Chapter 19
LACEY
When I wake up the next morning in Max’s arms, he’s already moving against me sleepily, his length hard against my ass. The sun filters in through the curtains he hung for me, and the room smells, still, like paint. Evidence of all the time he and I have been spending together.
Slowly, I remember last night. Our bodies sweaty and slick. Gasping his name as I came with him inside me. Falling asleep here in his arms.
Max murmurs something, tugging at the tips of my hair, and I tuck myself in against him, letting my head fall against his shoulder. He releases a sleepy groan, long and low, grabbing my hips and drawing us flush together.
It’s frenetic and cozy at the same time. Somehow, the movement of two people who are used to finding one another. I meet his lust like it’s an old friend.
I reach down, guiding him to me, and when he’s fully inside, we stay still like that for a beat, breathing through the moment of connection. And when he starts to move, he wraps one hand around me, under my head, his palm settling over my breast and pulling me even tighter against him.
He brushes my hair away from my neck, kisses me under the ear, then murmurs with his low voice, telling me how good I feel, how tight I am for him, what he wants from me.
His thrusts get more insistent, his breathing more urgent, his hand lowering back down to my hip to hold me exactly how he wants me.
It makes my brain flushed and fuzzy, my attention scattering.
I can think of nothing but how good it feels, can focus on nothing but his breath and warmth and the thrust of his hips, coming flush with mine. He pinches my nipple between his thumb and finger, and I arch against him, squeezing around his cock so hard I see stars, and I think he might, too.
When it’s done, he shifts us so I’m on my stomach, my face turned to the side on a pillow. Max kisses down the length of my spine, massaging my ass, slipping one hand up between my legs and grunting at what he finds there — me and him, the evidence of what we’ve done.
“Fuck,” he mutters, hands finding my hips again, pulling me up onto my knees. I’m half-sleepy and wholly turned on, and I push back against his lap, wanting him any way I can have him.
I’m not sure if I’ve ever been this happy in my life. I’m also not sure if I’ve ever been with another man ready to go again this fast, but I’m not going to complain about it.
Max slips a finger inside me, drags it down to my clit, circles until the lust recently subsided rises up again, pulsing gently inside me. Then, he lines our hips up and pushes into me, and this time I can feel everything, like the first round was just for practice.
“So beautiful,” he mutters, holding himself deep inside me for a moment, and I can feel the throb of him, of me, that heartbeat of want. “So fucking beautiful, Lacey. You have no idea how much I wanted this.”
Reaching forward, he takes my shoulders and pulls me up, so my back is flush against his chest. He fucks me with quick, hard strokes, and I lean back into him, the pleasure in my throat and pushing at the backs of my eyes, his hands on my hips and stomach and chest. I reach back and turn my head, kissing him, and he wastes no time getting his tongue in my mouth, tasting me, driving his hips up so his cock buries even deeper in me than I thought was possible.
This time, my orgasm lasts for what feels like full minutes, my body shuddering around his, my gasps so loud and throaty that I probably should be embarrassed, but I’m not. I’m not sure I ever could be.
“Come here,” Max says, gathering me in his arms, pressing soft, spent kisses along my hairline. I love being carried by him, and I get the sense that he likes it, too. “Let’s get you cleaned up.”
This morning, after a shower in which we had to wash twice — the first time, then again after making another mess — Max actually did have to go feed Dona.
“Last time that I waited too long, she wrecked my boots,” he said when I followed him to the door, tugging on his jacket and begging him to stay.
“I’ll buy you new boots.”
“I’ll come back,” he’d promised, leaning down to kiss me on the cheek before pulling back and asking, “Unless you want to come with me?”
As much as I wanted to come down to his cabin and have a gourmet breakfast, sit at his counter, and even entice him to fuck me in his bed, I said no.
There’s something I have to do that I’ve been putting off for far too long, and I’m making myself do it now.
With questions hanging over my head about what to do and what my future is going to look like, I have to check Jasper’s desk.
When I first got here and saw that his rudimentary desk had a few drawers, I’d shoved the thought out of my mind that anything could be in there. He’d left the cabin basically bare, nothing but canned food and the essentials behind. There wasn’t even soap in the shower.
But I knew Jasper. I know about his flair for the dramatic, and I have had the gut feeling that there’s something for me in that desk. Something that he would have left for me here, to make sure I actually came to the cabin.
