“You’ve made up your mind?”
Eli was propped against one of the porch posts, trying to look calm, but his body language read much differently. His shoulders were tense, the line of his mouth tight. His gaze stayed trained on the yard as if he found the trees fascinating. He liked nature, but not that much, and the resident fox was nowhere in sight.
Sitting on the edge of the porch, Bellamy nodded, finding it difficult to look at him too when she answered. “I’m going to take the job.”
Silence stretched until she grew uncomfortable. She got to her feet, rubbed damp palms down the legs of her jeans and stepped up onto the porch. “Aren’t you going to say something?”
He finally glanced over, frowning. “What should I say, Bellamy?”
Frustrated, she huffed out a breath. “I don’t know. Anything! Fuck off. Have a nice life. Keep in touch. Or…” It took two tries to swallow her dread. “Or maybe that you might not want me to go.”
In two long strides, he was in her face. Long fingers wrapped around her biceps, keeping her from backing away from the fierce look in his eyes. “God, how can you think I’d want anything else? I want you to stay more than I want to wake up tomorrow. I love you, Bell. I think I’ve loved you since that night we spent together in Perry. But this isn’t up to me. I’m not allowed to make the decision for you. You have to want to stay for your own reasons, not because I gave them to you. Otherwise it won’t work. You know this too.” His tone gentled and his hands slid up her arms, over her shoulders to tunnel beneath her hair. “All this time I thought helping you put down roots was the way to make you see that you belong here. I was wrong, though. Seems what you really need are wings.”
She nodded, the building tears finally spilling down her face over his confession. She loved him too, and she’d been way off base in thinking he didn’t care if she stayed or went. But he was so right. If she didn’t go, she’d always wonder if she’d made a mistake. If things went sour between them, she’d resent him for asking her to give up this incredible opportunity. Going might be the biggest blunder of her life, but the only way to know for sure was to take the chance and live the experience.
“Eli, I never set out to hurt you.”
“I know that, honey.” He brushed the dampness from her cheeks before cradling her face in his hands. “The day you showed me that letter from Roger Clay I wondered if we’d find ourselves in this exact situation—with you leaving me and Serenity behind to follow your dream. And even if I had known for sure this would be the outcome, I’d still be begging you to break my heart. Go, Bellamy. As bad as it’s killing me to say the words, you need to go. Then you’ll know.”
She touched his mouth, awestruck by his beautiful bittersweet words. “And what will you do?”
He gave her a smile that didn’t wipe away the sadness in his eyes. “Hope.”
Taking her hand in his, Eli led her out to the swing. This time when she sat down on that new seat, Bellamy refused to let memories of the past clutter the moment, a moment she might never have again. It was too special and fragile. Too fleeting. Blink and it would be morning. She felt nothing but the heaviness of her heart inside her chest and his hands grasping her waist. He pushed her until the sun sank low behind the trees, scattering shapes and shadows across the house, and her lips grew numb from the cold, then he kissed them warm again.
Wordlessly, they went inside where he stripped her clothes away, piece by piece, before removing his. He kissed her until her mouth felt swollen and her jaw tingled from the rough brush of the stubble on his jaw. Heated her skin with his hands. Together they melted down onto her bed, and from that point on, their bodies didn’t separate.
Bellamy recalled how Eli had made love to her before Ruby’s birthday party. The intense sex had been drenched in dark emotions spawned from his fight with Sage. Tonight was no less emotional, no less melancholy, but it came from a place deep inside them both that heightened every sensation and weighted every kiss with hopefulness. It made each caress more precious than the last. There was an aching perfection about it happening there, in a house filled with so many powerful memories for her, a keepsake box he’d called it, and it was true.
Seconds became minutes, minutes turned to hours, which suited Bellamy just fine. She didn’t want the night to end.
But it did.
The next morning when she woke up, he was gone. This time she understood.