by K. D. Worth
This was not a dream, it was real.
Overcome with relief, I began to cry.
Kody tenderly wiped my tears away with his thumbs. “I’ve missed you,” he whispered, gazing at me with lighter blue eyes.
I calmed, enveloped in his serenity. “I’ve missed you too,” I said in a tiny voice. “Were you just with me?”
His cheeks reddened, and he chewed his lower lip, eyes heady now. “Yeah, I was.”
Warmth simmered, and I remembered I was still covered in a sticky mess, but I didn’t care.
Kody was here.
The heat inside me, the manifestation of our love for each other, swelled. I placed my hand on his chest, and the palm began to glow.
“I missed this,” he murmured, nuzzling my neck. He gave me a tiny kiss, making me shiver. “Missed touching you.”
“Me too. So we made love… um?” I felt my cheeks flush even as I smiled. “That was real?”
He sat up and gave me that sleepy postloving look I’d missed so very much. “It was pretty real for me.”
“But how?” My hands never stopped caressing him, as if they too couldn’t believe Kody was truly here.
“You called to me. You brought me back,” Kody said again, though I didn’t understand.
“Are you leaving again?” Saying it hurt my heart, but I had to know.
He shook his head, those pale blue eyes familiar yet oh-so-different. Older, wiser maybe. “No, I’m right where I’m supposed to be.”
“With me?”
“Yes, with you, silly,” he assured me, kissing the tip of my nose. “We still have a lot of work to do. The wraiths have gotten more aggressive, the shades more afraid. Our purpose is not over. We’re a team, Max.”
“I know, but….” I hesitated, hating how I was always so childish around him. Wasn’t I supposed to be his protector?
“You are my protector,” Kody assured me.
I gave him a look. “Did you just read my thoughts?”
“No,” he assured me. “I read your feelings.”
“You did?”
Half smiling, he nodded. Then he lay down, drawing me with him so I lay alongside him. He touched my cheek once more, face kind and open. “And you don’t have to feel like you failed or be sad. I’m back, and we’re going to be very busy.”
“Where were you?” I wanted to know, though I suspected I already knew the answer.
“With Him,” he said very reverently.
“As in Him Him?” I clarified.
He nodded again.
“Is that why you’re all white?”
“I guess so,” he said. “I didn’t realize I was, until you said something.”
Always surprising me, Kody sat up and conjured a hand mirror to study his new look. “Whoa, I look like Annie Lennox,” he declared, and then he magicked the mirror away and reclined beside me again. “Makes sense, though. When Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the original tablets God wrote the Ten Commandments on, he was snowy white too.”
“Do you think it will stay this way?” I pondered, toying with his silvery white hair. I missed his black hair, but I didn’t care so much because I had him back. That was all that mattered.
He shrugged. “Who knows?”
I shifted to the side, propping up on an elbow to look down at him. “What did He say to you?”
“He didn’t really say anything, as much as He made me feel,” Kody said, gazing at the sky and seeming to be far away in thought for a moment. “I can’t explain it, and… I kinda think I shouldn’t.”
Such a short time ago, Kody’s answer would have brought out my impatience or sparked my jealousy, but not anymore.
“But we’re gonna be okay,” Kody assured me, eyes wide. “You and me, the team. We’ve had our trial by fire. We’re ready, Max.”
“We are?”
Kody rolled on his side to face me. “You let me go, you had faith. You trusted God, and I came back. I could feel you when I was in heaven. I knew you missed me, but you weren’t lost this time. You weren’t afraid.”
I ran a hand down his chest. “Because I knew that no matter how long it took or how far away you were, you were still with me.” I placed a hand on my chest, over my heart. “In here. Always.”
“I love you, Max,” Kody whispered. Then he dipped his head and claimed my lips in a kiss before I could respond.
My heart ached with relief and joy. Kody withdrew from the kiss, and we pressed our foreheads together, holding still and breathing each other in. His hand ran up my bare arm, pausing on my tattoo.
