He kissed me again, tenderly, softly, sweetly. “Soon,” he promised. “I’ll erase every bad memory, Peaches. I’ll rewrite everything that went wrong. And on that day, you both will become mine.”
I shuddered hard. It was every happily ever after I could ever envision. It allowed me to let him go for the night, because it put a lot of promise on tomorrow.
I held to that promise tight as I drifted to a blissful sleep.
Chapter Nineteen
By the time I woke up the next morning, news had circumnavigated the globe that Auggie and I were officially an item, with a very public kiss at the Philadelphia after party to prove it. Mom was first to call me, with a video chat that included my Dad. Archer, likewise, called me, and for the same reason. They were all concerned about this new turn my life had taken.
The difference being, of course, that Archer didn’t know about Peanut and my folks did.
But their concern was equal across the board, and for good reason. It was the very same reason it had taken me so long to give in. I gave them all the same conclusion that Fern had come to; some things only happen once in a lifetime. “I’m happy,” I told them all. “Please be happy for me.”
It was the truth. I was deliriously happy. Once we no longer had to hide our relationship, Auggie made it clear to everyone that I belonged to him, even if things hadn’t technically changed. For the next month, I still traveled on Roan I with Audra, Gav and Fern. Fern and I still shared a hotel room, though most of the time she preferred to stay in Gav’s room.
But I got to see places like Chicago and Boston at Auggie’s side, in very public ways. Anytime we were alone together, the book was forgotten the second he took me into his arms. He never pushed past simple necking, though I could tell it was harder and harder for him to walk away.
We teased about all the cold showers we were taking, usually chatting via video calls every night before we went to sleep.
“I can’t wait to wake up to you,” I said dreamily after the Chicago performance.
“Me, too,” he drawled sleepily. “Just waiting for Peanut to give us the green light.”
I giggled. I loved it whenever he spoke of the baby. It was fun to share this with a man I loved.
And I did love him. It was crazy and a complete whirlwind, but my heart solidly beat for him after just a few short months. He was truly the most remarkable human I had ever met. At every town we stopped to perform, he would spend a whole day raising money for that community. “In Aldayne we are taught to serve,” he told me privately, during one of our many video chats. “There is no leadership without service. That’s how you tell who the real leaders are.”
He told me the story of his grandfather Evander, who, with his sisters Mariel and Fiona, served during WWII. The sisters learned how to care for wounded after the air strikes. Aldayne had allied itself against the Nazi regime, making itself a sanctuary for displaced Jews who had somehow managed to exile, which made it a target. Evander was in the Royal Navy, working closely with allied spies to infiltrate Nazi strongholds to help people escape.
“He was decorated with the Medal of Uncommon Valor,” Auggie said proudly.
He also told me about how Evander’s grandfather, King Riordan, had not stayed complacent during the American Civil War. Since Aldayne had never abided slavery, they naturally sided with the Union. As things dragged on for years, King Riordan sent his own soldiers to help provide passage for runaway slaves to the Ademar Islands located southeast of Hawaii in the South Pacific, where they could live free.
The Ademar Islands had been discovered by the 1627 and liberated from Spanish rule by Aldayne in 1649. This once deserted island became a tropical paradise for those seeking a new life. Freed slaves took leadership of it, turning it into a thriving economy thanks to sugar plantations.
“As all monarchs do, King Riordan offered a gift to the people when he stepped down from the throne in 1895. In the case of Ademar, he decided they couldn’t truly be freed if they were ruled, so he liberated them to their own self-government. Aldayne is sovereign in