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Standing alone at her husband’s graveside, 35-year-old Alya Césaire was pissed.
She hurled a calla lily at the headstone, watching as the white, trumpet-shaped flower bounced off Nino’s name and landed on the mound of dirt.
“If you hadn’t swerved to avoid hitting that dog,” Alya spat, heedless of the bad luck inherent in cursing the dead, “none of this would have happened.”
Nino didn’t answer her. She didn’t expect an answer rationally, but emotionally, she was a wreck. She sagged to her knees in the grass, staining her black leggings, and desperately tried to hold on to the remains of her composure.
Alya hadn’t shed a tear since the funeral three months ago, and she was no closer to moving on than she was caressing the stars. Nino would have moved mountains for her, and now she had to move them herself.
She’d never felt so completely, utterly alone. So ridiculously helpless. Her mother wanted her to come back to Martinique with the rest of the family, but Alya… Alya’s heart lay in a grave in Paris.
Alya slammed her head against her knees once, twice, three times, trying to force herself to cry and let loose the keening sob she’d wanted to honor Nino with. But all she felt was angry.
She was just preparing to bash her head against her knees a third time when a hand on her shoulder stopped her. Alya whipped her head up to see a black-haired man with a round face and kind, gray eyes. “Ivan?” Alya stammered. “Ivan Bruel?”
“Don’t hurt yourself.” Ivan’s voice was firm, but his words weren’t a command, just a mere suggestion. Ivan had never stepped on anyone’s toes, and it looked like he wasn’t about to do that to her, either. “Do you need a hug?”
Alya sniffled. “Yes, please.”
Kneeling beside her, Ivan wrapped her up in his massive arms, pulling her against his broad chest. His giant hand covered the entire left side of her face, shielding her from the rest of the cemetery.
Alya tried to be brave. She tried to remain strong.
She broke down.
Tears spilled down her cheeks, running into Ivan’s hand and soaking them both. She opened her mouth in a wordless cry, clinging to Ivan’s arm with both hands and digging her nails into his rough, brown uniform.
Being held again was wonderful. She’d shut herself off from others in her apartment for the past three months. She’d been touch-starved, and the feeling of Ivan’s skin on her skin was such a comfort, she didn’t even have the words to describe it.
By the time she was done crying herself out, snot blocked her nose and pain curled behind her breastbone, but the curious pressure behind her eyes had left her.
Ivan hummed tunelessly, and the rumble in his chest soothed her more than she cared to admit. She knew she smelled bad; she hadn’t had a shower in weeks. He smelled of sweat, grime, and soil and she wondered if he’d been digging.
Alya hadn’t let go of his arms, but when she dropped her fingers to the grass, stroking the cool, dewy blades, she noticed she’d left red marks. Wincing, Alya apologized.
“It’s fine.” Ivan leaned back, and she could see a thin layer of dirt covering him. Rather than looking at his face, she absurdly fixated on his blue-lettered, oval name tag. “You needed to cry.”
“Yeah.” Alya felt like a wrung out rag. “Yeah, I did.”
Thankfully, Ivan didn’t say something stupid like, “I’m sorry for your loss.” Everyone was sorry, sorry, sorry, and no one was sorrier than Alya.
Instead, he said, “I need to get back to my graveyard shift. But do you want to catch up later?”
“Sure.”
***
Graveyard shift had turned out to be a pun and Alya didn’t know it: Ivan was a literal gravedigger.
Ivan had always been quiet in school, so Alya didn’t know him very well. He was still quiet, sipping his caramel frappe with a contemplative look on his face, but she’d quickly learned that he had a subtle humor all his own.
The man could pun with the best of them, which stunned Alya.
And charmed her, too.
“So where’s Mylène?” Alya asked during one of their weekly coffee get-togethers. “You were attached at the hip in school.”
Ivan turned his coffee cup around on the table. “Oh, you know how relationships go. Sometimes they fall apart.”
Alya hadn’t known that. Her relationship certainly hadn’t; Nino had been ripped from her.
But months after Ivan had comforted her at Nino’s graveside, she began to look at the bigger man in a whole new light. As she embraced him in front of Fleetwood Macchiato, their coffee shop, she breathed in the soothing scent of gravedirt and smiled.
“Have you…” she started once they’d sat down with their coffee. “Have you ever considered making these get-togethers dates?"
Ivan beamed at her. “I thought you’d never ask.” But then he frowned. “What about Nino?”
Alya hesitated. She glanced down at her wedding ring, a simple gold band. “I still love Nino. I will always love him. But he’d want me to move on.”
Ivan’s eyes widened. His lips parted, and never before had he looked so kissable. “And you want to move on… with me?”
Alya smiled. “Who better to bury the past with than a literal gravedigger?”
“I’m honored, Alya.” Ivan was bold enough to stroke the back of her hand. “But we don’t have to bury the past. We can celebrate it together.”
“And the future, too.” Alya closed her fingers around his bigger ones. “Let’s do it. Let’s celebrate together.”