“I’m not the only one who’s changed,” Kody said, sitting up and studying my ink. He twisted my arm slightly so he could get a better look at the symbol I had drawn for the tattoo artist.
It was of a heart, but not just any cliché heart picked off the flash wall of a tattoo parlor. One side of the heart had a flame, as did the other, but the flames were no ordinary flames. The one was an M, the other a K, two separate flames, one blue and one red, intertwining.
“It’s me and you,” I explained. Our eyes met, and I climbed into his lap, needing to be close. He was fully dressed and I was still just in my underwear. He wrapped his arms around me, both of us where we belonged.
I sighed. “M and K, twin flames.”
“One heart.” Kody’s eyes watered, and he placed a hand on my chest. “One soul.”
“Always.”
“Always,” he repeated, lowering his hand and smiling.
“I wanted something permanent to have you with me.” I held up my left hand, flashing his ring. “This wasn’t enough.”
Kody laughed. “It looks good on that particular finger.”
I rolled it in a circle with my thumb, smiling. “Yeah, I thought so too.”
“Keep it,” he said.
“I don’t think you ever needed it anyway.”
“No, I didn’t.”
We were quiet, me straddling his lap, fitting there perfectly, and him running his hands over my bare thighs, my chest. His gaze lingered on the wet spot on front of my underwear. I blushed and squirmed a little. “How did we have sex in our minds?”
“I have no idea,” he said, smiling warmly at me. “Did you like it?”
“Um, just a little,” I said, pointing down.
“I can see that.”
“Hey now,” I warned, poking him and missing how we used to tease each other. It was so good to have him home!
Kody threw back his head and laughed a joyous sound. “I didn’t have that part, just the feeling of that part.” Then it was his turn for his face to turn red. With his shockingly pale blue eyes and his white-blond hair the blush was utterly adorable.
I wondered if he would stay this way forever. It would take some getting used to, but I didn’t mind.
Kody traced the ink on my bicep. “So, are you gonna start getting lots of tattoos like Slade?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. I didn’t think about it.”
“You’re dressing like Slade,” he pointed out.
“Am not.”
Kody indicated the Iron Maiden T-shirt and jeans laying on the foot of the bed, the boots on the floor. “Look at your new clothes. And you have boots, not tennis shoes. Are you the new Slade?”
“Maybe a better upgraded version,” I said, grabbing my T-shirt and pulling it over my head. Kody pushed the sleeve of the T-shirt up to look at the tattoo of us again. Then he leaned in and gently kissed it.
I smiled.
“It looks cool. I love it,” he said.
“I love you,” I told him sincerely. He was so beautiful it hurt to look upon him. Maybe he was actually putting off a light, because I felt like I had to squint in the face of his beauty.
“How long was I gone?” Kody asked, his fingertips trailing down my arm and making me shiver. His gaze fell, and he would not look at me.
I felt his pain and his guilt in waves as if they were my own, and I wanted to appease those feelings immediately. “For
ty days and eight hours,” I answered. “Give or take. Not sure how long that dream sex took.”
Kody gave me a shy grin. “You’ve been keeping track of the days?”
“Someone had to do it until you came back.”
“Did you ever lose faith that I was coming back?” he asked, soft fingers toying with the blanket beneath us.
“Everyone did,” I said seriously. “Except me.”
Kody smiled. “I was always coming back. I pinky swore, remember?”
Emotion swelled within me, and I couldn’t speak, but my head moved up and down quickly, and Kody’s face blurred in my tears. My hands shook as I reached for him. I gripped the back of his head and his arms wrapped around my waist. We pressed our foreheads together and relished the peaceful serenity that surrounded us both.
I breathed deep through my nose, exhaling slowly and taking in his scent and his aura. Warmth bubbled like a spring inside me, inside Kody, circling around us gently, like an embrace or a whisper on the wind.
