CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
SARAH
I watch as James hammers a nail into a white sheet he’s hanging on the wall outside the house. Maybe he hit his head on the way to town this morning. He’s acting kind of off.
Ryan probably did too. He’s holding the fabric for James like it’s the most important job of his life.
“Hey, Michael, you think they’ve lost it?” I ask my brother, who’s next to me with the same confused look on his face. We’ve been watching them for a while now, and it’s starting to feel like something way weirder than just a chore.
“Yep. That’s what happens when you get old,” he says.
“Hey, I’m not that old! I’m only three years older than you,” James shoots back over his shoulder.
Michael snorts. “Still old.”
I’m still laughing when Lorelai steps out of the house with a lawn chair, heading for her favorite spot by the lake. She’s halfway there when Michael, being Michael, swoops in, snatches the chair right out of her hands, and drops into it.
She plants her hands on her hips and gives him the most intense death glare I’ve ever seen.
“What’s the problem now?” Michael asks, leaning back and playing innocent.
“You’re in my chair, little boy,” Lorelai says.
“Well, if you want it now, you’ll have to sit on my lap.” He pats his thigh, smirking at her like he dares her to.
She tucks a lock of hair behind her ear. “Is that how you’re gonna make me come?”
He laughs like it’s the funniest thing ever, and God help me, she actually laughs too.
What’s wrong with these people?
I roll my eyes and turn my attention back to James, who’s putting the finishing touches on his masterpiece.
He hammers the last nail into place, securing the sheet at all four corners, then heads over to this weird little gadget he rigged up on top of the truck’s roof—one he’s been all secretive about, of course.
Meanwhile, Ryan grabs a wire from the device and ducks under the hood of the truck.
I have no clue what they’re up to, but whatever it is, it’s definitely not normal.
“You’ve been acting extra mysterious today, Outsider,” I say, leaning in for a better look at the weird device. “Are we celebrating something?”
He looks up. “What exactly would we be celebrating?”
I grin, playing along. “The first time we hunted together?”
He chuckles, that low laugh that makes me want to keep guessing. He knows I’ll find a reason to celebrate anything. If it were up to me, we’d throw a party for the anniversary of the first time I broke my toe.
“Nope. Try again.”
“Fine. The first time we took a bath together?”
His brow lifts. “We’ve never taken a bath together.”
I tap my chin. “Oh, right. That was only in my imagination.”
He smirks. “I like the way your mind works, little danger.”
Grinning like I’ve just scored a win, I toss out another one. “All right, how about… the first time I gave you a striptease?”
“Jesus, woman!” He throws his head back with a laugh. “You’re on fire today. But nope.”
I twirl a braid around my finger. “Okay, okay… the first time we got drunk together?”
“You got drunk. I just watched.”
“True. I still don’t remember half of what we did that night.”
That’s when he stops what he’s doing and turns to face me, his eyes locking on mine. There’s a fire and hunger in them that makes my stomach flip.
“Believe me,” he says, slowly licking his lips, “I wanted to do a lot of things to you that night. But you fell asleep.”
His words send a shiver down my spine, but I refuse to lose this game.
“So, is it our anniversary?” I ask, just to mess with him, knowing full well that it’s not.
“We celebrated that a month ago!”
I tilt my head, pretending to think. “Huh. Don’t remember that.”
James straightens up and folds his arms.
“I made you breakfast,” he says.
I shake my head, biting my lip to keep from laughing.
“Lunch,” he adds.
Another head shake.
“And dinner,” he finishes, looking personally offended.
I burst out laughing.
“Oh my God,” I manage to gasp through my giggles. “Watching you cook all day was… absolutely delicious.”
James raises a brow, his lips twitching like he’s trying not to laugh, but that grin is definitely winning. Before he can reply, Ryan pops his head up from behind the hood.
“Hill, it’s ready. Go ahead and start it.”
James gives him a thumbs-up and strolls over to the driver’s seat. He turns the key, and a narrow beam of light, like a tiny flashlight, shoots out from his gadget and onto the sheet. I spin around so fast I almost trip over my own feet.
I catch my lips between my teeth as the truck’s engine hums behind me, mixing with the faint clicks of James pressing buttons on his little device. Slowly, something starts to appear on the sheet.
And then, like magic, words appear: The Secret Garden.
It’s my favorite book… but as a movie?
I blink, torn between jumping into James’s arms and smacking him for keeping this from me.
“Oh. My. God. Is this what I think it is?”
James steps up behind me, wraps his arms around my waist, and pulls me into one of those hugs that’s so warm it practically melts my brain.
“Yes,” he murmurs into my ear.
“You found it?”
“I found it.”
I can’t even speak. James just flipped my whole world upside down.
A movie. An actual movie. Something I’ve only dreamed about, something I never thought I’d see.
One of my biggest dreams has always been to watch a movie—just one.
