My Mother's Husband

Chapter 145

He’s... here.

“I know this is a lot to take bellissima, but-” I don’t hesitate, grabbing him by the front of his still sexy as hell leather jacket, and pulling him to me so we end up crashing to the floor, my arms and legs wrapped around him tightly as he sits with me in his lap against the fountain. “I guess I don’t need to give you the whole ‘I’m an angel’ speech then?”

“No fucking way, Brie told me about Harley. I know why you’re here.” He chuckles as I bury my face into his neck, his warm arms wrapping around my body like a comforting blanket around a baby.

He still smells the same.

“I’ve got you... I’ve always had you.” The way he holds me, like I’m still a little kid, it’s so precious.

I know I should be more freaked out by this, but I’m not. One meeting with Chad Wilson alone was enough to tell you that something as insignificant as death wouldn't put an end to him.

“I knew you’d came back... They kept preaching to me that you wouldn’t, that I needed to let it go, but I told them you wouldn’t leave me like that.” I never stopped believing.

“No May, I never left... I couldn’t abandon my favourite girl.” His favourite girl.

I was dripping wet, but now my clothes feel completely dry, tightening my arms and legs around him to the point that I’d kill him if he was still breathing.

Sorry, bad joke.

I don’t know what to say, I feel like I never stopped speaking to him, that he’s heard every question I could ever ask and every story I could ever tell him in each silent prayer I’ve left for his ears alone.

Except there is one thing I need to know.

“Is she okay... Is she okay up there?” I lift my heavy head up to look at him, even through my tear filled eyes and ringing headache, he's just as fucking gorgeous as he always was.

He smiles at me, soul-comforting tingles shooting from his fingertips as they stroke over my face.

“Yeah, she's good... She's really good, basically running the place.” Of course she is, I’d expect nothing less.  “Distracting though, she picked to be twenty-one again when she arrived, and let’s just say that Parker ass of yours is hereditary. It feels inappropriate to keep calling her Granny when I can’t stop staring at the thing.” I burst out laughing, I bet she gives him hell. Good.

I miss her so much it makes my heart bleed.

“Is she... Why didn't she...”

“She wanted to, she wanted to come here but I sort of fought her on it. I think we both know you aren’t ready yet.” He’s right. I accepted that Chad died a long time ago, but sometimes I still open my eyes and expect to see Granny in the kitchen. Seeing her and being in her arms now would keep her alive for me, I couldn’t live with that. “Besides, I’ve been your guardian since I got there, I wouldn’t have picked to be it for anybody else, you needed me.” 

“Well where the fuck have you been? I’m sure you’ve had every dead Playboy Bunny to make your way through, but I’ve kind of been having a shit show down here.” He throws his head back and laughs, a laugh I never thought I’d hear again, before grabbing the back of my head and bringing the front down to his lips.

A single kiss, right on my forehead, one that just makes all the darkness seep out of my soul with his influx of light.

“I’ve been here, I know it doesn’t always seem like it but... Have you ever read the poem Footprints?” I shake my head. “Okay, it’s basically about this guy, and when he walks down the beach in happiness he can see the footprints of God walking beside him, but whenever he’s going through his darkest patches and turns around, there's only ever one set of footprints. He feels abandoned, he doesn’t understand why in the moments he needed him most that God would abandon him.”