Page 108 of Abyss

She shakes her head, her lips settling into a hard line. “Call it karma, but I heard the four of them were in a major car accident a year later, where three, including Vance, were killed on the spot, and one of the girls was left paralyzed from the waist down.” She pauses, turning her ring a couple of more times. “It didn’t give me any satisfaction to hear it because I still felt guilty for not coming forward and doing something about it myself, but it gave me peace knowing they couldn’t hurt anyone else.”

I clasp her face once more, connecting our eyes, our souls. “I’m not going to tell you how to feel, Kav, but I hope you’ve forgiven yourself by now, knowing you likely saved your brother.”

With her eyes rimmed red, Kavi takes in a breath but doesn’t speak. She looks completely drained, as if getting it alloff her chest took everything out of her, but hopefully, she feels lighter, too.

A few minutes later, I carry her to my room where I undress her, kissing every inch of her exposed skin—including her scar—and making love to her the way I never have.

Slowly, gently.

Heartbreakingly.

Like she’s mine.

Chapter Thirty

KAVI

“Do you think we’ll ever be able to look at another cherry again?” I grimace at the now-empty bowl on Hudson’s nightstand. “I’m pretty sure they’re repulsive to me now.”

Hudson’s chest rumbles with a soft laugh under my bare arm. He wraps his arm around my back and pulls me tighter to him. “I’m pretty sure you single-handedly increased that farm’s cherry sales today.”

I groan, my stomach queasy from the excessive cherry consumption earlier. I swear, I never want to eventhinkabout a cherry again, but I nuzzle into his deliciously bare tattooed chest, feeling content from head to toe.

Hudson returned from his meeting with our RCS clients in Portland last night and wasted no time declaring that we’d be going cherry picking in the morning. Apparently, he’d remembered how much I liked it based on a story I’d told him about my collection of earrings and how they were mostly acquired during fruit picking outings.

The man’s ability to file away details and turn them into the sweetest gestures never ceases to amaze me.

So, after waking me up at the crack of dawn this morning, he dragged me to a farm an hour away, where we spent the morning plucking the last of their cherries, giggling and talking as we strolled down each row.

I especially giggled when one of the farm workers stepped out from a canopy of trees unexpectedly, making Hudson yelp in surprise. After apologizing to the worker—who seemed just as startled by Hudson’s scream—we continued on, trying to regain our composure. But at some point my suppressed laughter got the best of me, and I doubled over, holding my stomach in a fit of giggles, mimicking Hudson’s yelp. His unamused look didn’t help the tears that were streaming down my face.

God, I’m going to miss him.

My chest squeezes at the thought, and I shove it away every time it surfaces.

In just two weeks, I’ll be moving to Portland.

We’ve skirted around the topic of our future, tiptoeing past the elephant in the room as if it weren’t there. He’s walked by my desk in the office when I’ve clearly been on the phone with my new leasing office or employer. He’s also caught glimpses of the two boxes in my room marked for Portland.

But he hasn’t said a word about it.

Nor has he said a word about the fact that I am going to be leaving both his company and his home in the matter of days. I’ll be hundreds of miles from him, and I can’t tell if that fazes him at all.

A part of me wants to broach the subject head-on, but this crushing fear holds me back—fear of his response, fear of his rejection. Fear of finding out that we’ve been on different pages this entire time.

Sure, he told me at Madison’s wedding that hecouldn’tshake me, that he wanted more with me, and that he couldn’t stand the idea of someone else with me.

Sure, he’s gone out of his way to make me feel special and seen—introducing me to his beloved horse, taking me cherry picking, and even holding me while I turned into a mess of tears opening up to him about Nathan.

But nowhere in any of those moments, or the moments he’s spent over and inside me, has he brought up our future together.

If he has plans for us, I’d love to be clued in on what they are. I know enough to know that he’s never been in a long-distance relationship. And though neither have I, I am athousand percentcommitted to trying.

The question is . . . is he?

When he said he wanted more, did he just mean for the summer? Did he always have an end date in mind?

Hudson’s hand brushes over the back of my arm, and I bury my nagging doubts, clinging to the hope that, in due time, we’d confront the inevitable together. After all, it’s not like we’d just say, “It’s been good, thanks for the mind-blowing sex,” on T-0 days with a two-finger salute and be on our merry way.

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