Chapter 19
JUNE ONE MONTH LATER
“Sevyn!” Deuce called out from somewhere in the house. I didn’t see him at all today. He had left for work at four this morning, and he hadn’t come straight home. It was a little after seven now, and I was already in the bed.
“Sevyn,” he called out again and knocked at the door.
“Come in.”
“Hey, are you okay?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“You’ve been really quiet the last couple of days. It seems like there’s something on your mind, and I know that I’ve been gone for the most part, but I wanted to slow down and check on you.”
I set my laptop aside and smiled at him. “I’m fine. Thanks for asking.”
“What are you doing on your laptop?”
“I just finished designing my website. Well, I should say that I finished watching it be designed anyway.
I hired the consultant that I met with a few days ago.
She was really nice, Deuce, and she understood everything that I wanted.
She saw my vision, and I just finished watching her make my dream come true.
“I already have a month’s worth of content to post, and I even recorded a few videos the last couple of days.
I just have to upload everything to a folder that she created for me on the cloud.
Once I do that, she’ll upload them on the website, and we’ll go from there.
She offered to continue maintaining it for me, but I opted for the quarterly maintenance.
I’ll post my own posts and videos each week. ”
“Damn, baby. That’s great. I’m so proud of you. Let me see it.”
I leaned sideways and grabbed my laptop. When I pulled it back on my lap, Deuce kicked his shoes off and pulled his legs up on the bed with me. He wrapped an arm around me and leaned into me to look at the laptop.
“This is the main page, and all the links to the other pages can be found here,” I stated, clicking on the menu link.
“This looks good, babe. I see that she was able to incorporate your favorite colors, purple and yellow, without it looking like Easter.”
I jabbed him in the side, and he laughed. “What?”
“You’re not funny.”
“I mean, I wasn’t trying to be. But your favorite colors do look like Easter eggs, baby. You gotta admit it. Now if you changed that yellow to gold, they might look like the colors of a popular basketball team.”
“So, you hate it?”
Laughing, he kissed my neck. “No, baby. I love it. This looks great, and I’m proud that you’re moving forward with it.”
“She’s really good with SEO and those kinds of things, too, to make sure that I can be found easily.”
I finished showing him the website before I put my laptop away again. “So, that’s what I’ve been up to today. What about you?”
“Nothing exciting happened in my day. For the most part, the city behaved themselves. But that’s not the end of my day though.”
“I know it’s not. You’re home now.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“What are you talking about? You know I don’t like when you talk in riddles.”
“Baby, you’re no longer looking at Officer Fullwood. Today, I’m Detective Fullwood.”
“What?” I shrieked, pushing up onto my knees and straddling him.
He grinned and laughed. I kissed him all over his face.
“Okay, okay, okay. You’re excited.”
“Congratulations, baby. I’m so proud of you. I knew you mentioned some tests, and I was rooting for you, but I didn’t know that you had gotten your test results back yet.”
“Got the test back a little while ago, but we were focused on your therapy. You’ve been working hard to get rid of that cane for good, and I’m glad that you finally did. But yes, baby. Not only did I pass the tests, but I applied for a position and finally got one.”
“Oh my goodness. This is the best news that I’ve heard in a while. I have just the perfect way to celebrate, honey.”
“We will tonight, but first, I have another surprise. I got home about a half hour ago. I didn’t hear you, but I decided to grill our dinner since you hadn’t cooked.”
“You didn’t have to do that. I haven’t had much of an appetite.”
“Why?”
Shrugging, I climbed off his lap and replied, “I don’t know. I just don’t.”
He stared at me for several long seconds before he reached for my hand. I gave it to him, and he pulled me from the bed. “Come on.”
“Where are we going?”
“To have a date night in the backyard to celebrate me making detective and you getting your website up and running.”
“Aww. You’re so sweet.”
We went out twice a week to various restaurants and to the movies. We hadn’t had a date night at home in a while.
I sat on the chair at the patio table while he manned the grill.
“I’ve been told that I’m a good listener. You really can tell me what’s going on with you.”
“Why?”
“What do you mean, why?” he asked, looking over his shoulder at me.
“I recall a night like this one exactly one month and two days ago that you didn’t give me that same consideration.
You didn’t share with me what was on your mind, but I knew that you were upset about something.
You came home drunk. I took your pain and absorbed it all, and yet, you still haven’t told me what was bothering you that night.
I feel that I’m an open book with you, Deuce, but you shut me out. ”
He slowly lowered the lid on the grill and came to sit with me.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t realize that bothered you, and I was being selfish. What do you want to know?”
“What was bothering you that night? What often has you becoming a recluse and shutting the world out? What had you crying that first night that I came to you? Who is the woman who hurt you so badly?”
He sighed and just stared at me for several long seconds. I was prepared for him to tell me to mind my business, because that was what he had always done. I wasn’t prepared for him to rest his elbows on the table, drag his hands down his face, stare at me again, and then say, “Okay.”
