Chapter 49
The lanterns in the cabin went out about an hour ago, the light that was streaming out dimming until it’s completely pitch black inside.
I’ve been leaving the windows open in hopes that they’ll let enough moonlight in so that he won’t be afraid if he wakes up in the middle of the night. He hasn’t been. Not yet. Not as long as I’m sitting there by the bed, keeping watch.
Seems to help. Or maybe I just like to tell myself it does.
I know I’m being a coward. Know I need to face him but I don’t know how to tell him one thing without telling him all of it, without asking him for things I have no right to ask, for things I don’t deserve.
I just have to get a grip on things again.
Get both my feet back on solid ground, like they haven’t been since I walked into that damn saloon and saw him that first time.
I just have to get some control on this.
..and then we can talk. Have a calm, clear-headed conversation about where we go from here. Have a plan.
I open the door to the cabin and slip inside, my carefulness making me think about that night on the roof and wondering how it could already feel so long ago, wondering, too, when he’ll feel strong enough to try pulling himself up on this one.
I’ll need to check it before he does. Make sure there’s no holes or loose shingles that could hurt him or could hurt me when I once again follow him up there like a goddamn—
“Good evening, wolf.”
I turn on the spot like I just heard someone say draw, facing the bed in time to see a lantern flare back to life, illuminating both the room and the person sitting in the very chair I had been planning to spend another night in.
“I have to say,” Cypress says, reaching over to set the lantern on the bedside table. “This does alleviate any guilt I might have felt over sneaking into the stable to watch you sleep in Soldana.”
“Didn’t realize you were feeling guilty over that,” I reply, not seeing much point in denying why I’m here.
Apparently he doesn’t either, because he quickly assures me, “Oh, I wasn’t really.”
“Great.” I shake my head, eyes falling to the floor before I finally stop fighting the urge to just look at him.
“See you found the clothes I left for you,” I tell him, noting the head-to-toe black but also the fresh shave and styled hair, and finding comfort he’s looking like himself again.
Even if I doubt I look half as good after quickly cleaning up down by the creek.
“Sorry to say we used quite a few of both of our shirts for bandages, so you might need to source a few more from whatever undertaker you buy through.”
He smiles slowly, although the fact that he doesn’t further take my bait has me shifting my weight from foot to foot. “Are you all right? You hurtin’ at all?”
“No, no, good as new.”
“Are you sure? There’s some salve there on the bedside if—”
“This really is a nice chair,” he continues, abruptly taking the conversation in an unexpected direction. “Not as comfortable as the bed, but…” He tilts his head, and I could swear he appears more amused with me than angry. He should be angry. “I noticed there are three.”
I frown, confused. “Three what?”
“Three chairs.”
“Yes,” I say slowly, worried now he’s not entirely level-headed.
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why three?”
“Because…that was how many I thought I needed?” I respond. “Why are you asking me about chairs?”
“You thought you needed three? Interesting. Not two? Or four?”
“Are you sure—”
“Large bed, too,” he observes. “Wide. Spacious. Think you needed that, too?”
“Christ.” I huff out a breath, leaning against the door and dragging a hand down my face. “This what you want to be talking about right now? The furniture?”
Cypress shrugs. “Seems relevant.”
“Does it?”
“I think so.”
“Course you do,” I say, caught between whether I want to laugh or shout at the ridiculousness of this conversation after everything this last week. “Why wouldn’t it be?”
“You don’t think so?”
“No, I don’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because the number of fucking chairs isn’t important.”
“Isn’t it?” He smiles again.
I open my mouth, but nothing comes out apart from, “I’ll go back outside. Let you—”
“Sounds great.” Cypress stands as if there were never a time when I had to help him up. “I’ll go with you.”
“No.” I’d take a step back if I wasn’t already against the door. “You should stay in here. Get some more rest.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re still recovering,” I remind him, unable to forget it myself no matter how perfect he looks now. Unable to forget watching him slip away no matter how much I want to reach for him. “And because you’re probably going to keep talking to me about chairs.”
“We can talk about something else.”
I need to get out of here.
“Simply name it.”
I can’t do this.
“Could be anything.”
Not now.
“Whatever is on your mind.”
I can’t.
“Because—”
“How about that you almost died?” I snap, irritation and exhaustion and hopelessness burning through whatever tether I had left.
“How about that you didn’t wake up for days?
How about that I lost count of how many times I thought I lost you?
That I can’t sleep without seeing you almost fall again?
How about that the entire time we were on that train, I was asking God if my punishment for the people I killed would be watching you die?
Or how about that I had already figured out the spot where I was going to have to fuckin’ bury you?
