Finding Him

by Van Dyken, Rachel

  “All that matters is that I have you,” he finished, his hands roaming down my body, making me forget my own name right along with all the reasons I had hesitated.

  Why had I hesitated?

  This was everything.

  This felt so good it was painful.

  His mouth moved down my chest as he flipped me onto my back and kissed every inch of skin like he wanted to make sure that anyone who came into contact with me knew who had been there. Julian Tennyson.

  I didn’t mind.

  I dug my hands into his thick hair and held on as he pressed tiny kisses across my hips, bracing them with his strong hands, lifting my body up to his mouth like a feast he’d been waiting for, starving for, begging for.

  His tongue was hot, lightning against my skin. A kiss on the tender flesh of my thigh, another closer to where I wanted him. With every pulse, every exhale, I felt him, needed more of him.

  “Tell me you’re mine, Keaton,” Julian rasped, teasing me with a soft flick of his tongue followed by the palm of his hand. “I need to hear it.”

  I moaned. “I was yours the minute you asked me to build you a fire.”

  He chuckled darkly against my skin, and goose bumps erupted all over my body. Everything about him set me off. “And I was yours the minute you pulled a knife on me.”

  “Enough with the knife . . . ,” I grumbled lazily as my mind tried to focus on words instead of what he was doing with his mouth, his hands, mouth, hands . . . I couldn’t keep track. It was driving me crazy, so many nerve endings firing while time stood still for us.

  This is how it should be.

  Happy, not sad.

  Hello, not goodbye.

  That’s what this was with Julian.

  With Noah it would have been goodbye.

  It broke my heart to admit . . . that he’d been right.

  Because with Julian it was a fresh page, a new page. With Julian it said the beginning, with Noah it would have been tears because it was too close to the end.

  I was close when Julian’s mouth found mine again. He hovered over me, bracing his body, staring down at me with the sort of wonder people wait their entire lives to experience.

  I kissed him.

  Tasted him.

  Moved my body in sync with his as he slowly moved inside me like he wanted to savor the moment between us—the moment we were each other’s.

  His green eyes locked on mine. “I never want to let you go.”

  “Who said you had to?”

  Our foreheads touched. “You feel like something I’ve searched for my whole life without even realizing what it was—the treasure you know exists but can’t fucking find.” I gasped as he thrust deeper, rolling his hips, making me come off the bed like fireworks. “Being inside you is my heaven, Keaton.”

  “Mine too,” I whispered with another groan as tiny spasms grew, like little bursts of sunlight exploding between us, the world could burn down and I would stay there forever, in his arms.

  Our mouths fused as I clung to him, holding him close as he moved fluidly in me like we had all the time in the world, like we could make love forever in that bed.

  I didn’t realize I was crying until he swiped a tear from under my eye and kissed his fingertip like it was precious.

  “I need you more than you’ll ever know,” I whispered.

  His head touched mine, a graze of his lips as I felt him thrust deep, taking me with him down a road that would change us forever. “Good.”

  I let go.

  Of not just my fear.

  But of my first love.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  JULIAN

  I slept so hard that I woke up disoriented, until I felt Keaton’s hot mouth on me, and then I just thanked God I was alive.

  I gripped the sheets while she woke me up in the best physical way possible and nearly wept when she swirled her tongue.

  “Shit.” My hips bucked while my balls seized, ready to combust. I wanted to be inside her, I wanted her every way I could have her, but I couldn’t find it in myself to even move. “Keaton, I’m going to—”

  “Kinda busy . . .” Her head popped up.

  And then I was done for.

  Completely screwed and so damn happy I wanted to throw a parade for her and her mouth.

  Keaton’s head poked out from under the duvet. “Oh, hey, you’re awake.”

  “I’m building a shrine to your mouth,” I admitted in a sleep-filled voice.

  She beamed. “Only if I can build one to your abs.” She walked her fingers up my chest. I grabbed them and kissed the back of her hand then tucked her next to me.

