Page 83 of The Impact (Parachutes #3)

He’d live an incomplete life. The void would never fill. Allegedly, time was supposed to make it better. As long as Tahli was back to her effervescent self, and she seemed to be more and more; that’s what mattered.

Two well-dressed women entered the restaurant, one Hispanic one Asian. Both in smiles. Both prostitutes.

“Good evening,” they greeted him and Vin returned an empty smile, disinterested, then rejoined the table.

“Dalvin, you up for a cigar lounge?”

Jodie would stick around with DJ if he asked her to, but he wouldn’t.

“I have an early morning,” he lied.

“I hear you. I’ve got a flight back to the Misses at 7am and she’s going to have a laundry list of chores for me, including screwing her. God help me.”

Men who didn’t like fucking their wives. A rising statistic.

“Dalvin, you’re not married, right?” Chad, the youngest of his constituents asked, glimpsing Vin’s naked ring finger.

A pain tinged in his chest. “Divorced.”

“Lucky fucking dog,” Matt chimed. “Getting divorced before closing the $62 million deal. Genius! Now you can trade in for the newer model. These young babes are dying for older men. You should see them at the gym. I can tell you work out, Dalvin. You see them at the gym, don’t you?”

Vin couldn’t even snicker at that. As the conversation got farther away from him, the boring jazz music transitioned to live instruments. A piano accompanied by something else, perhaps a saxophone. It sounded real smooth. Tahli would appreciate this music.

A distant, familiar tune started, sprouting the hairs on his neck. As if brushed by her touch. But it wasn’t her touch.

“Dalvin. Everything okay?”

He was halfway out of the restaurant and into the lobby when Matt called out to his back. Vin’s brows rumpled. Angst raced his pulse. He heard his heart pounding in his eardrums. The melody was secluded and obscure, but it penetrated his skin.

Vin entered one room with the lively bar. No performers were there.

“Excuse me? Where is that music coming from?” He demanded of the concierge, interrupting an old man checking in.

She smiled, pointing in the direction of another room.

Vin’s feet moved, and the strain became clearer.

She played this song a few times. It was her favorite of the singer. But…it couldn’t fucking be.

Bending the corner, his Tom Ford’s halted. Glazed eyes froze. As if she’d waited for him to begin the lyrics, a small smile curled her lips. She stood on a small stage, a black, distinguished man at a piano beside her, a white one with a saxophone next to him…

“I won’t pretend…”

Tahli’s melodious voice topped Sade’s decadence. Vin blinked slowly, as Tahli sang about not being good at forgiving. A fucking statue at the doorway as seated guests swayed to her soothing voice. To his baby love’s magic.

His fucking Tahli…

She was here, in this city she hated, dressed in a black gown with her locs pulled back, showcasing her faultless visage.

The raw glisten in her eyes as they bore into his, a red-lipped engraved smile as she declared how she still really, really loved someone and couldn’t hate them, even if she tried.

Vin couldn’t bitch up and cry, but there was no bitching up when it came to her.

The moments they shared were too surreal not to exude emotion.

“Hey, man. We were wondering where you hurried off to.” Vin didn’t even face Matt when he heard his voice. “Who is that? She’s hot.”

“Watch your fucking mouth. That’s my wife,” Vin spoke in a trance, client or not.

“I thought you said you were divorced?”

Swallowing substantially, Vin’s feet moved, leaving Matt behind.

I was gonna stand right there until you found your way back.

He reached the edge of the stage as Tahli continued to serenade, captivating him and every other soul in the room.

Each lyric of the song penetrated him, as he savored every note.

But also anxiously awaited confirmation.

It took everything not to storm the stage and push his tongue down her throat.

But he tossed dice and decided this was too delicate for risks.

When she stepped down from the stage, the band slowly stopped playing.

“Hi.”

Tahli smiled at his simple greeting, before her face trembled.

“Whoa. What’s that?” She only pulled in her lips as Vin caressed her smooth cheek. “No tears. What are you doing here, baby love?” Vin was still battling stun.

“It’s crazy, cause…I was asking myself that the whole time I was on my way. On the drive to the airport… on the plane… I was like what the fuck are you doing, Tahli?”

Vin’s eyes moved between hers as she explained.

“But then I see you, and I’m like…that’s my baby. I know exactly what I’m doing.”

Vin’s mountainous breaths grew cavernous as Tahli’s head shook.

