My Calling (19 page)

Sitting up, I hold Saylor in my arms, quickly scanning her body for injury.
No, no, no…
A dark red liquid seeps through her light blue uniform shirt, forming a small wet spot that is expanding rapidly. I move my hands, trying to apply pressure to her wound but Saylor pushes them away.

“He killed my uncle, didn’t he?” Her voice is weak but all the Saylor sass is there.

One arm wrapped around her torso, I squeeze her tightly while the other hand runs through her hair. Nodding, I answer her question. “Fuck, Saylor, I’m so sorry. I did this, all of this is because of me. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.” I feel like a fuckin’ moron for apologizing because it’s just words. Words that can’t bring back her uncle or take away what she’s experiencing right now.

“Shut up,” she mumbles, a smile toying at her lips.

She gives a small cough and blood trickles over her lips, making them that bright red color that I hate. Using my thumb, I try to wipe it away, only making it worse. Adrenaline pumps through my body and I try to stand up, holding her in my arms to get her help. Saylor pushes on my chest, trying to stop me, both of us knowing it’s too late. The blood continues to flow out of her mouth and I keep trying to wipe it away. Leaning down, I press my lips to hers, hoping that’ll do the trick. Saylor faintly pushes her lips against mine, trying to return the kiss.

“Fuck, Saylor, I love you. Don’t leave me, don’t leave me…” Desperation reeks in my voice because I’m about to lose the only good thing that’s ever happened to me. If I don’t have Saylor, I don’t have a reason to live.

Saylor

You know, dying isn’t as scary as I thought it would be. Then again, I’m dying in the arms of a super sexy man that loves me… and I love him. I know what love is, I experienced it, and I can die a happy woman. Everyone should have ‘fall in love’ on their bucket list and if it’s the only task accomplished, it’s well worth it. I take a deep breath, closing my eyes briefly, but not too long because I want to take in as much of Beck as I can.

When my eyes are closed, I hear Eddie’s voice in the distance, “Sail, Saylor, sail.”

I flutter my eyes, trying to stay conscious but my surroundings are spinning. Luckily, I’m able to focus on Beck’s dark eyes. Those same eyes that were so guarded the first day I met him at work. Now, his eyes tell a different story, it’s one of remorse and sadness but that’s not what I want to see.

“Be free, Beck,” I whisper. “They’ve taken everyone important to you, be free.”

Wetness fills his eyes and a single tear trickles out, running down his nose and landing on my cheek. Pain rips through my body, burning and numbing me to actually realizing how much I should hurt, but when Beck’s tear touches my skin, I get all the feels as though his emotions are transferred to me. He shakes his head, refusing to listen to what I’m saying.

“Beck…you and Eddie… were the only two men… who ever loved me, put me before themselves.” I muster all the energy I can to my right hand so I can raise it and touch his cheek briefly before it drops back down. “Don’t blame yourself… don’t be upset… I saw him, I knew what I walking into… You
are
my calling, Jonathan, I had to save you.”

It’s true. I watched the shooter walk up to the rig and when I saw the two men walking toward the alley, I knew exactly what was happening. When I walked into that alley, I knew one of us wasn’t going to survive and I’d already made up my mind that it wasn’t going to be me. Beck devoted his life to protecting me, gave up everything he ever wanted to keep me alive and now, it’s time to free him.

“Saylor,” Beck chokes out my name over his tears. “Don’t go, don’t leave me,” he begs. 

Beck’s lips are bright red against his pasty white cheeks. I try to laugh because it reminds me of how much he hated it when I wore lipstick like that. I lift my hand again, ever so slowly and run my finger over his bottom lip.

“Why do you get to wear all the color and I don’t?” I tease, gasping for air as I do.

Beck shakes his head and opens his mouth, trying to speak, but no words come out. Tear after tear falls down his cheek. I nuzzle my head against his chest, taking comfort in my final moments.

Through his tears, Beck whispers, “I love you, Saylor, so fuckin’ much.”