  Where she belonged.

  “So . . .” I toyed with her fingers. “I figured we should work on the book for a bit, see how far we can get, and then order in.”

  “You don’t have to order in. I mean we don’t.” Keaton looked up at me tentatively. “I decided last night, even though it makes me sick, to just keep living my life. They don’t know my pain, my struggles. They don’t know what I feel. If it gets really bad I’ll address it, if not . . .” Her voice trailed off. I could tell it wasn’t a flippant thing.

  “I’m okay with lying low,” I said seriously. “And you haven’t been feeling good anyway.”

  “True.” Her fingertips trailed my jaw. “How about we just wait and see?”

  “I’m okay with that.” My hand slid down to her ass and cupped her. “But I think I may need a few more minutes to wake up.”

  She rolled her eyes.

  And then I gripped her by the ass and turned her to her stomach, moving my body over her. “Just a few minutes.”

  “Of suffocation?” she teased.

  I bit her ear and tugged. “Pleasure.”

  “Yes . . .” It was breathless, needy, it was all for me.

  In the last days, there was a lot of silence. It’s not what you see on TV, where everything looks clean, like you’re playing this waiting game until something works and kills the cancer. It’s constant pain, constant wondering, questioning. It’s not pretty. Death is the end of something that shouldn’t die in the first place, so it’s hard to watch, it’s hard to understand, it’s just hard all around. Noah always tried to smile for me. Even when he couldn’t speak I knew how he felt because he had a little notepad he wrote on.

  I stared down at the note he’d just written and rolled my eyes. “Get naked? Really?”

  He just shrugged and scribbled a horrible picture of what looked like naked stick figures, one had a giant penis, and the other had breasts that fell past her waist.

  “Drawing isn’t your strong suit.”

  He scribbled something else down and showed it to me. The penis had grown, fantastic.

  He made a choking noise that sounded like laughter, but when I looked up, he was actually choking, starting to turn blue.

  I hit the call button, freaked out, only to get shoved out of the way when the nurse came running in.

  “He just started choking!” I said, my cheeks stained with tears. “He wasn’t even eating!”

  “Anaphylaxis,” the nurse stated as she grabbed something from a crash cart and inserted it into his IV. They said words I didn’t understand and ran around his bed poking him, keeping him alive, and all I kept thinking was, It’s okay to let go.

  Because this wasn’t living.

  It wasn’t.

  We later found out that he had an allergic reaction to a new medication, and because his body was so tired of fighting, it reacted as if it was attacking his system.

  Just one more drug he could no longer take.

  That was the beginning of the end, that night.

  We both lay awake staring at each other. He wasn’t writing anything down, but he didn’t need to. Instead, he was playing with my hair, rubbing my arm, making sure I knew that he was awake, that he was there.

  And because I needed him to know it was okay, because I loved him, I asked him the hard question. “Noah, are you fighting because of me or
because of you?”

  He stilled.

  “That’s my answer, isn’t it?” I looked up at him as he slowly nodded, tears filling his eyes. “You’re tired, aren’t you?”

  A tear slid down his cheek. I buried my face in his chest, I inhaled his scent that was so uniquely him, citrusy and masculine all wrapped up into one. I squeezed his hand even though the squeeze back was so weak I wanted to weep.

  “Okay,” I whispered through my tears. “It’s okay.”

  He shook his head violently. I didn’t want him to have another attack, so I tried calming him down. He pointed at the pen and paper.

  I quickly got it from the table and handed it to him. His writing was getting slower and slower but his penmanship was still incredible.

  After a few minutes with shaking hands he handed me the paper. I read it out loud. “I don’t want your last moments with me to be traumatic, I don’t want to fall asleep and have you watch in horror when my eyes don’t open. I can’t handle knowing that the last moments you have with me are sad ones. But I don’t know how to make it better. I don’t want you to fucking remember this and cry. I want you to remember the burrito, the food fights we almost had every time we had a meal and I refused to share. I would die for you, Keaton—but I draw the line at dying in your arms.”

