He stilled, and then a rough sound rumbled in his chest. He lifted me so my eyes were level with his, brushed his lips across mine, and said in a deep, almost apologetic rasp, “I’m never letting you go now.”
I wasn’t sure how I’d gotten here. How the next few years would play out, let alone days. Or the problems we might face. But one thing was for sure. As I walked down the street, with a bag of bread and a hoard of vitamins, holding the hand of one of the most morally questionable men in the city . . .
I knew I loved him.
One Year Later
TAP, TAP, TAP.
The ticking of the clock and thick curiosity filled the silence as Sasha Taylor eyed the motion of my finger on the armrest.
“I didn’t think I’d see you in my office again.”
“Why?”
“People go to a therapist—which I’m not, by the way—to seek advice, or to talk about themselves and their problems. You don’t like to do either.”
My gaze dropped to the US quarter I rolled between my thumb and pointer finger. “Do you believe in fate, Sasha?”
“I do.”
“Why?”
She tilted her head. “I’m not a religious person, but I’m also not naive enough to believe everything can be explained without some form of supernatural intervention.”
“I always thought if I believed in fate, I couldn’t believe in choice.” My voice was thoughtful, as I turned the quarter to let a ray of sunlight shimmer across it. The year was 1955, and the silver was dull and cloudy. Twenty-nine years ago, when I’d stolen it from someone’s pocket, it held an optimistic shine. That shine had brought me here, to the United States, to my wife and daughter.
Sasha’s gaze caressed the coin in my hand and then slid to the ring on my finger. “You’ve been married how long now?”
“A year.”
To be exact, three-hundred-and-eighty-five days. I’d proposed to Gianna again with a ring, a bended knee, and even a nice dinner. She hadn’t wanted another wedding, so we’d gotten married at the courthouse. I had the date tattooed on my ribs right next to Andromeda.
“And your daughter? Katherine, isn’t it?”
A smile touched my lips. “We call her Kat. She’s five months now.”
To be exact, one-hundred-and-forty-eight days.
“And how has it been, adjusting to a newborn?”
“Kat’s colicky—doesn’t sleep very well.” Just like me. When she woke up multiple times each night, I got up with her, sometimes fed her a bottle Gianna had pumped beforehand, and held her until she fell back to sleep. Gianna had insisted she do it all at first, but I’d quickly ended that. “She looks like my wife.” That was the only thing I needed to see to know she was mine.
My chest grew full as I thought of them. I checked on them when they were out. Knew where they were every minute of the day. My fleeting conscience told me it was morally questionable, but we all did sketchy shit just to gain some peace.
“And how is she adjusting to the baby?”
Yesterday, I’d arrived home to find Gianna teaching an attentive-eyed Kat how to make carbonara. She was a more caring and devoted mother than I’d ever witnessed before. She’d read book after book about how to take care of Kat during her pregnancy. Now, she was on to some ridiculously-optimistic-colored novel about how to be the best parent you could be.
There wasn’t much I liked to do more than watch them together.
I didn’t deserve them.
But in the end, that was a moot point—just as Sasha had once said.
“Does that coin mean something to you?”
I drew my gaze up to her, a flicker of amusement passing through me. Getting to my feet, I set the quarter on the table between us. The clink of silver on hardwood was subtle, but the finality of it rang like a church bell.