Page 76 of For the Record
“Don’t ever leave me again.”
I chuckled, enjoying how the vibrations in my chest resonated against her.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“I’m serious. I don’t think I can go that long without you again. I might kill someone if they try to take you out there again anytime soon.”
I smiled down at her, a swell of pride forming in my chest. “Yeah, that’s my wife.”
If only she knew. I wasn’t going to tell her that I only had another two months here before I had to go again. She probably already knew in the back of her head. But this was a happy moment. One I never wanted to look back on with dread. So I kept quiet and held her as long as I could.
“Let’s go home. I’ve made way too much food, and I need to feed you.” She wrapped an arm around my waist, and I put my spare one around her shoulders, leaning in to kiss her temple.
She was right. My counter was covered in every kind of baked good, lasagna, and sourdough recipe you could dream of.
“I was anxious for you to get home yesterday and went a little overboard.” I didn’t think I’d ever seen Rachel look sheepish before. At most, her cheeks may get a little pink, but this whole hands-wringing-together, ducked-chin, and anxious-eyes thing was entirely new to me.
I set my duffel bag on the ground and took my shoes off, not bothering to straighten them at the door. I popped my fingers and cracked my neck.
She continued, not looking my way. “Myrtle’s really been put into overdrive lately. Is there really such a thing as too much sourdough, you know? Probably good for your gut health. Not that your gut is bad. I mean, look at you—”
I cut her off with a hand to her jaw, tilting her up to press my lips to hers in a firm kiss. A silent promise of love and longing fulfilled lying between us. It was a kiss that spoke of the countless nights spent apart, of fears faced and battles fought, and this sort of unbreakable bond that held us together through it all.
In that moment, nothing else mattered. We were no longer separated by miles or duty. No longer wondering how much longer till I could lift her up and show the world she was mine. No more voicemails and texts. No more FaceTime calls that kept dropping when my signal was out. No. With our lips moving in tandem, biting, pulling, we were simply two souls reunited, finding solace and joy in each other’s arms.
Rachel bit my lip and tugged before pulling back, breathless, chest heaving, her lips wet and eyes weighted.
“Adam. Do you love me?”
I put a piece of hair behind her ear. “You’re my wife. Of course I do.”
Rachel’s head shook. “No. I mean are you in love with me?”
“I wouldn’t have married you if I wasn’t.”
Her eyes rolled. “You know what I mean.”
I smiled down at her. Yeah, I did. “You tell me. You are the one thing in my life that feels steady. You’re the first thing I think of when I wake up and the last when I go to sleep. Everything I see reminds me of you, from the sunset to a pack of sour candy. It’s like you moved into my head without my permission. I don’t even know when it happened, but one day, I looked around me, and you were all I could see. You’re like my little squatter.”
She snorted in an attempt to cover her tiny sniffles. “All right, big guy.” She planted a quick kiss on the corner of my mouth. “You know I love you too, right?”
A few months ago, my answer would have been a swift impossible, but that was then. Now? Yeah, I knew she loved me. I knew it in the way she left me sticky notes on my packed lunches, or how she tried her best to pick up after herself for me—somehow still always leaving a little Rachel trail. Or how she kissed me with no holding back, no barriers, no fuzzy unknowns. Just 100 percent her, and she gave it all to me, a guy who didn’t deserve to ever call her his.
I pressed a kiss to her temple, pulling her into my chest. “Yeah, I know, honey.”
Currently playing: Kiss Her You Fool by Kids That Fly
***
I would say I was currently packing, but packing was a very loose term for shoving articles of clothing into a suitcase that was enough to pass through TSA guidelines. With Dave Grohl’s voice practically shouting in my room and me angrily shoving bras into a mesh side pocket of my yellow luggage, the overall mood of today called for a playlist that I would label pissed because the man of your dreams is clueless.
Or maybe he wasn’t clueless. Maybe he didn’t care at all. No, that couldn’t be it. I mean, there was no possible way. Adam knew how I felt. I’d made it more than obvious over the last few months. Even the last year. He was my first outlet. My only outlet, really. And still he let me go out on a stupid date with a hot baseball player with thick thighs.
Okay, I didn’t actually go. But I wanted to, just to spite Adam. I did ask Calla for the guy’s number, to which she squealed and said she was going to start plotting romance book tropes with Layla for our children to read one day. I didn’t exactly correct her, since I wasn’t sure where to even start with that.
I texted Mason a brief, simple message that said I was caught up on a man who may or may not love me back and that if we did ever go out, it would solely be as friends. He was a sweetie. Calla was right about that. He came back to say that if I ever changed my mind, he would be there. I told him politely not to wait…and I may have said there was a hot young nurse at my dad’s complex who would love for someone to take her out before sending her contact and a picture I stole off her Facebook. Win-win. Actually more like win-lose, because I still didn’t have Adam. Not in the way I wanted.
A few days after finishing up Liam and Marigold’s project, Adam was called out to work again. He didn’t tell me where he was flying to this time, or when he would be back. Part of me hoped he wouldn’t be back in time for us to all get on the flight to Vegas for the wedding. The other 75 percent was begging him to hurry home.