Delicate

by K. L. Cottrell

  I haven’t had time to feel ashamed of myself for how good that felt to me. My day has been too busy, and I’ve wanted too badly to relish it; last night’s accident was too rude a reminder of how precious life is.

  I can sense it, though—the shame.

  ‘He isn’t Cliff,’ it had spoken up once. ‘What is wrong with you? How can you enjoy this?’

  It was when Beckett started laughing underneath me, I recall now. He had one arm locked around me and the other hand sweetly rubbing my back, incredibly warm even through my shirt. He had soothed me out of my fear and panic exactly as I needed him to. Then I made him laugh, and I could feel it in every part of me—I swear it even went into my veins somehow, not just low in my stomach and up the back of my neck.

  I didn’t mean to love it. I really didn’t. But I couldn’t help it.

  The overwhelming moment got cut short by him choking on nothing. Obviously, I cared more about checking on him than how it felt for my face to be pressed close to his throat while early-morning laughter danced up out of him.

  When I was able to dwell on it, though, I knew I missed that closeness.

  And yes, that only intensified as the day went on. Every time he was near, I was home, and every time he moved away, I began to feel homesick.

  The depth of it has surprised me, to tell the truth, which is saying something considering how deep my attachment to him already was.

  It isn’t right. Not on a level like this.

  I’m aware of that.

  Even without actively letting the shame dig too deeply into me, I’m aware it isn’t right for him to matter to me in those ways…and in other ways I haven’t forgotten about for a single….

  The last man who felt like home to me—the only other man to feel like home to me—was my fiancé. My fiancé whose best friend in the entire world was Beckett.

  I loved Cliff so much, and it damn near destroyed me when he died. That doesn’t disappear, doesn’t eventually mean nothing and get erased.

  So what is wrong with me? How can I feel so…?

  And how can I feel that way for the only other adult in the universe who Cliff truly loved? The only other person who was as crushed by his death as I was because of how deep their bond ran?

  “Stop,” I whisper shakily. “Stop, Noelle. You’ve had an amazing day. Don’t do this right now.”

  Abruptly realizing the faucet is still running, I suck in a breath and straighten up from being slumped over. Then I quickly finish washing my hands.

  No, the darker things aren’t welcome in my mind right now.

  Something is up with me in a big way, but for the most part? For the most part, Beckett is non-negotiable in my life. He may be kind of like a sun, but he’s definitely, definitely my ocean.

  That’s right, he isn’t my Cliff, I belatedly agree with my shame, defensive steadiness swelling through me. He’s my ocean.

  I smack the faucet handle until the water shuts off. Then I grab a hand towel and look at my reflection in the mirror…and spy the little seatbelt burn on my neck. I recall the breathlessness I felt when Beckett inspected it this morning.

  Okay, there’s just—damn it.

  There’s no use in denying that I love it when he touches me.

  Damn it, okay? I’m a twenty-seven-year-old human woman, and he’s extremely important and handsome as hell to me. So he touches me and I love it.

  Surely it’s not the end of the world for me to admit that to myself.

  I must be right about that since I manage to dry my hands, leave the bathroom, and get back to him and Theo without the apocalypse descending on our heads.

  “Back to the fun!” I announce to them and to myself. I sit back down in their artsy area on the living room floor.

  “Welcome back,” Beckett says with the same grin that has been warming me all day.

  I’m nowhere close to tired of it.

  And I don’t have much time to hope he isn’t tired of me either before he’s using my bent knee to anchor himself as he leans over the art supplies in the middle of our triangle—he’s reaching for a colored pencil near Theo.

  I grow warmer yet.

  He could’ve planted his hand on the carpet much more easily, but instead, he closed it over my knee.

  I lay my hand on his before the chance is gone. He touched me when he didn’t have to, so I think I have permission to do the same to him.

  And I think I can feel the breath he takes in.

  He’s warm, too, like I thought he’d be.

