Chapter Twenty-Three

EVELYN—

Two things grew from betrayal—pain and confusion. Both were like currents that had me drifting calmly for days on end until a sharp shift would propel me off toward one. I’d tried to hold tight to one, but the waves would be too strong and my body would crash into another. Pain and confusion were often equal parts of the sea, but the elements of rational and irrational measured the same. I found validation in both because they rose through me together. However, I wasn’t drowning anymore. The truth gave me peace, a sliver of hope, but it wasn’t enough to keep me from going under at times.

It was much like the March weather. Rainy dark days that rolled in violent storms biting at the skin with icy edges left over from winter. I’d watch the waves crash up against the barricades when I ran along the lake. It seemed like the sky didn’t reveal the sun for days on end, but the days when the gray parted, only for a moment, the sun was still there.

I hadn’t seen him or talked to him since I left him in the alley almost two months ago. Up until that day, I thought the hardest thing I’d ever done was leave him to go to Charleston. No. The hardest was turning my back, knowing he was free and clear, and walking away from him again. It would’ve been so easy, so seamless, to erase all that had happened, and slip right back until us. But the brain and the heart didn’t work like that.

And I wondered about him endlessly. How he was doing. What he was doing. Callie and Aaron never said, and I never asked. The wounds were still so raw, and I hadn’t been ready to throw salt into them. Maybe it was time or maybe it was two mimosas in me at brunch one Saturday morning at Flo’s with Callie that made me ask.

I sliced into another area of my Fruity Pebbles French Toast, taking a piece to dip into the zabaglione cream. “How is he?” I asked without looking up from my plate.

Callie stopped mid-bite into her Cocoa Pebbles French Toast. “Who?”

“Voldemort,” I said, rolling my eyes. “Who do you think?”

“Well, we shouldn’t be discussing either of them, but if you really want to know, I’m not going to keep anything from you.” She took a sip of her Bellini, taking longer to respond than I’d expected her to. “He’s good.”

“And?”

“And what?”

“That’s it? Come on, Cal. You said you weren’t going to keep anything from me.”

She tilted her head to the side and frowned. “Why do you want to know?”

I pressed my fork into the cereal crumbs and again looked to my plate, not her. “I don’t know.”

“I think we’ll need to make a deal if I tell you anything, okay?”

“What kind of deal?” I asked, raising my eyebrows. “You always have crazy conditions.”

“Nope. No conditions. Well, that’s not exactly true. There’s one. I don’t want you to get upset.”

And there it was. Something was going on that I didn’t know about. My mind began running into a million different directions. Did he change his mind and go back to her? Did he regret saying he loved me?

“Wipe the pout off your face,” she demanded. “I haven’t said anything yet and you’re already sad.”

“When you say you don’t want me to get upset what am I supposed to think?”

She sighed and tossed her napkin on top of her plate. “This is all so screwed up and again I feel like I’m in the middle.”

“I didn’t mean to do that, Cal. I know you and Aaron have been through a lot with this and—”

“Do you?” she asked. Her voice raised in the way I knew meant she was upset. “I don’t think you know. Aaron and I argued so much over the whole thing. There were hurt feelings between us. We’ve worked really hard to not let untruths come between us. So, I don’t think either you or Abel know what Aaron and I went through.”

She was right. I didn’t. And even though I’d witnessed how upset they both were the night of their Christmas party, I’d never apologized for probably ruining it.

I slid my hand across the table and put it on top of hers. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I’ve been too wrapped up in my own shit to even ask. I mean, I’d be lying if I said it hadn’t crossed my mind over the last few months that you and Aaron both warned me it was a bad idea to get involved with Abel. I should’ve listened.”

“We both told Abel the same about you. It wasn’t that we didn’t think you were good enough or whatever, but we knew if things didn’t go well it would create such a mess. Like, my best friend hasn’t been over to my house since the night she stormed out in tears. And my boyfriend’s brother never comes around, either. He won’t even go to his parents’ for family dinner with us. So, what I’m saying is, I didn’t want you to apologize. I wanted you to know Aaron and I miss you. We miss Abel. You two don’t have to be together, but you can’t stay away from us forever.”

