Breathe

by Kristen Ashley

  He hadn’t told her. He also didn’t intend to.

  Shit.

  “Yep,” he replied casually, hoping that would end it, knowing from getting to know these people it would not.

  Ezra nodded before saying, “We’ve been talkin’ and we –”

  Chace cut him off, “Don’t worry about it,” and Faye’s fingers around his grew tighter.

  Ezra’s eyes grew wider. “But, that had to –”

  Chace shook his head. “I have a trust fund. My grandparents gave it to me. They were good people. My grandfather worked hard all his life. He was a good man. If they knew the money they worked hard to earn went to that, they’d be pleased. Trust me. If they were alive, they’d do it themselves. Now, it’s done. You got enough to see about setting right. But that’s not part of it.”

  “That’s too much of a gesture,” Ezra replied softly.

  “It wasn’t a gesture,” Chace returned just as softly. “What it was, if this makes it easier to accept, is me and Faye buyin’ our way into those kids’ lives. You’re leavin’ but this doesn’t end, not for them, not for us. We wanna know they’re growin’ and doin’ it strong but we also wanna know how. If you give that to us over the years then we’re even.”

  Ezra stared up at him, his throat moving as he swallowed and Faye leaned into his side.

  Then Ezra whispered, “We can do that.”

  “Good,” Chace muttered and moved to shake the man’s hand, this necessitating Faye letting his go.

  After he shook his hand, Faye moved in for a hug and more hugs commenced, farewells, heartfelt keep in touches, forced smiles that were sad but nevertheless happy.

  Finally, Chace watched Faye whisper something in Becky’s ear while hugging her that made Becky giggle. It was a small one but it was a genuine one.

  Then he watched her hold it together by a thread, her eyes bright, her lips quivering as she gave Miah a tight hug that lasted a very long time and was unusual in the sense that an eleven year old kid was just as reluctant to let go.

  Watching it, Chace’s throat got tight.

  He touched Becky’s hair in his farewell and she moved to her grandparents as Faye made a low noise in the back of her throat and let Miah go.

  She straightened and ran her fingers through his hair before she whispered, “Call me. I want to know what you’re reading.”

  Miah, his eyes also wet and getting red, nodded.

  Faye bit her lip and stepped away.

  Miah turned to him.

  Chace began to lift his hand to give him a shake but stopped when Miah moved right into his space and curled his arms around Chace’s middle.

  At his touch, his less thin body pressed to Chace’s, his arms, neither of them in casts or bandages, around him, Chace’s throat completely closed. He felt the wet in his own eyes and wrapped his arms around his boy, holding tight, bending his neck and closing his eyes.

  “Sleepin’ bag was warm,” Miah muttered to his gut, his voice trembling.

  Fuck. The kid was killing him.

  “Good,” Chace muttered back, his voice thick.

  Miah held on. Chace did too.

  Then Miah whispered, “Your hair.”

  Chace opened his eyes. “What buddy?”

  Miah leaned back but didn’t let go, looked up at Chace with his red eyes and kept whispering, “Your hair. Lion’s hair.”

  Chace didn’t get it but forced his own smile and replied quietly, “Okay.”

  Miah let him go, Chace’s arms dropped away, Miah’s chin quivered but his eyes didn’t waver from Chace’s when he whispered, “You’re my Aslan.”

  Aslan.

  The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

  Holy fuck.

  The words like a sock in the gut, Chace’s chest got tight and he crouched in front of Miah saying the only word he could think to say, “Buddy.”

  “I’m gonna be Peter.” Miah was still whispering.

  “Good choice,” Chace whispered back, forcing it through the sting in his throat.

  They held each other’s gazes, Chace having no fucking clue what to say or do.

  Then Miah whispered, “’Bye, Aslan.”

  Holy fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

  “’Bye, Peter,” Chace whispered back.

  Chace watched him pull in breath, look up at Faye then he turned and walked to his grandparents.

