Page 32 of One More Chance
"My only thoughts when I wake up are of you,” I said, the confession spilling out. “You. Always you. Every morning, every goddamn night, you’re there. In my mind. In my heart. Only you.” She had no idea how many mornings and nights I meant with those words… hundreds upon hundreds. I was desperate for her now. Each kiss bruising and brutal. I broke apart long enough to growl, "Do you go to bed thinking of me? Haunted by it? Consumed by desire and love, Sloane?"
I kissed her harder then, as if my breath had been punched out of me and the only way to survive was through her. There was no hesitation in it, no gentle testing of boundaries. Simply raw, uncontrollable need.
"Please Levi." Her breath came out ragged every time our mouths parted. She held herself from the edge, desperate not to fall, yet already slipping. Her lips lingered on mine, clung to me, refused to release.
The intoxicating taste of her, like sweet honey and strawberries, was both familiar and new all at once. Memory and magic. My hands slid around her waist, pulled her tighter, steadied myself in the feel of her, in the reality of her.
A panicked part of me feared this was a dream and that I’d wake up in an empty bed, sweating and full of sadness.
I didn’t deserve that moment. I knew that. I had taken her trust and shattered it. Yet here she was, letting me in, reaching for me despite everything the Old Me had dragged her through. I knew,I knew, that if I grabbed her and scooped her up that she would wrap her legs around me, that I would carry her across the hall to the guest room, that we would ravish one another in a hundred different delirious ways…
The words, hysterical bonding crashed through my fantasy like a freight train.
I pulled back a fraction, my forehead resting gently against hers, both of us breathing a little heavier, a little more uncertain. “Sloane,” I breathed, barely more than a whisper.
Her eyes fluttered open, and for a moment, she stared at me, something unreadable in her gaze. Was it hurt? Love? I couldn’t quite tell. It was like she was weighing the same question I had been asking myself.
What happens now?
The kiss had been a spark, the kind that flickers before it bursts into an inferno. I could see the possibility of us together, shining through the cracks of everything that had fallen apart.
She didn’t speak. She held my gaze in that silence and everything paused. We were both afraid to move, afraid that a single word might sever the delicate thread between us. Her cheeks were flushed. Pink crept down her neck. Her lips, fuck, her lips were kiss-bruised and trembling.
But it was her eyes that undid me. There, in the soft burn of her gaze, was something feral and aching… unfulfilled desire, sharp and flickering beneath all the restraint she was clinging to.
“I…” I started, but the words felt too heavy, too much to say all at once."I don't want to do anything until you are ready."
We breathed together for a long time. Her fingers grazed my cheek, her touch soft, like she was memorizing the feel of me again. “We don’t have to figure everything out tonight,” she whispered. “But I felt it too. I… I do need more time, Levi.” Her body was already speaking in tremors and unspoken pleas as she held her ground.
I closed my eyes, trying to keep myself from reaching for her. “I understand. Take all the time you need.”
Chapter 13
The next morning, I left early, before either the kids or Sloane awoke. I didn’t want to disturb them and I knew I would linger if I saw their faces.
I had a full day of chasing down lost revenue, and trying to brace for the inevitable. The pandemic was weeks out and I felt it in the tightening air, and heard it in the background noise of every radio host who couldn’t stop talking about the outbreak overseas being a hoax. The truth was too stark for most of the United States to accept. A virus in China and Europe with thousands already dead? No one over here took it seriously. Not yet.
That night, I barely touched dinner. I microwaved something I didn’t taste and dropped straight into bed after my shower. The silence of the rental house was unbearable. I thought I’d appreciate the quiet after a day of numbers and stress, but it felt like a punishment. Sloane and the kids had left for the impromptu trip and I had until the next morning before I needed to check on Rufus. I'd thought about juststaying at the house, but Sloane didn't offer and I didn't ask; it seemed presumptuous.
I glanced at the clock and watched time crawl. I didn’t realize how much I’d miss them until they were gone.
Thankfully, a storm rolled in at some point and the steady sounds of wind and rain lulled me closer to slumber. I felt myself drift. Despite the cold, clammy sheets pressed against my skin, and the painful longing for the comfort of Sloane’s scent, I did eventually sleep.
And dream.
I stood in our home and it was rotting from inside. Not in the walls or the foundation… no, this rot came from deeper within. It floated through the air, like mold on the soul. The place still stood, but it was hollowed out, its insides eaten alive by everything I had done.
The worst part? Sloane was gone.
No note. No trace. Just… gone. Like she’d never even been there… simply erased.
The hallway stretched: long, unnatural, unending. Each footstep felt like trespassing. I passed the mirror in the entryway and I didn't dare look at the reflection. In that surreal nightmare logic, I knew that it would be Old Me staring back. His shadow writhed with wrecked lives, his weak and trembling hands struggled with the zipper on his jeans that he could never close.
I ran through the house looking for Sloane, but all I found were empty rooms stripped of her laughter, her light, and her scent. The place we'd built together had become a carcass and I was its maggot. I screamed soundless apologies that nobody was there to hear before a cackling laughter thundered through the house, shook the broken glass of the windows, and reverberated into the darkest pits within me.
Angie.
I whispered her name in the dream, fearful and timid as if saying it too loudly might conjure her. I ran faster then, but I'd stopped looking for Sloane. I knew she was gone, forever gone from this accursed place. No, I ran from Angie.
