“And what about you?”
“Huh?”
“What do you need?”
I continued rocking, unsure how to answer. I needed… insert statement. The words were caught up in a swirl of emotion, and I needed some time to dissect them before I spoke them out loud. I had an idea, or at least a direction. It percolated while I sorted out the particulars. It was different to say it out loud.
“I’ve been thinking about it,” I admitted. “I don’t have the answer. Yet.” I wanted one. “Can I give you a rain check?”
“I’m not going anywhere.” The tone of his voice suggested he wasn’t talking about living in Firefly. “I waited twenty years. What’s a little more time?”
Twenty years. It was amusing to think that he had waited. In reality, it’d have been a little creepy. Knowing he had a jailhouse wedding, a marriage, a divorce, and who knows what else made it… sweeter. After all that, somehow, we found our way back to where it all started.
“Do you ever imagine things working out differently?”
He didn’t stop his rocking. “How do you mean?”
“What if… never mind, it’s foolish.”
He smirked before carelessly stroking his beard. “Oh.That.” Tyler nodded up and down as he rocked. “Is it weird to say yes?”
“We’d both be weird then.”
He reached out, hand extended. I gave him a firm squeeze. “I’m glad you left.”
“Is that what I sound like when I put my foot in my mouth?”
He held up a finger. “Give a man a second to get to his point.” We both had a soft chuckle. It wasn’t a laugh, but a quiet understanding. I had a feeling we had come to the same conclusion. “If you had stayed, I’d have chased you hard. If you hadn’t gotten tired of me, I’d have made so many mistakes. Maybe you’d have stayed, or maybe it’d have been too much for a young buck, and you’d have left.”
“Young buck, huh?”
“I prefer the older bucks these days.” He flashed a toothy grin. “I don’t regret the things I’ve done. There’s been highs and lows. I think I’m happy to have finally gotten them out of the way. Now I can sit here and be sure of what I want and what I’m willing to give.”
“Whatdoyou want?”
He stared off the porch, lost in a memory, our hands still intertwined. I loved watching his face as he walked through a memory. I enjoyed the closeness, and goodness knows I loved the touching, but I craved peeking inside his mind. There were so many stories I had yet to hear, and I wantednothing more than to curl up on the couch with him and hear the epic tales of Tyler Bailey.
He turned, eyes locking with mine. “I want this moment.” His eyes dipped, and he turned bashful. “With you.”
I leaned over, lifting his hand. As my lips connected with his knuckles, the chair slid out from under me. I landed with a thud. Staring up, I could see Tyler looking down at me as he fought off a laugh. Yet again, my lack of grace would be a campfire story that left everybody in stitches.
“How do you not hurt yourself?”
“All this slick skill, I tell you. I don’t want you to know I’m really a ninja.”
I sat upright, took his hand, and forcefully kissed his knuckles. There. It happened. “Better be thankful you’re so damned cute.”
“It’s all been a ruse. It adds to my mystique!”
“It was a ruse when you fell out of bed?”
“And running into your car. Don’t forget falling over while standing still.”
“We’re going to need to get you a bubble.”
He ran his fingers over my scalp, and I just about purred for the man. I could have stayed like this for the rest of the night. It’d have been magical to ignore the rest of the world and just exist.
I sat on the porch cross-legged as Tyler pet me like a loyal pup. It’d be comical if I wasn’t caught up in a whirlwind of emotion. Evie had taken the leap, thrusting past herfears. I had listened as she explained why she quit her job. I thought her brave, but it hadn’t resonated until she took a leap of faith. Evie didn’t have to nudge me along; she led by example.