“It wasn’t going to be forever, but you’ve been there. I wasn’t ready.”

“I know and that’s why I waited until you brought it up first. Like, we’re planning this amazing springtime Alice in Wonderland party for Delilah’s seventh birthday. She asks about you all the time, and I know she’ll be heartbroken if you both weren’t there.”

“Wow. You’re bringing out the big guns with that kind of guilt.”

“It’s not supposed to be, but I don’t know.”

We were both quiet, sipping at our drinks and looking out windows. My hand retreated. There were so many people out for an early Saturday afternoon walk. It always got that way when the weather began to shift. The cold kept us inside all winter and at the first break, even if it meant only a little, we ran with it. It wasn’t even unusual to me to see a man pass by in shorts and flip-flops, walking a big black Labrador.

“How is he?” I asked, still gazing out the window.

“He’s good, sweetie. He’s getting all his shit straightened out. Of course Aaron and their dad, have him on a short leash because of all of the money, but Abel has been going above and beyond. The teaching job is going well, and he’s still working at WET a few nights a week. Plus, since he moved out of the building, it—”

I snapped my head toward her. “Wait. What? He moved out of the apartment?”

“Ah. Yeah. It was his idea, too. He figured instead of his parents letting him live there rent-free, he’d move out so Daniel and Leslie could get renters. It’s more than what Abel could repay what his dad fronted for the payoff.”

I had absolutely no idea what she was talking about. Every word made less sense than the next.

“Why do you look like that?” Callie asked. “Didn’t you know he moved out?”

“No. He never said, not that we had much of a chance to talk about our current living situations. And what are you talking about the money? Why does he owe Aaron and Daniel so much money?”

Her jaw dropped open, which she immediately covered with her hand. “Are you serious? You don’t know?” she mumbled.

I slapped her hand. “What?” I shouted loud enough for the people at the nearby tables to turn around.

“I…don’t know if I should be the one to tell you this. You really should let Abel tell you because—”

I was going to scream again, but instead of causing a scene, I decided to cause a bit of a smaller one. I leaned over the table and clasped my hand over her mouth. “Listen to me,” I hissed. “You are going to tell me everything. I mean everything. I mean every single damn detail down to the minute. You’re going to do this because you’re my best friend and you don’t want to see me lose my mind. Do you understand?”

She nodded and I released my grip. Both of us picked up our champagne glasses at the same time and drained what was left in them.

“What’s that lotion you’re wearing?” she asked. “Is it that stuff from Bliss? The lemon one?”

I glared at her as she motioned our server over. He stepped over, and Callie circled the table with her index finger. “We’re going to need one more round, Omar.”

“Ladies going hard-core at brunch,” he said, picking up our empty glasses. “I like it.”

He winked at me as he walked away, and although a bit on the vertically challenged side, he wasn’t bad. This was the time I knew Abel changed something in me. There was a time I’d be interested. Now? All I could concentrate on was what the hell was going on with him.

“Yes,” I said. “Bliss. Now, please tell me.”

She took in a deep breath. “Okay. So, you know how Abel was going to get married to that girl Dafne no one had even ever heard of?”

“Yes. I seem to recall, Callie,” I answered, my voice dripping with sarcasm.

“I’m prefacing. You don’t need to be a bitch about it. Anyway, well, I guess they met when he was playing poker at those underground games. She was there one night when you were gone, and Abel lost big. Like, a lot big.”

“Are you kidding me? Like, how much money? And how come he never told me?”

Omar came back, and we paused as he set the drinks down in front of us. He lingered a bit, looking between us, but without saying anything.

“Thanks,” I said. “We’ll let you know if we need anything.”

As he stepped away, Callie gave me a dirty look. “Don’t treat servers like that!”

