amethyst, aquamarine, moonstone. “I gave these to Cooper, too.”
I pinch his thigh, lean over and whisper, “Finally, you admit it!”
His cheeky grin makes it feel like he pinched me. “You knew. I knew you knew. It’s always been
that way.” The spark of his smile ignites me deeply. “When I look at your stones, I remember.” Jace
glances over to Annie, Mum, and finally Dad. “I remember what each of these stones mean because I
was with Cooper for a lot of them. Falling in love with him.”
Dad draws in a deep breath. “I don’t understand,” he says. “You’re brothers.”
“Stepbrothers,” Mum and Annie say together.
Dad opens his mouth and shakes his head. He presses his mouth into a thin line. “I understand this
has been a stressful time for you boys. We do strange things when we grieve, but—”
I rise out of my seat. “No, Dad. This has been happening since the beginning. Since the divorce
started. I love Jace.”
“Are you sure it’s love and you’re not confusing it with—”
“Dad!” Jace’s chair skids over the floor as he stands next to me. He takes my hand and links our
fingers together. “Have you ever had that feeling of teetering at the edge of a precipice? Ever been so
afraid to fall, even when falling is all you can dream of? Ever looked at Mum and taken a steadying
breath, not because she’s holding you back from falling but because you know she’ll catch you when
you do?”
Dad hesitates and rubs his head. “I think I’m too tired.”
“Answer us,” I say quietly. “Please.”
Dad looks at us, then at Mum and Annie, who are watching him carefully. He sinks back in his
chair. “You know about this already.”
“I suspected,” Mum says, shifting so she’s facing Dad.
“I didn’t.” Dad rubs his forehead as if he can smooth out the frown. “I don’t.”
“Sometimes love doesn’t work out the way you hope it to.” Mum smiles wonkily at Dad.
“Sometimes, you think you’re in love but you’re not.”
Her gaze shifts to Jace and me. “Sometimes you hope you’re not but you are.”
She laughs gently. “You don’t get to choose your family, and you don’t always get to choose who
you fall in love with.” Mum looks at Annie and back to Dad. “You may hate it and wish you could
change it, but in the end, you have two choices: cut yourself off from everything or accept it and
embrace it because love doesn’t disappear.”
Mum nods. “Our sons are always going to be welcome in my home.”
Jace lets out a slow breath, and we both face Dad. Waiting. Hoping.
“How is it that you’re only together now?” Dad says. “Why not then? Why not tell us—me—
earlier?”
“Because I was a fool,” Jace says. “Because I was scared of what you and others would think.”
“And now you don’t care what I think?”
“No,” Jace says. I shake my head.
Jace carefully passes the stones back to me. I put them in my pocket and resume my seat. Before
Jace sits, he pulls out five more stones from his pocket.
“What are these—?”
I try to touch them but Jace stops me, saying in my ear, “Let me explain first.”
He takes the first stone. “Germany, in an old town called Lubeck. A dropstone from the ice age.”
He lifts my hand from his thigh and sets the stone on my palm. Then he picks up the next one. “France,
Paris by the Seine.” The third. “Turkey at the Göreme Fairy Chimneys.”
It touches my palm, lurching me into the past where I am sitting with him at Lila and Dad’s
wedding drinking whiskey. I know what the next stones are.
The fourth. “The Giant’s Causeway in Ireland.” The fifth, a bluestone like the one he got his mum.
“And of course, Stonehenge.”
Jace closes my hand around them. “I have a hundred more I couldn’t bring back with me but they
all represent the stupidest thing I’ve done: not taking you with me.”
Dad sighs. His teacup rattles against the saucer as he puts it down. He glances out toward the patio
and the brightness outside.
“Your mother wrote me a letter, Jace. It took me a while to open it, and it was hard to read, some
things I never knew and she never told me.” He shifts, glancing toward his tea. “She hinted that you two
have a special love and she wants you both to be happy.” A few beats of silence. “Your mum is right.
Love doesn’t just go away.” He stares at us, his expression growing stern. “I’m not turning my back.”
He pushes his chair back, and I call out, stones digging into my palms. “Dad?”
He walks toward the patio. Stops in front of it.
“We love you.”
He nods, then opens the doors and lets the sunshine in.
Mum follows after him, and Annie makes an excuse to leave the two of us alone.
I place Jace’s confession into my pocket. Bathed in light, Jace pivots his chair toward mine.
“Do you regret it?”
“Only that I didn’t do it earlier.” He stands, pulling me up with him. “Come.”
I follow him upstairs to the gaming room. He leads me to the piano and pats the stool. “Sit next to
me.”
I raise a brow. “Going to play me another song?”
He shakes his head. “Well, maybe. After.”
“After, what?”
He pulls a small black pouch from his pocket and opens the drawstring. “This is for you. I got it in
Coober Pedy. You’ll love it there.”
He pulls out a small stone and presses it against my palm. It glitters all shades of color in the light.
Opal.
I hold it tightly, and I can’t hold back anymore. I grab his T-shirt, hauling him against me. He twists
around and straddles my lap, the weight of the greenstone hook under his T-shirt resting on my thumb.
“Are you offering to take me around the world? To Australia?”
He smirks. “What if I am?”
I laugh. “Would it just be travel?”
He kisses me. “What else would it be?”
epilogue
Music stirs in the air, pulling me out of my sleep. I turn over, sheets sliding silkily over my body.
Jace’s side of the bed is still warm. Though he said he’d try, I knew tonight would be too hard for him to
sleep.
I crawl out of bed and pull on a pair of boxers that were puddled on the floor from earlier, when
Jace grabbed me tightly and kissed me deeply. Afraid.
Afraid that I might not be there when he wakes up. Don’t leave me, he whispered. Just as he had the
night before his mum passed.
Three years ago now.
I walk the hall of our modest flat, opening to a living room that’s dimly lit. Jace is at the piano
playing his mum’s melodies. I slide on the stool next to him and revel in the music vibrating around us.
A prayer. Or perhaps, a conversation. Jace telling his mum about the things she missed this year: his
first teaching job at Newtown High, my earning a doctorate in geology, us traveling to Stonehenge again
like we did the first year after she passed.
The music grows softer. Gentle notes linger even after Jace has stopped.
He wraps his arms around me, kissing my neck. “Hey, beautiful. Sorry I woke you.”
“Sorry I fell asleep.”
The opal Jace gave me is set into a wristband, and it glows against my skin. I fiddle with it now as I
think of something comforting to say to my man.
Jace smiles as if he knows exactly what I’m thinking. He touches the opal, rubbing his thumb over
it.
“My favorite rock,” I say.
“I know.”
I shake my head, taking his hand and balling his fingers into a fist. I hold his fist tightly, like I did
once a long time ago. I whisper, “Not the opal. You.”
~ THE END ~