  Chace moved to straighten and barely got his feet when Faye was in his space, her front pressed to his side, her arms wrapped tight around his middle. He slid an arm around her shoulders, Silas and Sondra moved close and they watched Miah, Becky and their family get into their cars.

  They called good-byes, they waved and they stood in Silas and Sondra’s front drive and watched as they drove off and they kept watching until there was nothing to watch anymore.

  Faye moved first and when she did it was to get up on her toes and find his ear.

  “Told you that you were a hero,” she whispered and Chace closed his eyes but she wasn’t done. “I’m not the only one who thinks so, Aslan.”

  He turned into her, pulling her fully into his arms and burying his face in her neck.

  He held tight.

  She returned the favor.

  They felt Silas and Sondra silently move away.

  As he held her, feeling her body rock quietly with her tears, her wet hitting his neck, he held strong but he knew she could feel his own wet against the skin of hers.

  And he didn’t give a fuck.

  Chapter Twenty

  Breathe

  I barreled up the steps and didn’t bother inserting the key because I knew Chace was inside my apartment already.

  I threw the door open, saw him in my kitchen, head tipped back taking a long draw from a bottle of beer and, as his eyes slid to me around the bottle, his chin dipping down, I shouted, “It’s a girl!”

  He dropped the bottle and asked, “What?”

  I slammed the door, raced to him and threw myself in is arms with such force, he rocked back on a foot.

  “It’s a girl. A girl! Lexie and Ty had a little girl. Her name’s Ella Alexi!” I cried, jumping up and down, taking him with me since my arms were around him and one of his was around me.

  He grinned down at me, muttering, “Good news, darlin’.”

  “The best!” I exclaimed as I stopped jumping. “Ten fingers. Ten toes. Krys says she’s got black fuzz on her head, already full of curls. I bet she’s adorable.”

  “I bet.” Chace kept muttering through his grin.

  I shook him in my arms and shared, “I can’t wait to meet her.”

  Chace was still grinning and muttering when he replied, “I bet that too.”

  “Krys says half-price tequila shots in celebration,” I informed him.

  “Only Krystal would celebrate the birth of a child with half-price tequila shots,” Chace noted and I smiled into his face because this was crazy, hilarious and true.

  “Can we go?” I asked.

  “Drink tequila?” Chace asked back.

  “Yeah.”

  “You drink tequila?”

  “No.”

  “Ever?”

  “Um… maybe twice in college but, since then, no,” I told him.

  “Then… yeah. Absolutely.”

  I felt my brows draw together at his weird, firm answer. “Absolutely?”

  “Baby, you happy and drunk, your place a couple of blocks from Bubba’s and your bed ten feet from the front door, the answer to that is yeah… absolutely.”

  I felt my womb contract and bit back my suggestion that Chace, as he’d be buying since he wouldn’t let me, should hit the ATM prior to us going out.

  Instead, I got up on my toes, touched my mouth to his and moved away while asking, “Dinner first?”

  “Yep,” Chace answered. “What’re we having?”

  I opened the door of the fridge and pulled out the packet of hamburger, replying, “Packet tacos.”

  “Works for me,” he muttered.


  I set to work while Chace got me a glass of wine. Then I kept working while Chace sat on my counter and I took sips of wine and I told him my other good news.

  “Library Board called. I have a meeting with them next week. The Town Council has allocated more funding to the library and they’ve told me when we get it we’ll get new computers and they’re giving me a ten percent salary adjustment.”

  “Not on par with Lexie and Ty havin’ a healthy baby girl but still, good news, honey,” Chace commented, I looked to him and gave him a big smile since he was also smiling at me then I turned my attention back to the taco meat.

  “Faye,” he called when the meat was browned and I’d added the water and seasoning.

  I looked back to him. “Yeah?”

  “Turn it down,” he ordered and I dipped my ear to my shoulder.

  “What?”

  “Come here.” He kept ordering and my head straightened.