  My throat hurt from holding my tears in. “I get to decide what my last moments are with you, not you, Noah. I’ve given you everything, give me this one thing . . .” Hot tears burned my eyes then ran down my cheeks. “Let me hold your hand and walk you into heaven.” A fat tear rolled down his cheek. “Please.”

  He grabbed the pen again and scribbled something down. He held up the paper to me, and in giant letters it said, “Okay.”

  I’ll remember that moment forever. It was New Year’s, people were singing and celebrating the fact that they had one more year, and I was holding his hand celebrating the fact that he’d been given all the years he would have, and that was okay. Snow started to fall outside, coating the ground in white. I squeezed his hand and kissed his knuckles. “I love you, Noah.”

  He brought our joined hands to his heart, keeping them pressed against his chest, then turned his head to watch the snow fall.

  The last thing Noah saw on this earth was the cleansing beauty of snow, and the last thing I saw before the strength fully left his hand was a peaceful smile on his face. And the last sound he heard was the piercing cry of the woman he loved, shouting for anyone who would hear. “He’s gone!”

  She stopped talking while I watched the emotions war across her face. “I’m so sorry, Keaton.”

  She sniffled and wiped the tears away. “It was a beautiful ending.”

  “Some might even say perfect,” I added, my stomach clenching, my heart breaking for this beautiful girl. “Do you want to call it quits for the day?”

  “Maybe.” She sniffled. “I don’t know. We’re so close to the end that—” She stopped talking as her eyes widened.

  Curious as to what she was staring at, I followed her gaze outside.

  It was snowing.

  Snowing in the city.

  When I looked back, Keaton was swaying a bit in her seat. I quickly moved to grab her, catching her right before she passed out in my arms.

  Enough was enough.

  She’d been puking.

  And now she’d passed out.

  Yes, it was emotionally heavy stuff, but she was freaking me the hell out. I called down to Barry. “Is the car downstairs?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good, I need it. We’re headed to Manhattan Grace.”

  I just hoped everything was okay, and I mentally slapped myself for thinking she could handle all of this while not feeling well.

  Keaton agreed to go once she came to a few seconds later. The ride to the hospital was strange. We’d just been talking about death, and now we were headed to the ER.

  I hated every minute of it.

  But something was wrong.

  And even through her repeated mumbles that I was overreacting, I put my foot down. When we made it to the ER, we were promptly escorted to a private room, which I was thankful for. The last thing we needed was more bad press. I didn’t care, but I did care about Keaton’s health, and if that’s what was affecting it, I knew what I needed to do.

  Back the hell off.

  She was more important than that.

  “Hi.” A doctor poked her head in the door. “My nurse said you’ve been vomiting and just passed out today? How long has this been going on?”

  Keaton and I shared the same look of Who knows?

  I spoke first. “A couple of days or so?”

  “Any other symptoms?” The doctor looked concerned.

  My stomach dropped. She was fine, she had to be fine.

  “No.” Keaton shook her head. “But I do think it’s stress.”

  “Could be.” The doctor nodded then smiled kindly. “Why don’t we rule out the easy things first, like the flu, an infection, pregnancy . . .” As her voice trailed off, my eyes grew a bit too large for my head, meeting Keaton’s.

  She squinted down at her hands then up at me and looked ready to puke again. “Julian . . .”

  The doctor glanced between us. “Something wrong?”

  I don’t know how I knew, just that I did. That would make sense, wouldn’t it? It wasn’t like we used protection the first time. Hell, I didn’t even think about it. I don’t think either of us were thinking about anything except for the pain to fucking stop.

  It had to have been that first time.

  I ran my hands through my hair. “I think she needs a pregnancy test.”

