Page 5 of Fuse

Golden sun. Gray granite. Summer heat across the land.

A winter of grief sucking at my man.

And despite all of the brutal honesty I’ve just force-fed into his psyche, including every accusation about ducking his feelings short of the ostrich-in-the-sand cliché, all I long to do this moment is yank him hard, hold him close, and croon that everything will be all right. That he doesn’t have to face any of this right now.

But that would be a lie.

We all have to face this.

I’m reminded of that as soon as a stiff breeze picks up, bearing the familiar sounds of our families’ voices, the air itself changing as their energies impact the atmosphere. Their arrival is still a few minutes away; the path is steep, and the day is already heating up.

So I get to Reece’s side and pull him close.

Letting him know that while I don’t get his nonstop work obsession of the last few weeks, I do get the sadness and weight on his spirit right now. But the process has to go on. Life has to go on. Life can’t move back into brightness unless there’s a tunnel to compare it to. The brightest dawns can’t come from anything but the darkest nights—even if they take place on a blazing Southern California summer morning.

I attempt to say as much to Reece with the pressure of my grip and the compassion of my eyes. The gaze with which he answers is a silver slice of acknowledgment, gleaming brighter as I crush him closer, my voice fervent in his ear for a few precious seconds.

Not to tell him it’ll be okay—because today it might not be.

Not to tell him I’m here for him—because he already knows that.

Only to tell him what he needs to hear for this moment alone.

“We’ll get through this, baby,” I whisper. “In some ways, we always have. We’ll do it by crawling inch by inch if we have to.”

I’ve rarely meant words more. And I can feel, through all of the heightened electricity in his system, that he’s rarely been more open to them. He affirms it deeper by finding my lips with his and melding our breaths with tender, almost reverent care. It’s only a moment. I know it as surely as the voices from the wind become the conversation that’s about to change the air—but it’s a moment I make count, letting him know the openness of my senses and the offering of my heart.

“Dear God, Emmalina. How I love you.”

And smiling as every note of his impassioned grate fills me.

The approaching voices become more prominent. We look up in tandem to see the heads and shoulders of our families and friends on approach.

At the front of the small group are Wade, Fershan, and Alex, making their way with confidence—not surprising, since the three of them come up here for a lot of brainstorming sessions. Behind the Team Bolt guys are Trixie and an attractive petite brunette. The women are dressed in nearly identical black pantsuits, which is no surprise. Joany Richards, Chase’s wife, is a lot like Trixie in overall grace and underlying humor, unless the subject is protecting her loved ones. I barely knew the woman until four weeks ago, when the family pulled together after the catastrophe in Paris. “Demure” Joany handled everything from beating off the press to booking flights back home to whipping up batches of Totino’s rolls once we got here. As much as I love Anya’s cauliflower popcorn and kale chips, sometimes a girl just needs a premade pizza roll.

And the best part about all that? Chase seems to have woken up and smelled the Totino’s where his wife is concerned too. Correction: Chase has opened his eyes about a lot of things since the events in Paris. Even as he comes into view now, there’s no Bluetooth in his ear or cell phone in his hand. The anomaly would’ve dropped everyone’s jaw six weeks ago, and it likely should now as well, considering how much Chase is juggling as the head of the Richards Family empire in a post-Lawson Richards world.

Lawson Richards.

The name nobody will speak today but the ghost sitting solidly on all our shoulders. Who doesn’t even deserve the designation of “ghost,” considering he tried to sell his three sons to the mad scientists of the Consortium. That was after he pissed on nearly thirty-five years of adoration from his wife by sleeping with one of the head bitches of the Scorpio crime cartel—on top of betraying his company’s shareholders by letting his ambition override his better sense.

He is dead because of it.

A death he deserved—though he took down two lives with him.

Which circles everything right back to here and now—and the necessary suck-all of moving on, since we’re all still having trouble grasping the awful truth. But it’s been a month, and now it’s time.

It’s time.

The pain is eased, at least a little, by the appearance of a face that warms so many corners of my heart. At the end of the procession, my sister Lydia is walking arm-in-arm with Reece’s key wingman, Sawyer Foley. Honestly, they look like the cutest couple on campus who’ve decided to “go public,” bringing half a smile to my lips despite the solemnity of the occasion. It’s about damn time.

That theme is destined for repetition today. We’ve waited a month to do this. Even by abnormal standards, the occasion is long overdue. But abnormal has been my new normal for a year now, since that night when the man at my side became a force in every breath I took and every move I made. Since that night in the penthouse at the Brocade, I have not regretted the choice to heed our connection and listen to our destiny—especially now. Imagining Reece facing this day by himself, let alone all the bullshit that led up to this day, makes me shiver in awful, visceral ways. My heart cracks at the vistas of solitude in his eyes and the giant weight of responsibility he’s scooped up and taken on his shoulders. Even now, he clearly still thinks he can change the course of time, of fate, and of his father’s selfishness with the singular force of his will.

Even now—with reality literally etched in stone in front of us.

His mother and brother detach from everyone else and approach him. He releases my hand in order to become the third part of their grieving huddle, but he’s jarringly stiff and noticeably quiet. Even his energy field is like a muted version of itself. Part of that is due, no doubt, to the thicker leathers he’s wearing along with his half-fingered gloves. But based on the intensity of everyone’s emotions pulsing the air, at least his fingertips should look phosphorescent blue by now.

He’s holding back. I’m not sure whether to be curious or alarmed as I confirm the signs. His refusal to bend, even when Trixie clutches him harder. The tension that turns his arms into I-beams and his hands into staunch fists. The way he breaks from the embrace as soon as the other two relent their holds even an inch—