CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Ledger
“Tell me something, son.”
I look over to my dad who’s sitting on the bow of the sailboat. The sun is bright in Sag Harbor today, but the ocean breeze has tempered the heat. He looks old. That’s my first thought. My second is how long will I have him with me this time?
His episodes are more often than not these days. Bouts of forgetfulness followed by confusion over where he is typically rules our time together.
But the water has always made him happy, and so my brothers and I have been trying to make a conscious effort to have him on it as much as work permits.
“What is it, Dad?”
“Have you ever done something you thought was for good reasons, that you meant well by it, but that never really sat well with you as time wore on?”
I stare at my dad, his silver hair blowing in the breeze and his unrelenting eyes staring at me. “Are you talking about work? Sure, we’ve all done something we did and then second-guessed it. That’s how it goes sometimes . . .”
“No, I’m talking about something I did to make sure you . . . I was scared you were going to make poor choices.”
“Dad, I’m confused. What are you talking about?”
“It’s okay, Callahan.” He smiles, and I let his confusion over him thinking I’m my brother stand. As we’ve learned in the past, correcting him only serves to agitate him.
“What poor choices are you talking about?” I ask, knowing damn well Callahan sure as hell made many.
“I should have trusted you, son. I should have known you had the best head on your shoulders of the three of you and that you would’ve made the right decisions.”
“Okay.” I’m lost but just smile and nod because that’s the only thing I can do when he starts talking in the confused circles his damaged mind spins.
“I’m sorry for interfering. I’m sorry for thinking I knew better than you did. I’m sorry for lying in order to make sure you didn’t make a mistake.”
“It’s okay, Dad. Whatever you did, I’m sure it was with good intentions.” What in the hell is he talking about?
“Thank you. I’m so sorry, Ledge. I just needed to say that to you.”
I jolt awake with a pocket of turbulence, my heart racing, and my brain in overdrive. I’d completely forgotten that conversation with my dad in the months leading up to his passing. I’d chalked it up to confusion and the disease stealing his memory and him thinking I was Callahan.
But he wasn’t.
He was talking about me. About the lie he told. About what happened in Cedar Falls.
I know this deep down in my soul. He was apologizing. Making amends. Righting wrongs before he passed.
How does that make me feel? Relieved that he had a conscience? Upset that he had to have one over what he did in the first place? Content that his guilt ate at him over the years?
I just don’t fucking know.
Is it enough to forgive him? No. But maybe it’s enough for me to try and put it in the past and not let it eat a hole in my gut every time Asher smiles at me.
And then there’s the woman lying against me. The one I brought with me tonight.
How her face lit up when she realized we were in Manhattan.
How I breathed easier knowing she still loves the city.
Because it will make it easier when . . . when I what? When I ask her to move there with me?
Is that what this was tonight?
A test? A trial run?
For her or for me?
I look over to find her inches from my face. Those dark eyelashes against her pale skin. Those lips that all but break me when they turn up in a smile.
I lean down to kiss her. She responds. Even in her sleep, she responds to me. But I know the minute awareness hits her. Where we are. That my hand is running up her thigh. That I’m kissing her.
It’s in her sigh.
In the way her hand reaches out and runs down my cheek.
In the soft utterance of my name.
“I need you, Asher. God, I need you.”
And without another word, and with our lips still teasing one another’s, Asher shifts, pulling her dress up over her hips so that she’s straddling me. Her body fitting on top of mine, my cock pushing into her, as if we were meant to be.
We kiss like that’s all there is left in the world. Her taste the only one I’ve ever craved. Her lips the only ones I want to feel.
We make love in gentle movements charged with emotion as she grinds her hips over mine in the engine-hummed cabin of the airplane.
We become one without words. Whatever needs to be said is done through soft sighs and measured actions.
A kiss to her collarbone. A shudder of pleasure. A grind of my hips. Her forehead against mine as she bites back her moan.
In the sky, on this plane, time doesn’t matter. It’s just her. It’s just me. It’s just us.
It’s when we land that the clock will start ticking again. It’s when we hit the runway that this dream will begin to dissipate.
I know this.
I despise this.
So I focus on her and fall under her spell. The scent of her skin. The demand in her touch. How her breath catches every time I bottom out inside of her. The way she grips her muscles around me as if she never wants us to be apart.
A sentiment—a desperation—I feel too. One that also scares the shit out of me.
And when she starts to climax, I thread my fingers through her hair so she’s forced to lean back and look at me as she does.
So I can watch what I do to her. So I can see the emotion in the depths of her eyes I think we both feel but haven’t spoken. So I can remember her forever, just like this.
As mine.
There is no greater pleasure for me than her.
None.