My cell rings through the Bluetooth as I exit the freeway, and for the first time in two weeks I decide to pick up Rafe’s call.

“You’re finally talking to me again?” he asks with a chuckle, and I feel the smile tug at the corners of my mouth.

“I’m slowly forgiving you.”

“For what? Saving your ass? Thank you is what you should be saying.”

I sigh into the line. “Don’t press your luck.”

“Regardless, you sound good.”

“I feel good,” I answer as I try to figure out where he’s going with this.

“Feel good enough to head back into action?” he asks, which stuns the hell out of me so much that I miss my own street.

“What do you mean?” There is a cautious tone to my voice, and I’m not sure exactly where it’s coming from. Maybe getting back on assignment is just what I need to distract me from the temptation of seeing her again.

“You haven’t seen the news today, have you?”

“What do you mean?” I ask as I turn down my street, noticing William finally moved his beast of a car because I can actually see my house when I turn on the road. Thank God. At least some other neighbor was the asshole and told him to move it before I did.

“The U.S. embassy was bombed. On your old stomping grounds. An ambassador and an agent lost. Figured you’d want a chance to report —”

“When?” Immediately I’m sitting taller in my seat because it’s been a long time since this has happened; it’s usually a precursor to a military campaign of some kind. And a military campaign means I have something to occupy me overseas to avoid the temptation of knowing where she is and that she doesn’t want me. Somehow distance seems like it will help.

“A few hours ago. There’s a briefing first thing in the morning in D.C. with intelligence officials to explain the objective of the mission, make sure it is spelled out and not misrepresented,” he says.

“So basically the government’s inviting the press to handle the image we’ll portray in regard to what’s happening,” I say, discouraged and frustrated all at the same time, but I know my reputation precedes me. If Rafe’s calling me, he knows the story he’ll get from me, that I won’t bow to the pretty wrapping of the package they are trying to tie up for me. “I’ll go. No one is going to tell me what I can and can’t report, though.”

Rafe chuckles. “That’s exactly what I was hoping you were going to say. You know my rules – report the truth; I’ll worry about the rest. When can you leave?”

For the first time ever in my life, I hesitate before answering him. And that I don’t know why makes it even worse. Is it because I’ve gotten the longest taste of normal life that I’ve had in forever? Or is it because a small part of me is still hanging on to the hope that regardless of how much I tell myself that whatever was between Beaux and me is dead, I still have the slimmest margins of hope that she’ll call?

And that thought alone spurs me to respond immediately.

“I’m turning down my street. Give me two hours tops to pack my shit and take care of a few things, then I’ll head to the airport. I’ll start making calls with my sources on location while I’m waiting for my flight. See what I can dig up to get ahead of the story,” I say as I turn into my driveway.

I hang up the phone, my thoughts running faster than my mind can process as I grab the bag of stuff Rylee gave Colton to give me, get out of my 1976 restored Bronco, and pull my surfboard from the open back. I quickly hang my wet suit up in the garage and rinse my board off, acting as if I won’t be coming back for a while.

The funny thing is, I’m going through the motions of things I’ve done so many times in my life, and yet they seem so halfhearted compared to normal. There is no urgency, no hurried movements, just more a quiet resignation that I’ve never felt before. My mind travels to thoughts of clapboard houses on quiet streets and teaching a little girl with long dark hair and amethyst eyes how to ride a bike without training wheels. Shit, I never thought it would happen until much later in life, but for the first time ever, I find myself wondering how much I’m missing, how many memories I’m missing out on making, because of my career choices.

Sure, the rush of getting the story first is such a fucking high, so then why don’t I feel anything close to that right now? Why isn’t my blood humming and my mind already back in the dirt and dust of a foreign country that doesn’t seem inviting right now?

I enter the house from the door in the garage and toss my shit on the table, cursing when the bag from Rylee falls on its side, the contents spilling out. A card, as well as some random get-well presents from the boys that they made me after the blast that are so sweet they make me smile, tug on those heartstrings a tad more, but it’s the bottle of bubbles that rolls to the edge of the table and falls to the floor that causes my bittersweet smile.

As soon as I pick them up, memories of Rylee using them to work out her life’s disappointments and then the laughs Beaux and I shared on the rooftop that last night when everything seemed so crystal clear assault me. Too bad I didn’t know it was all murky as fuck. Without thinking of the bags I have to pack, the phone calls I have to make, the task of emptying my refrigerator so that nothing spoils in case I’m gone more than a couple of days, I open the bubbles and blow a few into the empty space of my living room. Perfectly round, they float in a mix of colors, before they pop, each memory, good and bad, disappearing with them.

There’s something about watching them that brings some kind of closure, one that’s tinged with sadness. Stupid in the grand scheme of things when I should be packing, but it’s there nonetheless.

I stand from the couch feeling like an idiot, a grown man blowing bubbles and not wanting to let go of the woman he loves. “God, Thomas. You’re acting like a schmuck. Get over it. Get over her. Pack your shit and leave her behind.”

But I don’t want to leave her behind. The bubbles make me think of Beaux. Of rib-hurting laughter and sigh-worthy sex. Of her undeniable feistiness contrasted with her incredible tenderness. Of just how much I want to rewrite the last chapter or the whole fucking book if that’s what it takes, because I want her in my life.

