Page 57 of Into the Mountains (Blue Grove Mountain #3)

CHAPTER FORTY

ELIAS

“ T hese have definitely changed since the last time we were here.” Both our eyes are fixated on the cave walls, eyes roaming around the different images that now fill the rock surfaces.

“I think shortly after I left, more people thought to come to the other side of the island and found my spot.” Her hand grazes the rock she sat on the last time we were here, my head between her legs. She stalls there like she’s remembering just as well as I am.

“It was nice when it was just ours.”

She nods and keeps walking around until she reaches the small pool off to the side. Taking a spot in the dirt, she puts her feet in and leans back on her hands and tilts her head back, eyes closed.

“How do you feel about everything so far?”

Taking a second to think about it, she answers without opening her eyes. “Okay, I think.” She sounds surprised.

“Yeah?” Puffs of dirt escape the bottom of my shoes as I take a seat beside her, discard my shoes and socks, and roll up my pants to join my feet with hers in the water. It’s cool but more refreshing than anything, the cave keeping it almost warm.

“Yeah,” she repeats, more sure this time.

“I thought it would be harder, I think. I don’t know if it’s because Andy and Meredith took care of it all these years, but everything seems a lot less daunting than it actually is.

Like I had this huge demon haunting the corner of my room every time I went to bed and when I finally got the courage to turn on the light, it ended up just being a full coat rack that I let get to my head. ”

“Like Scooby Doo.”

“What?”

“You know, the dog?”

“I know who Scooby Doo is. But you’re comparing my fear to a dog?”

“No,” I chuckle. “It’s like the gang seeing a mystery and finally finding the ghost or the monster only to unmask it to discover underneath is just some corrupt person.

Sometimes we build up the fear in our heads so much that we let it rule us and our decisions and then when we are finally ready to unmask it, we come to find out it was actually not that bad in the first place.

Fear does have a place in our lives, we just can’t let it take over. ”

She looks my way and stares at me as if deciding something, a fire now present behind her eyes.

“You’re right.”

I take a dramatic gasp. “You finally admitted it out loud.”

“I did. You’ve been right about a lot of things and I didn’t want you to be. You were also right when we talked about coming back here.”

I give her a questioning look. “Definitely did it for ulterior motives.” She crossed her arms and lifts her shirt over her head, exposing her black lace bra, breasts almost exposed by it. My cock instantly hardens at the site of her and my eyes refuse to look anywhere else but her.

The water sloshes as she lifts her legs out and she stands inches away from me and slides her pants down over her feet, taking her underwear with her, clearly not caring about getting her clothes dirty as she tosses them aside to the cave floor.

Once she undoes the clasp of her bra, she’s completely naked, almost glowing against the darkness of the cave walls.

Slowly, she steps back into the water, submerging herself this time, red hair floating around her.

“And what ulterior motives were those exactly?” I joke.

“How about you just shut up, take off your clothes, and come in here and fuck me.”

“Oooo, you’re the demanding one this time.

” I listen and stand to shed my outer layer.

This trip is all her, so giving control to her here only seems right.

Not that I haven’t given it up more than a few times before, but with everything she’s facing, it’s better she’s the one in control. Plus, I like it. A lot.

Once I’m in the water, I keep my distance, waiting for my next direction. It doesn’t take long for her to give it to me.

She moves to the edge of the pool, leaning her back against a smoother part of the rock. Just beneath the surface her legs spread open. “Now get over here and fuck me.”

“Yes, honey.”

Without wasting any time I line myself up with her and push into her slowly until she tells me otherwise. Her legs automatically wrap around my waist, pulling me closer to her hips.

“Harder.” The water splashes around us with our movements and droplets land on Charlie’s eyelashes. Her hair half wet and parts of her face shining with water has her looking ethereal.

“Fuck, you’re beautiful. I love you, Charlie.”

She looks me in the eyes, her breaths coming faster now in rhythm with her hips.

“I love you, Eli.” The four words slip off her lips so easily when just a short time ago, I wasn’t sure I’d ever hear them.

She comes first and her cries echo off the cave walls. I’m close behind her and my moans now mix with hers—a melody for the two of us. Her forehead rests against mine as our orgasms subside, our bodies returning to a calmer state.

“Thank you for coming with me.”

“Right now or like, on this trip?” I ask, earning a light smack to the shoulder.

“Both.”

The next few hours pass with various tasks.

