The Fading Trilogy: Fading, Freeing, Falling: Includes 2 BONUS short stories: Hoping and Finding Forever (146 page)

After talking everything out this afternoon, Candace was drained and had a headache, so I gave her some aspirin, and she’s been upstairs sleeping for the past hour. I go ahead and make all the phone calls to arrange for her belongings to be shipped back here. Her luggage should be at the airport tomorrow morning, so at least she’ll have her clothes.

It’s amazing how quickly everything can change. One minute, I thought I’d lost her and the next, she’s back here and agreeing to move in with me. But I don’t want to waste any more time. I want to pick up where we left off, and it seems she wants the exact same thing.

When I notice the sun starting to set, I call in an order for dinner at the little Italian place down the street that Candace likes so much, figuring she could use a solid meal after the day she’s had. As I set the phone down, I hear a ringing from Candace’s purse that’s lying on the coffee table. I pull out her phone and answer it when I see that it’s Jase calling.

“Hey.”

“Ryan?” he asks.

“Yeah.”

“Sorry, man. I thought I was calling Candace but accidentally dialed you,” he says.

“No, this is Candace’s phone.”

“Huh?”

“She’s here,” I tell him, and I know he’s completely thrown off when he questions, “What do you mean she’s there?”

“After you called me this morning, she showed up at my door. She didn’t get on the plane. She’s been here ever since.”

“What happened? Is she not going?”

Sitting down on the couch, I tell him, “No. She’s staying. She took the spot at PNB.”

“Is she happy?”

“She’s happy,” I say before letting him know, “She’s moving in.”

“With you?”

“Yeah.”

He takes a pause before saying, “I knew she’d make the right choice.”

Laughing, I say, “She nearly destroyed me in the process.”

He begins to laugh with me, and then asks, “Can I talk to her?”

“She has a headache and is sleeping right now.”

“Just have her give me a call later, okay?”

“No problem.”

“I’m really happy you guys worked things out. She wasn’t the same without you.”

“Thanks, man. You’ve been a really good friend to me.”

“No thanks needed. You guys have a good night and give her a kiss for me. I didn’t know what I was going to do without her.”

“Me neither. Talk to you later,” I say before we hang up.

Walking upstairs, I step into the bedroom and look at the only love I ever want to know, curled up in my sheets. She’s peaceful and quiet as she sleeps. She needs this after the emotional day she’s had. We spent hours in this bed, hashing everything out, filling in all the gaps, and settling all the questions. But it needed to happen, and finally, for the first time, everything feels whole.

Candace and I finally drag ourselves downstairs for some much needed coffee after making love all morning. I’ll never get my fill of her, and I made sure she knew that.

She’s a little needy this morning, but I like that. I’ve missed that—her need to have me close. It’s to be expected with everything going on, so I hold her hand as we walk downstairs and into the kitchen.

“All I have is milk, babe. We’ll have to stop by the store to get you your creamer and stock up on groceries.”

“When did you get this?” she questions, and when I look over to her, she’s checking out the cappuccino machine.

“My mom. She got it for my birthday.”

“Birthday?”

Grabbing the milk to pour into her coffee, I say, “Yeah.”

“When was your birthday?” she asks as I hand her the mug and head over to the couch.

“Last month. May nineteenth.”

“Oh,” she says with a twinge of sadness.

“Babe, don’t let it bother you. It’s really not a big deal.”

Taking her eyes off of her mug, she looks up at me as she rests her back against the arm of the couch and says, “It does bother me. I feel like I’ve missed so much time with you.”

“You weren’t missing much. Nothing happened. Everything was literally in slow motion the whole time.”

“I still feel bad that I wasn’t here for your birthday.”

Setting my coffee down on the end table, I take hers as well, setting it aside as I pull her over to me and fold her in my arms. “None of that matters, so just forget it, okay?”

“I can’t just forget it.”

“Would it make you feel better if I told you that I was with you on my birthday?”

She pops her head up and stares at me with question. “What do you mean?”

“I saw you the night before,” I tell her. “I went to see you dance.”

“You were there?”

“Nothing would have kept me from seeing you that night,” I tell her and then kiss her forehead. “You were amazing. I couldn’t take my eyes off of you.”

“I didn’t think you were there. I saw your mom afterward, but I had no clue.”

“You saw my mom?”

“Yeah. I ran into her as I was leaving.”

“She never told me that,” I say, but then remember telling my mom that we weren’t going to mention Candace again. I never gave her a chance to tell me.

“I felt awful.”

“Why? What did she say?”

“All the right things, but it was hard to see her because I was missing her. She drove all that way and then I told her that I needed space. It just hurt too much,” she explains.

“I know she wasn’t expecting anything. She just really wanted to see you dance. I told her not to come, but she insisted.”

“I miss her,” she says as she rests her head on my shoulder. “I feel like I should apologize or something.”

“For what?” I ask with a light chuckle. “You didn’t do anything, babe. If anyone should be apologizing, it’s me, so stop thinking that you did something wrong, ‘cause you didn’t.”

She nods her head, unconvinced, but I don’t push. Instead, I offer, “Why don’t we go visit her in a couple of weeks for Fourth of July weekend?”

Her smile shows off her dimple when she says, “I’d like that.”

“I’ll give her a call later today.”

“Speaking of calls, I need to call Kimber. My car is at her parents’ house. We should probably go pick it up today.”

