Seeking privacy, he slipped into the entrance to the first floor while Kate took everyone up to the main living level.
Inside, the large gathering room designed as a family hangout space was now home to more dresses, racks, and clothes. But no one was around.
The door to Jonah’s room was closed. His heart sinking, Eli knocked once, then pushed it open and let out a sad, low moan.
The bed was unmade, but there were no signs of life. No clothes, no cookbooks, no hints that Jonah Lawson lived here. Because he didn’t. He’d taken his meager belongings and left in his van.
Eli just leaned against the wall and let disappointment rock him.
Of course Eli knew where he was, or where he was going. He’d make it by midnight, maybe later, in that dilapidated vehicle. He’d sleep in some parking lot, marching through that massive cemetery at dawn, and he’d…
He’d miss his interviews and the opportunity that more than a few people had worked to help him get. Including Kate.
“Where is he?”
He turned to find her in the doorway, looking dismayed.
“Did you call him?”
“I don’t have to,” he said, walking into the room and sitting on the edge of the unmade bed. “I know where he is. He’s giving up the interviews and the program, even though he knows that will disappointment me and you and the mother of his baby.”
She came closer and sat next to him. “Let’s call him, Eli. Let’s talk to him and get him to turn around.”
“He won’t answer.” He looked at her, aching for their first time together in weeks to be different. Reaching to her cheek, he tucked a stray piece of hair behind her ear. “I missed you,” he murmured.
Her breath hitched. “I missed you, too.”
And then, before he could talk himself out of it, before he could remind himself of the million complications between them, he closed the space between them and kissed her.
Kate melted into him, her hands resting lightly on his chest as he pulled her closer, deepening the kiss.
For a moment, nothing else existed. Not the stress. Not the worry. Justher.
When they finally broke apart, Kate let out a breathless laugh. “Well. That escalated quickly.”
Eli chuckled, pressing his forehead against hers. “Tell me you’re glad you came.”
She curled her fingers into the fabric of his shirt. “I’mveryglad I came.”
Tomorrow was going to be one of the hardest days of the year, but for once he didn’t have to face it alone. If only Jonah had waited…
“Eli?” She leaned into him, pressing her lips to his ear. “I have an idea…”
The gates to Crest Lawn Memorial Park groaned open at exactly 8:30 AM, and Jonah wasted no time slipping through. Not that there was a line to get into the home for a thousand dead bodies.
No one else was insane enough to be standing in a graveyard on a miserably wet, sunless Friday morning, but Jonah wasn’t just anyone.
He was a Lawson, and somewhere in the generations of architects and control freaks, high-hopers and overachievers, ran a flair for self-inflicted emotional torture. He got it in spades, apparently.
Which was why he drove all night in that bucket of rusty bolts he called a van and somehow made it to this place that had seen so many tears for literal centuries.
He stopped at the same 7-Eleven he always visited for the specific ingredients he needed, making his special “Mom meal” in the van and stuffing it into a backpack he had over his shoulder.
As he walked, the rain picked up again, driving harder and slowing his steps.
He didn’t care, though. He took the long way around the massive rolling hills, pausing a moment to check out the graves, some of which were dug in the 1800s. Many of which he remembered every single year.
Like Leyton Wiggle—dude’s real name—who kicked the bucket on December 14, 1899 and got a primo spot on a hilltop overlooking the Atlanta skyline.
