Chapter Thirty-Five

Today

He should have been back by now. Two hours have passed, and I continue to stare out of the front window, waiting for the flash of the rental car lights. There's no reason for it to have taken so long.

Maybe I can pull up a police scanner or coast guard frequency or something. I just need to know why he's been gone for hours longer than anticipated. Something went wrong.

Johnny comes up beside me. "Ella, he's fine."

"What if he's not?" I bite my nail. Water wiggles in shallow rivers down the road and pools in the muddy corners of the yard. "What if he's hurt? Or needs help and he doesn't have his phone and he can't call anyone."

"That's worst case scenario, you know it," Johnny pacifies. He squeezes my shoulder. "Your mind's going to the wrong place, okay, he's not a longline fisherman in the middle of the ocean during a hurricane. He probably just docked the boat for a little while until the water calmed down."

"It hasn't calmed down, though."

"Not here, but maybe it's different where he is. These kinds of storms hit fast but they also move fast."

I keep biting my nail and waiting.

Is this what Tucker felt when he waited for me in my parent's house? He must have expected me at a specific time. How long did he wait before he couldn't anymore? I can't imagine what must have gone through his mind when he found my car.

"I should go looking for him," I say.

Ritchie argues, "There's nothing to search for, he'll be back any minute."

"Why isn't he back now!?" I yell.

Huddled on the couch, around a coffee table of snacks, my friends stay quiet and look at each other. For seven years it was us, this little group. Tucker didn't belong, but he was missed just the same. It's wrong to not have him here.

I cover my tears and try to steady my breathing. He can't be hurt. Everything has to be fine because I just figured it out. I know how I feel, how I want to move forward. He can't get ripped away from me now. That's not fair.

No fairer than it taking me twenty-two years to realize I love him or for me to have spent a week in a coma because of some drunk idiot. It's not fair that Tucker had to be the one to save me. It's not fair that he decided it was too painful to love and lose, so he didn't remind me of our conversation where we planned a life together. I'm not missing out on anything else.

The rain continues to pound on the pavement, and I hear Jen's voice call out, "I think that's him!" She's standing on the other side of the door, looking out a window with me.

I run out the door as the car pulls into the driveway. Tucker parks and jumps out, yelling, "What are you doing?"

I'm so glad to see him and frozen in the tell him, tell him moment, but all I can say is, "Are you okay?"

He comes around the car, gesturing to the rain that pours over both of our heads. "Yes. What are you doing?"

"Why didn't you take your phone?" I demand.

Tucker stands in front of me. "I just left without it." He tries to pull me under the covering of the porch, but I ground my feet into the concrete.

I scream, "You've been on that thing all week and today you don't have it when I wanted to call you for the last two hours!"

" Ella !" He raises his palms.

"You've been glued to your phone so you don't have to look at me or talk to me!" I spit. "If you had it, then I would have known where you were, I would have known you were safe -"

"Enough of this." Tucker scoops me over his shoulder, walks the few feet to the porch and drops me on feet. His white tank top is soaked, his hair flat over his eyes. He swipes water from his face. "Why are you yelling at me in the rain?"

"Because I was scared!" I lift to my toes. "I thought something happened to you."

"I just docked for a little while just because of the lightning. What are you so worried about?"

I grab his face. "You! Because I love you, dammit !"

Tucker's eyes roam over mine, but he shows no expression, no look of excitement or dread. He says, "I know."

My jaw drops. "You know?"

"Well, I know you loved me seven years ago, I didn't know if it went away."

"Why would it go away? You knew all of this time that I still probably loved you and you've been toying with me? You should have just said it! How can you be so flippant about my feelings?"

"Flippant?" His mouth twitches. "This coming from a woman who refuses to accept that I can't love her anymore. How's that for being flippant about someone else's feelings? Huh?" He sets his hands on his hips, leans toward my face.

My hands drop. "Of course, I still love you, dumbass, the same way you still love me ."

"Well, there we go," he mutters.

"There we go."

I inhale, my chest rising and falling as I oscillate between being angry and being enamored. I think I'm more angry right now. I wrap my arms around his shoulders and sink my mouth onto his. Water drips onto our joined faces. I tune out the background chatter of rain against the road, the car, the gutters. Tucker holds my back and scoops me up until my legs wrap around his waist.

I breathe, "I love you."

"I thought you didn't remember," he whispers, kissing my neck.

"I didn't until Johnny mentioned it. Why didn't you tell me?"

"I was afraid to." He looks at me. "I thought about calling you every day for seven years. I tried to replay that phone conversation we had where you told me you loved me, like I could trigger a memory if I said the right word. And then…I was worried that if I had said, hey you're in love with me but you don't know it, that you'd look at me like I was crazy. And I'd lose you anyway."

I jostle his shoulders. "You think I'm so fickle that I loved you one second and I would just forget the next?"

"Fickle and flippant? Did you flip through a dictionary this afternoon?" Tucker backs up until he's sitting on a wicker bench and I'm on his lap.

My hands run into his hair. "Shut up, 3.8 GPA, I know words."

He says, "And you did forget, Ella."

I kiss the corner of his dropped mouth, where he's holding that little bit of sadness. I feel like I'm kissing away the painful look he gave me prom night. I whine, "No, I didn't forget. I knew I loved you. I just forgot we already talked about it."

"Really?" He frowns.

"I knew it the moment I woke up from the coma. That's why I hated you so much. Because I loved you that much more and you never showed up."

