Page 82 of Stay With Me

After Charlotte had closed the door, Samantha inched her chair forward to hold Nick’s hand.

“Hey,” she said quietly. “I missed you.”

She rubbed her thumb over the back of his hand and glanced closely at his face. It was still as motionless as it had been since this whole horrible ordeal had begun. Only now, his cuts and scratches had been tended to.

In spite of the torture device, he looked much better, and for the first time since he’d fallen, Samantha knew he was going to be okay.

She reached over to run the back of her fingers over his forehead and cheek. “You did well. Thanks for hanging in there with me. I couldn’t have done it without you.”

Something about sitting with him in a safe place caused a ten thousand pound weight to lift off her, and it caused the exhaustion to hit her like a ton of bricks. She let out a massive yawn and glanced back at the chairs she’d promised to lie down on, but she couldn’t bring herself to let go of his hand.

She figured Charlotte would understand so she pushed the chair right up against the bed, laid her head down next to his shoulder, and drifted off to sleep.

Chapter Twenty

Nick

If someone had asked Nick fifteen years prior how he’d feel about losing his business and giving up his home, he’d probably have scoffed and retorted that he’d hang himself in such a situation. But that was not the case. An unexplainable weight had lifted off him and he was filled with an odd sense of hope.

Sammie, however, didn’t fare well with selling their home. After it was all said and done, the two of them stood in the middle of the empty foyer while Ari waited in the car, and Sammie buried her face in her hands to cry.

“I feel like this is all my fault,”she’d wept.“Maybe I shouldn’t have quit my job—”

“This isnotyour fault,”he’d assured her, holding her face between his palms.“It’s the economy.”

“This house was our dream.”She let her face fall into his shirt while her arms wrapped around the small of his back.

“You know what I think our dream was?”He paused to kiss the top of her head.“Our dream was you, and me, and Ari.That’swhat we always wanted. A family. This was just a place to live. We’ll still have our family in our new house. And then, we get to start on a new dream. One that we can all work on together.”

She seemed to cry harder so he squeezed her tighter.

“No more long hours and crazy schedules,”he promised.“Just us and whatever we want to do. Together. Doesn’t that sound good?”

She turned her chin up toward his face and nodded.“I love you.”

Since the day he almost left, the day of the new beginning, she’d started saying it all the time, and it made him so happy that he honestly wouldn’t have cared if they lived in a shack for the rest of their lives.

But they didn’t live in a shack. They’d found a cute, little home in a rural town outside Austin. It was less than half the size of their former house, but it was cozy and peaceful, and he was able to see his family calling it home for the rest of their lives.

In lieu of work, he noticed that he began doing a bit of consulting. He couldn’t quite place exactly how he’d gotten involved in it. Perhaps it was a phone call from a vendor he’d worked with years ago who had a question about incorporating a business. Or maybe it was a visit from his old friend Sean, who was kicking around the idea of buying a property with the intention of renovating and leasing it. Nevertheless, about a year after losing the restaurant, he realized he was bringing in a bit of cash, and doing so without having to leave home. More importantly, he never worked more than about twenty-five hours a week. And that was invaluable. He made sure to not allow too much work on his plate, seeing as he’d vowed that this time his priorities would be different. This unintentional business venture wasn’t a means to obtain success beyond his wildest dreams. He’d already gotten that, and lost it, and nearly lost the most important thing in the world to him in the process. He’d already wasted too much time, and what did he have to show for it? Two failed restaurants and a near divorce.

Time was now at the forefront of his mind. He needed to make the most of it, and he wasn’t about to piss any more of it away on something other than his family.

The concept of time was beginning to trouble him. Fifty-one years of his life had passed in an instant, and the rest of it seemed to be zipping by more quickly than the first.

Years passed as if they were weeks, stacking up steadily and methodically as if someone was lining them up like a queue of dominoes.

Fifty-three.

Ari had never looked more like her mother, with her brunette hair newly cropped below her shoulders. Graduation cap placed at a dainty angle; the tassel fluttering as she walked across the stage and received her high school diploma. She turned to grin and wave at her parents. Sammie placed a hand over her mouth and blinked away a tear, then squeezed his waist.

“Is she still our baby if she’s a high school graduate?”

He turned to kiss the side of her face and placed his arm over her shoulders.“Don’t be silly. She’ll still be our baby when she’s forty-five with babies of her own.”

Just then, Ari burst through the other people on their row and catapulted herself into their arms.

“Mom! Daddy! I did it!”