But Dad used to say DVDs were already rare before I was born.
Everything went digital: streaming, downloads, all that stuff.
Then the internet died with the rest of the world, and anything stored online?
Gone too. Even if someone had a huge movie collection saved, no power meant no way to watch them.
So finding something like this wasn’t just rare. It felt impossible.
I glance toward the truck, where Ryan’s got the projector wired into the battery. Back at Dad’s ranch, we only used batteries for essentials: keeping the fridge running or firing up Dad’s tools to fix whatever broke that week. No lights. No waste. Definitely no movies.
When I was younger, natural gas made life a little easier. We used it to bake bread in the oven and heat water for quick showers, but that didn’t last long. Dad always wanted a generator, but finding one was impossible.
Tears blur my vision. “How… How did you find this?”
“The projector was in one of the houses Ryan and I checked this morning,” James says, resting his chin on my shoulder. “We were lucky it was intact, and even luckier that the hard drives were, too. Ryan almost cried when we plugged one in and it worked.”
I meet his eyes, my heart so full I don’t even know what to do with it.
“That’s perfect, James.”
“You said you wanted to see the world. So I made sure you could, without ever leaving my side.”
“Thank you.”
He presses a soft kiss to my cheek. “Nothing makes me happier than making your dreams come true.”
He didn’t just give me a gift.
He gave me the world.
He takes my hand and leads me to the back of the truck, decked out with pillows and blankets. It’s the most romantic spot on the freaking planet.
Ryan’s already settled into a chair next to Lorelai, one hand holding hers while the other dives into a massive bag of snacks.
Michael is quiet for once, his eyes fixed on the screen. He looks just as stunned as I feel. He’s never seen a movie either, not one he remembers, anyway.
My own eyes are locked on the screen. For several minutes, I don’t think I even blink. I’m too afraid of missing something—anything.
It’s everything I’ve ever wanted to see, a piece of our world that doesn’t exist anymore.
And James brought it to life again.
The rest of the night turns into a marathon.
We watch one movie after another—from love stories in Paris to mobsters in old-school New York, to bloody battles in medieval Scotland.
Somewhere in the middle of one of those movies, a ballet scene comes on.
Just a few minutes. A girl onstage, dancing her heart out.
I lean my head on James’s shoulder, blink a few times, trying not to cry.
James hasn’t just saved my life more times than I can count—he’s making my dreams real, too.
And I want to do the same for him.
That’s why I wasn’t scared that night in the lake when we had sex without a condom. Even if those old pills Lorelai gave me didn’t work, I already knew what I wanted. I want a family with James.
After everything he went through in Texas, everything he survived, he deserves to be happy. But it’s more than that. I want him to have what he lost. A family. Because to me, James is already mine.
And yeah, I know I’m young, but when I’m with James, I feel like I can do anything. And let’s be real, if we had one or two babies with those piercing blue eyes of his, I’d fall in love instantly.
“Fuck, those two movies blew my mind. What was it called again?”
“Star Wars, Michael,” James says, pinching the bridge of his nose. “And if you ask that one more time, Ryan and I are gonna beat the shit out of you.”
“Obi-Wan Kenobi is the man,” Michael declares, pointing like it’s a fact of nature.
“Please,” Ryan scoffs. “Yoda’s the real master here.”
“Uh, hello?” James snaps. “Luke motherfucking Skywalker is the most powerful Jedi. Period.”
Lorelai rolls her eyes from her lawn chair. “You boys are hopeless.”
“I still can’t believe Darth Vader is his father,” Michael says.
Ryan shakes his head. “Michael, that’s sacred knowledge, man.”
“Yeah, well, next you’re gonna tell me Yoda dies.”
James winces. “Oh. Buddy.”
“Wait, what?!”
As the night goes on, James starts to look different, like he’s been transported back nineteen years, to a time when we could’ve been regular teenagers.
When we might’ve spent summer nights at a lake house, partying ’til dawn, drinking cheap beer, and laughing at nothing, before guns and kidnappings ever touched our lives.
At some point, I drift off. The movie scenes blur together in my head until sleep takes over.
When I wake up, I’m in James’s arms. The soft cotton of his shirt brushes my cheek, and all I can smell is that familiar pine scent. He’s carrying me, his footsteps quiet as he climbs the stairs.
“Is the movie over?” I mumble, resting my head against his chest.
“Yes.”
“And how does it end?”
He grins down at me, that familiar mischievous glint in his eye. “The prince takes Rapunzel to their bedroom, undresses her real slow, and spends the whole night proving why she let down her hair in the first place.”
A laugh escapes me. “I don’t remember that part in the book.”
“The movie’s always different from the book.”
He winks at me, and I smile back, tucking myself into him a little more. Because when I’m in James’s arms, the broken world outside doesn’t matter.
Right here, I have everything I’ve ever wanted.