  Keaton’s panicked expression wasn’t helping the wild thumping of my heart as I grabbed her hand and waited for the doctor to come back.

  Instead, it was a nurse who asked Keaton to pee in a cup, and what was only ten minutes ended up feeling like a thousand years as we waited in that room for them to tell us something that would alter us forever.

  It was almost too much.

  The snow falling outside.

  Finishing the book.

  Writing “The End.”

  And the possibility of a new life.

  The nurse returned with a smile on her face. “Congratulations. It’s early, looks like you’re around three weeks, possibly four, though it’s hard to tell. Your hCG is reading really high. Congrats again, you’re going to be a mom!”

  Keaton squeezed my hand so hard I was afraid it was going to fall off.

  And then she burst into tears.

  I quickly pulled her into my arms and held her. “Hey, hey, it’s going to be okay.”

  “No.” She sobbed harder against my chest. “Because people are going to know it’s not his.”

  Had she stabbed me in the heart—it would have hurt less than those words. I pulled away and stared at her in disbelief. “Are you serious right now?”

  She hiccupped out another sob. “Julian, dating is one thing! Having a baby is—everyone’s going to know!”

  “Then let them know!” I roared. “Why the hell do you care what they think?”

  “Because I promised him!” she yelled right back. “I have a lucrative book deal based on my undying love for a man who died eleven months ago! What happens when they find out that I moved on and had a baby? Nobody’s going to believe it was real. Nobody’s going to care about him anymore!”

  “It’s not him you’re worried about,” I said with hurt in my voice. “It’s you.”

  “What?” she hissed, her expression one of shock and irritation.

  “This book . . . this isn’t about him, Keaton. He’s not here. This was only ever closure for you, and I’m sure he knew that, I’m sure he hoped it would help. But whether or not people believe your story has nothing to do with you writing it. He asked you to write it. He didn’t ask people to believe it or even read it. You’re the one doing that. You’re the one existing in this in-between space where you can’t let him go and we can’t be togethe
r. You say you want that, but you want everything to be tied up in these neat little bows. That’s not fucking life, trust me. I would know.” I hung my head. “And the really sad part? You’re making this about you when it’s about us, when it affects both of us, when I can’t think of anything that would make me happier than being a dad to a little girl who has clear blue eyes just like you, or a little boy with dirty hands he refuses to wash. And you’re sitting there feeling sorry for yourself because of what people are going to say. I’m not trying to say your feelings aren’t valid. I’m just saying mine are too, and unless you can write ‘The End,’ you can’t move on, because you won’t let yourself.” I stopped talking, too upset to say anything more. “I’m going to go grab some coffee. Do you want juice? Water?”

  “W-water.” Her voice cracked.

  I walked toward the door and paused, my hands anchored on the doorjamb as I allowed my head to fall forward. “I’m not leaving you,” I said without looking back. “I just need space. I need time to think, and I don’t want to hurt you any more than you want to hurt me, but that’s what you keep doing, over and over again without realizing it, and I can take a lot, Keaton, I’ve lived with that sort of rejection my entire life, I can take one more. What I can’t take is the fact that I’m falling in love with you—and that doesn’t even seem to be a factor in your decisions.”

  I left and paced the hall. I knew that I could find something to drink close by, I’d visited this hospital often.

  Izzy used to volunteer.

  People used to whisper when I walked the halls.

  They never really knew me, just through her, and to them I was this larger-than-life hero with a bad-boy streak and a roaming eye.

  Now I just felt heartbroken.

  A child.

  She was pregnant with our child.

  And the first words out of her mouth basically said she was sorry it was mine.

  Damn it, I wished my mom was there.

  I took a sip of the strong coffee and grabbed a bottle of water, then hung outside her room. I’d only been gone a few minutes, and I wasn’t ready to go back in, I wasn’t ready to see the look on her face.

  Feel the disappointment thick in the air.

  I grabbed my phone and dialed a familiar number.