Chapter 23
The news of the road getting cleared and reopened spreads about as fast as you’d expect in a tiny little speck of a town. If put to a race, I swear a good old-fashioned small-town phone tree would beat out even the viral tendencies of social media in getting the word out about something.
That’s why when I walk through Levi’s front door and see him standing on the other side waiting for me, a knowing expression on his face, I’m not surprised. I am relieved, however, that I don’t have to be the one to tell him our little intermission from everyday life is coming to an end.
That’s kind of how my stay here is starting to feel. An intermission. Like there was a Before, a Pause, and now . . .
Now, I don’t know. I can’t go back to the Before.
Meeting Levi has changed me too much to fit in the same role that I played in the Before.
But what does the After look like? Who am I now?
Do I try to find the same level of contentment I had, living each day as wholly as possible, intentionally trying to bless someone else with a random act of kindness?
And where does Levi fit in? If the whole goal of my journal is to keep myself accountable to paying the gift I was given forward, shouldn’t I apply those same principles where he’s concerned? How is that being kind when it’s so incredibly selfish on my end? Shouldn’t I—
“I can practically hear your thoughts from here, you know.” Levi’s lips tilt just slightly.
The small uptick is hard to see under his facial hair, but I’m beginning to suspect it would be impossible for me not to notice the different subtleties of his movements.
For a man of his stature, you’d think it would be hard to miss a single one of his muscles shifting beneath his clothing, but you’d be surprised.
I jut my chin and cross my arms. “You think you know me, huh?” I challenge, desperately trying to hold on to this intermission for as long as I can.
His amber eyes catch flame as his minuscule smile drops, all seriousness snapping into place. “Darlin’, I’d love nothing more than to study you for the rest of my life until there’s nothing about you I don’t know.”
I lick my lips, my pulse stuttering. “Th-that’s not very one-day-at-a-time of you,” I say breathlessly, a desperate reminder. Although I’m not quite sure which one of us I’m reminding.
“I disagree.” He stalks toward me slowly.
“It’s the very definition of one day at a time.
One day and then the next and then the next.
Every day. All the days, Hayley. Every single one of them.
” His giant palms cup my cheeks, and he tilts my head up, preventing me from tearing my gaze away so I don’t have to witness his heart in his eyes.
“You’re not fighting fair,” I accuse weakly.
His face softens, and he gives me another imperceptible grin. “All’s fair.”
My mind fills in the rest of the saying—in love and war. Because that’s what we’re in, isn’t it? A war—a battle of our hearts—for the chance at love?
My eyes close. I can’t bear to look at him a second longer. It’s too much. It makes me feel too much. Too much hope. Too much despair. Desire, dreams, loss, regret. I’m overwhelmed again. My heart feels too big for my chest and my skin too tight for my body.
Is this how Levi feels when he reaches his limit?
The thought barely has time to run through my head before Levi’s hands are falling away from my face.
His palms pass over my shoulders until they press between my shoulder blades, pulling me into him.
My cheek nuzzles the soft fabric of his shirt, and I breathe in the clean scent of him mixed with stringent overtones of engine oil.
His arms squeeze, holding me firm and secure against him.
“A little too tight, big guy,” I squeak out like a strangled mouse.
His hold immediately loosens so it’s no longer a vise. “Sorry.” Embarrassment tinges his voice since he obviously doesn’t quite know his own strength.
He keeps me safe in his embrace until I finally start to relax and my mind isn’t being attacked by a thousand thoughts and feelings all at once.
“It’s going to be all right,” Levi tries to assure me.
I lean my head back so I can look up at him. “You can’t know that.” No one can know that. Except God. And unless I’m mistaken, He hasn’t bestowed on either of us the gift of prophecy and shown us our futures.
Levi presses a soft kiss to the top of my head. “I can and I do.” He looks between my eyes, his forehead wrinkling. “You haven’t read my letter yet, have you.” He says this not as a question, so certain he is of the answer.
“I was interrupted before I could.”
Levi nods, then lets go of me with one arm, his opposite hand tightening his hold on my hip to make sure I don’t get any ideas of stepping away.
Never crossed my mind, big guy.
He reaches into my bag and pulls out his letter. He meets my gaze for a split-second before bending at the knees, shoving his shoulder into my middle, then lifting me up in a fireman’s carry.
