Chapter 21 #3
“Then I should have tried harder. I knew something was wrong.” He looks away for a long few seconds, and I wait him out.
Then he turns to me. “He was arguing with me when he was shot. I’d been patient for so long.
I wish so much now that I’d stayed that way.
Why didn’t I? He was my best friend and the last words I said to him were that I hated him and I wanted out of our partnership. He was distracted by our argument.”
“Shit.”
I might have known it was this. There is no one like Reuben for taking on undeserved guilt. He holds himself responsible for far too much.
I choose and discard a few replies and then decide on the most direct one. “Why are you the only guilty person? You wouldn’t have been arguing if it weren’t for me. So, it must have been my fault too.”
“No.” The word is explosive and full of conviction. “It’s not your fault, for fuck’s sake.”
“And it’s not yours. It was a horrible accident in a world that’s full of them.
It would have probably happened whether you had met me or not, whether you’d been arguing or not.
Do not take on responsibility for a universe that is so irredeemably shitty sometimes.
” I stop talking when he buries his head in his hands.
His shoulders are shaking. “Roo?” I whisper.
“I left him.” His voice is tortured.
My hands flutter over his shoulders, not sure where to touch him. “You left Jez?”
He nods. “I cried and pleaded to go back. I should have brought his body home where he belonged. I left him there, and I don’t even know what happened to him.
I won’t ever know where he ended up—whether they even dug a grave for him or just flung him by the side of the road. ” Tears run down his face.
“No,” I say, scrambling into his lap and nearly sending us tumbling over.
I loop my hands around his neck. “No. Look at me, Reuben.” He shudders and looks up, and I wipe away his tears with my fingers.
“Did you honestly think that I would be disappointed in you for this?” He nods. “That’s not going to happen.”
He stares at me. “He was your father.”
“Fatherhood isn’t just the job description.
It takes work which he never did.” I take a breath.
“He was already dead,” I say firmly. “Nothing you could do or say would ever have changed that fact. And you were with him. I can tell you that would have mattered. He wouldn’t have cared about being left.
I also know that he wouldn’t want you to feel bad about that argument.
It was just harsh words. The world is full of them and Jez knew it.
Do you know what he would have cared about?
” He shakes his head, and I kiss his temple.
“That you lived. That you were saved and went on. I happen to know that would have mattered a lot to him.”
I hug him tight and say softly, “He died the way he lived, and none of that was your fault. You can’t let this hurt you anymore, Reuben.
You are a good man. Possibly the best I’ve ever known.
Remember Jez and grieve him, but do it honestly for the real person he was.
He was a flawed bloke, so make sure you remember his flaws as well as his great qualities.
If you don’t do that, it will be like he wasn’t even real. ”
He shudders hard once or twice, the movement going through him like an earthquake. I clutch him close, rocking him and making no attempt to stop the tears. They’re long overdue.
When he stops crying, I still hold him close, our bodies seeking warmth under the blanket. Above us, the stars are glittering. There are so many of them in the velvet sky, like a sparkly, faraway world. When he raises his head, they reflect in his eyes.
His face looks peaceful, and it’s almost a shock. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him like this—like he’s finally laid down a burden.
“Sorry,” he mutters.
“You have a lot to apologise for, but crying is definitely not on that list.”
“List?” My mouth twitches at the welcome humour in his voice, so warm and real after everything he’s just said. “How many items are on this list?” he asks.
“It makes War and Peace look like a notes app.”
He snorts, cuddling close, his head resting against mine. “Thank you,” he says.
“You’re very welcome.” I smile at him, and he looks bemused.
“I tell you the worst thing—the thing I’ve hidden for so long—and you just smile at me?”
After I nod, I kiss him, loving the warmth of his lips against mine. When I pull away, I trace the curves of his full lips with my fingertip. “I’m smiling because you’re amazing. And now I have you, and I am never letting go.”
“Please don’t,” he says gruffly. “I couldn’t bear that. Not now.”
“Not going to happen.” I kiss him again because I can’t help it. I always want one more kiss. “Do you want to know what is going to happen now, Reuben Langley?”
“Oh, have you been given the gift of foresight? How super.”
His customary sarcasm warms me better than the blanket around us. “It was given to me at birth.”
“I thought that was excessive snark and wilfulness.”
“Hey, there’s nothing wrong with lots of birthday gifts. Remember that in the future. Anyway, the fairies liked me. I must have been impossibly charming even as a baby. Don’t knock it.”
“So tell me.”
My smile is impossibly large, and he echoes it, his face looking suddenly young and vulnerable enough to make my heart clench.
“Someone told me once that the people who are most haunted are those who can’t let their ghosts go.
The wind’s blowing out to sea now, love.
Let his ghost go free and remember him as he was in life and not in death.
” He kisses me. “And then we’re going to move onward together, and we are going to live.
But there’s a catch before that can happen. ”
His arms tighten. “What is that?” he says as prepared as ever to fight my battles. “I’ll do anything.”
“We have to live happily ever after, Reuben.” He opens his mouth, no doubt to offer a blast of reality, but shuts it when I smile at him again.
It’s tender and wild and filled with all the love I’ve always had for him but tried so hard to push away.
Not anymore. “Oh, I know it won’t always be peaceful, and at times I’m sure we’ll be sad or mad or both at the same time.
We’ll fight and bicker and slam lots of doors.
You’ll whinge about my packages, and I’ll grumble when you want to go on a sixty-mile route march and still call it a fucking gentle stroll.
But all those things are part of being happy with you, and at the end of my life, I want to look back with you and say, yeah, we did that.
We lived our own version of happily ever after.
Can we do that? Can you leave these ghosts behind and choose me in the light? ”
He considers me, his eyes liquid in the starlight. “I would do fucking anything for you, Xavi.”
“Then let’s start that now. I know there will be other nightmares. They’re a part of you—the part that brought you back to me. Just don’t shut me out.”
“I couldn’t do that if I wanted to. You’ve carved out a place in me that will always be yours.”
He hugs me tight, and I cling to him, hearing the sighing of the grass and the roar of the sea.
We started in the shadows, hiding and dancing around the simple fact that we’d fallen in love at first sight.
Two men who couldn’t have been more different yet found something in each other that we wouldn’t find in anyone else.
Then we lost each other in war and bloodshed and anger and hurt.
Now, our time together on this island has given us back the most important thing—us. It won’t always be easy, but if there’s anything I know about Xavier Conway and Reuben Langley, it’s that we’re stubborn bastards and we hold on so fucking tight when the rest of the world would just let go.
A faint red line appears on the horizon over the black shapes of the trees.
Then slowly a pearlescent light bathes the bay and the Sound beyond, warming and lighting them in pale ivory and pink hues.
A bird calls, its song sharp and true. I bury my head in Reuben’s shoulder, and when I next look up, the sky is a true winter blue as if it’s been washed clean overnight, and the bay sparkles as if a thousand sparklers are burning.
I kiss Reuben, and the wind buffets us as we get up and arms around each other, still covered by a blanket, we make our way back to the cottage and the warm, soft bed that waits for us. The wind howls loud and free behind us, but neither of us looks back.