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“But you’re okay, right?”
“Okay? I’m fucking great. I’m a damn country-western song, Cassie. Guy loses everything he
thought he had in one day. Losing my truck kinda rounds out the chorus, don’t you think?”
There it was, the sarcasm hiding the sorrow, that man I knew so well. The one I loved so much.
Here is your opening, Cassie. Say it.
“You haven’t lost everything, Will.”
“That’s true. Day’s not over yet. Or is it? I can’t tell with the curtains shut. What do you think of
them? They’re pretty nice, aren’t they?”
“They’re beautiful. See? You have the curtains … and …?”
His eyes moved from admiring the curtains to studying me.
“What else do I have?”
He sat up on an elbow, his gaze heavy.
Say it, Cassie.
“You have … those marble tables. They’re g-gorgeous,” I stammered.
“That’s true. They are gorgeous,” he said.
I was nervously fidgeting with the edge of the bar.
“And … what else do I have?”
For chrissake, say it.
Say it now.
“You have everything, Will, right here in this room—”
“Do I have you?”
Enough, Cassie. It’s here, all of it, right in front of you.
“Yes, Will.”
“Are you sure, Cassie? Because I really want to have you, and earlier, when that guy drove up to
the hospital parking lot, and it didn’t look like I could have you either, that’s when I thought—”
“Will. You have me.”
I don’t know if I dove to meet him or if he reached up to pull me down to the mattress, but soon I
was kneeling in front of him, letting him pull off my T-shirt, my stupid bra, my dumb belt, kicking off
my awful jeans, both of us hating every single thing that still stood between us, even if it was just our
clothes.
Now astride him, our fingers entwined, I felt lucky and so, so grateful.
“You should see your face right now,” he whispered. “So beautiful.”
I was going to say, You make me feel beautiful, but it wasn’t true. I felt beautiful before he said it, a
miracle in and of itself.
“Thank you, Will.” My fingers graced his sternum. He was all I ever wanted.
He reached up, curling a firm hand around the back of my neck, pulling me down on top of him until
my breasts were pressed against his warm chest. His eyes were calm, his hair a tangle of anguish and
sleep. I smoothed it back.
“Kiss me, Cassie. Kiss me like you meant what you just said. That I have you. That you’re mine.”
His mouth was slightly open and I sank down on it with mine. We weren’t urgent, nor ferocious.
Not yet. There was no hurry. I kissed him roundly, fully, once, then suckled his bottom lip, savoring
him, kissing him again as his tongue darted hesitantly between my teeth, tasting me too.
“Will,” I said between kisses, “I missed you so much.”
He sat us both up, my legs still wrapped around him, his erection insistent between us.
“I missed you also … as you can see,” he laughed, flicking my hair away from my eyes.