When I pulled back to gaze into his new eyes, there was no surprise we were surrounded by an umbrella of light glistening like an opal.
“Make love to me,” I whispered. “For real this time. All the way.”
“Gladly.”
We made love several times that morning, each time better than the last. We had no need for words, no hesitation in our touch. We were together, where we belonged. Our separation, though brief, had only been physical. We had finally been reunited, and we needed to reclaim our physical connection. It was perfect, the beauty of being in his arms, his lips kissing me, his hands on my body, and my fingers in his new white hair.
Afterward, when we were spent and tired, tangled in each other’s arms, his firmness still deep inside me, I gazed at his face and spoke, my voice strained from the desperate cries and the heavy breaths of passion we’d shared.
“Kody?”
As if startled, he looked deep into my eyes. “Yes, Max?”
“How long will this last?”
“Forever, if you’ll have me.”
I smiled. “Then forever it is.”
MAX—Epilogue
“HOW MANY do you have for me, guys?” Heather asked cheerily. She was wearing pink yoga pants, an off-the-shoulder beige sweater, a messy bun, and tennis shoes—but somehow she made it work.
“Six?” I said. “Is that okay?”
She shrugged. “Sure.”
My parents had once thought I should be a lawyer—turned out being the leader of a misfit group of teenage reapers had always been my destiny.
Slade breezed in and out of the office at regular intervals, leaving it up to me to hand out assignments and make sure the team took care of the souls. We’d created a rhythm of sorts since Kody’s return. The team had been shocked when I brought Kody back after our intimate reunion at our pavilion. And oh, let me tell you, I got in my “I told you so’s.”
It’s not like I could let that slide.
The wraiths were still out there recruiting, and we were still fighting them. The team went out armed with various holy-water-laced weaponry I had once envied.
But hell, I could shoot lightning out of my hands. Who needed a crossbow?
Shades were still looking for Kody. When we went out together to reap traditional charges, I delivered the Touch, and after the spirit crossed over, Kody—with my force field effortlessly protecting his heart and energy these days—would send the shades that showed up back to God’s grace. It seemed the shades had gotten smarter or more desperate to experience Kody’s healing grace, because they showed up during the other reapers’ assignments too. When that happened, the team member would call us, and Kody would talk to the lost soul, drawing on the well of light inside me to give second chances through his healing energy.
On the occasions that took longer than planned, we did see wraiths.
We hadn’t sent any of them back to God, but not for lack of trying.
True to his kind, loving nature, Kody became more determined, with every lost soul that rejected our offer, to work harder to save as many as he could.
I didn’t know the exact impact of all our hard work, but I did know this: every day I woke up in Kody’s arms, I had another chance to fulfill the destiny laid out for us, bringing hope to mankind in honor of our Lord. Slade once told Kody that a person could not love themselves or others if they were not loved in return. Ultimately God loved each and every one of us—even the lost souls. Kody had learned to control amplifying his emotions, for he had truly come to love himself. I’d like to think I had a hand in it.
Because I loved Kody with every ounce of my being.
Before Heather teleported out of the office—she was anything but inefficient—I held up a hand. “Not so fast. You need to stick around for a little bit. Slade wants to talk to all of us.”
“Slade’s back?”
Across the room, Jake’s head popped up from the paperwork on his desk, his expression earnest.
Dan had passed over to heaven several weeks ago. For as much as he used to annoy me, I’d cried pretty hard afterward. He’d become a good friend, my last connection to Meegan. It had been no surprise to me that he left his opal ring to Jake. Though I knew some of the team were curious about why, no one said anything when they saw it on a chain around Jake’s neck.
I had to imagine losing a close friend like Dan had left Jake with a lot of questions. No doubt he was eager to have a conversation with our boss.
I knew the feeling all too well.
Back before everything became clear to me, I used to get so angry when Slade went MIA. These days, I had a little more understanding, and maybe some of that wisdom he always wanted me to cultivate.
