Chapter 24
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Ace
Song- iloveitiloveitiloveit, Bella Kay
I brush her hair away from her face, cupping her cheek.
"Hi, Goldie." I smile.
She bites her lip. "Hi, Acey."
"Welcome home."
I press a kiss to her temple and feel her whole body soften against me. We don't move. Just stay wrapped in each other's arms. She rests her head against my chest, and I know she can hear my heart, still hammering, still racing, still doing the thing it's only ever done for her.
"It's been a long time for me, Harper. Trust me, I won't be coming that quick all the time."
She pulls back, studying me. "How long? What do you mean?"
I tip her chin up. My eyes find hers.
"There's been no one else."
She blinks, and I watch the truth land with her. The disbelief, the guilt, the love, all of it crossing her face in waves.
"In six years? You've not had sex? Nothing?"
I shake my head.
"No, baby. Just me and my hand girlfriend. I don't need anyone else. It's you or no one. I came to terms with that."
"Oh, Ace." Her hand comes up to my cheek, her thumb tracing along my jaw, and there's something in her eyes that's cracking open. Not pity, though. It’s something deeper.
"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry," she whispers.
"Hey. It's okay. We're here. My dick is aching to go again, still inside you. It worked out."
She laughs through the tears that are building. I kiss them away.
I open my mouth before she can spiral and press my finger gently over her lips.
"I don't wanna know what you did in the time we were apart. It don't matter to me. Okay? You never asked me to do this for you. I made that choice."
"I feel like a bit of an asshole, Ace."
I chuckle. "Well, you aren't. We were young and made some bad decisions. That's it." I pause. I do have a story that might make her feel better.
"I went home with a girl once after a night at the bar. She took her clothes off, and I ran. I ran out of that damn house and went home."
She gasps. "What? Oh my God."
"Yep. I pictured you, and thought that was fucked up. So I ran."
She kisses me. And I feel both things in it—the happiness that I love her that much, and the sadness that I've just been existing for years instead of living.
"What shall we do now?"
I smile. "Wanna grab some dinner and lie in the back of my truck to watch the stars?"
She nods. "I'd love that."
I lean in, running my tongue along her jaw. "And fuck some more. Now I've started, I can't stop."
She giggles, running her fingers through my hair. "Fucking all night sounds good."
I pull back, looking into her eyes. “Harper. I’m not joking. My dick is going to want to live inside you from now on.”
“I can deal with that, Ace.”
We grab burgers from Sal's drive-through window on the edge of town. I order two doubles with extra pickles because she always steals mine. She orders a chocolate milkshake and fries, claims she's not that hungry, and then eats half my burger before we've even parked.
Some things don't change.
I drive us up to the north ridge, not our sunset spot, the one with the flat stretch of rock that overlooks the valley from the east side. You can see the whole ranch from here. Every light, every barn, every fence line stretching out in the dark. And above it, the sky.
Arizona sky at night is something else. No clouds. No light pollution. Just an ocean of stars so thick and bright it makes you feel small and infinite at the same time.
I reverse the truck to the edge, kill the engine, and drop the tailgate. Grab the blankets I keep behind the seat, because sometimes I take Wyatt here, and toss them in the bed.
Harper climbs up before I can offer her a hand. Kicks off her boots, crosses her legs, and tips her head back.
"God, I missed this sky," she says.
I climb up beside her, stretching out on the blanket, stacking my hands behind my head. She settles against my side. Her head on my chest. Her leg thrown over mine. Like we've done this a thousand times. Because we have.
"LA doesn't have stars?" I ask.
"LA has three stars and a lot of airplane lights. It's depressing."
"That's tragic."
"It really is." She steals another fry from the bag between us. "I tried to find Orion once from my apartment balcony. Couldn't even find the moon."
I laugh. "That's just sad, Goldie."
"I know. Emma, my roommate, found me out there squinting at the sky and thought I was having a breakdown."
"Were you?"
"Little bit." She grins up at me.
I point up. "There. Orion. Right there."
She follows my finger. "Show-off."
