drowning in loss, dredged up memories of my own. Suddenly, I saw Tarik standing on the dock that day. His dark hair whipping in the wind. Hiding his eyes. I still remembered the warmth of his palm as he cupped my face and rubbed a stray tear from my cheek. The salty taste of the sea, dry on my lips. The way his hair sifted through my fingers like silk when I reached up to push it out of his eyes.
“Anaya…there is no need for tears,” he whispered into my hair. Every part of me lit up. Burned out of control knowing he was touching me like this where everyone could see. “I’ll return. It’s only three days, love.”
I gripped his shirt in my fist and breathed him in. He smelled like fish, but I didn’t care. It almost smelled nice next to the basket of warm bread I was balancing on my hip.
“It always feels like a lifetime,” I said.
He laughed and kissed my forehead despite the disapproving look my father gave him as he hauled a basket full of supplies onto the boat.
“My Anaya…” He smiled. Warm. Beautiful. The way I’d always remember him after that. “We should be happy your father gave me this job.”
“You hate this job.”
Tarik sighed and tugged on one of my braids. “No. I only hate smelling of fish guts when you always smell of dreams.”
“I love you,” I whispered. “Even when you smell like fish guts.”
Tarik’s lips tipped up into that cocky grin that left my knees weak and wobbly every time. He gripped my chin and brought his lips to mine. Kissed me once. Soft. Reassuring.
“And I love you.” He kissed me once more and then he was waving to me from the ship deck.
Sending me kisses to be carried by the wind. Then he was just a dot on the bright-orange horizon. And then he was gone. Forever.
I blinked away the memory and looked down at my empty arms, half expecting to see a basket of bread there. The crowds began to thin as people retreated back to their vehicles. All that remained was
Cash, with Emma and Finn acting as beams of support at his sides. Emma wiped away a tear and Cash pulled away from the iron grip she had on his arm.
“I want to be alone,” he said.
Emma and Finn exchanged a glance and Emma touched the sleeve of Cash’s jacket, unsure. “Are you sure? I can stay—”
“I’m sure, Em.” His voice cracked and pain began to chip away at the protective layer around my heart. “Please. Just let me be alone with him. I’ll come straight to your house after.”
Emma placed a soft kiss on his cheek and then reached for Finn’s hand before disappearing over the hill. A few excruciating moments later, Cash looked in my direction.
“Are you planning on talking to me or are you here on a haunting gig?” He shoved his hands in his pockets and stepped out from under the blue tent. “Wouldn’t want to interrupt a side job you’ve got going.”
I stepped into the light, allowing him to see me, my hands linked behind my back to mask the way they trembled. Would he hate me for this? He should. I’d caused this unbearable pain he was feeling. I wanted so badly to take it away.
“I’m so sorry,” I said, hating how inadequate it felt.
“Was it your call or Balthazar’s?”
I bit my lip and looked away. “Balthazar’s. I didn’t have a choice.”
He nodded almost mechanically, but I could see a flare of heat in his gaze.
“You reap for Heaven, right?” He came to stand beside me, staring off into the distance, his gaze avoiding the big blue tent and what was buried beneath it.
“Yes.”
He nodded and shut his eyes. “And that’s where you took him?”
“Yes,” I said. “I took him home. He’s happy there. I promise you that.”
A muscle in his jaw ticked and he shook his head. “See, that’s the problem. I’m kind of having a hard time knowing whose promises to believe these days.”
Without thinking, I reached out and grabbed his hand, not expecting it when he laced his fingers through mine to keep it in place. “You can believe mine. Always.”
Cash squeezed my hand as if he were testing something, and blue sparks twined around our wrists.
This time I didn’t pull away and neither did he. Right or wrong, I needed this contact as much as he did.
“God, you feel warm,” he whispered, letting his arm fall against mine so that our skin was fused together along our shoulders, fingertips, and everywhere in between. The heat beneath my skin blazed, reaching out to warm the boy beside me.
“I don’t know anything about you,” he said, breaking the fragile silence between us. “Besides the fact that you’re dead.”
“Do you want to?”
Cash shrugged and tilted his chin down to look at me. “Only seems fair. You know all of my secrets.”
I bit my bottom lip, thinking. I didn’t want to tell him stories about death, but that’s all my existence had consisted of for the past thousand years. For some reason I didn’t want him to see me that way. I wanted him to see something else when he looked at me. Something I didn’t get to be anymore. Alive.
“I lost my father, too,” I said, softly. “Just before I died. At the time I’d been so angry. I thought he’d been taken before his time.”
“And now?”
I shook my head, purposely hiding behind my braids. “Now that I’m on the other side, I see how foolish it is that people try to fight it. Like it’s a choice. Like it hasn’t already been written.”
“Did it ever stop hurting?” he asked.
I thought about the ache that I had carried with me all these years. The one for Tarik, so deep and cutting that the most fleeting memory of him tore it wide open all over again.
“Some wounds never heal,” I admitted. “They simply become a part of us.”
Cash stared down at me, his gaze lingering on my lips. He squeezed my hand and swallowed. “Have you ever wanted something, even knowing you shouldn’t?”
Nervous energy washed through me. I should have walked away. From the way he was looking at me. Touching me. But I didn’t. Instead I nodded, unable to look away, and said, “Yes.”
I wanted him.
The instant I thought it, I wanted to take it back. Needed to take it back. Not because it wasn’t true, but because it was wrong. Cash studied my face for a moment and his eyes flashed with a decision. He started walking, tugging me behind him toward the parking lot. Only a few empty cars littered the pavement, the gathering from the funeral already having moved on to the next destination.
“Where are we going?”
He pulled me in by my wrist and backed me against the door of his Bronco. In an instant, he was right there, so close to my lips. “It hurts so fucking bad, Anaya.” His voice shattered in a broken whisper. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe we have to live with the hurt forever, but that doesn’t mean we can’t numb it. Help me forget. Please. I just want to forget for a little while.”
His brown eyes swept over me like he was committing every inch of me to memory. If I were still full of blood, I imagine that look would have had me warm all over. I couldn’t help but wonder how many girls he’d looked at like that. He wouldn’t have been looking at me like that if he weren’t decimated and begging for escape.
“Cash, I can’t,” I said.
Cash’s heat. His smell. The way his eyes were looking right through me. The way the tilt of his lips said he didn’t want me to go even as the anger behind his clenched fists said he didn’t want me to stay.
“Don’t go,” he said.
He took a step closer, effectively erasing the space between us, and pressed his palm against the door
