Chapter 22
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
DEZ
There was no credit system.
No one walked around wearing uniforms.
Every position served a purpose.
I met Allen, and regardless of what Gage claimed, it was Gage who had everyone’s respect.
From the way Allen watched him, it was apparent there was bad blood between them, and it didn’t come solely from Gage rising above whatever rank Allen had held before.
So, I kept my own watchful eye on Allen.
If he didn’t yet understand how me, Gage, and Julien operated, he would soon learn and in the worst possible way.
When Julien saw me, he hugged me like the kid brother he was to our team, although he was only five years younger than Gage and two years younger than me.
Then, I held Ari close, and they introduced me to Thandie, who was as cautious about new people as her father.
Still, I managed to get a smile out of the cutie.
It made me wonder about the future.
I would never ask Larke to put her life in jeopardy via a pregnancy during these wild and uncertain times.
The only pregnant camp resident was a woman named Dana, and according to Julien, the worry wasn’t whether Tayler’s expertise increased the likelihood of a healthy delivery.
It was the father’s identity. Dana was on the more “popular” side, so the child’s paternity was, essentially, a toss-up.
Dinner was held in a large communal space.
That evening, we had a hearty rabbit stew with rice and beans and actual cornbread almost as good as Mae’s. Afterward, Larke and I yawned all the way back to our room.
It wasn’t as nice as what we’d had at Woodhaven or Juniper, and it was even less “posh” than Sanitation, but it was cozy. It was safe. It was ours for me to, despite all my yawning earlier, do the corniest, most cheesiest thing I’d done since we met.
“I want to preface this by saying I haven’t done this in a long time, so this is all muscle memory,” I warned.
Larke was seated across from me on a matching metal folding chair, slightly pitched forward, her bottom lip between her teeth.
She shook her head. “That’s fine.”
“It might be bad.”
“I don’t care.”
“My heart’s going like 100 miles an hour right now.”
“Please don’t be embarrassed.”
“Well, you heard me sing in the car earlier. Yeah, I was messing around, but—”
“Dez, I’ll love it. I love you.”
Face hotter than a furnace, I strummed the first few notes.
Like riding a bike, the chords to “More Than Words” came back as if there’d never been a time when I’d gone more than a few days without playing a guitar.
However, whenever the cue for the opening line came around, I got cold feet and chickened out.
Larke slid to the edge of her seat. “It’s okay, baby. I swear.”
“Not sure why this is so hard.”
I replayed the intro and opened my mouth, but with my stomach in my throat, nothing came out.
So, Larke sang the first few lines.
When she reached the chorus, I joined her, my focus on the movements of my fingers. I didn’t need to look to follow the notes, but I could only manage one thing at a time, and looking her in the eyes would make me feel like my chest was splitting open.
We made it to the second verse.
I raised my head.
Her mouth stopped moving, but mine kept going, and I realized I was mistaken. The way she stared at me bolstered my confidence.
After I strummed the last note, she leaped to her feet and rewarded me with an enthusiastic round of applause.
This time, my face warmed for an entirely different reason, and I wondered how lucky I had to be for life to feel this good.
I’d never known life could ever feel this good.
As long as I was alive, it didn’t matter what was going on in the world.
I wanted her to know only peace. I wanted the rest of her days with me as her husband to be so light that there were times she felt as if she was walking on air.
I set aside the guitar.
She walked over to me, and I pulled her onto my lap.
“Did you…like it?” I asked. “Honestly.”
“Dez, that was beautiful. I can’t believe I’m married to a guy who serenades.”
“I can’t believe I’m now a guy who serenades.”
She kissed my neck.
Then, she sucked.
I had her naked in under a minute, and we made love next to an open window in the shadow of the setting sun, our lips connected as she came and I erupted not long after.
Afterward, we lay on the bed, half covered by sheets, Larke wrapped around me and my arms securing her to my body. Ever since losing her at Totten, I had to hold her this way. It felt like, if I didn’t, she would float away.