  As he settles back into his spot with a red pencil, he keeps his hand where it is.

  He replies to Theo’s chatter about coloring her page in a way that matches her pajamas, but his eyes drift to me.

  The look he gives me is so soft.

  So soft and intimate that no one else could replicate it because no one else is Beckett—it could never pass between anyone but him and me because of what we share, who we’ve grown into together, who we are to each other.

  I wish I could stop time and live in this look.

  He reluctantly takes his hand from my knee, leaving mine lonely. Hours-old words of his whisper down through me, starting at my jaw, where his unexpected kiss nudged at the fault lines just before his truth-laden voice solidly woke them.

  ‘I would love it,’ he said of me never letting go of him.

  He clears his throat before bracing his hands on the carpet and smoothly scooting toward me. His knee bumps mine, and he leaves it pressed there as he goes on talking to Theo.

  I don’t move a single centimeter.

  With a new blush coming on, I look down at my beach-themed coloring sheet, then start perusing my pencil options.

  It’s time to make that water a lovely blue-gray.

  —

  After coloring comes a good chunk of lazy TV time, a dinner of leftover picnic food, then some practice on Theo’s writing. In addition to the words in her workbook, the three of us have a lot of fun coming up with random things for her to carefully, crookedly spell out. Among my personal favorites are our names and the sentences she came up with by herself: ‘I am happy,’ and, ‘I love the park with my family.’

  The one about her being happy is the most special to me.

  There were times when I had no idea how I would ever make her feel happy again.

  Times when I worried her tiny broken heart would never heal from what it had suffered.

  And I know she does still suffer—I know she does still feel grief. But she has managed to keep growing, keep learning, keep living. For people her age, I don’t know if much resolve goes into it or if they just float along until they eventually find something that cheers them up.

  But I don’t think her young age is entirely responsible for the way she has dealt with her pain. There can’t be some healing secret only little kids have access to just because their early years blend together and water down their losses—plenty of pain is rooted in childhood.

  I think the process is within all of us by default. Think that everyone who hurts lives on a seesaw with willpower at one end and a sense of being untethered at the other, each a natural option for dealing with any given day. Age doesn’t matter. Sometimes you know which end you’ll be on and sometimes you don’t; some people pick themselves up with purpose while others just drift their way through.

  For sure, I spent a long time not knowing which end I’d be on, even from one hour to the next.

  But now, just like my daughter…I’m able to feel happy.

  I don’t feel like I live on that seesaw anymore. I feel like I’m on solid ground. My legs aren’t always strong, but they’re mine to stand on; I’m not relying on something else to support my weight.

  “Absolutely amazing,” Beckett’s warm voice drifts through my thoughts.

  Blinking, I look from Theo’s piece of paper to where he has just thumped his audibly empty mug onto the table—he must’ve finished his peppermint hot chocolate. Though it seemed like he was responding to wha
t I was thinking, he was actually praising either Theo or the comforting beverage.

  It really was a great idea to whip this stuff up, what with the heavy rain urging the temperature outside to drop, drop, drop.

  I smile before finishing off my own serving.

  Beckett watches me with eyes as warm as his tone was. The latter blesses my ears again once I’ve emptied my mug: “Done and done?”

  “Mmhmm!” I smack my lips in satisfaction. “Done and done.”

  He reaches over here and takes the mug from me. His fingers brush mine, but it’s the most fleeting of touches, gone as quickly as it arrived. Then he’s on his feet with his mug in his other hand.

  He’s smiling, too, now. Right at me.

  In more of a murmur than I mean to, I tell him, “Thank you.”

  “Of course.”

  Two normal words made gorgeous just by that tone.

  While he’s up, he peers down at Theo’s progress with her hot chocolate. She must have more to go, because he walks away from the table without collecting her mug.

  I watch her finish drawing a heart around her name before I remind her, “Don’t forget about your drink for too long, my love. If it gets cold, it won’t taste as good.”

