~~Young~~

Chapter Nineteen

   “Because you’ve been in love and would know, right?” Sera asked skeptically.

   “Plenty of times,” she laughed, “and eventually you start recognizing some patterns.”

   “Patterns?”

    “Yes patterns,” Death said in a huff, “tell me, when he touches you, does your heart speed up? Or when he holds you in his arms do you feel as if the rest of the world disappears? When he kisses you, does your chest swell and your head grow light? When you’re having sex does it feel like-”

   “Uh, yeah, not going to go there with you,” Sera held her hands up.

   “Fine, but do you see where I’m going with this?”

   “Yeah.”

   “And?”

   “And what?”

   “And what are your answers, yes or no?”

   Sera was ready to say no, that her answer to all of that was a no…but she couldn’t. She paused with a frown on her face, a moment Death wasn’t going to waste.

   She scooted her stool a little closer to Sera’s and with a much softer tone continued with her side of the argument, “does the thought of losing him make your heart hurt?” she asked quietly, Sera nodded, “and does the thought of never having met him, to have never had any of the experiences you have with him, for better or worse, make you want to cry?” again she nodded….and began rubbing at that sensation in her chest again.

   “See, that’s love,” Death smiled for a moment, only to frown in the next, “wait, haven’t you ever known love before?”

   “I love my sister,” Sera offered.

   “No, I mean someone other than family. Like a man or a woman.”

   “I love my friend Chelsea.”

   Death huffed again, “and she might as well be your sister, I mean romantically sweetie.”

   “If everything you just said is how you define love,” Sera’s eyes fell on that frustratingly closed door, “then no.”

   She knew without a doubt that she had never felt that way for any man before. There was a short time when she thought maybe she and Duncan were in love, but she realized fairly quickly that I was just the sex/friendship combination. And any other relationship she had ever had weren’t even that deep, never lasting for any real amount of time. But was time even a factor? She had known Gage maybe a week, and a week was all it took. A week and she knew no other man could ever be to her what he was.

   The man she loved.

   “I do,” she whispered to herself, “I love him,” she eyes met Death’s excited gaze, “I love Gage.”

   To put a name to that feeling in her chest, it was somewhere between relief and excitement. Now more than ever she wanted Gage to come out of that bedroom so she could tell him, tell him she loved him.

   How quickly though the happiness fled.

   “What if he doesn’t love me back?” she asked Death.

   And to her horror her expression fell dramatically, “oh man, I hadn’t even thought about that, oh,” she slumped in her seat, a hand pressing against her forehead, “oh this isn’t going to be fun.”

   “You…you don’t think he loves me back?”

   Death shot her a deadpan look, “sweetie, he broke all the rules for you, made me break all the rules for you. I don’t imagine he would have brought you back from certain death if he didn’t.”