“Like what?”

“Rude! That was me for a lot of years.”

“I wasn’t being rude because he was a server. I was being rude because we’re obviously in the middle of a conversation and he was gawking. Regardless,” I said, picking up my Bellini and taking a large sip. “Continue.”

“I’m not sure why he didn’t tell you. I guess he was really embarrassed. He had gotten in trouble with gambling before and swore he wouldn’t do it again, but I guess, in an effort to try and go in financially with Aaron with the new bar, he started doing it again to make money. He lost big, and he didn’t want to go to Aaron and tell him, ‘Hey, I owe over $400,000. Can you give me a hand with that?’ He and his dad were going on and on about being proud of him for getting his shit together. I guess he felt he couldn’t go to them and you and tell you what he did.”

It could’ve been all the sugar from the French toast or all the booze, but hearing $400,000 made me light-headed. “Shit, Callie.”

“I know. Take a sip because you’ll need it for this next part.”

This worried me even more, but I did as she said.

“Okay,” she continued. “Long story short, and to be honest, I can’t tell you all the details because I only know what Aaron told me, and boys always leave out the best parts, but the debt was going to be forgiven if Abel agreed to marry Dafne, who happens to be Benji’s, the head of all the poker games, mistress.”

“Why the hell would he agree to that?”

“I guess Benji was threatening to hurt people Abel loved. He couldn’t marry Dafne because he is already married. She’s his side chick. So, with her visa expiring, they needed to figure something out. He was desperate. Done deal.”

“No. It wasn’t a done deal. He didn’t tell me! He didn’t…anything!”

“I know. And believe me, when I got him in my claws, I went after him so hard he’ll probably be scarred for life. But now that time has gone by, I can understand why he did it. I’m not saying it was right at all. Not even a little bit. But I understand.”

“How can you even say that to me?”

“Because I’ve done things I knew were wrong, and it wasn’t because I didn’t love Aaron. It was because I was trying to protect him.”

“You fibbing about something is a little different than you getting married to someone else behind his back. And while we’re on the subject, why didn’t he?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe his conscience caught up to him. He came clean to Aaron and that’s how it went down.”

“I can’t believe any of this. I mean, he was going to marry someone else instead of trusting any of us to help? It’s ridiculous.”

“I’m not disagreeing with you. It is. Sitting here with you and saying it out loud, it seems impossible, but he didn’t see a way out. Plus, take some time to see it from his perspective. If someone was threatening to hurt or harm any of us, wouldn’t you do whatever you could to make sure that didn’t happen?”

I hadn’t cried in front of her since the night of the Christmas party when she laid in bed with me. I prided myself on keeping it together, but after what she said, tears began to fall. There was no way of even knowing what part of the story was making me so emotional.

“I should’ve been his out,” I whispered. “It should have been me.”

*  *  *

There was a certain comfort in knowing the truth, but comfort didn’t replace anger. So much hurt could’ve been avoided if he’d only told the truth. Even now, it would’ve been nice to know the whole thing was a farce so I could’ve stopped blaming myself. I’d said everything I needed to say to him already, but that was before today. There was so much I wanted to get off my chest. It was why I stood outside of WET later that night, or next morning, considering it was close to two a.m.

I paced back and forth at the corner of the building, a fine mist of rain dampening my hair and coat. It was chilly, but not cold. Or maybe the march I had going at kept me warm enough. It was a safe distance, knowing I’d see him when he exited, but still far away enough. Patrons wandered out, shaky on their feet and voices loud from too much liquor. Anxiety swirled around me, settling into my brain and telling me this was a bad idea. Was I going to be opening a door that should be kept closed? Was I inviting in more confusion and making it even more difficult to completely move on?

I wasn’t sure so, I knew better than to take a chance. My car was parked on the opposite side of the building, so I had to step across the fading dandelion to get to it. Coincidence was a bitch because the moment my foot passed the dandelion the hidden door popped open. Tyler saw me and I knew I was caught.

