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They say it’s the people who make Austin so inviting.
You make Austin feel like my home. Thank you!
Dearest Jake,
I thought you nothing more than a rake
When all I felt was coal
You helped me see my soul
When lost in my sight
You’ve shown me light
I’ll make sure I’m here
If you always stay near
For your love, I am grateful
I thought our union, fateful
I know now I was wrong
It’s a sappy country song
Love always,
Rakell
She held her breath, studying him as he read it again, his lips moving almost imperceptibly as if he needed to reread it. Finally, she whispered, “Jake?”
His head popped up. She thought she saw a mist in his eyes, but it was incongruent with the smug smile stretching his lips. Then his eyes fell back to the open card. He nodded his head. “Yep, I got it.” His hand outstretched, reaching for her. She gasped, inching her way around the glass table. He pulled her onto his lap. She straddled him, studying his mixed expression.
Bending forward, she put her nose to his. “Glad you like it,” she murmured against his mouth. ‘“When two such people encounter each other, and their eyes meet, the past and the future become unimportant.’ Do you remember that quote from The Alchemist?” she asked, her nose still to his nose, their mouths a whisper away. She was sure he could hear the erratic beat of her heart. Just say it, she admonished herself.
He let the card drop to the couch, snaking his hands in her robe, splaying his fingers on the small of her back. “Yes. Was your poem smart girl code for, ‘I love you, Jake?’”
“Yes,” she whispered with a soft sigh. “I love you, Jake.” Her chest fell, her shoulders slumping, falling into him. She wrapped her arms around his torso, the angst of a lifetime draining from her body. She let him tighten his hold on her, inviting him to absorb it, surrendering to it.
His lips pecked hers, then started making a trail on her jaw, leading to her ear.
Her skin tingling, she finished the quote, ‘“There is only that moment and the incredible certainty that everything under the sun has been written by one hand only. It is the hand that evokes love and creates a twin soul for every person in the world. Without such love, one's dreams would have no meaning.”’ That was all she had left in her. She gulped, tightening her jaw, willing herself not to cry, run, or keep talking, ruining this moment.
His hands moved from her back to her cheeks, his fingers cupping her jaw. “Smart girl, no more words,” he said, kissing her on the cheek. “A Louis L’Amour quote we could both learn from. ‘Love is a moment of stillness that sometimes a word can shatter to pieces.’”
With that, she tangled her arms around him, stepping off the secure cliff, reveling in the exhilaration from the freefall without the terror, trusting that he was her soft landing.
Chapter Thirty
The breeze whizzing off the massive body of water as the boat sped across Lake Tahoe stung my face, but I basked in it, the mountain sun, direct and sure, dancing with the wind and the waves. This marvel of nature was the third deepest lake in North America and one of the clearest in the world. Looking over the boat, lost in its blue depth. Supposedly, you could see seventy feet below the surface. I wasn’t sure about that, but I could not deny the beauty of this place. I liked getting to our pre-bonding training camp a few days early to sit with this natural masterpiece without chatter. Dwayne would be here tomorrow, and then the other guys would follow.
Summer seemed to screech by…Austin was my stage, and I freaking rivaled in the show. The people who stopped to chat, family meals at my parents’ ranch, the endless bars and restaurants, and Lady Bird Lake were something out of a summer postcard. The kinetic bacchanal energy buzzed off the lake, inviting the loud, beer-drinking gatherings of boaters, paddle boarders, and floating rafters to gather in one big water party. This summer, I’d soaked up Austin in a new way. I took Rakell to some of my favorite places, sharing irrelevant history about old joints in the city as she smiled, pretending to be interested in my trivia. We would sneak out to the lake early to paddleboard before the placid water was crawling with speed boats filled with college students. A few times, we got up super early to go running, but the crippling thing about summer in Austin was the air. Once July hits, you almost can’t find a time that the air isn’t like a dense brick hitting your chest, such a contrast to Tahoe, where the particles are light-flitting, so that instead of your lungs sifting through the soupy Texas air, you are always gulping and working for that next bit of oxygen.
I love boats, but when I went out on one in Tahoe, I always hired one of the young people who worked at the marina to drive. They knew this lake; it was their backyard, and they knew how quickly the weather patterns could alter the tranquil mountain lake into a beasty ocean-like mammoth, similar to high tide in Hawaii. The locals instinctively understood the intimate, sometimes tumultuous relationship between the mountain sky and this finicky, beautiful body of water.
That made me think about her, us, and how precarious it had felt only six months ago. Our relationship now felt like something that would endure. I’d run my birthday weekend over in my head, my brain capturing almost every word exchanged. The hundreds of tears she’d let break loose, and even though getting a glimpse of her own self-hatred was painful, that rush of emotion shared between us had altered our interactions. I didn’t feel the same fight from her. She’d let me in, and although we’d only been able to sneak in a handful of days together, communication wasn’t forced. I had sensed that she initially made sure she catered to me because I like lots of communication. Her words, “I swear, Mr. Skyler, I should just record a running monologue of my days when we’re apart and send you a narrated play-by-play every evening.” I fucking loved that idea.
