“I’m sorry.” I stretch my arms up around his neck. “I’m so sorry, Beau.”
I pull him closer, and he’s tense and stiff in my arms for a second before his eyes close and he starts to shake, his face pressing into my neck, my chest, his hands gripping my hips as he silently cries. “I’m so sorry,” I say again, cradling his face as I kiss his forehead, his cheeks, his black eye, and neck. “I’m so sorry.”
I pull Beau inside the rest of the way, and clumsily close the door behind him as he kisses me roughly, ignoring the slice through the side of his lip and his soaking clothes between us.
Cool rain and hot tears, mine and his, slip down our faces, catching between our mouths as we wind ourselves together. He lifts me and carries me to the bed, and I hear myself say, “Don’t let go.”
He shakes his head against me. “No.”
I want to tell him I love him. If I don’t get to tell him about the headstone with my name on it or the black orb floating over my head or the panic attacks or the end looming over us—it will be okay. But if I don’t tell him I love him, I’ll regret it far past the end.
I need him to know he’s loved.
I need him to feel safe, like he makes me feel safe. I need to wrap my love around him and leave it there, even after I’m pulled away from him forever.
“I love you.”
He lifts his face away from me, and his rough hands push the hair back from both sides of my face before he presses his wet nose and mouth against my cheek. “I love you, Natalie Cleary.” It’s no more than a whisper. It takes no longer than a heartbeat.
“I love you,” I tell him again.
“I love you,” he breathes, lifting me against him and holding me there, the muscles of his body and mine both tense against one another. I skim my hands up the back of his soaked shirt and along his damp skin. He sits back, letting me sit up too as he peels the thin gray shirt off and tosses it on the floor.
My heart is pounding, but I don’t feel nervous. I feel only the crushing heaviness of a future without Beau, where I’m not there to pull him inside and protect him from all the darkness and pour light into him through kisses and touches and whispered words.
His fingers graze the hem of the tank top I’d planned to sleep in, the front already cold and damp from the water squeezed out of his shirt between us. His hands are so careful, his eyes heavy, as he lifts the shirt from around my waist, up over my shoulders. For a minute, we sit there looking at one another, his hands soft on my bare waist, and then he slides me closer to him and folds his arms around my bare back, placing his lips against the space between my neck and shoulder as our chests connect. His skin is softer than I would’ve expected, unevenly tanned by the sun and etched in muscle.
He takes my chin in his hand and brings my mouth back to his, a deep yet delicate kiss as his rain and sweat scents curl around me. I slide my hands around his back, feeling every new inch of him. I pull back as my fingers graze something rough and raised up along his spine, between his shoulder blades. “What’s that?” I whisper.
“Just a scar,” he says.
“What happened?” I ask, gingerly touching the raised streak again.
“Car accident,” he says. “I was five. My dad was drunk. Nearly died.”
My heart stops in my chest. I feel all the blood drain from my face and my hands. I swallow the lump rising in my throat as the weight of the whole night crashes down around me.
“Where?” I ask, though I already know the answer.
“Where?” he repeats, clearly confused.
“Beau, where?” I choke out.
He shrugs. “Same place Matt wrecked, actually.”
30
I lurch off the bed and grab my shirt off the floor, pulling it back down over my head and turning to search for my boots. Beau grabs my arm, but I break away.
“Where are you going?” he asks as I step into my shoes.
My voice quavers as I wipe my eyes with the heel of my hand. “I have to find Grandmother.”
“Right now?”
I nod and rub at the tears on my cheeks as I turn back toward the door. Beau gets off the bed and snatches up his shirt too. “I’ll go with you.”
“No,” I say more harshly than I mean to. “I don’t—I don’t know if she’ll come if you’re there. Stay here. Please stay here,” I beg. “Don’t leave, okay? Just stay here and wait for me.”
He holds my eyes for a long moment. “Okay.”
I cross back to him and stretch up to kiss him one last time before I leave. When I pull back, I walk to the door, slide it open, and look at Beau one more time. “I love you,” I say.
“I love you too, Natalie Cleary,” he says quietly, and then I dart out into the rain.