Page 135 of Freeing Denver

Ethan shrugs. “I think so? Time moves differently here.” He comes closer, leaning against the balcony wall to face me. His dark eyes scan my face. “How are you?”

“Dead?”

He laughs softly and tucks my hair behind my ear. “We never got to finish our conversation, did we? Do you remember what it was about?”

I cast a glance into the ballroom. A man and a woman are dancing, her red hair whipping around her, a familiar laugh reaching me as the man she’s dancing with pulls her close.

“Don’t look in there,” Ethan says softly. “Not yet.”

I meet his eye. “We were talking about make-believe futures.”

“Right.” His smile returns. “Long dog walks. Date nights with Sebastian. Me bringing home too many dogs?—”

“Because you have too big a heart.”

His smile becomes a grin. “Well, I always was the good guy, wasn’t I?”

I nod, a tear falling down my cheek. I don’t understand where I am or why I’m here, but something feels wrong about it all. And there’s something I’ve forgotten, something I should be doing …

“It’s like an itch at the back of your brain,” Ethan says. “Like you should be doing something.”

“What is it?”

“I’ve only just figured out what mine is. I think I was waiting for you. I’m not sure if it’s been minutes, or years, or …” He looks into the ballroom. “But I think this was the final thing I had to do.”

“Talk to me? What an anticlimax.”

His laugh does what it always has to me—makes me yearn to hear it again.

My mother’s laugh dances across the breeze, and I realize she’s dancing with Finn. And by the dance floor, whispering in Alison’s ear, is Axel.

Another tear falls down my cheek as I try to go to him.

Ethan catches my hand. “It isn’t time yet.”

“But I can say hello?—”

He shakes his head. “It’s forever, or it’s later. And it isn’t time for forever.”

But everyone I love is in that room. People I lost when I shouldn’t have.

Ethan’s hand tightens on mine. “Not yet, Denver.”

“When?”

“A long time from now.” He tilts my face to look up at him. “Tell me one thing before you go?” I nod, wiping away my tears. “My kisses were a nine. Colt’s gotta be a solid seven, right?”

I burst into laughter. “I hate you.”

Ethan Defender tilts his head, his handsome smile wide. “The feeling is mutual.”

He releases my hand and heads toward the ballroom. A man is just beyond the doors and looks delighted to see him.

“Ethan?” I call out, and he faces me, head tilted. “I did love you. Maybe … maybe not in the same way, but I did. I promise, I did.” My voice breaks, but I hope he knows I mean it.

His smile deepens. “It’s okay. I had enough love for the both of us.”

He goes to the man inside and slaps his back, saying something that makes his brother laugh, and I breathe in.