Page 16 of The Impact (Parachutes #3)

“Baby love, just… Just fucking wait. Where you going? No coat, no purse. You can’t even be in the room with me for five minutes?”

Her watery eyes rolled around. His, also brimming with moisture, waiting on her orders.

“Tahli...” He tried to trace fingertips over her jawline, which she dodged. “You look so good, baby love.”

“I’m sweaty. I’ve been moving shit and I’m in linty leggings.”

“You’re gorgeous. Your sweat is my fucking aphrodisiac. Come on, now. You know this.” Vin pleaded, the need for her surrender mounting. Regret suffocating him. Crave choking him. “I need you, Tahli. I thought I could do this. I can’t do this shit.” She clamped her eyes shut.

“Can you stay? Have dinner with me? Let me run you a bath. Just…just pretend like none of this shit is happening. For one night.”

“No.” Splashed his face like acid. Adamant. Hateful. She still hated him. Her body still tensed in his presence where she used to relax and toss arms around his neck in submission. She didn’t trust him, and Vin tried to ignore it.

“I love you,” Vin regurgitated with no warning. A silent alarm of distress in his heart turned off his brain. “I love you and I miss you. I fucking miss you and I love you.”

“Get out of my way, Dalvin.” She looked past him to spit.

“Wait… You refilled your prescription?” She scoffed at his straw grasping.

“Don’t wait until you have one pill left, Tahli. Then you’re screaming on the pharmacist about having a heart attack or some shit.” Tahli was on metoprolol, a side effect of her hysterectomy—arrhythmias.

“I don’t need you to take care of me, Vin.”

“I will always take care of you. Always. Fucking always. But this isn’t about you. This is about your heart.”

“And what the fuck do you know about taking care of my heart?” She split his tongue with that one. “I’ll come back next Wednesday.”

“…Okay,” he surrendered. Almost. “Wait,” he gripped her wrist, pulling her closer. Eyes shut, Vin pressed his face into her temple, inhaling her shampooed locs. This woman. His ache.

He pecked her cheek, heart pounding into her shoulder. “You know I still talk to you at night?”

“Vin,” she murmured wearily, and the way she said his name sprouted every hair on his body. Vin would rob the sky at gunpoint to gift her the stars.

“I’m just being honest. I’m not used to coming home and you not being here.

Or showering and you not being in the next room.

Laying down and you’re not fucking there, Tahli.

.. So, I tell you goodnight. And I say I hope you had a good day.

Do you hear it, baby? When you lay down at night.

Do you hear me?” He felt her tremble against him. “Because I speak to you.”

Her head falling into his chest broke him from under a frozen lake. Sweet air. He gripped her little head, kissing her scalp. Enjoyed her forfeit, knowing it wouldn’t last.

“I love you so much, baby love. I will never, ever, ever, ever stop. You hear me? You may have gotten off the parachute, but it’ll always be here waiting for you.”

She pulled back from him, taking something of his with her. Sniffling, Tahli swiped her lashes carefully.

“Okay, Vin. I gotta go for real. Please.”

He nodded. He could do this.

He opened the door for her only to shut it right back. Blocked the knob with his back to it. A human barrier between her and the exit. Banged his fist against the door and pleaded with his gaze. Almost stomped his fucking foot in a tantrum.

“Just let me look at you a little longer. I can’t do this shit, Tahli.

You know how there’s some things you can do and some shit you can’t?

Like I fucking can’t . I’m trying. I’m really fucking trying.

But I’m losing my mind. I got headaches all the fucking time…

I’m losing money. I’m…” Sick. Depressed.

Lost. “What the fuck did I do?” He muttered the last part to his fucked-up self, but she answered anyway.

“Dalvin, you fucked that dead bitch and kept a baby from me.” Tahli’s tone was as lifeless as depleted. “How did you think this would play out?”

“I don’t know,” he was honest. “That’s what I never wanted to find out. But Sophie’s dead. Like you said, she’s gone, Tahli. Why can’t we just–”

“What?” A mocking laugh echoed from her sweet lips. “Your mistress is dead, so that solves everything? The threat is in the grave? The evidence still remains!”

“Man, get out of here with that Robert-lawyer shit, Tahli. There’s no threat!

No fucking mistress.” Vin’s anger built…

and good. Even if they were fighting, she was still there.

“Stop rewriting history with your imagination. The only threat was you! Sophie knew that shit. You were the only one for me, will always be the only fucking one for me. I never laid a finger on her ass after that night!”

