by L. J. Evans
She nodded. “It is, and I don’t know if it’s the right step. I don’t know if it’s the right next chapter for me, but I also don’t have to rush into it. I’m going to work at the bar over the summer to see if it’s something I could feasibly do on my own. They’ve agreed not to sell it until after the season to give me a shot at it.”
The tightness in my heart eased ever so slightly. I had time then. If I couldn’t make it work, then we could go down another road before she made this huge decision that we couldn’t undo.
“How would you get the down payment?” I asked.
“I still have quite a bit of money in my trust fund. Not enough to make stupid decisions, but enough to get me started in a new direction if I spend it right.”
I tried to take it all in. That she had enough money in her trust fund to buy a bar. That she was seriously considering it. Somehow, in my heart, it felt right. It felt like maybe she and I were both working on writing words to a story that might really become ours.
I’d been waiting to talk to Phil about the office in Corpus Christi. The office that was just a handful of miles away from the house that Ava owned and loved. I’d been thinking about it since she’d told me she still owned the house. I’d been trying to make it a reality since I’d been discharged.
There were lots of hurdles in the way still, but I wanted to believe that we could make this new dream a joint dream if we didn’t give up at the worst part.
“The remaking of life,” I told her quietly.
“What?”
“The quote you said from the sandbox lady. After loss, comes the remaking of life.”
I heard her intake of breath. “Yes.”
“Then, I think it’s a really good idea,” I said.
“You do?”
I nodded, knowing she could see it over the tiny screens we both held, knowing she could see that I meant it.
“I thought you’d be…upset?” she said quietly.
She felt that way because I still hadn’t told her what I was working on, and, for not the first time, I was tempted to spill my guts. To not hide the good or the bad or the hopes from her. But there was a piece of me that just couldn’t bring another lost dream to her feet if I couldn’t make it happen.
“We both have to figure out a few things before we make anything permanent, right?” I asked.
She nodded, and I could see the wariness in her eyes. The doubts.
“Ava, we’re going to be okay.”
“I love you,” she said as if she needed to remind us both.
“I love you more,” I told her. Then I prayed to the gods that they would put in a good word for us with the three fates who controlled destiny. I prayed that they’d help our lives to truly be aligned this time.
♫ ♫ ♫
It was July. The heat and humidity assaulted me as I stepped out of my truck and looked up at the house on the shore of Aransas Bay. It was just like when I’d arrived to paint the place with Mac Truck four years ago. Ava wasn’t there, like she hadn’t been there the day Mac Truck and I had arrived.
Ava was in Galveston. Jenna’s bachelorette party had been the night before. I had two numbers in my phone for Ava, Brady’s and Jenna’s, and I’d had to use both of them over the last few weeks, arranging this surprise. Hoping that I could pull it off. Hoping that she’d be happy with it. Hoping that it meant our life together would finally be starting.
It had meant keeping things from Ava. I wasn’t used to that—or good at it. Ava and I had talked several times a day while I was in California, and she was working at the bar. We’d still talked daily while she thought I was in California, but I was really in New York, packing up Truck’s and my apartment, sending our things in different directions. Truck was off to Hawaii. I was off to Texas. Truck had gotten teary-eyed on me as we’d hugged goodbye. For the first time in a long time, our lives were going in different directions.
Then, I’d gotten into my truck and headed the almost two thousand miles to Texas. To her. To my light, my fate— whatever you wanted to call it. She was my own aurora borealis, and she didn’t know I was coming.
Jenna had told me what the code was for the lockbox on the door. Ava had been renting out the place while she’d been in New York. Now, it was her home, but she still had the lockbox as if she might not be staying, because she’d told me that she loved me more than the house. But now I wanted her to stay.
Once I’d opened the door, I unloaded all the boxes from the back of my truck into the extra room. It was presumptuous of me to assume that I’d be staying here with her. I wanted to be presumptuous, though. I wanted her to see that I’d thought that way, that I’d felt this way, that I was serious about a life together.
According to Jenna, Ava was going straight to the bar once she got to Rockport, but I didn’t want to risk her seeing my stuff. So, I left my things in the room I was hoping she hardly ever went into and then drove into town, my body and mind remembering the way when I hadn’t been there in years.
When I arrived at the bar, I saw the “For Sale” sign had a “Deal Pending” covering it. My heart leaped with happiness for us both. That we were there, making a life for ourselves after all the things that had come and gone in our lives.
I’d had Ava reintroduce me to Andy and Lacey over FaceTime this month, making sure they knew my face, and I knew theirs. Ava hadn’t understood why I was being so persistent, but she’d done it anyway, with a roll of her eyes and a tease about me being all alpha male.
I’d almost told her the truth right then, for the hundredth time, but I’d wanted to surprise her more. I’d wanted to see her face in person when I told her everything. I wanted to feel her reaction in my hands and in my heart.
When I walked in, the bar was about half full, people eating and drinking their summer afternoon away, keeping out of the humidity for a few moments. It was Lacey at the bar when I approached it.
“What can I get you?” she asked, not really registering me.
