Page 44 of Left of Forever

We piled into Ellis’s old SUV and headed home, but I was surprised when Ellis dropped off all his siblings before taking me. He didn’t explain himself, just kept on driving with a flinty expression on his face.

“Why does it feel like you’re mad at me?” I asked.

“I’m not,” Ellis said softly. He continued staring out the windshield, though. He wouldn’t look at me. I was still shivering, and he tried to turn his heater on, but it was an old car and something was broken, so it kept blowing cold air on my skin and making it worse. He pulled over in the O’Doyle’s parking lot and started scrounging around in his back seat, looking for something dry to give me. I stared at the way his body shifted beneath his shirt in the movement, the strong column of his throat. When he couldn’t find anything and looked at me again, my teeth were chattering. He undid his seat belt and reached over the center console to rub his palms up and down my arms in a rapid circuit. When he watched the gooseflesh fade from my skin and he saw that it was working, he climbed out of the car and put himself in the back seat.

“Here,” he said, motioning with his arms for me to crawl back there with him. I went willingly. Let him hold me in his lap and surround me with his warmth. I started to feel like I was trembling for a new reason. When I tilted my head back to look up at him, he ran his thumb along my bottom lip.

“Your lips… They’re not blue anymore, at least.” I felt his heart pounding against my shoulder. “Bird,” he’d croaked. He sometimes called meBirdbecause my name was one. In a weird way, this always felt like a sign that we belonged together. It felt like he was asking for something with that syllable.

“Yes,” I said. And then he kissed me.

It was the best birthday I ever had.

CHAPTER 22

ELLIS

I’m ready a full hour early and go back to torturing myself and wallowing around my room. I can hear her moving around hers next door, and it’s toying with all my internal systems. I used to love watching her get ready. The little pouty expressions she’d make in the mirror and the way she’d toss her wild hair. She’s got one dimple on her chin that reveals itself when her bottom lip juts out just right. Right beneath the corner of her mouth.

I want all of it back. I want too much too fast.

I wonder if she still likes the same kind of underwear she did before. Smooth and seamless and barely there.

I toss my body backward onto the bed and fist the covers. “Stop it,” I growl at the ceiling.

My phone vibrates in my pocket, so I roll onto my side to pull it free from my jeans, and find a text from Silas.

Can you talk?

This asshole knows that now I’ll call because otherwise it’ll make me anxious wondering. I check my watch. Enough time to go down to the lobby and see what he wants this time. The walls are thin, and I’m not sure I want to risk Wren overhearing. If she catches any hint at how invested Silas is in this trip now, she’ll be spooked.

And he has been incessant. It took him cornering me at the wedding after he saw us dancing, but I broke down and told him about the paper on the counter that I found and how I took it to mean that there was something still there between Wren and me. He thought it was a stretch at first, but eventually came around and was supportive. Which turned intoenthusiasticsupport.

Which expanded into him driving me insane ever since.

Even before we left, he was calling and peppering me about all my plans. Offering a bounty of suggestions I didn’t ask for. Spas and private boat tours and horses on the beach.

I still didn’t tell him about the letters from last fall… it seems like I’d be violating Wren’s privacy in a new way by sharing. More than I already have by doing it in the first place. The only person I have confided in, oddly enough, is Lennon Kirby. After she told me about the horses, I confessed everything. I told her my pen pal was my ex-wife. I told her I still loved her.

“Oh my god, Cap. This is fate,”she’d said.“This was destiny. You are meant to be together.”

I hate that. I want to earn my chance back with her. I want her towantme back, too. I don’t want anything else to be the deciding factor when it comes to us again. Which is also why I need Silas to keep his antics limited to me.

I hit Call on his name as soon as I reach the lobby.

“Hey,” he says lightly.

“What’s up?” I ask.

“Not much,” he quips. “What’s up with you?”

“Silas,” I growl. “You asked if I could talk.”

“You didn’t tell me if you could or not.”

“I—” I cut myself off and move the phone away from my ear, inhaling and exhaling deeply. “I called, Si. I think that’s self-explanatory.”

“Have you kissed yet?” He’s munching on a snack into the phone, talking around a mouthful.