“I can’t forget what you did,” she uttered. Although understandable, the redundancy was agonizing. “But I don’t want to, Vin. I want to remember it. Then, I want to remember the work we did to get past it. That’s if you want to keep doing the work.”

Still unable to trust the moment, Vin could only gawk. He didn’t deserve her forgiveness. But…she was here.

“I’ve been finding pockets of peace lately,” Tahli revealed, taking breaks from his eye contact before blessing him again. “And I’ve been getting back to myself. But there’s something missing,” she looked at him to say.

“The something is when I woke up from that accident,” her cheeks quivered. His jaw trembled.

“And for a second…just a second…” cries chopped her words, “I thought I was still yours. And I was so happy, Vin. Then when that fire happened…” The tears he held back leaked from her sockets.

“When I thought you were in there, Vin…I thought I had fucking died . That’s how bad it hurt.” It was how he felt getting that call from Dali about her accident.

“I thought my heart had stopped beating,” pain packed her voice.

“And I know that you think I can’t be happy if I’m with you.

Because I thought that, too. That I’d look at you and be reminded of what you did.

But you not being there reminds me, too.

” Tahli sniveled. “Taking you out of the equation doesn’t help me, Vin.

Your absence is too big. You’re not there when I sleep… or when I eat. When I cry…”

“Baby love…”

“No. Let me talk. You’re always fucking talking and I wanna talk now,” she snapped in her teary voice, and he nodded, grateful for the small dose of humor.

“I don’t care, Vin. I don’t care who judges me, not even myself. I can do my life without you. I know that now. I think we’ve both learned that we’re capable of living without each other. But…I don’t want to, baby,” her pretty face shook.

“And there’s no excuse for what you did, but I know I didn’t create the safest space for communication between us.”

“Don’t put that shit on you, Tahli.”

“I’m not. But I can be honest with myself that our foundation was not as perfect as I imagined.

I have work to do, too. You’re still growing and I’m still growing, but I want to do this shit together.

Because I love you now, and I’ll love you later.

The next version of you, I’ll love his ass, too. ” Vin swallowed that down.

“I know you. I trust you, Vin. And I truly, in the deepest part of my heart know you will do everything in your power to never hurt me. Fighting against how much I still love you has been like swimming against the fucking current. I’ve been swimming nonstop for two years, and baby, I’m exhausted.”

His chest squeezed.

“Dalvin, you are mine.” Tahli slapped her chest. “Me? I’m in here.”

She slammed her hands between his pecs. “This?” Tahli aimed a finger at her parachute tattoo and Vin swallowed the rest of her sentence in a kiss, because he was going to bust out of his fucking skin. There was some clapping.

A reminder that they were not up in the clouds.

“Fuck, Tahli,” he breathed onto her forehead when he pulled back, palming her face in his big hands. He sniffed her skin. She was real. “Did you really come back to me?”

“Yes, baby.”

His face laid against hers.

Holy fuck.

The shit they had was unbreakable. Vin had never witnessed it. His examples of love had been murky. Tahli’s was better, but not perfect. But what had found them that summer of ’08 was unexplainable. It was beyond unexplainable…it was downright outrageous.

Their story was just a story, but they were the magic. They were the parachutes flying through the sky. The last two years were hell, but they made it through, feet scorched and all.

“Dalvin?” she whispered, parting his lids.

“Yeah, baby love.” He sniffed.

“Can I, um…” She smiled up at him, licking tears from her lips. “Can I take you for the best steak you ever had in your life?”

Vin stared in awe before blowing a gust of wind. Gripping her head with both hands, he kissed her again.

“Tahli Hall, I’m gonna fucking adore you until we’re old and gray if you give me the chance to.

You don’t ever have to worry about me keeping shit else from you again.

You hear me? I’m gonna be so fucking transparent with you, baby love, you gonna hate it.

I’m talking about every time I eat, sleep, fucking piss… ”

She sputtered laughter through tears.

“I can’t believe you’re here. Tahli, I swear to God, I’ll never jeopardize you again.”

“I think I know that,” she gifted him unexpected trust. “Come on. There’s one more thing.”

“What is this?”

The sound of him shutting the passenger door to her rented car felt too loud for the quiet.

They were in Malibu; Vin knew enough about California to recognize that.

He was surprised how well Tahli had navigated there.

The entire ride he kept asking her, “Where are you going and do you even fucking know?” To which she laughed off with a very Vin-like demeanor of, “Chill.”

Besides the distant Pacific waves, mild nighttime critters added a hum to the silence.