So much happened in the universe, and while we each had a small but important part to play in it, patience truly was a virtue. The problems I had faced—both in my life and afterlife—had seemed all-consuming, as if they were the entire world. When in reality, I was only one little part of a giant tapestry. Even my beloved Kody—gifted by God with the unfathomable gift of delivering lost souls stuck in purgatory to be with Him—was just one small, albeit very important, cog in the wheel of the human journey.
“We’re getting a new reaper,” Kelli announced in that know-it-all way of hers that didn’t really annoy me as much as it used to—especially when I saw her wince with regret when Jake lowered his face and shielded it with a trembling hand as he pretended to work.
He really was grieving Dan’s departure.
Kody took the rest of the folders from me and walked around the office handing them out. The ultimate picture of kindness and grace, he projected an undeniable authority. Seeing it made my heart swell with happiness. “You’re probably right, Kelli. That’s what I suspected.” He handed her assignments to her, and then he walked up to Jake. As he set his folder down on the desk, he placed a hand on Jake’s arm.
I felt it the moment it happened, Kody siphoning my energy that strengthened his natural empathy, which he converted into a force that had the power to heal not only spirits, but all of us when we needed it.
Kody smiled down at Jake. “You want to be on welcoming committee? You and Heather? If Kelli’s guess is correct?”
The never-ending empathy and kindness Kody showed our group and the spirits we delivered to God astounded me every time. But hell, his love had changed me. I liked to think I was a little nicer, having been with him this long, bonded heart and soul. Though I was never going to let go of my signature sarcasm.
If you couldn’t have a little fun in the afterlife, what was the point?
Jake’s face softened. “Yeah, sure. I can do that.”
While Kody passed out the rest of the folders, I fiddled with a Rubik’s Cube on my desk that had once belonged to a gum-chomping hairspray-loving girl. Every now and then, when I thought of her, I would still get sad, but most days the happy memories made me smile. What seemed a lifetime ago, I’d sat on the edge of this very desk grieving the loss of a boy who w
ould one day become the man I loved, and here I was, still not able to figure out how to solve the dumb thing.
I had understood so little back then, and there was more that I needed to learn. I was just grateful that I was around to have the chance, with Kody by my side.
“If we get a new reaper, I hope he’s hot,” Kelli said, sounding dreamy.
“Maybe he’s a she,” Sarah countered, pushing her glasses up her nose. “Ever think of that?”
Kelli rolled her eyes.
“It better be a girl,” Tristen said. “It’s getting to be a sausage fest around here.”
Laughing, Heather smacked him on the arm with the back of her hand. “And how does that affect you?”
Heather and Tristen had gotten back together. I hadn’t asked Kody what she’d told him about it, but I did know they seemed happy. Whether or not Heather got her white dress, we would just have to wait and see.
Once Kody finished distributing the manila folders that Slade magically left in our office every morning, he circled back toward me.
His skin had stopped glowing since he’d returned, but his hair had remained white. When Dan had called Kody Billy Idol, Kody had loved it, though most of us had to google who that was. The platinum-white hair looked good on him. His eyes had remained changed as well, pale blue like a soft summer sky, no longer bright with the vibrancy of spring.
Naturally the team had been thrilled by Kody’s return and inundated him with questions. He told them what he could. While in private, he let me know that the brief moments he’d spent in God’s presence had changed him. But I could see the changes—all for the good—with my own two eyes. There was no more melancholy or depression weighing Kody down. Yes, he would be reticent and quiet, but the silence was contemplative now, not anxiety-ridden or sad.
My faithful, wonderful Kody had been transformed into a leader, someone everyone in the group turned to for his kind and sympathetic ear and wise advice.
Kody hitched his hip on my desk, and I smiled up at him. He dipped his head down, and I raised my lips for a sweet kiss.
“That was nice,” I said in his mind. “What you did for Jake just now.”
Kody smirked. “Oh, here I thought you meant the kiss.”