I pull open the bottom drawer, where I find a package of pens, some paper, and a box of envelopes. Heart beating in my throat, I open the top drawer, which is slightly crooked and sticks for a moment before sliding open.
And, sure enough, there’s a single item inside. An envelope that’s bulging with roughly folded paper on the inside, my name scrawled across the front in Jasper’s handwriting.
With shaking hands, I reach in, pick it up, and hold it as delicately as a butterfly that’s landed on my palm. Then, after a few deep breaths, I open the envelope, take out the sheets of paper, and unfold them, throat closing at the sight of so much of Jasper’s handwriting in front of me.
Hey Bug,
So you made it to Montana!
Listen, I know you’re pissed off at me. I knew you’d be pissed off the second I made the decision that I did. But I also hope you know that I couldn’t stomach the last part of my life having to be some big, grand finale.
The truth is that I’ve loved every second of what I’ve had, and I don’t want to sacrifice that perfect life to the truth of what’s happening to me now. I know that doesn’t make you any less mad, but know this wasn’t some last prank, or test, or anything stupid like that.
I wanted the chance to go out the way I lived. And maybe that’s selfish. But hey, if I don’t get to be selfish when I have brain cancer, then what the fuck?
This is my last time up here at the cabin.
Tonight, I’m flying home and leaving the 4Runner behind.
Remember all those times I tried to get you to learn stick shift?
Okay, so maybe there’s a prank hidden in here somewhere.
I’m laughing just imagining the thought of you trying to drive that thing.
But you should learn how to drive it while you’re here.
In fact, there’s a lot of stuff I hope you do while you’re here. Go into town. Sit and drink a coffee. Try fishing (you’ll like it, Bug!) and maybe even just breathe for a second.
I never wanted you to think I was coming from the same place as your mom, that I thought the video game thing was something to be ashamed of or not as special as any other job.
But maybe I should have said more. Spoken out against how hard they made you work.
You’re spectacular, Lacey, and I want you to enjoy your life.
I want you to take the time to revel in your successes before moving right on to the next challenge.
Maybe this cabin will become something to you. I’m hoping you can use it even just as a refuge from real life, like I did.
When I first found out about my diagnosis, I was out here all the time. Just thinking. Figuring out where my life went, and how it slipped through my fingers so fast.
I wouldn’t take a second back — not helping out your mom or being there to see you grow up.
You were my best friend, Bug, and it was an honor to see you become such a bull-headed, passionate woman.
I still remember the day you were born, and how scared your mom was to let me hold you.
Which was fair. I was seventeen and fucking terrified.
You made me step up. You made your mother step up. You weren’t the glue that held us together, you were the fucking fire under our asses.
But once you got old enough that I didn’t have to worry (so much) about you, I just started to coast. Which is fine.
Don’t let the point of this be that you have to be doing something all the time.
Don’t even let the point of this be that, just because I’m (I assume) dead now, that I’m a philosopher or something.
I don’t know any more about life than you do.
I just wish I’d stopped to think about it more. To enjoy the moments. Take those mental pictures and store them somewhere safe. Because sometimes now, when I look back on when you were little, I wish I could see more of it.
Anyway, that was a lot of rambling. Should have thought this through before I picked up the pen, I guess. But it feels good to write. Especially knowing you’ll be so tortured about my death that you’ll have to read the whole thing.
(Kidding).
(Only a little).
Anyway, I love you, Bug. My hand is starting to cramp, and I’ll have to leave for my flight soon, anyway.
Do me a favor and be there for your mom, okay? She’s going to act like this doesn’t bother her because she wants to be there for you, just like she’s there for me. Like she’s there for everyone.
Don’t let her. Make her grieve, and be there for her when she finally allows herself to.
You’re going to need each other. We always have.
Love,
J
When I lower the pages, I have to suck in a great, heaving breath. At some point, I started crying without realizing it, and now my lungs feel flat and empty. Tears and snot stream down my face.
And, like some great cosmic timing, I hear the front door of the cabin open.
“Lacey?” Max starts when he comes to the threshold of the study and sees me sitting in the middle of the room on the floor, papers scattered around me. In a second, it’s like he knows.
Instead of asking questions or trying to pull me out of it, Max walks to the center of the room, lowers down to sit next to me, and tugs me into his chest, holding me tight as I cry my way through everything that letter made me feel.