I reached out my hand. “Lacey, it’s Eli. Good to meet you in person again.”
Lacey’s eyes widened, but she shook my hand. “It’s good to see you. Ava didn’t say anything about you coming. You know she’s not here, right?”
I nodded. “I know; she’s on her way back from Galveston. And she doesn’t know I’m here.”
I filled her in on my plan. On the plan that Jenna and Brady and I had been working on for the last few weeks once I’d convinced Phil on where to place me. Once I’d known for sure that I could fill Ava and myself both up with hope.
Lacey’s face turned into a sea of smiles once I’d explained my intent. She came around the bar and hugged me. It felt like my mom’s hugs. All energy and force and love.
“I’m so happy she has you,” she said quietly.
I couldn’t speak without breaking into foolish tears, so I just gave a curt nod.
“Let me call Ben and the band to see if they can make it in early to learn the new music.” She left to make the call.
I turned and took in the room. I hadn’t been there in four years, but it was burnt into my memories just like the house and the town had been. Just like Ava had been.
My only regret…my only moment of hesitation in this leap that I was taking was my mom and Leena, leaving them thousands of miles away as they got older and started to deal with more issues. What if Mom’s cancer came back? How would I help them?
I’d gone to see Mom before packing up the apartment in New York, and she’d been happy when I’d told her my plan. She’d looked so much healthier than she had even in May, the months putting weight on her, her hair longer than it had been. Her and Leena were puttering about the ancient Victorian together. They were making plans for a two-week cruise through the Panama Canal.
She’d startled me by saying that she didn’t need me hovering, but that she thought Ava did. She thought Ava needed someone by her side maybe more than anyone she’d seen in a lo
ng time.
And I’d agreed, which was why I was there, waiting for her to show up from Galveston.
When Ben and the band showed up, they were slapping me on the back and acting like we were old friends. They seemed happy to do something for Ava, as if she was part of their family. I left the band with the sheet music that Brady had me print out. They immediately set to work practicing it.
By seven o’clock, the bar was filling up. There were still empty tables, but the volume level had gone up several notches, and I felt nervous for one of the first times since starting this journey. Brady had been coaching me—told me I sucked to high heaven, but that Ava would probably get all soft in the knees anyway. That was enough for me. I wanted Ava soft in the knees. I wanted her to forget everything but the fact that our bodies already knew what our lives had been trying to figure out. That we were one. Not pieces left apart but Scrabble tiles that made up one word.
Jenna called. “She’s about five minutes out. She’s cranky as hell with me because I’ve called her like a hundred times.”
“Does she suspect something?” I asked.
“No, I don’t think so. I just kept badgering her with wedding stuff. If anything, she’s thinking I’ve gone all Bridezilla on her.”
I chuckled.
“Thanks for helping me with this.”
“Eli?”
“Yep?”
“Thank you for giving her everything she’s been missing.”
I choked back more emotion and hung up. I was afraid that Ava would know I was here as soon as she walked in, the energy that always seemed to waft between us so palpable. So, I stepped out for a few minutes. Lacey would text me when Andy had taken her into the back office for some paperwork, and then I was going to come back.
I waved to Lacey as I left, the heat and humidity hitting me with its own force as I exited the building. I made my way down the back alley to where I’d parked the truck.
The wait was killing me. I was so close to having her in my arms again. So close to being able to breathe her in like I’d breathed in the salty air that surrounded the town. Relief. Peace. Home.
When Lacey texted me the all clear, it was hard not to run back into the building. My heart was hammering. I wondered—for not the first time this afternoon—how anyone could go onstage without throwing up. Put me on a boat full of known drug dealers instead of a stage any day of the week. It felt safer, but that wasn’t my life anymore. This was.
Lacey handed me the microphone as soon as I entered the bar. I’d planned on doing it from the stage this whole time, but then I had a better idea. Lacey’s grin turned even wider as I pulled myself onto her bar top, my head barely clearing the ceiling when I stood. I gave Ben the signal, and he and the band started the notes of the song that Ava had written for us.
It took longer than I thought for her to come into the room from the back, with a frown on her beautiful face, her dual-colored eyes flashing as she took in Ben and the band.
My voice cracked on the first note, sounding ridiculously like my puberty-wracked body from long ago, before it smoothed out as I continued. “I felt the pieces of me fall around you.”
Her eyes shifted immediately to me on the bar, and she froze. I wasn’t sure if it was good or bad that she was frozen. So, I just kept singing. A wounded bird could sing better, but I did my best for the one I loved more than the ocean and the sea and the Coast Guard.
“And you felt yours slip away too. The pieces of us that were a shattered mess. All on the floor. I had to pick them up as I walked out the door. Hoping you’d see what we were meant to be. Hoping you’d keep the pieces of me that I’d left with you there.”
She finally moved so that she was standing at the edge of the bar closest to the stage. I’d made my way down it, eyes locked on her. When I got to the end, she reached out a hand. A silent command. Like the one I’d given to her once upon a time when we’d first met.
