Love Is Crazy (Love Is… #1) (15 page)

They call for boarding as I read through a slew of texts from Maya and Chelsea, excited to see me, worried about my concussion, eager to hear all the dirty details of my time here. Bolstered by the text from Dominic and all the love flowing from my sisters flowing across the country to me, I smile like an idiot as I crutch my way down to the plane.

* * *

T
he flight is
long and awful. My head hurts so much I just want to cry. Okay, so much I
do
cry. My foot throbs and I can’t prop it up on anything. My heart aches for Dominic. It’s like I can’t breathe without him. Like now that I know what it means to be whole, I can’t manage the thought of going back to only being half of myself. Between the head and the foot and the heart, I am nothing but pain. I want to drink myself into a deep sleep. Drink until I laugh from the sheer absurdity of it all. But, that’s not the smart way to handle a concussion. Instead, I drink plenty of water and take some ibuprofen and hide my face so no one can see my tears.

Chelsea and Maya are waiting for me at the gate and I’m carried out of the airport on a cloud of sisterly love. If they notice my tear-stained cheeks and red-rimmed eyes, they don’t say anything. They just load me in the car and get me home where they stretch me out on my couch, prop my aching foot up and cover the cast in bags of ice to ease the pain.

They stay and chat and I avoid breaking down in front of them by some miracle that I don’t understand. I tell them about the beauty of the place, about how perfect Dominic is, hell, I even tell them about the plane sex. I give them everything but the hole in my heart because that will only fuel their fire. Give them reason to remind me that they were right and I was wrong and as perfect as Dominic is for me, he still didn’t meet their criteria and I’m here, left broken in his wake, needing my sisters to help put me together again.

When they leave, I cry again. Big ugly tears and sobs that feel like my heart wants out of my chest so it can show me just how broken it is. How can I miss him this much? How can he already be so entrenched in my soul that being without him hurts like this? I text him, needing some sort of contact between us.

I don’t wait long for his reply.

And in that instant I am both put back together again and destroyed completely. I pull the notebook out of my bag. Read what I wrote sitting on that bench on the rim of the Grand Canyon. I scribble notes in the margin. Cross out words and make revision. Rewrite it until it’s late and I can’t see through my exhaustion, but the words on the page are an exact replication of my time there. The beauty, the grandeur. A perfect reminder of everything I want to be from this point forward.

A traveler.

A doer.

Someone who takes chances and hops out of ruts.

Someone who loves and is loved in return.

I tear the papers out of the notebook and hobble over to stick them to my fridge with my Grand Canyon magnet. I pour a shot of whiskey into my new shot glass and down it, my heart crying out for Dominic as I taste him on my lips.

W
eeks pass
and I get my cast off. Suffer through physical therapy appointments and finally start walking without a limp. Dominic and I are in constant contact. Texts. Emails. Instagram. Skype. We talk late into the night and early into the morning and the whole time I’m at work. We’re so connected, the only thing I miss is his touch.

And holy hell, do I ever miss his touch.

There’s a blank spot in his schedule coming up. And a few weeks after that, another one. Originally, he was going to spend those weeks doing what he does. Finding odd places to pitch a tent and camp out under the stars. Grabbing a cheap hotel room if the weather is bad. But now? He’s coming to spend those blank spots with me.

Just thinking about it makes me giddy.

Our conversations have strayed from the surface area stuff. Dominic has started asking me questions about
why
I think the things I do,
why
I want what I think I want and I have learned more about myself in these last weeks of trying to answer his questions than I have in most of my life. And in return, he’s answered my own questions. And his answers match my answers and I have come to realize that he’s going to understand me better than anyone in my life because he is just like me. And I am just like him.

And it’s so fucking good to be understood. To just say something and not have to go back and explain what I meant. Or take it back or try to explain away the weirdness. He and I are wanderers and wonderers and our souls know what it means to yearn to see and experience. While Chelsea worries about me, Dominic encourages me and wow. It makes all the difference in the world.

I am vibrant. I am alive. I am happier than I have ever been until the next day when I’m happier still.

I told him about the article I wrote and he can’t wait to read it. I’m equal parts exhilarated and terrified about having his eyes in my head like that. The words on that page? They’re raw. They’re me. They’re a window into my soul because my hopes and dreams are wrapped up in writing and what if he laughs? Or he’s confused? Or he just shakes his head and forces a smile, pats my knee and tells me it’s great, it really is, while I can tell he’s thinking the exact opposite…

I think the last would hurt the most.