  “Oh!” She sets down her pencil and eagerly goes for the hot chocolate, which was really only warm to begin with since she’s a kid. It’s probably cold already, honestly.

  She still slurps it up, though, the mug big against her small face. Then she’s done and left with a bit of a chocolate moustache, which makes me laugh.

  I get the mug to Beckett so he can rinse it out, and then I start helping her clean her face. Unsurprisingly, he calls out teasing remarks about how there’s still hot chocolate here and there on her—she falls for the forehead and nose ones, not realizing he can’t even see properly from where he’s standing. But then she catches on to his jokes and starts cracking up.

  What the distance between them doesn’t do is get in the way of the bright-eyed look they share as they laugh together.

  I love it so much.

  And I love how she starts skulking over to him, looking like she’s about to cause some mischief of her—

  Everything is suddenly plunged into thick darkness.

  The hums of the heater and appliances cut off, leaving the house ringing with silence. Theo gasps, as startled as my pulse.

  “Uh oh,” Beckett says from across the room. “Lost power!”

  I barely start thinking about how to get some light in here before Theo’s frightened whimper distracts me. Her next one is right on the edge of becoming a wail.

  I’m out of my chair in a flash so I can bumble my way over there and soothe her.

  But he beats me to it, his voice swiftly gentling: “Oh, now. Come here, Theodora.”

  Faint light pops up where he is, and then the flashlight on his phone illuminates a sizable chunk of the kitchen—including her. She stands in the large gap between him and me, folded in on herself, still making scared little noises.

  He sets his phone on the counter, aiming the light toward the ceiling, and steps over to her.

  “Come here,” he says again, reaching down.

  She unfreezes and meets him on eager tiptoes, arms lifted. He picks her up and settles her against his chest, and she promptly puts her arms around him and buries her face in his shoulder. In a flat second, she’s quiet.

  My own tense muscles loosen.

  I feel soothed for her.

  I use the slant of light to make my way over to them. When I get close enough, I can hear him comforting her while he calmly sways from side to side.

  “The rain just knocked out our electricity,” he’s saying, looking down at where she’s snuggling him. “It happens sometimes. Nothing is really wrong, darlin’. It’ll come back on soon.”

  She mumbles something I can’t understand. Whatever it is makes him grin like he wants to laugh, but he refrains.

  “No, there aren’t any monsters. I promise. And even if there were, I wouldn’t let them get you.”

  Now I catch what sounds like, “You would beat them up?”

  He does chuckle at that. “I would beat them up so bad. They would run away as fast as they could and never come back. When it comes to you, nothing and nobody wants to mess with me.”

  She thinks about that.

  The slight shift of her head on his shoulder allows me to distinctly hear, “I know you will always keep me safe, ‘cause I’m your little girl.”

  My insides soar and flip and twist and fall all at once.

  His rocking movements slow. As he keeps looking at her, his expression goes unreadable.

  And then it, too, soars to a place beyond moved.

  It’s like what they say about someone wearing their heart on their sleeve, except this is so much greater than that. The look about him isn’t just honest or exposed or sweet, it’s powerful.

  I can’t do anything but stare, same as him.

  Oblivious, Theo goes on to elaborate that she’s his little girl and I’m his big girl. We’re both his girls; in her sweet kid way, she’s simply echoing what he’s called us before. Still, yes, he is as moved as I am. It’s palpable. Because those first small, sure words sounded so much like….

  When she’s finished, he assures her, “That’s right.” It’s so soft it’s almost a whisper, yet it resounds with love.

  And it really is matched perfectly by the glance he sends me through this blend of pale light and dark shadow.

  I should’ve been ready for it, I think. For how it would feel to have such unassuming magnificence aimed at me. But I wasn’t, so it puts me in the grip of impending tears before I can even get a new breath.

  I nod at him.

  I don’t know why, because I really mean to nod at Theo.