“Yeah, well, that night was enough. Because look what you did, Dalvin! Look what you managed in one fucking night,” she slapped one hand into the other.

“And why are we still arguing about this shit? Like, I don’t know if it’s denial or determination, but either way, it’s fucking twisted .

Stop! How many times are we going to go through this?

It’s exhausting me. Telling you no over and over is hurting me just as much as the shit you did.

We are literally fucking divorced! Let me go, Dalvin! So we can raise these kids.”

“I can’t fucking let you go!” He roared, crashing his fist through the wall, rage metastasized. Then he punched it again because it felt good. “You want me to step aside and just watch my whole life walk away from me?”

“It’s gone, Vin. It’s already gone,” her venomous words swore through sobs, hands flanking her mouth. She had jumped three feet back from his outburst. Vin shut his eyes, hand throbbing.

“And why the fuck are you leaving your house, Tahli? This is your home. I’ll leave. This is fucking outrageous. It’s stupid.”

“Dalvin, we already agreed–”

“I don’t give a fuck about that paperwork, Tahli!”

“I need to disconnect from you! You want me to keep hating you? Huh? Because that’s what’s going to happen if I keep looking around at this fucking house and seeing you in it!” She bellowed. “Even if you’re not in it. You’re still fucking here! I need space from you. Move out of my way.”

Vin sulked, devastation folding his chest. Rile flared his nostrils.

“Okay.” Vin took one knee and then two, Brunello slacks to polished wood floors.

“Okay. I only bowed once in my life, to ask you to be my wife. I’d die on my feet before I bow to anyone.

But Tahli Celine, you are the only person in this fucked-up world that can bring me to my knees.

So, here I am. I’m here, baby.” Vin slapped the floor.

“I’m on my fucking knees begging you. Please.

Stay. Just stay, Tahli. Please. I’ll fix everything. ”

He watched tears race each other down her cheeks, rolling over her opened lips. Tahli sank down to him, taking his furry face into her hands, and Vin was paralyzed.

“Baby, I will always, always love you,” she whispered against his lips.

Her breath, sweeter than he remembered. She had chewed gum but eaten something with garlic before it.

Vin consumed it all. “Do you hear me, Dalvin Isaiah Hayes?” Her susurrus words tickled his lips, momentarily nursing his anguish.

“I just can’t be with you, baby. I’m so sorry. ”

Vin shut his eyes and felt her drift away.

The brisk of early March hit his back as he cracked his lids onto the zebra wood. Irrevocability twisted his gut. It was a grim form of torture that he couldn’t keep enduring. He’d committed an unforgivable act. And the women who could forgive an act so foul were not women like Tahli Hayes.

Hall.

Tahli Hall.

In his forfeit, she escaped.

He rose just in time to see her slam her driver’s door shut, the wind picking up around him. Wanted to stop her from driving in it. Knew that power had faded. So, he watched her back out of the driveway until she put the car in drive and bent the corner.

Turning, he locked eyes with Erica, the dizzy neighbor Tahli always joked wanted him. Erica’s dainty hand lifted in a finger wave, and Vin stepped inside, slamming the door with no exchange.

Tahli still lingered. Her presence. Her scent.

Vin grimaced, not even wanting to breathe it.

What would this castle be without its heart?

There were three vases in the foyer vestibule, and Vin sent them all crashing to the floor in one swipe.

He tried to recall if he ever felt this hopeless in life.

Then his mind kicked him back to the day before he headed to prison.

About 21 years ago…

The rain advanced from slowed taps to a steady dance on Vin’s windshield. He didn’t bother with the wipers since he was still double-parked in front of the shabby bodega. Vin hit the locks as Munch jogged back to Vin’s Hummer Jeep, dodging raindrops.

“Fuck is this?” Munch frowned, water running from his peanut-butter leather jacket as he slid into Vin’s passenger seat.

“What happened to the beats? I hop out and you playing G-Unit. Come back and it’s you and The Temptations in this mothafucka.

That Get ‘Em Wet Vin shit ain’t for me. I ain’t no hoe,” Munch insisted, and Vin snickered.

“You sure? You runnin’ ya mouth like one.”

Vin gazed through the water sheeting his windshield, the sounds of Bootsy Collins Rather Be with You mingling with the heated air. “Sometimes I can’t concentrate wit’ all that rah-rah shit.”