I’ve written every day since I came home. Sometimes little bits of fiction, but mostly, bits and pieces about who I am and what I want. Honest, hard truth kind of stuff. Sometimes, I Google some of the places he’s been and stare at images, try to write something like the article I have still stuck to my fridge with a Grand Canyon magnet. But, a picture never does the place justice. Even his pictures. I use color words to describe the sky and the ground. Trite explanations about the beauty or the harsh rawness of a place. But I never come close to capturing the feeling of the place like I did in my fridge paper because you can’t feel through a picture and I need the
feeling
to write.

He’ll be here tomorrow and I can’t sleep tonight. I take a shot of whiskey in my souvenir shot glass and put myself to bed, counting the hours between us.

* * *

“
T
his is really fucking good
, Dakota.” Dominic shuffles through the papers in his hands. My Grand Canyon article.

I’m perched on my couch, my butt all the way on the edge, my hands clasped firmly in my lap so I don’t fidget myself into oblivion. I watched him as he read, trying to discern all the different nuances of his expression. His pursed eyebrows. The way he sucked on his bottom lip. The tiny little twitch of a smile.

And now he hits me with those deep eyes, shining with awe and wonder. “Really, really good.”

“You think so?” I slide even more forward and honestly, I don’t even know how I’m still sitting.

“Hell yes.” He shakes his head, his mouth open. “You’ve got a gift.”

“Yeah. It’s called you.” I want in his arms. I want him to open them up and invite me in. He’s been here at my apartment for all of twenty minutes. I greeted him with my lips, tasting him, touching him and the very next thing I did was show him the article. But now that he’s seen it, I need to touch him again.

He laughs and shuffles through the papers, rereading certain passages. Finally, he puts them down on the armrest and stands up, opening his arms to me. “Come here.”

I rush him. Crush my body to his, breathe him in and revel in the way his arms fit so well around me. I am grounded with him here. Made whole. Anchored. And so totally set free.

And then his lips find mine and there’s urgency in his kiss. His hands in my hair. My hands under his shirt, finding that skin I crave so much.

He grinds his hips into me, his erection pressing into my stomach and fire rushes through my veins. We tear at each other’s clothing. Pulling away the thin layers of cloth still separating us, desperate to come together. Desperate to be connected again. Two becomes one, joined at the soul, my body for him and his for me.

I lose myself to oblivion of physical and emotional and spiritual pleasure and call out his name as he drives into me again and again, my name a prayer on his lips. I meet his eyes as an orgasm tears through me, just in time for him to shudder and come. He holds my gaze and I hold his and never in my life have I felt so complete.

* * *

W
e are tangled
up in each other in my bed. Legs and arms and sheets twisting together until we are one. He runs a hand through my hair while I wipe away tears.

“Don’t cry,” he says, worry in his voice.

“I’m sorry.” I sniff. “I just really missed you.”

“But I’m here.”

“I know. That’s why I’m crying. I’m relieved.”

I want to tell him that I can’t fathom the fact that I only have him for a few days. That I don’t know how I’m going to go back to surviving without him. That as much as I love being with him, I don’t know how to go about reconciling with the fact that most of the time, I’m not with him. How can I live a life that is all about waiting for him to show up, ever so briefly?

I don’t know how to say all that, not without ruining this moment. “I love you,” I say and freeze. It’s the truth. So true, it might as well be a force of nature. But talk about ruining a moment. What if he doesn’t feel the same?

Dominic pulls away from me, the sheets hissing underneath his bare skin. His eyebrows are pulled taut, an angry dark line over his even darker eyes. I feel my face mimicking his as panic strums in my chest. Eyebrows tight with worry. Mouth puckered.

I take a breath, looking for the right words to take it all back when Dominic smiles.

“You promise?” he asks.

I nod, tears welling again. “With all that I am.”

He pulls me close and wraps me up tight. “I love you too, Dakota London. For all the things that make you who you are with all the things that make me who I am.”

And in that moment I am crushed with the weight of my feelings for this man, desperate to know that we will go on forever, and totally unsure how we can make that happen.