cloaked us on a daily basis. But it was moments like that, when we got to be just two people in love, that gave me the strength to carry on for another day.

“You’d be amazed how affordable an industrial shredder is on Amazon.”

“Porter!” she scolded and then burst into quiet laughter.

That sound alone was more than enough to get me through the next two days.





* * *





“Hey, baby,” I whispered before kissing Porter long and deep.

“Mmmm,” he groaned into my mouth as his strong arms held me against his chest. “God, I missed you.”

“It’s only been two days,” I taunted. Though, not-so-secretly considering I’d all but mounted him the moment he’d gotten out of his car; I’d missed him too.

He set me back on my feet and then straightened his navy-blue suit coat. “Two days too long. How’s Trav this morning?”