Devil's Despair Box Set: Books 1-3 (108 page)

Travis stands on the other side. He never moved. When he looks up from the floor, he smiles—a full smile that he rarely lets others see. “You look better than I thought you would.”

“I feel better than I thought I would,” I tell him. I smacking the envelope to his chest and he catches it as I explain, “Ya know, if I’d picked Devon over you, this letter would be a little awkward to read.”

Grabbing my wrist, pinning it against his chest, he answers, “If you’d just read the fuckin’ letter it would’ve saved me a fuck load of headaches. Her too, probably, considering you know she’s watchin.’”

“Didn’t think that through, did I?”

“Do you ever?”

Shaking my head, I agree with him. “So, you and Bean conspired before she died? When and where was I?”

“Correction, Bean conspired. I was just dragged into it. I don’t know where you were but she trapped me. I couldn’t tell her no; I never could.”

“Do you think she’s happy right now?”

He grabs me around the shoulders; my hands grab his waist and hold on tight. “Yes, Sarah. I think she’s over the fuckin’ moon right now. All her kids are grown up and happy.”

“She wants babies for her to watch.”

“Christ.”

“I imagine she probably wants a few.”

“Jesus.”

“Yeah. I gotta find the right guy,” I jest.

“You probably should.”

“Wonder how long Hayden and Lacey plan to be married.”

“Wonder how long it’ll take you to figure out when to stop sayin’ shit like that.”

“I’ll stop now.”

“Thank fuck,” he breathes, pulling me tighter to him. “Everyone’s on the other side of the door waiting. You need a minute or are you good?”

“I’m good.”

Following Travis out the door and into the living room, the first person I lock eyes with is Ace. He looks nervous as he takes in my face. I’m sure I look like hell from crying, but they aren’t tears of anger or grief.

“Ace,” I start, as the others listen and wait.

“Yeah, squirt?”

“I read it.”

“I know,” he replies and looks around at our friends for support.

Rae is standing next to Toby and Marlee. Hayden has Lacey wrapped around his middle and I feel Travis standing behind me.

“Are you okay?” Ace asks quietly.

I shake my head and will the tears not to pour, but in the presence of all Bean’s ever given me in the form of those she loved the most, I can’t help but let them fall.

Looking down, I tell everyone who’s listening, “She’s not coming back.”

The room stays quiet, but I hear Ace’s boots on the carpet, heading toward me. Grabbing me around the shoulders, I let my forehead hit his strong chest for comfort. “I know she’s not, but I think she’s still here.”

I let out a heart-wrenching sob that Ace catches. “I think so, too.”

Exhaling a sigh of relief, Ace explains it. “I’m so fuckin’ glad you read it.”

“She wants me to have babies,” I tell him.

“Fuck,” he mumbles against my hair.

“Are you going to be able to handle that?”

I hear Rae laugh and Marlee giggle quietly. Lacey exhales and says, “Let’s talk about Sarah having babies another time.”

Trying to regroup, I look up at Ace and offer a heartfelt smile. “I’m really glad she never suffered. She didn’t deserve that.”

“No, squirt, she didn’t.”

Ace nods at Travis behind me, and then pushes on my shoulders to get me to move. I feel Travis’s arms around my waist, pulling him to me. Ace’s eyes are watery, but they look the same as mine. He’s no longer lost in sadness or grief. He’s basking in relief.

“Let’s go!” Marlee exclaims, clapping her hands. “Brian ordered fireworks and they’re about to start.”

“Fireworks,” Ace repeats with an eye roll as he grabs Rae against his side and starts to usher the others out.

“Ready?” Trav asks in my ear.

“Yep.”

“You need a few minutes?”

“Nope.”

“Then let’s go.”

* * *

Hours later, we’re all lying on our backs on the beach, looking at the sky, each of us under light blankets. The night wind is cool as it brings in the mist from the ocean.

“
He
kissed
me,
” I explain to the others, remembering the night of my drunken stupor after I got arrested for public intoxication. “I called Hayden to come get me, but he sent Travis.”

“Fuck yeah, I did,” I hear Hayden return. “I wasn’t about to bail your ass out.”

Lacey, settled in Hayden’s arms on their own blanket beside ours, jumps to my defense. “I was pissed about that, Sarah.”