I squawk in surprise, my fists reflexively grabbing on to the fabric of his shirt on either side of his waist and holding on for dear life.
All the blood rushes to my head, my hair spilling around my ears and curtaining my peripheral vision.
All I can see is the slope of his backside and the long length of his strong legs beneath me.
“Levi! What are you doing? Put me down!”
His muscles flex as he walks, my own derrière pointed up at the ceiling and the heat of his palms searing through the thin layer of material of the borrowed leggings I’m wearing.
I can feel the imprint of every one of his five fingers along the back of my thighs as he carries me into the living room.
“Faster this way,” he says calmly, like he’s not hauling me around his house like a sack of potatoes.
“Put me down!” I demand again.
My body tilts forward, and before I know it, I’m sliding down the front of him.
Because of his height and the fact he’s taking his sweet time returning my feet to the ground, I’m hyper aware of each dip and curve and plane of his body.
All the blood previously trapped in my head rushes through me, igniting me in an inferno.
I want to hide my face so he can’t see my reaction, but it would be futile, seeing as a pleased smirk is starting to curve behind his beard.
“Your blush makes your freckles stand out even more.” He bends down and kisses my nose, where I know freckles splatter my skin as if a drunken painter had been whipping around a brush filled with brown paint willy-nilly. “It’s adorable.”
I resume the same position that worked so well for me the first time (Yes, that’s sarcasm. No, I don’t know why I think it will be more effective the second time around) and jut my chin out, attempting to glare at him. “That was uncalled for.”
“Was it?” He looks down at me with a faux innocent expression. “Again, I think we’re going to have to agree to disagree. In fact, I think I might find it extremely called-for to carry you around with me everywhere.”
I gasp. “You wouldn’t.”
“Is that a challenge?” He dips his head until we’re eye to eye.
I purse my lips at him. “Since when did you go from grump to flirt?”
“You know exactly when.” He kisses the tip of my nose again, then pulls me down on the couch, his arm around my shoulder as he snuggles me into his side. He unfurls his letter with a flick of his wrist and hands it to me. “Read.”
I give him one more fake glare before snuggling deeper into his side. “‘Dear Hayley,’” I read out loud. “‘Let me tell you a story.
“‘Once upon a time there was a boy who had superpowers that didn’t seem all that super to him. Super hearing. Super smelling. Super touch. All his senses cranked up to super-level. But instead of other superheroes whose powers could be used for good and to help other people and even save the world, these abilities only seemed to overwhelm the boy and cause him discomfort. Like Goldilocks and the three little bears, everything was either too hot or too cold. Too hard or too soft. Nothing was ever just right.’
“Levi.” I stop reading and wrap my arm around Levi’s middle, squeezing and wishing I could give a hug to him as a child.
“Keep reading,” he grunts as he pokes the letter with his finger.
“‘The boy hid himself away, trying to cope with powers he never asked for, alone because it was just easier that way. He had given up on the idea that there was a place where he fit, much less the hope of finding a person who didn’t seem too hot or too cold, too hard or too soft, but someone who was just right just for him.’”
I can’t help myself. I stop reading again, and I look up at the same time his Adam’s apple bobs in his throat. He licks his lips and points to the letter, silently telling me to keep going.
“‘You are just right, Hayley. You are the calm in the storm, the light at the end of the tunnel, a deep inhale when I can’t catch my breath. In a world where everything else seems so very wrong, you are my just right.’”
Levi pushes the piece of paper into my lap, then turns so he can look into my eyes.
“I know you’re still trying to figure things out, but please, I promise you we can figure them out together,” he pleads in a whisper that pierces my soul.
He lifts a hand and runs his fingers through the hair at my temple, cupping the back of my head as if desperate to keep me in place.
What can I say to that? I am undone. I can’t fight anymore. Not him, not myself. Is it the right choice or one we’ll later both regret? I don’t know. But there’s nothing left I can do but give in to sweet surrender. “Okay.”
“Okay?” he asks, like he has to make sure he heard me right. “No third-act breakup?”
I bark out a laugh I didn’t even know I was capable of in this emotionally charged moment because, come on, who expects this burly man to know what in the world a third-act break up even is?
I shake my head, a soft smile still on my lips. “No one likes third-act breakups.”
Levi hauls me into his lap. “No, they do not,” he breathes against my mouth before capturing my lips with his own.
The kiss he gives me is the very definition of oh so very just right.