  “We’re close. I just have to slice the lettuce and tomato,” I told him.

  “In a minute, turn it down, we got a problem.”

  Oh jeez.

  I didn’t like this.

  We hadn’t had a problem in a while.

  It was Saturday, three weeks and then some since we’d met Becky.

  Miah and Becky were back in Wyoming and, from daily reports, they were settling in, doing fine, seeing a local counselor and bonding with their grandparents as well as their aunts, uncles and cousins. They were living with their Mom’s parents with their Dad’s visiting daily. In fact, they had dinner together every night.

  This meant the kids were surrounded all the time by people who loved them and showed it.

  Good stuff.

  Miah was still reading and doing a lot of it and I knew this because he called at least once a week to tell me what he read, what he thought about it, what he was planning on reading next and asking my thoughts on what he should add to his list to be read. He was still also playing his video games and I knew this because he called Chace at least once a week to talk to him about the games, his scores and other boy to man stuff.

  At first it was weird getting used to a communicative Miah. But since he pulled his thumb out of the dam, there was a lot to flood through. It was like there was never a time when he didn’t speak. He could gab for half an hour nonstop and if he was really excited about something, that shone through.

  He seemed to be really excited about a lot of things and that way regularly.

  Great stuff.

  I missed him. Mom and Dad missed him. Chace missed him. But it was clear he was flourishing. So that helped us to be able to cope with missing him.

  Anyway, we were all planning on taking a week’s vacation to drive up there and spend some time with them. This was my idea and I wasn’t certain how Chace would feel, our first vacation together, spending it with my parents, a couple of kids and four people we didn’t know very well.

  Chace thought it was great idea with one caveat.

  “We get a hotel room, baby, in a hotel where you’re parents aren’t staying.”

  Apparently, there would be other activities during our vacation.

  Hotel room sex with Chace. Another something new.

  Another something to look forward to.

  More good that had happened was that Mary Eglund had slunk away, resigning from the City Council after her sister’s felonious activities had become public knowledge and, already disliked, she was now reviled. This was because she, one of the only people to have contact with Enid Eglund, didn’t see her sister’s insanity and do something about it or find she was abusing two kids whose mother her sister murdered. But instead she spent her time being annoying and telling people how to live their lives when she should have been taking care of family business.

  Rumor had it her house was on the market.

  She wouldn’t be much of a loss to the community.

  Her sister, on the other hand, was currently enjoying her stay in a hospital for the criminally insane somewhere in Wyoming. I didn’t like this, Chace didn’t either. What she did to those kids, I felt, deserved worse punishment.

  But there was no denying she was seriously, fraking ‘round the bend. She’d been deemed unfit to stand trial and pretty much fit for nothing but loads of meds and incarceration amongst a bunch of other folks who were as tripped out as she was.

  I didn’t like it but I didn’t dwell. She was locked away, perhaps not the way I’d prefer but she was still locked away and no longer a threat to anyone.

  So there it was.

  Onward from the slightly bad was further good.

  Valerie had spent the weekend before visiting and except for a couple of times where she got nervous and fidgety, these being when she first met my parents when they came over to Chace’s for dinner, it had been a really good weekend.

  I liked her. She was cute and funny and, with Chace now far more relaxed with her, the visit had gone well. Except she brought me a pair of earrings, pearls surrounded by diamonds, their expense so obvious it kinda flipped me out but Chace told me to roll with it and, with no other choice, I did. I wore them all weekend even though they were way fancier than my outfits but she seemed delighted I did so it was worth the fashion faux pas.

  Trane had not been invited nor did he show. Valerie didn’t mention him. Chace and I didn’t either. I sensed an underlying sadness in Valerie that this was the case but I also saw her determination to enjoy Chace how she could take him so I did what I could to facilitate that.

  I felt something lovely seep into me because I could see she saw Chace was happy, more relaxed, a part of my family and I sensed she liked that immensely. So although there was sadness, there was also ease.

