Page 128 of Thirst For Me
We spend the evening in Sierra’s apartment, just the two of us. I bring in the overnight bag from my truck. We walk hand in hand to the liquor store and pick up takeout pizza, and hang out on the balcony while the concert crowd gathers below.
I laugh when the concert starts and I hear the wall of muffled noise that greets us. Music, maybe. Power, definitely. And yes, you can tell what song it is, but it’s hardly front-row seats.
Still, we hang out for several songs.
Then we go inside, lie on Sierra’s couch, entwined, with the windows open, and just listen for a while.
We spend the rest of the night in her bed, fucking with a kind of wild abandon there’s never been between us before. The freedom of knowing that this isn’t the end.
It’s only the beginning.
I wake in the early morning to Sierra sliding over me, naked. I flip us over and we press together, skin to skin, hurried, wanting more.
Then slowing down once we’re joined, making love as the sun comes up, washing the sky in violet and gold outside the windows.
“I was so scared I’d lost you,” she whispers against my skin.
“I promise,” I whisper back, “I’m not going anywhere. Not without you.”
That day, we pack a few bags for Sierra, so we can drive back to Orchard Cove as an engaged couple. Layne knows why I’m here in Vancouver and what my plans were, and so does my grandpa, but I can’t wait to bring Sierra back, tell them in person that she said yes, and settle into the house with her.
But before we leave Vancouver, we have a video call with Sophie and her husband, Pete, to tell them the news. Sierra insists this is mandatory.
Sophie is ecstatic, and Sierra cries again.
Sophie tells me, “She never cries. You better make her smile, or I’ll have words for you.”
I promise Sierra’s best friend, “Always.”
She’s crying, too.
Then we go by my parents’ graves with flowers. Sierra lingers longer than I do; it’s still hard for me to see their names etched in stone and the years etched beneath.
But I hear her say, “Thank you for making such an amazing human. I promise, I’ll take care of him.”
After that, she has to drive us to the Horseshoe Bay ferry terminal up in West Vancouver because my eyes are a little blurry.
When we get off the ferry on Vancouver Island, I take over at the wheel, and we hold hands on and off as I drive. We listen to music and talk the whole way, laughing and not really arguing but kind of breathlessly recounting so many of the moments we shared, or avoided, or passed each other by ... just fucking dying to touch. Or talk. Or grab each other and blurt out,I fucking want you.
“I knew it,” she keeps saying. “I knew you liked me.”
“I thought you hated me,” I admit.
“There’s a very fine line between love and hate, Mason Grant,” she teases.
I clear my throat. “Do you realize that you haven’t actually told me you love me yet?”
“I haven’t?” She frowns.
“No, you haven’t.Itoldyou. Which, for the record, is not the same thing.”
“Hmm. It’s not?”
Oh, I see. She’s playing innocent.
“No. And I know how competitive you are. So I definitely think we should keep score,” I tease back.
When I glance over, a small smile plays at her lips.