“Okay what.”
“The night that I came home drunk was because it was the birthday of someone I loved. It was hard that day because no matter what I did, I was always reminded of her. I uhm, . . . was crying that one night because of the same woman, and she’s also the one who causes me to shut down when I do every now and then. ”
“Who was she to you? Were you married?” I had often wondered if he was ever married and then had a painful divorce that he didn’t want to talk about. I hadn’t seen any photos of a woman around his house.
“She was someone very special who I was involved with. No, I wasn’t married to her or engaged to her. But uhm, she was, well, I loved her. She was my best friend and the one person I trusted with my heart.”
“What happened to her? Did she break it off with you?”
His lips turned down, and I could tell that it was painful for him to talk about.
“No. She was taken from me too soon.” Just the way that he choked those words out, I could tell that it was still painful for him to discuss.
“Do you still love her?”
He looked into my eyes and replied, “I do.”
“Thank you for your honesty. Am I in jeopardy of losing you to her if she returns?”
Something flickered in his gaze, but then he shook his head firmly.
“You never have to worry about that, Sevyn. A part of me might always love her, but I love you, and I’m falling more in love with you every day.
You’re who I want. I’m happy with you, and I can’t imagine losing you. So don’t even go there, okay?”
I nodded. “Okay.”
“You want to tell me what’s bothering you now?”
I sighed. “It’s Ethan’s birthday today. I’ve been in the bed most of the day expecting to be sad and battling depression.
But it hasn’t happened. I feel so empty, and that scares me.
Like why aren’t I sad when I think about him?
Why don’t I feel bad anymore that I’m here and he’s not?
It feels like I’m broken or that something inside of me is missing, and that scares and saddens me even more. ”
“You don’t have to be afraid, Sevyn. Maybe that part of you is just shutting down in self- preservation, or maybe you’re finally healing from losing him and suffering from all that he did to you.”
“Maybe,” I replied, tugging on my bottom lip.
“When I first realized that my husband died after I came out of the coma, it hurt so badly that I could barely breathe. I remember most days I wondered if I would ever feel anything that resembled normal. I wondered if I would ever be able to discuss him or think about him without feeling that endless depth of pain. Unfortunately, I don’t feel it now, but I feel nothing.
I’m numb, and that worries me because what if I’ve just shut the pain down temporarily, and it comes back one day and strangles the life out of me? ”
I pulled my feet up on the chair with me and picked at my toenail polish. I knew what I confessed made me sound like a horrible person, and I waited for his judgment. But when none came, I looked up and stared into his eyes.
“You still love him?”
“I do. But I don’t love all that we went through and all I allowed him to take me through.
I feel like I can finally breathe. But it shouldn’t have taken his death for me to feel this freedom.
I should have left a long time ago when I realized that he couldn’t love or respect me the way that I deserve to be.
“I think that’s why I asked if you still loved her. I don’t want to come second to any woman in your life, Deuce. When you feel like you’re always competing, it makes it hard for you to give your best. I just want to love and be loved without being compared. You feel me?”
“Oh, I definitely do.”
“Do you ever worry about being my rebound?”
“No. Am I?”
“No, Deuce. Am I?”
“Of course not, Sevyn. I just was happy to stumble across your path.”
“Why won’t you say her name? The woman you loved and lost.”
He stared at me for several long seconds, and then he exhaled loudly.
“It’s just easier that way.”
“To forget her or to preserve her memory?”
“I don’t know, it’s just easier. But either way, it’s not important. That is my past, and I’m looking forward to my future, one that I hope to have with you.”
“What kind of future could you have with me, considering that I still don’t have a full memory? Hell, I’m not sure if I would be able to bear you any children if you wanted them.”
“I don’t care about that. I just want to be with you. I’ll enjoy the time that I have with you, and we can build a future together. I just want the opportunity to love you, Sevyn.”
“How can you when I killed someone? I don’t deserve to be loved.”
Deuce grabbed my hand and pulled me out of the chair. He led me down past the lower deck in the yard to a spot in the yard where we lay down.
“What are we doing?”
“We’re going to look at the stars.”
Deuce held my right hand, and he lifted his right hand to the sky. “Now, I don’t know their names, and I can’t pretend that I’m an astrologer. But you see how bright that one shines?”
I leaned in closer so that I could see the one he pointed to. “Yes.”
“That’s how bright your future is, and I want to be part of that.”
My heart tripped in my chest, and Deuce pushed up on his elbow. He looked down at me and kissed my face, making me realize that I was crying. When he finished, he kissed my lips sweetly and slowly.
“Well, your future seems very bright, too, Detective Fullwood.”
He smiled and pulled my head onto his chest. When he pressed a kiss to the top of my head, I felt that everything would be all right.
God, how I loved that man.