"And there's the Big Dipper. And there—" I trace the line with my finger. "That's Cassiopeia."
"And where is Frank tonight?" she teases.
A pain slices through my chest. Frank was the made-up constellation dad used to show me, and then I used to find it with Harper to make her smile.
"Frank is always around; we gotta find him, baby."
She's quiet for a moment. "I miss your dad."
"Yeah." I swallow. "Me too."
"He was so good to me, Ace. Always. Even after I left, he still sent me a card on my birthday to my parents' house. Every year. Before that, your mom did."
My chest aches. "That's Mom. She never stopped hoping you'd come back."
That’s all my life has been. Everyone I love leaving. My parents, I can never get back. But Harper? I have a real shot here.
"She's not the only one."
I look down at her. She looks up at me. And for a second, the stars aren't the brightest thing in my world.
"Remember the first time we came up here?" she asks.
"You were sixteen. I was seventeen. And you were wearing that yellow sundress that made me forget how to talk."
She laughs. "You couldn't stop staring at my legs."
"I was seventeen, and you had legs. What did you expect?"
"Some gentlemanly restraint?"
"From a Sterling? You knew what you were getting into. You liked me because I was bad, Harper Jones."
She shifts closer. "You told me you were going to be a world champion bull rider. I remember lying right here thinking, this boy is insane. Hot though. Insane nonetheless."
"And now?"
"Now I still think, this man is insane. But he was right. And somehow, he got even hotter."
I grin. "Damn straight I was right. I was first in the world, baby. For a little while anyway."
Before my dad died. I lost it after that.
"Almost first again, though," I say with a grin.
“I know. I keep tabs, Acey,” she whispers.
And my heart hammers. Because it just shows to me she never forgot.
"I'll get there. Just got one asshole to beat. And I will. My good luck charm is back."
She laughs. "You've been saying that since you were nineteen."
She traces circles on my chest with her fingertip. "Remember when you fell off that bull and broke your collarbone and refused to go to the hospital because you wanted to take me to homecoming?"
"I didn't fall. I was dismounted aggressively."
"You fell, Ace. Face-first. In front of three hundred people."
"I got back up."
"You drove to my house with your arm in a sling and a corsage in your teeth."
I chuckle. "And you cried."
"Because it was the most romantic and the most idiotic thing I'd ever seen." She presses her face against my chest, laughing. "You couldn't even pin the corsage on because your hand was shaking so badly."
"I was nervous."
"You'd just fallen off a bull. The shaking was probably medical."
"It was nerves, Harper. You were wearing that blue dress and your hair was up, and I thought, if I don't marry this girl, I'm going to regret it for the rest of my life."
She goes quiet. Her finger stops tracing.
"You thought that? Even then?"
I don’t tell her I’ve had her engagement ring in my house for years. The one we both fell in love with at the same time. That the only way I picture my future is with her as my wife.
"I've thought that every day since I was seventeen years old."
She doesn't say anything. But her arm tightens around me and her breathing changes, and I know she's fighting tears again. Happy ones this time. I think.
“Remember the time I tried to lasso you on the chair and nearly took your eye out?” she asks.
We laugh. The kind that starts in the belly and takes over everything and makes you grip whoever's beside you because it feels too big to hold alone. The kind we used to have every day. Over nothing. Over everything.
“Yeah, I’m surprised I don’t have a scar on my cheek. You got any better at that?” I ask.
“Nope. Probably worse. What about the time Colten accidentally set the barn on fire trying to make jerky?" she says.
"We don't talk about that."
"Your dad was so mad."
"Dad was furious. He made Colten rebuild the whole thing by hand. Took him three weeks."
"And Hunter just watched from the porch drinking lemonade."
"Hunter was taking notes. He used that as leverage for years."
She giggles. "You guys are crazy. Never change.”
"I mean, you got kidnapped by a cowboy in a flamingo shirt, and you’re still lying here with me. You like our flavor of crazy.”
She slaps my chest. I catch her hand. Kiss her knuckles and hold them there.