"I'm sorry," he says, tightening his hold.

"Don't be sorry anymore." I relax against his chest. "Just let me love you." I insist, "Please don't push me away."

"I'm scared."

"Well, I'm not. I'm not afraid of what comes next."

"It was so fucking hard, Ella, you have no idea," he mutters against my cheek.

"Being afraid of losing someone is like being afraid of sleeping, Tucker. It's inevitable. But I'm going to love you forever, I'd rather do it with you than be apart from you." I touch our noses. "It doesn't change bad things from happening."

He closes his eyes. "What if you get tired of me?"

"I will get tired of you."

He hears the smile in my voice, he smiles back.

I insist, "That doesn't mean I'm going anywhere." Then, I question, "Can you honestly live without me? Because I can't live without you. I tried for seven years, and you were all I thought about."

"Okay," he groans.

I spring upright. "Okay?"

"Okay." He's less grumbly this time. He stares into my eyes. "I don't want to do anything or go anywhere without you anymore."

"Wow. It was that easy?"

He laughs. "It was always going to be easy for you. I don't know who I was trying to kid. I knew when I got in that airport that I was putty in your hands." He catches my mouth in a deep kiss. He murmurs against my lips, "I'm always putty in your hands."

Tucker keeps kissing me, and I feel fresh water on my cheeks. I don't know if it's from him or from me, but I can't control my emotions. I cling to him, wanting him everywhere at every moment. He flips me to my back and the woven lines of the bench press into my spine.

"What now?" I sob.

He runs his lips over my neck, his hands gliding up under my sweatshirt. I arch into him, tasting his mouth, griping his shoulders.

"What do you want?" he passes back to me.

"Well…" I try to keep my head focused while he's kissing under my ear and his hands have moved bases. "You did promise to marry me when I was thirty."

With h`is nose nuzzled into my hair, Tucker lifts his head. He takes a moment. "Seriously?"

My face burns. He's looking at me with such shock.

"Well," I swallow. "I mean…we're already friends. And we're obviously sexually compatible."

He pulls his hands off my bare boobs.

"And you know how I take my coffee. You know the worst parts of me. We don't have to meet each other's families and deal with awkward in-laws."

"We're not entirely out of the woods with that one," he argues.

I laugh. "I know how disgustingly messy you are."

"My brain's too busy to clean."

I continue, "I know I can be crass with you."

"Fuck yes."

"And I know that I'll always want you, Elijah. And love you. Even when I hate you ."

Tucker gently kisses me. "Sounds like a plan, Beautiful."

My cheeks pinch into a smile when he kisses me again and our teeth touch. "Really?"

"I just said you can have whatever you want."

"I know, but it's coming along so fast ."

"Stop talking now," he groans, covering me. My knees slide up along his sides.

I relax into the hook of his arms, the warmth of his breath. Lightning cracks closely. I feel electric with his hands on me, his words tickling my ear, my future opening up like the sky will do at some point. Everything is different now. One split second of him muttering, "God, I love you, Ella," and my life has flipped. Of every moment between Elijah Tucker and I over the last thirty years, I always come back to one. The moment I saw his soul clearly. The one where he became my best friend.

My head can't relax against the bench, so Tucker reaches up and unclips my hair. He tosses the clip on the sidewalk.

I think of throwing my clip on the passenger seat of his truck. The look of his sleeping face that first morning that I woke up alone. I'd never been so happy to see another person in all my life and when he wiped my tears in that iHop, I thought, this is the best friend I've ever had.

"I love you," I cry into his mouth.

I never have to wake up alone again.

The front door opens. "Guys?" Serena calls out. "Ella, are you doing the pregnancy thing? We've been taking bets. Please don't take your top off out here. Also, I'm going to put on When Harry Met Sally . It's New Year's themed. Guys? Are you listening? We can see you, this is uncomfortable."

Then comes Callie's voice. "We're doing cake now!"

Tucker's wet, swollen lips hover in front of my face. He announces, "You've still got hours until it's our birthday."

"Wyatt wants cake and he's afraid we're not going to get to it. You know, with the whole pregnancy trap."

He frowns, and I laugh, pushing him off of me. I take his hand and bite back a smirk at Serena's excited face. Tucker knots his fingers in mine. The living room is dark except for the glow of candles on the coffee table. He bumps into my back and says, "I told you to get lemon cake."

Callie walks past us. "When I went to the store yesterday, Ella told me to get chocolate."

Tucker looks at me.

"You should get what you want, too," I tell him.

His face crinkles into a smile. "I am." He lifts my hand to his mouth.

Ritchie scoots to the edge of the couch. Johnny and Jen come in from the kitchen with plates and forks. Serena and Wyatt stand on either side of us. The roar of rain outside continues, so they sing Happy Birthday loudly, Johnny jumping in to ensure they specify "Eli and Ella," as we argued about when we were six.

I claimed, "It sounds better to say Ella and Eli!"

He said, "I was born first ."

To our parents, his argument won.

At one o'clock on New Year's Eve, holding hands as twenty-nine year olds, Tucker and I close our eyes and make our wishes. He locks his eyes to mine when we lean forward and blow out thirty striped candles stuck in a grocery store chocolate cake.

I wonder if my mom will take a second look today or tomorrow at the picture of she and Lori, holding their New Year babies.

Tucker kisses my cheek and whispers, "Happy Birthday, Beautiful."

I twist my face to his. "Happy New Year, Elijah."