He leans down, touching his lips to my own as I take my last breath. I smile as I close my eyes and move closer to Eddie’s voice. Not a bad way to die at all, in the arms of the man I love and headed toward the man who taught me how to. From one calling to another…

EPILOGUE

Beck

“Morning, Beck. Here’s your coffee, you’ll have to take it to go since we’re going out for breakfast.” Saylor sets the hot pink sassy pants mug in front of me, giving me a quick peck as she does.

I shake my head, groaning. “How the hell did this thing follow us to the afterlife?”

Saylor shrugs, grabbing her purse. “I grabbed it when I ran back to my apartment. I knew it was your favorite.”

That’s how Saylor copes with our new environment—pretending nothing’s changed. In some ways, it honestly hasn’t but in others, it’s a whole new realm that we’re all still getting used to. Chuckling, I take a sip of the delicious coffee in this mug. Thankfully in life after death, there’s no such thing as bad coffee. I follow Saylor out to our garage so we can get on our way to eat.

“Dammit, Saylor, let me drive,” I grumble, irritated that she’s already jumped behind the wheel before I’d even sat down my sassy pants mug.

“What’s wrong, Beck? Your sassy pants in a twist?” Saylor mocks me, making fake pouty lips.

I roll my eyes and climb in the passenger side. I reach over and wrap my hand around her thigh. My fingers slide toward the inside of her legs and she giggles but doesn’t dare push them away. Saylor leans toward me, kissing me over the console of her green Mustang. My fingers move to her head, slipping through her hair and pulling lightly. God, this never gets old. I could kiss this woman forever and that’s what I intend to do. A car horn interrupts our kiss. From the car in front of us that we’re blocking the driveway, an arm hangs out the window, flipping us the bird.

I shake my head, laughing. “Damn, he’s a grumpy old man.”

Saylor lifts an eyebrow at me as she puts the car in reverse. “Like you have any room to talk, Mr. Grumpy Pants?”

“Drive,” I rumble, letting my hand roam over her denim shorts.

Saylor lets out a moan and then pushes my hand away. “You’d better stop since you know you won’t be able to finish.”

Reluctantly, I follow her directions and a few minutes later, we’re pulling up in front of our favorite diner. Saylor leans over, giving me a quick peck before jumping out of the car and running to greet the driver of the car joining us. I smile, watching the two embrace and giving them a moment before I get out of the car.

“Jonathan, I warned you to be respectful with my niece.”

The old man’s hand clamps down on my shoulder and I nod. “Always, Eddie.”

Saylor links arms with each of us, standing in the middle and moving us toward our eating destination. “Oh, Uncle Eddie, Beck is nothing but a gentleman,” she says, looking at me and giving a wink. I laugh because we both know neither of us are very well-mannered behind closed doors.

The bad news is Saylor lost her life six months ago to the day. The good news is I only spent ten minutes alone without her breathing. Argento fired off more than one shot, hitting both of us only seconds apart. I was so fixated on Saylor and losing her that I didn’t even notice my own life was slowly slipping away from me at the same time. The best part of the whole situation is that I’m free now, we’re all free. No more living our life in fear.

As for where we are now, well, I’m not really sure. I wouldn’t exactly say it’s heaven because as Saylor would say, “calories still exist,” but it’s definitely not hell. It’s a lot like how things were back on Earth, minus the bad shit. Saylor and I were reunited with Eddie, who operates a garage exactly like the one he had before and I help him there. I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed working with him until I was up to my elbows in grease and laughing with the old man.

Obviously, there’s no need for paramedics here, but Saylor’s found a new calling. When children arrive, she’s their surrogate mother until they find someone from their biological family. It burdens my heart that Saylor was never able to have children of her own. The love she shows these kids is unconditional and never ending. Those kids love her just as much as she loves them and I have to admit there’s a few of them that I’ve grown pretty fond of myself.

Eddie walks ahead of us to the table and I grab Saylor’s hand, pulling her to face me. Her eyes are bright, radiating the happy state she’s constantly in. I slip my hands over her waist and kiss her gently since her uncle is nearby. When I pull away, Saylor’s grin is even bigger than normal.

“What was that for?”

“Because I love you.”

Saylor giggles, reminding me of those days when I first met her. “Aren’t you glad I listened to my calling?”