I grinned, my voice losing the train of the song and of the words that I was supposed to be singing. Ben picked them up, his voice so much stronger than mine.
I reached for her hand, bending, and letting my feet find their way to the ground next to hers. She looked beautiful. Her hair was longer than when I’d first seen her in the bar in New York in March. It was curling about her face and shoulders now. She was wearing a summer dress that made her appear young and old at the same time. A mix of so many things.
When our hands touched, it was like it had always been. Energy. Waves. Connection.
“How are you here?” she asked with a smile. I reached out to touch her lips with my fingers, tracing them all the way to the corner that I loved as it sunk into her cheeks.
“Kiss me first, questions later,” I said, and I took her lips before she could take mine, impatient like she had once been impatient. We lost the world for a few moments, the kiss bringing our bodies back together. Our souls together. Aligning our stars the way they were meant to be.
Ben was singing about pieces behind us. But we weren’t pieces anymore. We were a whole. One thing. One entity. One life force made out of two independent bodies voluntarily joining together.
The crowd was cheering around us as Ben wrapped up the song, and we were still kissing. My phone was ringing. I knew it would be Jenna. Or Brady. Or both. But I wasn’t ready to talk to them yet.
I pulled myself away from her lips. She seemed happy. The last tiny bits of doubt that had floated through my brain left. This was right.
“Phil gave me a new assignment,” I told her, smiling.
Her eyes widened.
“I’ll be working with the Coast Guard out of Corpus Christi,” I said. Her eyes widened at the realization that my work would be a mere thirty miles away.
She flung her arms around my neck, pulling herself tight up against my body so that I could feel every single curve and line, so that I could feel the furious beat of her heart that I knew matched my own furious beat. “Eli!” she breathed into my neck.
I kissed her hair and her neck and found my way back to her lips. She responded with a kiss that seemed full of relief and longing and hope. Maybe the hope was in my own heart, but I wanted to believe it was in hers too.
Removing my lips from hers after over a month apart was difficult, but I did it. I looked down into her flushed, smiling face. “I was kind of hoping you’d be amiable to a permanent houseguest, seeing as the station is just down the road.”
She was crying, I realized, tears streaking down her cheeks. And I wiped at them, feeling inadequate, as I always did, to catch her tears, but knowing how important it was for her to feel them, to let them loose in a way she hadn’t been allowed to growing up.
“That terrible of an idea, huh?” I said quietly.
“Rotten luck, I’ve just rented out the extra room.”
It wasn’t true. I’d stacked my boxes in it just hours ago. “Good thing I didn’t want space in the extra room.”
“What, you think you’re just going to take the master?”
“I remember you inviting me into that bed once upon a time. It’s just taken me a while to accept.”
She grinned. “You’re a slow learner.”
“They don’t train us for how to deal with the aurora borealis in the Coast Guard.” I smiled.
“I love you,” she said.
“Again.” I kissed her lips.
“I love you,” she said between kisses.
“I love you more.”
♫ ♫ ♫
I woke to the unfamiliar warm breeze flowing through the dark room, the scent and the humidity nothing like it had been in my time in California or my years in New York.
I spread my hand out toward where I’d left Ava. Her legs that had been entwined with mine were gone. The bed was empty. My body was calling to her already, searching for her in the dark.
I stood and pulled on my jeans before making my way through the house. The doors to the deck were open in
the great room just as they’d been open in the bedroom, but here, I could see her.
She was sitting on the patio table, her back to me. Her face was turned toward the sky as it slowly woke, pink and magenta beginning to surface near the horizon, turning Ava into a mix of shadow and colors like the colors she continued to throw into my world. Her hair was blowing in the breeze.
I made my way out, drawn to her as I’d always been and loving that I was. I climbed up on the table, ignoring the wobble and protest it gave. I wrapped my body around hers the best I could, my legs overlapping hers, her back to my chest. She relaxed into me, turning her head slightly so that she could look up at me, a smile on her face.
“All my teenage years, I waited for someone who would join me on the tabletop. You’ve joined me several times now.” Her voice was soft but full of emotions.
“I’d join you anywhere,” I responded.
“Eli?”
“Hmm,” I said as I nuzzled into her neck, kissing her and absorbing the scent that I adored, that I’d missed while I was without her.
“In the painting,” she started. She didn’t have to tell me which one; I knew. “You said I was the sky, and you were the boat.”
I nodded, kissing her shoulder that was bare except for the tiny tank that she wore with a pair of panties that wouldn’t be there long if I had anything to say about it.
“I don’t want to be the sky,” she said quietly.
I stopped my motions, listening to her closely, waiting for her words.
“I want to be on the boat. With you. Finding safe harbor.”
My heart lurched, emotions filling me.
“Together then. We’ll let the light guide us home.”
“We’re already there, don’t you think?”
I nodded, resting my chin on her shoulder and watching as the sky turned a thousand shades of pink and orange and purple. Watching as the colors filled our world. Knowing that she was right. The light that had guided us home…it had guided us to each other. We were here. We were our own life-changing phenomenon. We’d taken what we were and filled it with color and brilliance. A magical display. Us.