“You’ve really never done that before?” she asked, sliding her leg between mine.
“I’ve never played the guitar for anyone but myself.”
“But you’re so good at it. Do you know any more songs?”
“A few. I’ll…sing them for you sometime. Would you…like that?”
“I would love that.”
I kissed the top of her head. “Are you happy?”
“Deliriously.”
“Tell me if you’re ever not.”
“That goes the same for you.”
I didn’t think that would ever happen. I wasn’t sure it could. This woman had me in knots that not even an eternity would be able to untangle.
I moved aside a twist so that nothing obscured my view of her face. “What do you think of my brothers? Do you like them? They like you. I knew they would, though.”
“I adore your family, Dez,” she said. “Your brothers, Ari, Thandie, and who knows? Maybe Tayler will be family soon with the way Gage stays looking at her.”
“He swears he’s not doing it.”
“Uh, does he think we don’t have eyes?”
“Seems like Allen has a thing for Tayler, though.”
“Oh my god, yes. He was shooting daggers at Gage the whole time at dinner, but he’s not gonna mess with Gage. There’s no way. If Gage doesn’t handle it, you and Julien will put him six feet under. Memphis and Dallas will help.”
“About them,” I began. “One of them won’t survive much longer if he doesn’t learn to keep his eyes in their sockets.”
She snickered. “Oh, stop. It’s adorable.”
“Please explain to me what’s so adorable about it. They don’t look any younger than twenty-seven. I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re not that much younger than me. That’s old enough for me to put them in the ground right next to Allen.”
She faked a gasp. “Dez? Are you…jealous?”
“No. You’re not going anywhere.”
“Because I love you too much?”
“Uh, yeah.” I cleared my throat. “That’s why.”
“To answer your question, my dear jealous husband, it’s adorable because they’re raw and vulgar, but I think they actually feel the things they say they do.
But I also think those feelings stay on a surface level, and no real attachment ever forms. Still, something tells me they want a real attachment, but they don’t know how to get one.
It doesn’t help that their…aggressive pursuit strikes fear more than it does desire. ”
“So, Memphis is legitimately infatuated with you.”
“Maybe. Until someone else comes along.”
“Like Dona Morte?”
“Who is that?”
“‘Lady Death’ in Portuguese.”
She snorted a laugh.
I pulled her closer. “Okay, so what I hear you saying is, Memphis actually thinks he’s in love with you, and if he ever crosses a line, I have your permission to fuck him up.”
She slowly shook her head.
“Counselor?”
“Yes, Captain?”
Blood rushed to my groin. “If Memphis ever crosses a line?”
“He won’t.”
“Indulge me.”
“Fine. If he ever crosses a line, I’m telling.”
“Good girl.”
She laughed.
I stared at her, mesmerized by the sound.
“Everything okay?” she asked, smoothing my eyebrow with her thumb.
“Yeah. You’re just...I don’t know if you’ll ever see yourself the way I see you. I don’t know if anyone will ever see you the way I see you. That’s actually what made me realize I was falling for you. Every single version of my future I saw, you were there. Every…single…one.”
She pressed her face into my chest. “Dez, no. Don’t say stuff like that. The butterflies will eat me alive.”
“Oh, sorry.” I rubbed her stomach. “Better?”
“Worse. So much worse.”
I smiled.
“By the way, I love my ring.” She held it up to catch the last bit of sunlight. “And with you, Gage, Julien, Omar, Memphis, and Dallas, I feel a thousand times safer here than I ever did inside Totten’s walls.”
“That’s because we’re all insane.”
“Omar seems levelheaded.”
“On the outside, I’m sure I seem that way, too.”
“Touché.”
I kissed her temple.
“Dez, if things continue this way, can we stay?”
“Of course,” I said, without hesitation. “Whatever you want, that’s what we’ll do.”