I laugh and nod. Saylor listened to her calling that caused us both to die and live in this constant state of happiness. Saylor Warner was my calling like I was hers and now we have eternity to share together.

Saylor

I hear Beck’s 1970 Buick GSX pull up in the driveway. My nervous pacing increases as I wait for him to come in the door. Considering everything we dealt with when we were living, it’s kind of funny that I’m nervous about what I’m about to tell him. Six months ago, I found out the truth about who killed my uncle. I didn’t know if I’d ever be able to forgive Beck then I made the best decision of my life when I followed him in that alley which led us to our reunion with Eddie.

“Hey, Say. How was your day?”

I smile as he calls me by my ‘pet name,’ which it is far that. Beck isn’t a ‘babe,’ ‘sweetheart,’ ‘honey’ kind of guy so ‘Say’ is the closest to an endearing term that he’ll ever use. Beck wraps his arms around my waist from behind me, my back to his chest. He dips his head, parting his mouth and dragging his tongue over my earlobe.

Closing my eyes, I sigh and wiggle against him. “Don’t get me wrong, Beck, I love what you’re doing, but we aren’t alone tonight.”

“No?”

His voice doesn’t reveal an ounce of irritation because he’s used to it. Luckily, it doesn’t happen often but when children join our world, I bring them into the home that Beck and I share, which now has a permanent nursery. Beck’s shown me a side of him I never knew with his compassion but then again, he sacrificed everything for me so it honestly doesn’t surprise me.

I nod nervously and take his hand. “Come on, I want you to meet him.”

Beck follows me down the hallway of our four bedroom house, the walls lined with the happy memories we had from our lives before. We get to the nursery and I take a step into the room, moving to the side for Beck to pass. Not waiting for me, Beck makes his way to the crib, picking up the dark haired infant and immediately fawning over him, melting my ovaries even more than he normally does. Tucking the little boy under his arm in a football hold, he picks up a bottle and begins to feed him.

He turns to me with raised eyebrows. “Do I even want to know his story?”

In the beginning, both Beck and I wanted to know these kids’ stories about how they died but it got to be too depressing. Whether we knew or not, we loved them all the same so we stopped asking and kept loving. This time is different though so I take a deep breath and walk to Beck, replacing his hand with mine on the bottle so he can put his arm around my waist. The three of us stand there like parents do with their newborn, both of us gazing adoringly into the little boy’s eyes.

Softly, I whisper three little words that will change our future. “He’s our son…”

Beck squeezes my waist. “Saylor, I told you not to get attached. Of course, we’ll treat him like our own, but let’s not call him that.”

Slowly, I lift my head so that I’m looking into his eyes. “No, Beck, he’s ours. His parents won’t ever make it here, he’s our son.”

After life is pretty straight forward. Beck and I can still practice our babymaking skills but we will never procreate. Everyone tries to stay with their own families from their lives before. So far, every child we’ve ever taken care of has had a loved one appear within hours of their arrival to welcome them into their new lives, but this baby is different.

“Saylor—”

“It’s Argento’s son,” I blurt out.

Beck’s jaw tightens and he shakes his head. I reach out for the baby but Beck pulls away from me, taking a seat in the rocking chair and staring down into the child’s face. He lightly runs his fingertip over the baby’s thick eyebrows, his head still moving back and forth in disbelief.

Butterflies battle in my stomach and I drop to my knees in front of Beck. My hands on his thighs, I search for the right words to say. Argento is the reason my entire life is here now. He’s also the reason his only son is here, too. I have to convince Beck this is the right decision but my mind is coming up empty. With perfect timing, the little boy coos, interrupting the silence and bringing a smile to both mine and Beck’s face.

“You’re going to be a fantastic mother, Saylor,” Beck says, moving his hand behind my head and pulling me toward him so he can kiss my forehead.

“And you a fantastic father,” I whisper.

Beck laughs. “Sure, whatever, I don’t know what the hell I’m doing.”

I look up at him with a smile. “Me either, but we’ll figure this out together?”

He nods. “You know it… this is our calling, right?”

My smile spreads and I kiss him softly. “Definitely, Beck, this is our calling.”

THE END