“Hey, stranger,” he said. “What are you doing out here?”

“Oh, well. I was going to,” I said, motioning at the door he was holding open, but then wondering what to say. I didn’t know how much or how little the people he worked with knew.

“Get in here. It’s cold and rainy,” he said.

“Actually. I was going to head home instead because I was, and then, I…don’t think…and whatever.”

There was no judgment from him over my babble, but only a warm smile, which led me to believe he knew enough to not pass judgment. “Listen,” he said, leaning against the door. “There’s only a few stragglers left. If you don’t want to go into the bar, I can go get him for you and you won’t have to leave the front.”

Him.

It was why I was there. If I walked away again, I’d still have to carry all the thoughts that had been running through my head all day, all these months, with me for a long time. I was tired of carrying.

“Okay,” I said.

The florets that guided me to the door were almost gone. As I stepped inside, I wondered if they were going to replace them with something else. I wasn’t prepared for all my senses to remember WET all at the same time. I hadn’t been inside since the night I came with Bridget and most of that evening was a bit fuzzy.

“Hang tight, Evelyn. I’ll go get him,” Tyler said, unhooking the velvet rope. He disappeared around the corner, but he stepped back. “It’s good to see you.”

I tried to run my hands through my wet hair, but a messy knot of tangles and hair spray made it impossible. There was no doubt I looked a mess, and while I wasn’t here to impress anyone, I didn’t want anyone to get the impression I wasn’t okay. Weakness wasn’t something I admired in others, nor myself. My hand dug around my bag searching for my lipstick, but with the dim lights, I couldn’t see. Maybe I should’ve come earlier because it was so quiet inside. It made me uneasy. No. I came when I did because I knew he’d be busy otherwise.

I heard his voice before I saw him. My heart recognized it before my brain. It was funny how that worked.

I only saw half of him before I saw him completely. He was so tentative with his steps, curving around the corner and into the hallway. His expression was confused, like he couldn’t believe I was there. I couldn’t believe it, either. The beard was coming back in, more like overgrown stubble now, and his face looked how I’d always remembered it. His white button-down was like all the others he usually wore, and while he didn’t look as thin as the last time I saw him, it still was big on him. Unlike the last time few times I saw him when he seemed like a different person, he was Abel again.

“Hey,” he said, stopping several feet away from me. “Is everything okay?”

“Yeah. I, well, no, everything isn’t okay. I mean, nothing urgent, but—” I paused to gather my thoughts before continuing. “I need to talk to you. I had brunch with Callie this morning and she told me…everything.”

His head tilted to the side and he ran his hands through his hair. “Okay, well, I’m about done here. We can step into Marshall’s office.”

“Won’t he mind?”

“No. He’s in California for the next few days checking up on the new place.”

“Why is he there?”

His fingers were fumbling with the cuffs of his shirt. “He bought out my share,” he said without looking at me.

The money. Maybe he would’ve given it up anyway, but he was paying his debt. Chipping away at what he could control, the apartment, the bar, in a way he could.

“I heard you moved, too.”

“Seems that she did tell you everything, huh?”

“Don’t be angry at her. I made her tell me.”

He shrugged. “I’m not angry at her. I would’ve told you myself, but—”

“But what?”

“Come on. Let’s go somewhere private,” he said, stepping back to let me through.

His hand brushed across my back, and even through my coat, feeling that little bit of him made me shiver. I tried not to look around too much as we headed to Marshall’s office. There were too many memories. The nights I sat and watched him work, dazzled by his ability to make every customer smile. The nights Marshall and I would bust his balls and get him going, only to take him home to my bed where I’d lick his wounds. The nights I came with Bridget. The first time when I knew there was more to him than the overtly sexed and slightly inappropriate man. And the last time I was here, vomiting in the bathroom and knowing I’d never been lower.