“Very,” Hayden adds.

Travis squeezes me against him before telling the others, “I did not kiss her that night. She was so God damn drunk, I wanted to drown her crazy ass.”

“Whatever. We kissed.”

“It was sloppy,” he replies and the others laugh.

Ace pipes in from the other end of our crowd. He and Rae are on the opposite end of the row of blankets. Rae set up the sleeping arrangements to keep Ace and me at a distance. “I don’t want to hear this shit. Sarah’s still a virgin.”

Travis coughs to control his laughter and I bury my head against his chest to control mine.

“Travis and I made out at Hayden’s wedding, too. It wasn’t sloppy. It was hot as fuck,” I confess. “We were both drunk that night.”

I hear Ace’s voice more clearly than before so I peek my head up above the others lying between us in silence. “You did what?”

Hayden turns his head to me and whispers, “Sarah, I hadn’t told him the particulars, so maybe you should stop talking.”

“No,” Ace corrects Hayden. “I’d like to hear what I missed.”

Travis puts in next, “No, man. You don’t. Let it go.”

I hear Ace’s heavy sigh then Rae’s voice trying to soothe him. She’s using his name to calm his nerves and I smile, knowing her efforts are pointless. It doesn’t work when Trav does it to me and I’m sure Ace feels the same.

“What do you think Bean’s doing?” Toby asks.

“Playin’ cards,” Ace says in unison with Travis.

“I don’t believe that,” Hayden adds. “I bet she’s cooking.”

“I miss her chicken parm,” Toby says. “She never forgot to invite me over for that.”

“I miss her cookies,” Lacey adds. “That woman was hell on those chocolate chips.”

“I miss
her,
” I whisper to Travis.

“I know,” he whispers back.

Sitting up, I lean my elbows on his chest. “Thank you for listening to her. Whatever she had to say the day she gave you her blessing was important to her.”

Travis’s fingers run through my hair and in the light of the first firework exploding above us I see all the love I’ll ever need in those big green eyes. “
She
knew I loved you, Sarah. She was just trying to tell me how
much
I loved you.”

“Who are we going to go to for advice now?” I ask him, thinking no one’s listening.

Hayden heard me, though. “Me. I’m good at that shit. I’ll handle all the advice that needs to be given from now on.”

Marlee laughs out loud, then Rae joins in.

“Fuck that,” Ace says. “We’ll figure out whatever we gotta figure out, but you’re the last person to be giving advice.”

I look down at Trav again and he winks. He knows as well as I do how important Hayden was in getting and keeping us together.

“We’re leaving soon,” Hayden tells us, his tone not up for debate.

Lacey gently explains his reasoning, but she doesn’t have to. We already know. “Liv’s not used to sleeping away from home so Hayden’s already made arrangements to pick her up.”

“I get it,” Marlee speaks in his defense. “I miss Jordan and Madd, too.”

“Deck’s not home tonight,” Ace says and I feel the groan from Trav’s chest as I lay my head back down.

“You’re leaving too, aren’t you?” he asks.

“Unless you want to listen to Rae, we probably should.”

Travis closes his eyes and takes a breath. “No. I’ve heard Rae before. How about you go before you have to hear Sarah.”

Oh my God!

I suck in a breath and wait for Ace to climb over four people to get to Trav. Insinuating to my hotheaded brother that Trav and I are having sex isn’t going to go over well.

“We’ll never ever speak of that again,” Ace states loud and clear, as the others remain stoically quiet.

“Thank fuck,” Trav returns.

“Amen,” Toby states.

“I like talking about it,” Hayden adds before being elbowed in the ribs by Lacey. “You people are so sexually closed off. It’s not an epidemic, for fuck’s sakes. It’s sex.”

“Hayden!” Lacey snaps. “Let’s go.”

“Yeah, let’s do that,” Ace returns.

After the others are out of sight and gone, Travis and I continue to lie on our blanket and listen as the waves crash into the beach.

Turning my head toward Trav’s, I stare at the side of his face and let the moon offer me a glimpse of his contentment. “So, you really think Bean’s playing cards?”

“I think so. Bridge or some shit.”

“Me, too,” I agree.

Leaning up on his elbow, Trav looks down and smiles at me. His hand moves the hair from my forehead and he bends to softly kiss it.

