The Grave Between Us by Tal Bauer

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Then it wastime to head home. Back to Des Moines, and back to the FBI. They were the same, but different, in fundamental, foundational ways.

Cole watched Noah and Katie stow their luggage and take their seats on the airplane. He followed behind, keeping watch, his head on a swivel. He would always watch, even though Ian was ash, cremated and dumped in Chesapeake Bay. He’d asked Michael to take the ashes so Ian wouldn’t be put in a pauper’s grave in Iowa, his home. Cole had gotten a text from his old boss with images of a cardboard box sinking on the waves, kicked off the back of Michael’s boat into a turbulent sea. It was a fitting end to Ian Ingram, who’d brought nothing but black waters and storms to everything and everyone he touched.

When Cole first faced Ian, he’d been a young man, filled with confidence and wide-eyed wonder at the idea of charging in and fighting monsters in their lairs. He’d lost part of himself to Ian back then, something that broke off inside and fell away into the hole that opened in him. He’d been okay, for the most part, as the years passed. He’d put Ian behind him. He did his job and did it well.

When he faced Ian the second time, he was an older man with a fuller life, with people who loved him and whom he loved in return. He’d had more than pieces of himself to lose when Ian decided to break him.

Everything Ian had done, from the highway shooting to stalking Noah and burying those Polaroids to breaking into their house and punching Noah’s face out of every photo, had preyed on Cole’s innermost fears. And though Ian had struck the match inside Cole’s mind, it was Cole’s own terror that supplied the fuel. Nothing scared him more than the thought of losing Noah. Nothing.

And Ian had loved it. He’d been drunk on Cole’s terror, watching Cole come apart. Even on the riverbank, he’d built on Cole’s fear, wanting Cole to die with the nightmare of Noah’s death at the forefront of his mind.

He’d have to live with that now, the shape of his nightmares exposed and raw, like a wound that would never heal. His fear was a constant specter lingering on the edges of his consciousness. He could lose Noah someday. He could lose him to an accident or to tragedy or to old age, but loss was loss, and gone was gone.

There was a difference between thinking about something and going into the center of it, as Noah’s instructor had said. Cole had sunk into his nightmares, and the world was different now. The edges were sharper, the shadows deeper. The nights longer.

But the dawn was brighter, too. The sun shone warmer. He looked at Katie and Noah and thought, This is happiness. This is joy. He looked into Noah’s eyes as they made love, and he watched Noah sleep, watched him breathe in and out. Cherished every moment, every second. This is the life I love.

This is everything I want.

Ian wasn’t the only monster in the world, and he didn’t take all the darkness away when he died. There would be other moments, other days when Cole’s grave opened and the silence threatened to swallow him whole. But he wouldn’t face that silence alone.

Silence together isn’t the same as silence alone.

He took his seat beside Noah, between his husband and his daughter. Katie smiled at him and popped her earbuds in, tucking one foot beneath her as she turned to her phone.

Noah kissed his cheek and squeezed his hand. “I’m here,” Noah breathed in his ear, as if he could tell Cole was standing in the black surf, looking up at the dark moon. As if he could sense when the grave between them was opening.

And he was there, holding his hand out. Ready to guide him back.

It was the definition of love: being there.

And from love came life. Their life, together. A glorious, beautiful life unfolding before them.

Cole smiled. He kissed Noah back and brought his husband’s hand into his lap, let his fingers run over the ring on Noah’s finger. They’d used the engagement rings Cole had bought as wedding bands, keeping them on through the ceremony. He’d been committed to Noah from the moment he’d put the ring on at Christmas. Before that, even, and he’d be committed to Noah for every day left in his life.

Love was active. Love was engaged. Love was being there, day in and day out. Noah was there for him. He proved that with every breath, through the quiet moments, the laundry and homework and dishes, and the life-defining ones. When he dragged Cole out of the river. When he decided to hunt the biggest monster they’d ever faced to save Cole and their love. He loved Cole in a way Cole had never been loved before. And Cole loved Noah like he had learned a new definition to the word, like there was a layer that went deeper, farther than regular love.

He kissed Noah’s hand again. “I love you, husband.”

A smile broke over Noah’s face, crinkling his eyes and scrunching his nose. His dimples appeared, and the light within him overflowed, lighting up Cole’s entire world, like Noah was the sun and all the stars in Cole’s sky. “I love you, too. Husband.”

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