Chapter 66 #2
“Can I come with you?” Beckham asks, grabbing my hand, and I laugh again.
“No, and there better be a birthday cake for me when I get back down here.”
After cake and lots of attention from my guys, we all curl up in my bed to watch a movie. It’s like we’d paused life, and now we’re pressing play again, back to our normal. I guess it is—me and my three favorite people, locked in my bedroom, except now…we’re finally alone for the first time.
There’s no one sneaking photos of us, and even though we didn’t know it was happening, I can feel a change in the air.
Contentment sets in, and all three of the boys fall asleep before me.
I lie there as the closing credits roll and listen to the soft song that accompanies them, as well as the sounds of Kaiden, Beckham, and Vinny breathing.
Someone’s softly snoring, probably Vinny, and it soothes me enough that I start to drift away into sleep.
A small shout wakes me up a few hours later as nightmares haunt my sleep, a cold sweat dripping down my back and between my breasts.
“What is it?” Beckham says, grabbing me by the shoulders as he looks around the dark room. “Are you okay?”
“Shh…” I say, not wanting Kaiden and Vinny to wake up too, and I drop my face into Beckham’s warm chest to whisper to him. “Just a nightmare.”
His arms go around me, his large hands running up and down my sweaty skin. “You’re okay. I’m right here.”
I kiss his breastbone. “Don’t let me go.”
His arms tighten around me. “Never, Savage.”
Kai curls against my backside, his hands grabbing my hips under the blankets. Safety sets in, and as Kai rubs my waist and Beckham strokes his fingers against my back, I find sleep again.
A few hours later, I wake up again. The sun is rising outside the window, making beams of light stretch over the room. Beckham’s awake, staring down at me as I sleep, and I smile up at him. “Hi.”
He runs his fingers through my hair and tilts my head back to look deeper into my eyes. “Hey, baby.”
“Are you watching me sleep?” I ask playfully, wrapping my hands around his waist and pulling his body against mine.
He grins, kissing my forehead. “Yeah.”
“You can’t sleep?” I look at him again with a furrowed brow.
Beckham shakes his head, sadness and worry lining his features, and something inside of me feels scared. I breathe him in, his own personal sweet and warm scent calming me a little.
“What’s wrong, B?” I whisper. “Why aren’t you sleeping?”
“I just can’t. Too much in my head.”
“Like what?” I press, trying to read whatever is hiding in his eyes.
Vinny starts to stir, so Beckham puts a finger to my lips to silence me. Putting his mouth at my ear, he whispers against my skin, “You wanna go for a walk?”
Nodding, I pull back to slide under the blankets and out of the bed with him. Kaiden and Vinny are fast asleep, breathing deeply. I grab a pair of sweatpants and a hoodie from my closet in silence, then creep out of the bedroom with Beckham, who has a hand secured around my waist.
I pile my hair on top of my head in a messy bun as we walk down the stairs, and Beckham grabs his hoodie where he left it in the kitchen while I slip my feet into my sneakers at the front door.
“Ready?” Becks asks, putting a hand around my waist again, almost like he can’t stand to let go of me.
I stare at him for a moment, then I lean forward and put my lips on his. His fingers press into my waist, and he walks me backwards until my back is against the front door. A small moan escapes my lips as his hands slide into my hair, and he takes the opportunity to slip his tongue into my mouth.
He feeds on my kiss, his warm body pressed against mine and my back digging into the solid wood behind me as I get lost in his touch.
I’m pressing my nails into his waist when he pulls away an inch, his breath fanning over my wet mouth.
His forehead meets mine. “I missed you so fucking much, Sage. Everything was horrible without you.”
Nodding, I look up into his deep-blue eyes. “I’m never going anywhere ever again.”
“C’mon.” He grabs my hand, pulling me from the door so he can open it. “Let’s walk.”
It’s still cold from winter, but with the sun rising in the east, my skin feels warm as we step onto the porch and out into the day.
I’m reminded of the days when I would walk to school, downtown, or to the cemetery in the crisp early mornings.
Beckham threads his fingers between mine and guides me along the road as we walk in peace, the only thing in the air the distant sounds of birds in the trees and the occasional breeze that makes the leaves blow.
After a moment, I start to realize Beckham is leading us toward the cemetery, and I turn to look at him. “Where are we going, B?”
His curly black hair is a mess, like he was running his hands through it all night as he tossed and turned, and his blue eyes are lifeless and lonely when he looks at me. “I need you to see what I did, and I need to talk to you about everything that happened after.”
