Slow Burn

Chapter 29

BECKS

The percussion section in my head has finally quieted down some as I sit on the balcony. I’m slowly fading into recovery sleep, feet propped up on the railing, and a bottle of water in my hand.

My mind whirls a million miles an hour, after spending the better part of the morning on my laptop doing Google searches on mastectomies and what to expect as the caregiver when helping someone going through chemo and radiation.

Scary fucking shit.

Basically kill you to try to cure you.

You’d think modern medicine would have a better solution than this, but I guess you take the tried-and-true route until you need to take a different one. Stick to what works and all that.

And it’d better work. No ifs, ands, or buts.

Now I just need to see her. Hold her. Tell her face-to-face the gloves are on, and I’m waiting in the ring.

Then the first of many waiting games will begin.

After she apologized for not telling me, Ry promised to call the minute she heard from her. She said she thought Haddie was visiting Lexi and already had her brother-in-law on the way to see if she was at the cemetery and to make sure she was okay.

I put the cap back on the water bottle and lower my hat over my eyes. My phone alerts me to a text—probably the hundredth of the day between Ry, Colton, and myself—so I don’t have any expectations when I lift it up to look at the screen. But when I do, the gas is knocked from my tank.

Meet me in the ring?

The smile spreads wide on my face, the response giving me so much more than the simple request it reads as. I tell myself to calm the fuck down, that we’ve been here before, and that if she gets spooked, she’ll run again.

But that doesn’t stop the surge of relief that comes.

I scramble to respond, pissed when the doorbell rings because answering this text is ten times more important. “Come in,” I yell, head down and focused on texting her back.

Rex lifts his head to look toward the door, and I’m just about to hit SEND when I look up and drop the phone with a loud clatter on the table.

Haddie stands in the doorway of the patio, shorts, tank top, sweatshirt tied around her waist, but it’s when I come to her feet that I’m knocked off my stride.

Damn.

She’s wearing a pair of pink flip-flops.

I shove away my mom’s stupid-ass dream about the shoes—she’s just being crazy, after all—but I can’t help the lingering notion that this was meant to be. That my mom just might be right. I draw my eyes up from Haddie’s feet to take in her hair pulled back in a clip, cheeks flushed, and eyes red and swollen from crying.

She looks like she’s been to Hell and back, but I’ve never thought her more beautiful than right now.

Her eyes hold mine. So many emotions are in her gaze, but the ones I see and hold on to like a green flag on race day are the hope, the acceptance, the resolve that’s there.

I rise from my chair, not wanting to take my eyes off her for a single second, taking in everything about her, and make my way to her, heart pounding, smile widening.

I hope she feels this—whatever this is between us—because I feel like every single part of me wants to prove to her—right here, right now—how much I love her. How much I’m going to be there for her.

When I get close to her, my feet falter as I notice the story in her eyes—I can see it clear as day now—and I just hope she lets me help write its happily ever after.