The laughter fades into something softer. She curls into me. The stars wheel slowly overhead. A coyote calls from somewhere in the valley, and another answers from the ridge behind us.
"Ace?"
"Yeah?"
"What if we'd never broken up? What do you think we'd be doing right now?"
I think about it. Really think.
"Probably this. Lying in this truck, looking at these stars. Except we'd have a couple of kids asleep with us and a dog named something stupid that you picked."
"The dog's name would be excellent, and you know it."
"Penny’s name was almost Princess Sparkle Hooves, Harper."
"I was eighteen!"
"Exactly my point. Eighteen is old enough to know better."
She laughs, and then her voice goes quiet. "A couple of kids?"
"At least. Maybe three. A ranch house on the east side with a wrap-around porch, just like we always wanted. You'd have Penny. I'd have Seven. Sunday dinners with the family. You'd still be writing, but maybe for the local paper instead of chasing mafia stories in LA."
"That sounds—"
"Boring?" I offer.
"Perfect," she whispers it. "That sounds perfect, Ace."
I tighten my arm around her and press my lips to the top of her head.
"We can still have that, Goldie. All of it. It ain't too late."
I’d give anything to have this for the rest of my life. Just us, and one day, our children, lying in the back of my truck, all trying to find a constellation called Frank that my dad made up. That’s the one thing I wish for on every shootin’ star. That is my dream.
She doesn't answer. But she presses closer. And her breathing starts to slow, the way it always does when she's safe and warm, and the world has stopped spinning long enough for her to rest.
I watch the stars. Count the ones I know. Make up names for the ones I don't, the way Dad used to do when I was small, pointing at the sky and saying that one's called Frank just to make me laugh.
Her breathing evens out. Her hand goes slack against my chest.
She's asleep.
I lie there for a while longer. Holding her. Watching the sky turn. Listening to the sound of her breathing, the sound I haven't heard in six years, the sound I used to fall asleep to every night, the one that tells me she's here and she's real, and she's mine.
When I let out a yawn, I know it’s time to head back, so I sit up slowly. She stirs but doesn't wake. I gather the blankets around her, slide off the tailgate, and scoop her up.
She weighs nothing. Or maybe she weighs everything. Hard to tell the difference when you're carrying the only person who ever made the world make sense.
Her head lolls against my shoulder. She murmurs something, my name, I think, or maybe just a sound, and her fingers curl into my shirt.
I carry her to the cab. Set her in the passenger seat. Buckle her in. She slumps against the window, and I tuck the blanket around her.
The drive back to Sterling Ranch is quiet.
Just the engine and the road and the stars.
I take the long way. Not because I need to.
Because I want this to last. This feeling.
This night. Her sleeping beside me with hay still in her hair and my marks on her skin and a smile on her face that I put there.
I pull up to my house on the east side of the property. Too much space for one man. Just enough for two.
I cut the engine. Walk around. Open her door and catch her before she tips out.
"Ace?" she mumbles, eyes still closed.
"I got you, pretty girl. Go back to sleep."
I carry her up the porch steps. Through the front door. Down the hallway to my bedroom, the one with the king-size bed that's only ever had me in it, the one with the window that faces east so the sunrise wakes you up, the one that's been waiting for her, even if I never said it out loud.
I lay her down and pull the covers over her, and just watch her with a smile on my face. That silver nose ring. Her long lashes. Her tiny little freckles on her cheeks.
She reaches for me before I've even stood up. Her hand finds my wrist, her fingers wrapping around it.
"Please stay with me," she whispers.
I kick off my boots. Toss off my clothes. All of them. And slide in beside her, pulling her against my chest.
“Wouldn’t dream of being anywhere else.”
She settles into me. Her back to my chest, my arm around her waist, and her fingers laced through mine and pulled up against her heart.
"Goodnight, sweetheart," I murmur against her hair.
"G'night, Acey."
Her breathing deepens. Her grip loosens. She's gone. Dead to the world, safe in my arms, in my bed, in my house, on my land.
I close my eyes.
She's here. She's home. She's mine.
I fall asleep smiling.