Eastern Lights (Compass 2)

I bit my bottom lip, my nerves shook from his words. “Do you want to see my new place?”

Confusion flashed over his face, but he didn’t turn down the invitation. I walked him upstairs, and when I opened the door, his eyes lit up when he looked around the place. There were hundreds of Post-it Notes that I’d been filling out over the past few weeks because I was hoping for this very moment. I was hoping for the day he’d come back to me.

I grabbed a Post-it and held it out to him.

I wish for Connor to come back to me.

“See?” I whispered, moving in closer to him. I closed my eyes as he wrapped his arms around me and rested his forehead against mine. “I wished for you, too.”

In life, we weren’t guaranteed forever. We were promised only now. So, I made it a point to live in the moment, in the now, because there was nothing else. There was no yesterday, there was no tomorrow, only that moment. If I only had one hour, one minute, one second, I was going to make it count. I was going to spend the remainder of my time sitting in love, with him, with us, with our flashes of love.

45

Connor

I’d spent every moment at Aaliyah’s apartment since she’d invited me back into her life. I promised myself, and her, that I’d never take our love for granted. That I’d be there day and night, no matter how scared I’d became. And truthfully? I was still terrified, but I was learning quickly that being scared was okay if you were brave enough to face those fears.

Each day, Aaliyah reminded me why I was facing my fears. I tackled them for her smile. For her laugh. For her love. If I was able to love her, then nothing would scare me away ever again.

“Go to work.” Aaliyah smirked as she pressed her lips against me forehead. My head had been resting against her chest gently, avoiding her incisions. Each morning, I loved to listen to her heartbeats. Each night, I did the same.

“But I like it here more,” I muttered, snuggling up against her.

“That’s the fifth time Damian had called you,” she said, pushing herself up to a sitting position. She cringed a little, and I became more alert. She was still a bit sore from surgery, but she was a trooper. I worried more than she did. I didn’t see that changing any time soon. Maybe that was what love was, sometimes—worrying about the things you loved the most.

I groaned.

She laughed and kissed my lips. “You are going to have to get back to reality at some point, Connor. You can’t stay here with me all the time.”

“Says who?”

“Says me. You have a dream to go catch.”

“I’ve already caught her,” I said, pulling her into me so now she was sitting in my lap.

“Don’t be corny,” she snickered, trailing kisses down my chin. “I mean it. You have a whole company to run. Go get showered and get to work. I’ll be here when you come home.”

Home.

The place wherever she had been.

I reluctantly listened to her demands and pulled myself together to head to my office. Damian was quick to chew my ass out for not being around, but a big part of me knew he understood.

“Listen, I know you just got all happy and shit, which, congratulations by the way, I’m glad you both pulled your heads out of your asses, but I couldn’t keep this to myself much longer,” Damian said, dropping a packet on my desk.

Instant unease hit me. The last time he dropped a packet on my desk, it told me that Marie was Aaliyah’s mother, and well, needless to say, Aaliyah was still processing through that disaster.

“What is this?”

“Walter Rollsfield’s grave dig. I know you didn’t tell me to go digging on him, but after the shit I found out about his wife, I knew I had to. I’m pissed I didn’t do it sooner. We could’ve avoided all of this shit.”

I opened the files, and the wave of nauseous that hit me made me almost pass out. Damian had gathered old emails from Walter to other clients of his. Contracts. New properties that he’d bought under another business name.

My properties.

Walter Rollsfield bought every property that I’d brought to him for my passion project, and he was secretly planning to turn them all into luxury condominiums. Every. Single. One.

“Turns out the asshole was the one getting in the way of all of your hard work. Every single location he swept up to make profit for himself. Dude…he sold you out. I wouldn’t be shocked if the Queens property fell through sooner or later, too.”

Why would he do that to me? From the jump, I looked toward Walter as a father figure. He’d taught me the ins and outs of business. He invested in me, in my dreams. Why would he go through all of that just to steal from me? To lie and cheat. To take something that I loved, something I truly believed in, and take it for himself.