Once we got back from the cave, we had a list of things Charlie wanted to get done.

One of which I’m assuming she’s putting off for as long as she can.

A task I only discovered because I was the one cleaning the living room earlier this morning.

Sheets covered various things in the room—furniture mostly.

But there was one smaller sheet covering something on the shelves that hugged the fireplace and when I lifted it, there were two wooden urns there, protected from dust, forever conserving the contents inside.

One is a slightly darker stain than the other.

What made her leave them here? Why not bury them or scatter the ashes?

“Charlie?” I start cautiously. I’m not sure what her reaction will be to rediscovering her parents' urns, but I’d rather tread carefully than barrel through what could be something she isn’t ready to face just yet.

She comes around the corner from the hallway and stops in her tracks when she sees where I am. “Oh.” It comes out short and soft. “Um. About those…”

I let her figure out what she wants to say or how she feels about my findings. Instead, she says, “Those are my parents.”

I feel like that’s the answer I should have expected, but I didn’t. “The left is Anne and the right is Paul.”

“Nice to see you again,” I wave awkwardly. It’s weird that the last time I saw them, we were having a board game night only a room away in the breakfast nook. And now they’re just ash and fragments of bone.

“Why didn’t you bury them?” I ask, making sure there’s no hint of judgement in my tone. I don’t know what it’s like to have parents like hers and lose them. Mine weren’t great and losing them didn’t really have that much effect on my life. Nothing compared to her.

“Dad didn’t want to bury Mom yet. We wanted to wait until her favorite season in the fall.

She always loved the colors of the leaves and the changing of the air.

And then a few weeks later when it was time, I found him.

” Her eyes close and I can almost hear her swallow from a few feet away.

Whether she’s trying to swallow back her tears or swallow away the memory of finding her father, I don’t know.

“The idea of burying them both…was too much. I figured I’d be ready to come back sooner than now. I just didn’t and I know that makes me a horrible person leaving them here in their abandoned house and I’m shitty for doing everything that I did. I just…”

“Couldn’t,” I finish for her. “I understand.”

“I know you do,” she whispers. “You understand more than anyone and I hate that you do.”

Her soft hair falls through my fingers as I tuck it behind her ear. “If I didn’t, then we wouldn’t be here, love.”

She leans into my touch and breathes in, closing her eyes like if she doesn’t take it all in now it’s all going to disappear in the blink of an eye.

“You’re right.”

I can’t help but smile at those two words that have become so precious to the both of us. “My eyes might be closed right now, but I can literally feel you smiling.”

“I can’t help but do that when you admit I’m right.”

She opens her eyes only to roll them at me, pressing her forehead to mine briefly before looking back over to the urns.

“Where should I bury them?”

“That is something that is your decision.”

“I hate making decisions.”

“I know.”

We fall quiet as she considers what she wants to do after all this time. Tears well up in her eyes and she looks up trying to blink them away.

“Here doesn’t feel like home anymore. But taking them with me to Blue Grove doesn’t feel right either. I might belong there, but they don’t.”

“This might not feel like home to you, but it was home for them,” I say, nodding in their direction. “This house, this town, was their home. It was your home at one time too even if it isn’t now.”

“You’re right.” She seals her lips tightly right after the words leave her again, realizing what she said.

“I think that’s a world record.”

“I may have just given the house over to Andy and Meredith, but I can still kick your ass out.”

“Why are we kicking his ass out and can I be the one to do it?” Meredith asks as she carefully makes her way into the living room, Andy following closely behind.

“For being right,” Charlie answers.

“I’m sorry, did we teleport to an alternate universe when we walked into the living room?” Meredith jokes.

“You are hilarious,” I tell her and start to defend myself, but Charlie does it for me.

“He’s right about this being Mom and Dad’s home. I can’t take them with me. They don’t belong in Blue Grove.”

“Why don’t you bury them here? Back in the garden?” Andy asks.

“That wouldn’t be weird?”

“Unless they start haunting the house, I don’t think so. Then again, they haven’t done it yet, so we might be in the clear.”

“Andy, don’t be morbid, please.”

“We’re talking about dead people, how can you not be morbid?”

“Jesus, be more sensitive, Andy.”

Charlie waves them both off. She grabs an urn and hands it over to me as she turns to grab the other. “There still shovels in the back shed?”

Andy and Meredith nod with sad smiles and we all file out toward the garden, a new task now at hand.