” My chest is heaving when I finally stop, my eyes burning.
“Fuck. How about that? Want to talk about any of that?”
Cypress frowns, folding his hands as if carefully considering. “Was it nice?”
I stare at him. “Was what nice?”
“The spot where you were going to bury me. Was it nice?”
Shouting. Shouting is definitely going to win out. “Yes, it was really fucking nice, Cy,” I tell him, flinging my arm out toward the open window. “Right next to the fucking river I was going to consider jumping in when I was through. That sound nice? Christ.”
“Aiden.”
“No, you know, I’m so—I’m so fucking angry with you.” I start pacing near the door simply because I have to move, my voice getting louder and my words coming faster. “Why the fuck would you get in the way like that?”
“Aiden.”
“We had a deal. I protect you. Not the other way around. That’s what we agreed to, and I need you to hold to your fucking end of it.
I need you to never do that again. Because I can’t—I can’t lose someone else, all right?
I fucking can’t lose another person that I love, and I swear to fucking God if you die on me, I’ll kill you. ”
“Wolf.”
“What now? What do you—” I turn and he’s right there, right in front of me, and I don’t know how I even missed him getting so close.
“I can’t—” His eyes are on mine, his hands up as he comes even closer, a sign that he poses no threat to me, but he does.
He does because I can’t bear this, just as I can’t even be angry with him because…
“It’s my fucking fault. I didn’t stop it. ”
“Aiden.” He’s almost pleading, willing me to listen, but what if he doesn’t understand? What if he wouldn’t want me if he did? “It wasn’t your responsibility to stop it.”
“No, I should’ve—I should’ve stopped it. You weren’t supposed to get in the way. I can’t—I can’t do this again. I couldn’t stop it. I just ran. She told me to run and I ran.”
“I ran, too. It’s okay,” Cypress says, his expression turning sad, but I don’t need his pity. I don’t deserve it.
“You ran after you did what needed to be done. I ran, because I was doing what I was told. Because I was too scared to do anything else. I should’ve fought.
It was my fault. I let you get in the way.
I let them get in the way. It was my fault.
I was supposed to be home on time and I wasn’t.
If he hadn’t been so tired, he wouldn’t have—”
“Aiden, you were nine,” Cypress says. “What happened wasn’t your fault.”
“I didn’t protect them,” I argue. “I didn’t protect you. It was my responsibility to be the one—”
“I didn’t want you to be,” he says simply. “And I can promise, neither did they. I don’t want you to die for me, Aiden. Just like I don’t want you to kill for me, and I know you had to…” He searches my face again, the regret clear on his own. “I’m sorry…for making you add to your list of sins—”
“I don’t care about the fucking list,” I tell him, meaning it. “I don’t care how long one side gets, so long as I get to have you on the other. I don’t regret killing them, Cypress. I’d do it again. What I care about is that I didn’t protect you in time.”
“You did,” he argues. “I’m here. I’m alive.”
“But if I’d—”
“You can’t change what happened, wolf,” he says softly. “All you can do is try to change what happens next.”
I drag a hand through my hair. “I don’t know what happens next.”
Cypress shrugs. “No one does. But we can figure it out, all right? No matter where the road leads.”
“We?” I look at him warily.
“Yes, we.” He smiles. “You said you’re in love with me. And I have been in love with you to the point of madness for nearly ten years, so—”
“You haven’t even known me ten weeks,” I remind him.
“Semantics.”
I roll my eyes, but I also take a deep breath in as he takes another step forward. “I didn’t say I was in love with you.”
“You did, wolf. It was right before you threatened to kill me if I die, which seems overly complicated, not to mention a waste to pay the ferryman twice. Though, I believe it’s the thought that counts.”
He’s so close, so close now I could touch him. “Why would you love me? How do you even know me well enough to decide?”
Cypress sighs, then grins, always finding everything so fucking entertaining.
“Loving you is not something I needed to decide, wolf. I was looking for you for so long. In every face I passed I looked for you, hoping that when I saw you, I would know. And I did. I saw you and I knew who you were in this life and in the next and in all the ones that came before, because you were mine in every single one of them. I saw you and I knew that I would gladly go through it all again, that I would relive every single moment of my life just to have one single moment where I mattered in yours. To have one single moment where you let me.”
I reach for him, finally pulling him to me so that my body is flush with his when I push him up against the door. As I hold him there, his hands grip my forearms and his eyes meet mine like they did that night in the alley, only maybe neither of us are afraid anymore.
“You matter to me, Cy,” I murmur, my mouth hovering over his. “Pretty sure I’ve been looking for you, too.”