Until I Die

powerless. “Vincent, if you think you can come up with something that will solve all our problems, then for God’s sake, do it. I’m just saying I’m releasing you from your promise, not that I’m leaving you.”
“I’m afraid you will leave me—for totally understandable self-preservation purposes—if you think I’m going to die,” Vincent insisted. “So I won’t. Our agreement is still on. Okay?”
I nodded, feeling awash in a sense of relief while at the same time kicking myself for it. “Okay.”
Pulling back to see my face, he smiled ruefully and fingered a strand of hair that had fallen across my face. “Kate, I admit that we aren’t in the easiest of situations. But are you always this … complicated?”
I opened my mouth to say something, but Vincent shook his head, grinning. “Actually, don’t answer that. Of course you are. I wouldn’t be so totally into you if you weren’t.”
I laughed. And just like that, the force field of fear and worry dematerialized and I was kissing him. And he was kissing me. And as we touched, everything suddenly seemed very simple. It was just Vincent and me, and the world and all its complicated problems lost their importance. I pulled him closer to me.
“You’re …,” he began.
“Yes?” I said, tilting my head toward his.
“Hurting me,” he gasped, clenching his teeth.
“Oh no, what did I do?” My hands flew to my mouth.
He pressed his hand to his chest and tested it gently. “I forgot about the rib,” he said. We looked at each other for a second, and then both started cracking up, Vincent laughing carefully, his eyes scrunched up in pain.
“I guess I don’t know my own strength,” I joked, and leaned toward him again, holding him more softly this time and losing myself in the kiss. And then, in what seemed like seconds later, we were in the middle of the sun bed, Vincent lying down and me hovering above him on hands and knees with my hair draped around his face, sealing out the world. We were in our own mini universe. He reached up to hold my head in his hands as our lips met in a kiss that communicated everything we hadn’t been able to express with words.
Vincent kissed me like it was his very last chance to touch me. And, feeling feverish and wild, I returned his kiss unreservedly.
As if he could tell I was losing myself, Vincent’s kisses became softer. He pulled me down so that my body was covering his and every part of us was touching. Lying like that for the longest, sweetest moment, he brushed his lips against mine once more before sitting up, scooting back against the wall, and pulling me to him. I sat between his legs, leaning back carefully on his chest as he held me and we stared up into the night sky at the reflecting gold of the rising moon.
Unfolding Vincent’s arms from beneath my breasts, I shifted around so that I was looking into his eyes. I didn’t need to say anything. Watching him was enough. But after a moment, he spoke. “Kate, I’ve spent a lifetime waiting for you. Before I saw you, I hadn’t cared for anyone for … well, for the good part of a century, and it felt like my heart had been permanently disconnected. I wasn’t even looking anymore. And without expecting anything … without any hope at all, suddenly you were here.”
He raised his hand, and running his fingers from my temples through my hair, he spoke softly. “Now that you are here—now that we’re together—I can’t imagine going back to the life I had before. I don’t know what I’d do if I lost you now. I love you too much.”
My throat constricted. He had said the magical three words. Out loud. When he registered my stunned expression, his lips curled up at the corners. “But you knew that already, didn’t you?”
My heart became a gooey mess inside my chest, and then he said it again.

EIGHT
     
    IT WASN’T UNTIL LATER THAT NIGHT THAT THE idea occurred to me. I had returned to my grandparents’ apartment to find that they had left for a dinner party. Mamie had stuck a note to the fridge with dinner instructions. I pulled out the plate of leftovers she had prepared for me and sat at the table for a few minutes, picking at it distractedly as a plan took form in my mind.
Vincent had said he was trying to come up with a solution for our quandary. Well, why did I have to sit around and wait for him to come up with all the answers? Maybe I could do some research myself. I was living in an apartment with a fully stocked antiquities