Scorch (Virtues & Lies 2)

A couple are from each of our graduations—of course, everyone has those. But the one I can’t stop looking at is of our wedding day. Sadness and worry tinges the moment.

“Christopher…?” I look up at his face, and knowing what I’m about to ask, he shakes his head. “We still haven’t heard anything.”

“What if something’s happened to them?” My heart threatens to plummet to the ground at the thought of anything happening to Casper. Fleur…their baby.

“It hasn’t.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Because Casper was trained to be invisible. He’s a ghost, and until he wants to be found…”

We won’t know where he is. If he’s alive.

God, this feels worse than when he was deployed in Syria. At least then we could say that no news was good news.

“There’s no one better to protect Fleur and the baby.” There’s only a slight pause when he mentions the latter. At first, I thought he was going to choke on the words, but the more we talk about it, the easier it gets.

It makes me wonder things.

“He’ll be back,” Christopher adds.

I nod even though something inside me tells me of the possibility he might not be.

“Come on.” He tugs me softly into his side as he closes the front door of our house.

The wall opposite the sideboard is bare. A couple of nails dot the smooth surface about an arm span and a half apart.

“I wanted to leave some things for us to do.” Shrugging, he looks around the airy entrance, raising his finger as he disappears into the formal lounge.

He comes back out holding the painting from the auction.

“We got it!” Excitement fills me as I take it in. It’s even more gorgeous in the light of day. The chaos of bright colours bringing the dark marking like patterned lines to life, calls to me.

“Here.” He slides a small footstool my way with his foot. “You can do the honours of helping me put it up.”

I stand on the small platform, taking one side of the long painting, following his instructions as we hook it on the nails.

Taking a step back, he muses, “Huh, I could get used to this DYI shit.”

I join him where he stands, taking his hand and lifting it as I tuck myself back into his side. “Hanging a painting is hardly DIY.”

“Piss on my strawberries, why don’t you?”

“Come on, then, Handy Chris. You better lead on with this tour, then.” I nudge him forward with my shoulder.

That’s all the go-ahead he needs. Guiding me from room to room, he shows me around our home. At first, I have some trepidation about how it will feel knowing that I didn’t have a hand in the process, but then the colours we picked out together greet me in each of the rooms. The furniture I showed him that I loved. Bits we collected over our years together surprise me at every turn.

He saves the best for last though. The entire back of the house is opened up, the glass doors bringing the outside inside.

A tall Christmas tree stands proudly beside the large fireplace. It’s not decorated—I’m guessing it’s another of the things he’s left for us to do together.

He takes a step back and looks at me askance.

“Really fucking stupid.” He raises one hand. “Pretty bloody epic.” He raises the other too.

“I don’t know…it’s definitely risky. I could have hated it.”

“Do you?”