“I’m not sure yet how I’ll contribute, but I’ll find something. Gage said they were thinking of creating a system for vetting newcomers.”
“You’d be the best person for it.”
“You’re only saying that because you think I’m awesome.”
“Two things can be true.” I kissed her hair, her eyebrows, the space between them. “You are awesome, and you’re brilliant. Seems like my brothers and I have a type.”
“You’re brilliant yourself.”
I pulled her on top of me so her legs straddled my waist.
“And it would be nice to settle somewhere long term,” she went on. “Plus, they have a doctor. Nurses. A school. Your family’s here, so we would have support.”
I massaged her thighs. “Support?”
“I mean, not right now, obviously, but…if things stay this way…there’s a possibility that we could do it safely.”
“You mean sex? Sweetheart, you can trust me when it comes to safe sex. I promise.”
“No, not that.”
“Then I’m not following you.”
“I think…you’d make…an excellent father.”
I went still. “Even though I didn’t have one?”
“Oh, baby, of course. Definitely.”
I would never, in a million years, be able to explain to this woman just how much she meant to me. Everything was nowhere near adequate enough of a word.
“For most of my life, I never understood…” I paused, needing a moment to untangle more than just my thoughts.
“I never understood why nobody wanted me. Even after somebody found me, and I ended up in a computer system, nobody came looking for me. So, I figured I would make the best of foster care, but then my foster dad passed away, and the next few places that I went to, I just knew I had to get out of the system. At least, on the outside, I could run if I saw danger coming. I had the option of not living down the hallway from it.”
She took my hand and kissed my palm.
“Larke, I know you wouldn’t suggest it if you hadn’t thought it through. I won’t insult you by assuming you haven’t thought it through.”
“I’ve thought about it a lot, even before we got here,” she explained. “Here, it feels like a possibility if we give it some time to establish ourselves. To grow together. To see that it’s safe.”
“I’ll never leave you or our child behind, Larke.”
“I know, and we’ll always be home for you. We’ll choose you every single time. This life, the next, an alternate universe, the multiverse—it’ll be you every single time as my husband and the father to any children we might have.”
“Our baby, they’ll know they’re wanted.”
She nodded. “They will.”
“And loved.”
“Immensely.”
“And they’ll never be cold or alone. Or scared.
Or,” I almost choked on the word, “hungry. They’ll never go to sleep hungry, Larke.
It won’t matter what I’ll have to do. I’ll make sure they never know that deep, stomach-eating sensation of not having anything to eat for far too long because no one out there cared enough to make sure they never experienced it. ”
She gently swiped the backs of her hands over my cheekbones. “Never. They’ll know only Mommy and Daddy’s safety and warmth and love.”
“They’ll have a Mommy and Daddy. From day one.”
“And uncles.” She sputtered a tearful laugh. “And an auntie. Aunties, if Gage stops lying to himself.”
I grinned, and even though my vision was blurry, she was still so damn beautiful. “I’ll be good to you,” I promised. “Even if it’s never more than me and you, we’ll still be a family. I’ll be so good to you.”
“Oh, baby. I know.”
I gripped her hips, guided her onto my hard-as-fucking-steel dick, and thrust inside her until her sweet “oh, baby” turned into a gasping “yes, baby,” “fuck, baby,” and “baby, I’m coming.”
That night, with my wife asleep and tucked safely against my side, I smiled as I flipped through the photos on my phone:
Larke standing beneath the Constitution Avenue NW street sign.
Larke at the Cherry Blossom Festival silhouetted by rows of blooming pink.
Larke ordering Cajun food from a food truck.
The 100th time Larke ordered food from that same Cajun food truck.
Larke asleep in my bed the couple of times she’d had to crash at my place.
Then, there was my most recent photo.
I took it when we first arrived at our new living quarters. Larke had gone to the window to stare at the river with a look on her face that unmistakably said, “Finally.”
And it was all I ever wanted for her.
Peace.