  No, I don’t mean to nod at her—she can’t see me from this angle, where I’m standing just behind her. What I mean to do is…uh….

  It seems to take forever for my brain to work.

  “Yep, that’s right,” I finally manage to agree with Beckett. After I pull in a steadying breath, I reach out and rub at Theo’s back.

  She wiggles in what I recognize as comfy approval, and it makes me smile.

  I almost don’t hear him whisper, “So perfect.”

  It’s so faint I think he must’ve been saying it to himself.

  Funny how it feels cozier in here with the heater off than it has for the last several hours. It’s really, really nice. A bubble I don’t want to leave.

  Thankfully, it doesn’t burst even when I step away to start looking for candle-lighting essentials. While I search, Beckett summons up another goofy mood and keeps Theo entertained. In no time at all, he’s got her giggling, truly no longer spooked by the lost electricity.

  Super Beck to the rescue, as always.

  Soon, I have one candle lit. It looks to be the best I can do because I can’t find matches and my long lighter apparently only had enough life left in it for that single flame. It’ll suffice, though. It’s a decently-sized candle, not one of those tiny tea ones or whatever.

  Theo turns out to absolutely love it. She neither wants me to look for a real flashlight nor wants Beckett to leave his phone light on. We go along with it because she’s cute, but she does also have a point in saying flashlights don’t smell good.

  One con to the candlelight is that it makes practicing her writing kind of difficult. It’s not quite as bright as we need it to be. We decide not to get back to that and instead make shadow shapes in the warm light.

  Using our hands is fun for a minute. Then Theo gets the idea to bring some stuffed animals into the mix. That’s even more fun because bunnies and bears and kitties look pretty funny being cast on the walls and ceiling, large and begging for personality. When the kitchen table gets crowded, we pick a few animals to take with us to the living room, where Beckett and I put on a silly little play of sorts.

  Theo likes that a lot, but she eventually grows bored of not being ab
le to participate the way she wants to. She can’t juggle goofing around and holding her hand far enough away from the flame, so she’s restricted to spectating and trying to direct our storytelling. It doesn’t turn out to be exciting for her.

  But it’s just as well, because before we can come up with something else to do, she starts yawning.

  That makes me yawn, which then makes Beckett yawn.

  Chuckling, I hand Fifi the ballerina kitten over to Theo. “Bedtime approaches, little angel.”

  “Nuh uh,” she protests even as she rubs at her eyes.

  Beckett snorts.

  As it occurs to me, I add to him, “Will you sleep on the couch instead of going home? I don’t trust your car in all that rain.”

  Amused though he is about Theo, his smile is calm for me. “Yeah, that sounds good. My one headlight might be okay, but I’d rather not bother when it’s pouring outside.”

  I smile back, relieved. “Yeah. Thank you.”

  “Thank you.”

  As if he has ever been unwelcome here. But that’s Beckett: always grateful, always sweet.

  A kind word is worth everything to him—and so is a kind gesture.

  My smile grows.

  He notices and asks, “What?”

  I shake my head. “Nothing.” I gently tap my palms against the coffee table, then stand. “Okay, Theo. Let’s start getting you snuggly.”

  She complains a bit, but Beckett is on it with an offer to read her a bedtime story. It’s a good deal, she decides. I lead the way to her room with the candle while they shuffle behind me, their arms full of stuffed animals. The little buddies get dumped onto the bed so Theo and Beckett can focus on her bookcase; while they look at story options, I arrange everything the way I know she likes it.

  She ends up picking Max’s Chocolate Chicken, an old book that I loved when I was a kid. Beckett leaves to grab a drink of water before we get started, so I get her set up in bed.

  “Have you had a good day?” I ask her.

  She nods and gives an adorably serene smile. “The best, best, best day.”

  The serenity is contagious. “I’m so, so, so glad.”

  “Me too. Was your day the best day?”

  I give my own nod. “Yes, it was.”