Page 100 of Chasing Blue
“Good. I know you’ve chosen to make a life at the other end of the country, but this week has proved how quick and easy it is to jump on a plane and be there if you need me.”
“You’re welcome any time, Dad. You don’t have to wait for an invitation or for me to need you for something. Milly and Finn would love to see you, and with the bar getting closer to opening, I’d love to have you come down and lend a hand.”
He nods. “I’ll talk to Nate and see what we’ve got booked in. Let’s just get Scarlett through tomorrow first, we’ll go from there.”
I leave my ol’ man to finish the coffee he was nursing, meet Asher at the funeral home, and then head back to his place to find Scarlett.
She’s finally up and showered, but still looking a little drained.
“Wanna come for a walk along the beach before we lose the sun?” I ask as she smiles up at me from the couch as I walk in.
“Sure,” she replies, tilting her face my way so I can kiss her.
“You feel better after that sleep?” I ask.
“I feel rested but still a bit groggy. A walk will be good to clear my head. What did you do with your day?”
I feel bad lying to her as we head out and across the road, but I want tomorrow to be a surprise for her. I know funerals aren’t supposed to be happy events, but I want to brighten her day if I can.
“I made some calls. Got all the things sorted I needed to, so yeah, a productive day.”Iassumesheassumes I’m talking about work-related calls, so I let her think that.
As we reach the shoreline, she kicks off her thongs and carries them as the water washes over her feet.
I’ve got back into the habit of not wearing shoes since I’ve been home, so I’d kicked mine off and left them at Asher’s.
Needing the connection, I throw my arm over her shoulder, and again, I kiss the top of her head.
“Sorry if I’ve caused you any issues with work by being up here . . .” she looks up at me and says.
I move to stand in front of her, stopping her from walking any further. “I’m here because it’s where I wanna be. With you, supporting you. Work can wait, it’ll still be there Monday, but you only get to bury your mum once.”
Her watery gaze zig zags over my face, and when she blinks a tear rolls down her cheek.
“Blue,” I say her name and pull her into me. “You’re not okay, are you?”
“I don’t know,” she says with her cheek pressed against my chest. “I don’t know how I’m supposed to be, how I’m supposed to feel. Ash seems to be more upset than me, I feel guilty for that. But I lost Zara, I lost my—our—little girl, and nothing will ever hurt the way that did.”
I wrap my arms around her, hold her tight against me and rock her from side to side.
“I can’t comment on losing Zara, I wasn’t there, I only know that pain now, after the event. But what I can tell you from losingmymum is that all of us, me, my brothers, and my sister, we all dealt with our grief in our own way. We all felt it differently because we all, each of us had our own unique relationship with her, so we all mourned different things, and it’s gonna be that way for you and Ash. You just have to accept that everyone handles things differently.”
I feel her nod, and hope she understands.
“I just don’t want tomorrow to be a sad day. I hope with the songs we’ve chosen and the instructions we’ve given to the funeral home, we can make it more of a celebration than something sad.”
“I’m sure that’s exactly how it’ll be.”
“I just wish more people would be there. Having so few attending, that on its own makes it a little bit sad.”
“We’ll get through it,” I tell her. “I’m here to make sure you get through it.”
“Thank you,” she says, finally looking up at me. “I really mean it. Thank you for staying.”
“Wouldn’t wanna be anywhere else,” I tell her as I hold her chin in place and gently bring my mouth to hers. Don’t ever wanna be anywhere else, I think to myself as her lips part, and I slide my tongue inside her mouth to meet and tangle with hers. I don’t tell her my thoughts. I gave her a pretty good clue about how I’m feeling during our early morning chat, and she has enough to deal with right now to put any more on her. But soon, very soon, I needherto know thatIalready know, I’m done chasing. I’m all in, and she’s it for me. So instead of using my words, I tell her with actions. I take her for dinner. We drink beer like we used to, dance to the old school songs played on the jukebox like we used to, then I take her back to her brother’s house, and I both fuck, then make love to her like we never got the chance to.
CHAPTER23
Scarlett.
