Page 54 of Holiday Cheese and Capers
“We made it,” Bayard said, vibrating with relief and triumph. “Exandra, we?—”
But Exandra had stopped moving. She stood in the knee-deep water, staring at him with an expression he couldn’t read.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“Nothing’s wrong,” she said. “Everything’s wrong. Bayard, I—” Her voice cracked. “You just walked through a gorge like it was nothing. You’re perfectly capable and strong and you didn’t need me—” She sobbed. “You didn’t need me to protect you. You never needed me at all.”
“You’re wrong, Exxie. I did need you. I still do. Just maybe not in the way you were thinking.”
“I’ve held onto this guilt for ninety years,” she continued. “Sometimes I think it’s all I have. This responsibility for what happened to you. This need to keep working, to keep fighting, to somehow make up for what I did to you. And now you’re telling me you were actually fine? That I didn’t ruin everything?”
“You didn’t ruin anything,” Bayard said firmly, moving toward her through the water. “If anything, that accident saved me. It gave me permission to stop trying to be something I wasn’t. To stop pretending I wanted the same exact things you wanted. To find work I actually loved.”
“But—”
“The only thing you ruined,” he said, “was any chance I had of finding another partner. Because how could I love anyone else when you were still out there, Exxie? How could I settle for anyone else when I’d spent my whole life only wanting you?”
“Oh, Bay! I don’t deserve?—”
“Stop it.” He moved closer. “Stop telling yourself you don’t deserve happiness. Stop punishing yourself for ancient history that wasn’t your fault. Stop?—”
“How?” she cried. “Tell me how I can just let go of ninety years of guilt and?—”
He kissed her.
It wasn’t a gentle or tentative kiss. It was fierce and definitive and ninety years overdue. Bayard grabbed the front of her wet jacket in one fist and pulled her to him. Exandra wrapped her arms around him so tightly he could barely breathe, and they made out in the middle of the river like they were teenagers and like they were young adults and like they were trying to make up for every lost year in between then and now. They kissed each other for every missed moment, and for every time they’d been too afraid to reach for each other.
When they finally broke apart, both breathing hard, Bayard pressed his forehead to her chest, delighting in the way it hammered the same beat as his own.
“I love you,” he whispered. “I’ve always loved you. And I don’t care how many logistics we have to figure out. I don’t care how complicated it is. I’m not letting you walk away from me again.”
“I love you, too,” Exandra whispered back. “But Bayard, I don’t know how to do this. I don’t know how we make it work when you’re on a cruise ship and I’m?—”
“We’ll figure it out,” he said. “When the time comes, we’ll figure it out. But right now, right here, can we just... be?”
She kissed him again, softer this time. “Yes. Yes, we can be.”
Ahead of them, in an attempt to give them a bit of privacy, Carlos had suddenly become a geologist. He was enthusiastically lecturing on the many types of rocks that could be observed and identified in the canyon walls, and the effects of erosion. Nobody was paying attention.
Behind them, the river kept churning and rushing, but there was no need to keep fighting the current. They’d made it through. Together.
AGED TO PERFECTION
The following morning, back aboardThe Celestine Queen, Bayard and Exandra sat together at a corner table in the ship’s dining room. Minerva spied them immediately. She could tell something had fundamentally changed between them. So why did everything about their posture and body language still scream uncertainty?
They were sitting much closer than they used to. But they were not touching. They kept glancing at each other and then looking away, mirroring each other awkwardly. When Bayard reached out for the coffee pot, Exandra did the same. Their hands nearly collided, and they both jerked back like they’d been burned.
“Well,” Zephyr murmured to Minerva as they collected their breakfast from the buffet, “ I’m guessingsomethinghappened.”
“Something…” Minerva agreed. “Though they look more miserable than I’d expect for two people who finally confessed their feelings.”
“Don’t tell me you’re thinking of getting involved again, Minnie,” Zephyr warned.
Minerva bit her lip.
“We need to let them work things out on their own.”
“I know, I know…” Minerva sighed.