I blow out a breath, knowing I have so much shit to do and I’ve wasted a fair amount of time with a childish novelty, but I have to do one more thing. I pick up the phone and dial.

“Hello?”

“Hey, I just wanted to let you know that I picked up a story and am gonna hop on a flight. Should be gone a couple of days, but you know what?” I say to my sister, so amped up by my decision, I know by that alone that it’s the right one. That I’m being true to myself.

“Tanner… A story? So soon? I thought you were taking a break. What’s going on?”

“Never mind the story. It’s not important, because I figured it all out. Bubbles. It was the damn bubbles.” I’m rambling and don’t care if she thinks I’m losing my mind. I’ve lost it and found it, and everything is so damn crystal clear to me for the first time in far too long.

“What in the world are you —”

“I was blowing – never mind,” I say, speaking ahead of my thoughts that are running out of control. “Look… You were right. I’ve never walked away without a fight before, so why am I walking away now?” Rylee starts to speak, and I just step right over her. “I love Beaux. Like I’m whipped, want to do anything to make this work.”

“There’s a little thing called a restraining order,” Rylee says cautiously, trying to hide the sarcasm mixed with the need to protect me from her voice.

“My gut tells me that there’s more to it than what’s going on. I just need to get a handle on what it is.” I pace the length of my hallway as I agree with my own self-diagnosis that I’m crazy. “You told me you fight like hell for what you love… Colton told me to rewrite the chapter and —”

“Rewrite what chapter?” she asks, confused.

“Ask your husband,” I tell her, not wanting to waste any time. “But I love her like no one else I’ve ever been with before, and I know she feels the same way and damn it, I’m going to fight for her.”

“Well, okay.” She laughs. “But wait! You can’t tell me all of this, get on a plane, and leave on that note!”

“I’ll be back in a few days, Ry. The way I feel isn’t going to change, and neither is my determination to win her back. You said love’s crazy. Well now it’s my turn to be crazy, but this time? This time, crazy is going to get the girl!”

Her laughter fills the line. “Go get ’em, Tan!”

I hang up the phone with the incredible feeling that everything is falling into place. I’m going back to work, gonna do my job, get the story first, do it better than anyone else. Because like Beaux said, I’m the one. Then I’m going to fly back to Kansas and fight for the girl. Get her out of whatever situation she’s in with John that puts that constant worry and fear in her eyes. I may be the farthest thing from the white knight, but I sure as fuck can save the day.

But right now I need to get ready to leave.

I get everything packed, clothes, electronics, passport – all of the shit that sits in the closet waiting for the word go on a moment’s notice – but when I turn to take one last glance at my bedroom to make sure I’ve got everything, my feet falter as my eyes fall on Stella’s camera collecting dust on the top of my dresser. Conscious that time is limited, I walk over and reach out for it, my finger wiping away a streak of dust.

It’s been a little over nine months since I last saw her smile, heard her voice, laughed with her. For the first time since then, I think I’m ready to see the images from that night. I’m ready to face them.

Not to forget her, but just to say good-bye.

Because for the first time in forever, I can admit that guilt held me hostage from doing it. And not guilt because she was out buying me a birthday present when she was killed but instead for not protecting her long enough for her to find her once-in-a-lifetime. God yes, I loved her. Loved her company and her corny jokes and so many more things about her, but I wasn’t that person for her. It’s taken me the longest time to realize that. And maybe, just maybe, when the hurt fades from all of the shit with Beaux, I’ll be able to be thankful to her for that because learning that I loved Beaux, feeling the intensity of that connection, made me realize what that once-in-a-lifetime might possibly feel like.

And even though it still feels like a spilled beaker full of acid in my chest at times, I know it’s possible. And at least I know that I wasn’t cheating Stella out of that by not trying to rekindle what we might have had.

When I pick up the camera and turn it on, I’m surprised that the battery is still charged enough that when I click over to the slide show of pictures, it responds. The first image that pops up causes a lump to form in my throat but also a smile to come to my face. Stella has her arm around me, a silly cone-shaped party hat on her head, and her tongue stuck out at the camera while I’m beside her, an exasperated look on my face but a smirk on my lips. And of course the first picture captures us perfectly – our friendship, our partnership, everything – so much that it’s just what I need to see to know I’m right and at the same time to be able to say good-bye.

I flip through the rest of them quickly. Pauly dancing on the tabletop, Bob’s Pee-wee Herman dance that I’ll never forget, the shots lined up and down the bar top, the disaster of a birthday cake they made me, but none of them compares to the one time that Beaux stepped out from behind the camera for the picture of the two of us.

Feeling less burdened, I stare one more time at the image of two people lucky in friendship, carefree, and lost in the moment before I look up to catch my own reflection. The lines around my eyes are a little deeper now and my eyes a lot more weary, the curve of my mouth still holding on to the bitterness some. Reflections don’t lie. They magnify the truths you want to hide from, the reality you don’t want to face, the shit you need to get over.

They also make you want to punch the mirror so you don’t have to see anything you don’t want to.