“I’m gonna go grab a shower, so why don’t you call her, and we can pick it up after we go to the airport to get your bags.”

“I don’t have any clothes,” she tells me. “Maybe Jase can bring me some. Crap!”

“What?”

“I was supposed to call Jase when I got to New York last night. He doesn’t know I’m here,” she panics.

“He does. I talked to him yesterday when you were napping. I just forgot to tell you.”

“You talked to him? What did he say?”

Giving her a smirk, I tell her, “He said he was glad you made the right choice.”

She pokes me in the ribs as she whines, “No he didn’t.”

“I swear, he did,” I laugh and then stand up. “Make your phone calls. I’m gonna go get ready.”

Once I’m out of the shower and dressed, Candace walks into the room and says, “Jase is on his way.”

“Did you get in touch with Kimber?”

Flopping down on the bed, she says, “Yeah. Her parents aren’t home, but she gave me the code to the garage,” in a dull voice.

Walking over to the bed, I look down at her and ask, “What’s wrong?”

“She just doesn’t get it.”

“Get what?”

Candace sits up and tells me, “She said that I was throwing everything away. She was annoyed when I told her I wasn’t gonna move back in with her. It’s just hard because she doesn’t know you. All she saw was how upset I was when we weren’t together. She knows that you kept that secret from me, but she doesn’t know how far I’ve come this year and that it was mostly because of you. She never saw how bad it was, and now all she has is this tainted idea of you.”

“Maybe she just needs time to get to know us together.”

“But I feel like she doesn’t even know me. We used to be close, but so much has happened this year, and she wasn’t around,” she says. “I’m just . . .” She drops her head when she admits, “I’m not the same person. I wish I could be, but I’m just not.”

“That’s not a bad thing like I know you’re thinking it is. The cause of it is the only thing that’s bad. But it’s like I told you before, there isn’t a damn thing about who you are now that you should be ashamed of. You’re perfect to me,” I tell her, and I can see that she still struggles with this concept, but I’ll keep reminding her every day if I have to.

We’re interrupted when the doorbell rings, and Candace jumps off the bed, saying, “Jase is here,” as she flies down the stairs.

When I make it to the top of the stairs, she is already in his arms. I smile at the sight of her as I start making my way down.

“So what the hell happened after I dropped you off?” he asks her as I take the bag out of his hand and set it by the stairs.

“I realized that all my worries about leaving were more about my fears of losing Ryan than they were of moving to New York,” she tells him as she sits on the couch, and I walk over to join her.

“So now what?” he asks as he takes a seat in the chair.

“I’m gonna sign with PNB on Monday.”

“So, no New York?”

“Not right now,” she says. “I feel like I need more time here, where I’m comfortable. I just want to put the past few months behind me and have things settled again.”

“You talk to Kimber?”

“A little bit ago. She didn’t seem happy that I was moving in here,” Candace responds as I slip my arm around her.

“I think she just feels left out of everything. All of us have been through a lot, and she wasn’t around. And let’s face it, she has a skewed perception of Ryan, and she barely even knows Mark. And now Mark and I are about to move in together, and you and Ryan are too. She’s just kinda out of the loop.”

“You’re moving in with Mark?” I ask, having had no clue, and both Candace and Jase give me a look as if I should already know this. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“I thought you knew,” Jase says.

“How would I have known if you didn’t tell me?”

“Sorry, I guess with everything going on, I just never brought it up,” he says.

“That’s great, man. I just didn’t know, that’s all.”

Candace gives me a smile and then turns back to Jase and says, “Anyways, I’m just not really sure where we stand.”

“I suggested that maybe we should all get together so Kimber can get to know me. You and Mark should be there too, though,” I tell him.

“That’s probably the best thing to do at this point,” Jase says as he looks to Candace.

“Okay, then. I’ll call her later and see when she’s free.”

Jase leans back in the chair and lets out a long breath, saying, “I’m relieved, girl.”

She lets out a giggle when she asks, “Why?”

“Because I hated the thought of not having you here. I’ve been a mess, and Mark has been stuck dealing with me.”

“Mark isn’t stuck. He loves you.”

“Still. I’m just glad that you’re staying and that you’re happy.”

Candace looks over to me and then back to Jase, saying, “Me too.”

After picking up her car and getting her luggage at the airport, we stopped by the storage unit Candace had rented to keep all the stuff that she wouldn’t have had room for in her apartment in New York. She doesn’t need much since I have everything she could possibly want already at my place, but we picked up a couple of boxes, and now we are shifting things in my room so that all of her belongings have a place.

She’s in the closet, hanging up her clothes, when I hear, “Ryan!”

Rushing in, I see her sitting on the floor, pulling out the canvas from behind the clothes where I had been hiding it.

When she looks up at me, she says, “I thought someone bought this.”

I lean against the doorframe and tell her, “It was me. I bought it.”

As she shakes her head, I say, “Did you really think I would let that hang in anyone’s house but my own?”

“But why is it shoved back here?”

Walking over, I sit down next to her and look at the picture that I haven’t seen in a long time and say, “Because it hurt too much to look at. It only reminded me of everything I lost.” I look at her and slide the picture back against the wall before I kiss her, leaning into her as she lowers herself to the floor.

Grabbing on to my face, she pushes me back slightly when she says, “I can’t believe you bought it.”