  Life was good. It had settled into normal. No dramas. No “dark”. No nothing but work, food, family, sex, TV, books… life.

  I didn’t want a problem. We’d had enough problems.

  I was enjoying good. Like, a frak of a lot.

  So I didn’t want bad.

  But even so, I turned the burner down on the meat and moved to Chace though I did this on leaded feet. He spread his legs when I got close and I took that as my cue to move between them. When I did, I rested my hands on his thighs and he lifted one to shift my hair over my shoulder as the fingers of his other hand curled around the top of my hip. After he slid my hair away, he wrapped his fingers around the side of my neck, his thumb gliding over my jaw.

  “Is it Miah?” I whispered. “Have you heard something?”

  “No,” Chace whispered back, his eyes moving over my face in a way I couldn’t quite read.

  It wasn’t bad. But I wasn’t sure it was good since it was so intense.

  “Becky?” I went on quietly.

  “Nope,” he answered immediately and also quietly.

  I pulled in a breath then cautiously put out there, “Has something gone down with Misty’s case or, um… anything around that?”

  “Nope,” he repeated and his hand left my neck to drop to mine on his thigh and wrap around it.

  “Chace –”

  His head dropped to watch his thumb move over my fingers as he muttered, “Naked, baby.”

  My head twitched at his weird word.

  “Pardon?”

  His eyes came to mine and he repeated, “Naked.”

  I felt my brows draw together and I asked, “Naked?”

  He held my gaze even as he moved, his other hand leaving my hip to shove into his jeans pocket then he held my hand as his other moved to it.

  My eyes tipped down as my breath stopped coming when I watched a simple but stunning diamond solitaire being slid onto my left ring finger.

  “Naked,” he whispered and I sucked breath into my nose as I stared at the diamond now at the base of my finger. “You marry me, I’ll add a band under that, cover you up.”

  I blinked as the sting hit my nose, the wet hit my eyes but after I blinked, my gaze didn’t move from that ring and I again stopped breathing.

 
“Baby,” Chace whispered, his hand holding mine giving me a squeeze, “Breathe.”

  I breathed.

  His thumb moved over the ring and his beautiful deep voice came back at me, “Will you marry me, Faye?”

  “Yes,” I whispered so quietly it was like a breeze.

  But I didn’t take my eyes off Chace’s ring.

  His hand stayed curled around mine, his thumb firm at the base of his ring but his other hand came to the side of my neck and slid up into my hair behind my ear.

  “Will you build a home with me?” he whispered his question.

  “Yes.”

  “A family?”

  “Yes,” I repeated, my breath catching just at the idea of that beauty.

  “A life?”

  My head tipped back, his beautiful blue eyes locked on mine and everything he felt for me was shining from them, warming me to my soul in a way I knew I’d never, ever be cold.

  Not again.

  Not in my whole life.

  “Yes,” I whispered as the tears slid out of my eyes.

  When they did, his hand slid out of my hair so it could cup my jaw and his thumb moved across my cheek to catch them as they fell.

  “I love you, Faye Goodknight,” he said quietly, looking deep in my eyes.

  I sucked in a breath that broke twice before I replied, “I love you too, Chace Keaton.”

  His lips tipped up and his eyes grew super warm.

  “Want you movin’ in, baby,” he murmured.

  “Okay,” I agreed immediately.

  “Next weekend,” he went on.

  “Okay,” I agreed, again immediately.

  “We start buildin’ our home, our life now so we can give it to our kids after that band joins your diamond.”

  My breath hitched again and I repeated, “Okay.”

  His eyes lit with a different light, one I loved just as much when he asked, “You gonna jump on-line and tell your geek squad you landed me?”

  “Yes,” I whispered.

  “Kiss me and I’ll finish the tacos so you can do that.”

  “Okay,” I said yet again but stayed where I was and didn’t move.

  “Baby, kiss me,” Chace prompted when this lasted a long time.