I grab his wrist, holding it in place. “I like when you kiss me.”

“This is good,” he replies. “I’ll be doing it a lot for as long as you let me.”

“I love you, Travis.”

“I love you, Sarah.”

The rest of the night we lie in silence, holding each other and watching the night sky. It’s the most quiet and calm I’ve ever felt in my entire life.

It’s not until the next morning that I find a solitary diamond ring resting on top of a note that lays on Travis’s pillow next to mine.

Marry me.

Not today or tomorrow or five years from now. Do it when we’re ready.

Don’t marry me because it’s what’s the others would want

Or because it’s what’s supposed to happen next.

Marry me because I love you.

Let me rub your feet while you watch TV

And I’ll let you rock me to sleep ’til I’m ninety.

Let me always wake up as happy as I did today.

And I promise you’ll never have a reason to remember each time I’ve kissed you.

Because I’ll do it the rest of our lives.

I was lost, Sarah.

And because of you, I’ll never be missing again.

- Travis

SERIES EPILOGUE

Ace

“NO, REALLY. I
wanna see it,” I tell Raegan as she sits in fury staring at Decklan’s cell phone.

The kid is only closing in on nine years old, but we got him a cell phone so he could contact us when he needed to be picked up from school or practices. Rae’s trust in strangers has gotten better, but she’s still a nervous mother.

“That little tramp!” she returns, hitting buttons as if she’s about to respond to the text message. “She’s thirteen! My son is eight!”

Raegan Simmons has turned my life upside down. When I brought her home with me to California, I had no idea the events I had set into motion. Without even knowing, I had begun the most significant chapter of my life; my forever.

To this day, Rae’s defiant and challenging disposition refuses to waver. She’s loving and caring, and for whatever reason—she’s
mine.
I wake up each day looking into those beautiful blue eyes and thank fucking God for her ever-present resilience and strength to persevere through a past that left her beaten and scarred and look to a future filled with my unwavering need to protect it.

She accepts me as I am. After all these years she’s never once tried to change me. She’s taught me to realize that life doesn’t stop for anyone and heartache is a temporary feeling that only strengthens our resolve to find a higher purpose.

Grabbing the phone from her pissed-off and shaky hands, I look down at the text and smile. We’re raising a heartbreaker in the making.

Jennifer 08:32 p.m.
Tell your parents we’re going to the skate park. We’ll go to Jamie’s instead.

Turning off the screen, I look at Rae who continues to seethe. “You know what this means, don’t you?”

“That Jennifer may have cooties and now she wants to give them to my son?”

“No, it means girls think Deck’s hot,” I answer with a laugh.

“Ace,” she starts, trying to maintain her composure. “I don’t think of Deck being ‘hot’ at his age as a good thing.”

“I lost my virginity—”

“At twelve!” she screams. “I know this. He’s grounded forever,” she finishes with defeat.

I’ll never be able to repay what she and Deck both gifted me. I can only count my blessings and appreciate every good and bad happening we’ll face going forward.

Our
son, Decklan, is mine in all ways. The bond he and I share is solid; the love we both have for his mother remains the pillar by which we stand together, strong and certain. Like his mother, his dedication to those he loves is worthy and admirable.

Settling her down on the couch next to me I tell her, “I love you, Rae. But you’re being ridiculous.”

“I love you, Ace. But you’re being stupid.”

I know there are many battles that lie ahead, but I’ll gladly fight my way through and win anything that threatens to tear it apart. My family makes my life worth living to its fullest and I never believed that was possible.

* * *

Hayden

Sometimes it takes another person to offer their guidance and belief in you for you to find the strength it takes to see yourself through their eyes.

My love for Lacey didn’t come easy, but she believed in the person I was destined to be, not the person I once thought of myself as being. My life has been filling, picture by picture, memory by memory, because she was strong enough for the both of us to get us through to what may have never been. I live each day content in the happiness she’s brought into my life.

“What are you still doing in here?” Lacey asks, standing in the doorway to Olivia’s room as she watches me pace back and forth with Liv in my arms.

“She’s still warm.”

“Hayden, kids get sick. She’ll be okay.”

“She’s not supposed to get sick. We’re careful, Lace. No one with germs gets close enough to infect her.”