“The crypts?” I ask, and he just nods as he keeps walking.
I’m not nervous about seeing the crypts.
I’m not nervous about seeing anything in the cemetery.
I know that regardless of whatever’s happened, this was always the place that all four of us felt most at home, like we belonged to the sadness that clings to this place.
The openness of the graveyard was always a playground for this town, and it was the first thing that made me truly feel like I was a Blackmore.
As we step onto the sidewalk that connects with the cemetery, a calm, distant feeling settles into my gut, like I’m returning home after being gone for so long.
I have a feeling Beckham’s feeling the same way when I look up at him and notice there’s a small smile pulling at his lips.
We continue to walk in silence, hand in hand, the ground solid and dry under our sneakers, and I run my free hand over the headstones that are within my reach as we move.
After a few minutes, a chill is settling inside me as we walk under some of the larger, older trees that make the graveyard dark even in the daytime, then the crypts are coming into view.
Well, what the crypts used to be.
They’re in pieces now, broken and cracked and blackened from the fire that Beckham set, and it makes me sad.
This is where we fell in love, where our baby was conceived, and now it’s just chunks of concrete that hold all our secrets.
“Beckham…” I breathe, and he turns to look at me.
Shaking his head, he runs a hand down his face. “End the Games, that’s what you said, Sage. That’s what I did… If I had known all of this would’ve happened because of it…”
He lifts his hands to his sides, his face turning angry. “I didn’t know you were here that night, Sage. I wouldn’t have done it if I had fucking known all of this would happen because of me!”
“Hold on.” I step toward him and grab his waist, shaking my head. “None of this happened because of you, Beckham. I wasn’t inside the crypt when you burned it down! Aaron had already taken me then, and Juliet was already dead. You get that, right?”
“I don’t know!” Beckham yells, pulling from my arms. “Maybe if I hadn’t made such a public display out of destroying this place, he wouldn’t have kept you. He wouldn’t have had to make up a story that you were dead when they found Juliet’s body in there!”
I move with him, grabbing him again, this time by the face. “Stop it, Beckham! You can’t blame yourself for everything that’s happened. Aaron was sick. And I’m fine! I’m here, and I’m never fucking going anywhere again!”
He shakes his head, his blue eyes filling with tears and turning into a sea of despair. “You don’t know everything that happened when you were gone, Sage…”
“So tell me,” I say, pulling him against me and kissing his mouth. “Tell me everything.”
Beckham sighs as his hands slide over the top of mine where they’re still resting on his cheeks. “Let’s find somewhere to sit down, and I’ll tell you.”
I give him a smile that I hope comes off as supportive, and he leads me to the Hallows Crypt.
He steps over the broken entrance until we’re under the shadow of the concrete still standing, right where the empty bookcase is still against the wall with our names.
He pulls me down to the floor with him, our backs against the dusty wall.
His eyes seek mine out. “I guess you can’t have a cigarette for our talks anymore, huh?”
I chuckle. “Not for a few months.”
Heavy silence settles over us this time, and we stare at each other for a moment, then Beckham grabs my hand and kisses it. “Who do you think the dad is?”
I narrow my eyes at him. “None of you have very strong pull-out game, so there’s really no way to know.”
Beckham laughs, then grins at me. “I bet it’s mine.”
Rolling my eyes, I shake my head. “I don’t want to know who the biological father is. He’s all of ours.”
“He?!” Beckham balks, a small wave of shock passing over his features. “Did you find out it’s a boy?”
“No,” I laugh. “Not yet. I just have a feeling.”
He hums between his lips, then looks over my head at the names carved in the concrete.
Kaiden Thorne, Vincent Donahue, Beckham Bentley.
“Would you believe that it was only a few months ago that we were here together?” he says, reaching over my head and tracing the outline of Vinny’s name. “Everything is so different now.”
Grabbing his arm, I smooth my fingers over his skin until I’m threading them through his. “What happened when I was gone, B?”
He shakes his head and sighs. “None of us knew how to handle it, Sage. I can’t really blame them for what happened.”
“What happened?” I ask again, feeling protective over my soft Hallows Boy.
Beckham’s gaze finds mine, and the look in his eyes makes me uneasy about what truths I still don’t know. “I got arrested for your murder. They thought you’d died in the fire, and there was a photo anonymously submitted to the police department of me with the gas cans in the cemetery.”