Page 94 of Never Forget
I lay back down against his chest. His arm settled around me. For a long moment we just breathed.
Then I said it before I could think too hard about it.
"When we get back."
"Mm?"
I lifted my head off his chest and turned to face him. Brushed my fingers along his jaw. Felt the stubble on his chin.
"Why don't you just move in with us?"
He went still.
His eyes searched my face for a moment, like he was making sure I meant it. Then his whole face softened.
"I'd love that."
I kissed him slowly. He pulled me closer.
Somewhere in the dark, underneath the warmth of him and the weight of his arm around me, SLED was still sitting in mychest. Morrison's card was still in my purse. The decision I'd made that morning was one I was still making, choice by choice, silence by silence.
But I let it stay there. I let all of it stay there.
CHAPTER 24
Jamie
"We're going on an airplane!" Rosie told Sam for the third time. "Have you ever been on an airplane?"
Rosie had been on a loop about the airplane since Sam walked in with takeout. I'd explained the trip three times at preschool pickup and twice more in the kitchen. Two weeks in New York. Packing up the old apartment. Saying goodbye to a life I wasn't coming back to.
Sam smiled. "A couple times."
"Is it scary?"
"A little. But mostly it's fun. You get to see the clouds from above."
Rosie's eyes went wide. "From above?"
"Yep. You fly right through them."
Rosie went quiet. "Do you think we could see Mommy and Daddy? At work in the clouds?"
The table went still.
My breath caught. Across from me, Sam's whole face changed.
I reached over and brushed Rosie's hair back from her forehead.
"Maybe, sweetheart. They're very busy keeping the sun shining and the rain falling. But I bet if you look really hard, they'll wave at you."
Rosie nodded. "I'll look really hard."
"Good."
She went back to her chicken nuggets. Already moved on the way children do.
Sam's eyes met mine across the table. He didn't have to say anything. The weight of it sat between us—Jack's absence, the life we were building in his shadow, this little girl who carried her parents in the clouds.