Walking into Marshall’s office wasn’t any easier. My mind recalled the night I showed him my “I Need a Stiff One” undies, and Marshall busted us fooling around. We were happy then. Even when he went alpha on me after we left the room, and he went down on me as we drove to his apartment, we were happy. It was love then. I just didn’t know it.

I took in a deep breath as Abel shut the door behind us, and I heard him do the same. He stepped over to Marshall’s desk and flipped down the hutch on top, retrieving a bottle of bourbon and two glasses.

“Provisions,” he said, pouring the liquor into the crystal whiskey glasses.

“That seems like a smart idea. I’m not sure the two-finger pour will be enough, so I wouldn’t put the bottle away if I were you.”

He handed me a glass. “Not a chance.”

We stood with our glasses, wondering if we should do the courtesy clink, but it seemed almost too intimate. Instead, he lifted his to his mouth, tilting it slightly as a gesture, before bringing it to his lips. I followed, taking in a large sip, letting the warmth of the liquor hit my veins to take the edge off my nerves. He took longer, and I watched him swallow once, pause, and then take in another.

It was just enough of the liquid courage I needed.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked.

He took one more sip. “I wanted to. I should have.” He shook his head. “No. That’s bullshit. I didn’t tell you then because I was scared out of my mind. I was scared of anyone, of you, getting hurt because of a stupid mistake I made. I was also so fucking embarrassed. I thought you’d hate who I was. It ate away at me. I couldn’t bear the thought of you hating me, and even though in the end what I did was worse. It was all about me, and then it was all about everyone else and me trying to save you. I didn’t figure that in. It was fucked up. I know that now.”

“You didn’t try. You didn’t do anything except let me find out from Callie.”

“You’re right. I could stand here and say that wasn’t exactly what happened. Or that it isn’t how I wanted it to happen, that I thought I’d have time to figure out what to tell you. It would all be semantics.”

“How do you think this makes me feel?”

He blew out another large breath. “I can’t imagine. From my perspective, I wasn’t going to assume you wanted to know about anything. I wanted you to be able to handle things in your way, in your own time. If this conversation never occurred, I would’ve had to be okay with it. I was leaving it up to you because I didn’t do that before. Maybe it was another mistake, but with it all being laid out in front of me, I’m really trying to do the right thing now.”

I’d come expecting an argument or, in the very least, a firm denial about his role, but it wasn’t happening. He was owning up, and it was completely unexpected. I decided to push harder. It was almost like it was easy for him, and I wasn’t going to let him get away with it.

“So, you chose to get married to someone else over me?”

“Yes,” he said, bringing his glass to his mouth again. After he swallowed, he continued. “I needed to figure it out on my own, and I couldn’t. I couldn’t go to Aaron or my parents and let them know I messed up again. I was drowning and I was not going to allow any of you to go down with me.”

I looked down at my shoes, the patent leather still showing droplets of rain. He loved these shoes. “I would’ve helped you,” I muttered. “I should’ve been the hand.”

“The money, beautiful. It was so much money. Plus, I didn’t want you to know how much of a failure I really was. My mind was so twisted. I thought you hating me because I was marrying someone else would be an easier redemption than knowing how much I failed as a man. That was worse for me at the time. It was wrong. It was so fucking wrong.”

It was the first time he’d called me beautiful. I didn’t think he even realized he did it. I’d never forgotten, but what I didn’t recall was how it made my bones ache, made my insides vibrate against every syllable.

It made me furious.

I set my glass down on the bookcase next to me. “You know, I hear the words. I hear every single one you’ve said so far. They go around and around my head,” I said, spinning my index finger around my head. “All the time. I turn it over and over, and I can’t make sense of it. So, I’m going to need you to explain to me why I meant so little to you that you could fuck me over so hard you didn’t even think that telling me you were getting married wasn’t the first thing you did.”

He squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head. “Evelyn, first off. You didn’t mean little to me,” he said before his eyes opened to mine. “You meant everything. You were, you are, absolutely everything to me. And I wanted to be everything for you. I wanted to be the man you desired in every sense. I wanted to, I don’t know, provide for you, and take care of myself, and take you on vacation, and be strong and ambitious. I love you enough to want to be better, to be who you deserved.”

“But that’s ridiculous. I didn’t want any of that. You were already all I needed or wanted. Was money ever an issue? Did I ever demand a vacation or jewelry or make you believe I gave a shit about any of that?”

“No,” he answered calmly. “But it wasn’t about you. That’s what I keep telling you. It was all me. It was twisted and fucked up, but it was how I rationalized it. Hell, even now, me trying to explain my state of mind then, it sounds like I’m trying to justify it. I did, but that was then. I had to take it, and swallow it, and let it sink into my body before I realized it.”

“There’s no easy way out. Marrying someone else was easy. Telling the truth was the hard way. You need to think about that because if there is ever a chance for me, or someone else in the future, you have to be willing to deal with the hard. I would’ve dealt with it. We could have done it together. That’s what couples in, what I thought was, a committed relationship do. Trust each other. You should’ve trusted me enough. You should’ve trusted us enough.”

“I didn’t know how to do that then. I know that’s not a good explanation, but I couldn’t tell you I owed that kind of money. There was no way to come up with it. And if I didn’t pay Benji, then I don’t even want to think about what he was capable of doing. A buddy of mine got thrown off a building because he couldn’t pay up in time. Again, it’s so delusional I can’t even believe it myself, but at that moment, when trying to put shit back together, I saw a way out. It’s like when you tell a lie, and then have to tell another to cover it up. You want to come clean, but you look at the tangled web you’ve created, and you feel trapped. That was me. When it came down to it, I couldn’t let the lies keep me from what I knew to be true.”

My skin tingled because it was all so much. “You need fucking therapy, Abel.”

He tipped what was left in his glass into his mouth, swallowing hard. “I know. I’m getting it now. Also, Gamblers Anonymous.”

“Did someone make you do that?”

He shook his head. “No, I needed help. I realized that. Every move I made, walking into that first meeting, finding a therapist and shit was all me.”

I was glad and surprised. There were a lot of things about this conversation that hadn’t gone how I thought it would have. Maybe he wasn’t the same Abel inside, even though he was on the outside.

I returned to my own glass, lifting it from the bookcase, leaving a ring behind. “What changed your mind?” I asked, downing the rest of mine.

“Sorry?”

“Why didn’t you marry her? It could’ve all been over and done with, but here you are. You’re trying to clean up the mess.”

“I didn’t marry her because of one simple reason. She wasn’t the one. You’re the one.”

It burned stronger than the whiskey swirling around my stomach. The heels of my shoes swayed beneath me, but I knew I couldn’t fall apart. I couldn’t let the words that used to mean something to me let me forget.

He took a step toward me, only one, and paused. “It’s unforgivable. What I did. It’s all on me. I understand if you can’t. I really do. I’m not sure if I’d be able to if the roles were reversed, but it would be unforgivable to myself to not try my damnedest to make you remember why you once loved me.”

“Forgiving and forgetting are two different things,” I said. “Forgiving I can work on, but I’ll never forget. I don’t know how I can look at you without thinking about it.”

“Beautiful,” he said. “I miss you. I miss you so much.”

I missed him, too. I missed all the good things about him, about us, but the bad things clouded over all of it. There was a large part of me that wanted to say, Screw it. He messed up, but it’s over now. But I knew the doubt I had for him would still be there.

“I…don’t know how to justify this, Abel,” I said. “I don’t. I can’t wrap my mind around forgiving you for this and still being able to respect myself. It’ll always be in the back of my mind. Always.”

“I’m not asking you to forgive me right now, but please. If you need time, and need me to leave you alone, I’ll do it, for however long you need me to. If you need me to, I don’t know, hell, go to Antarctica, I will. All I know is you’re the one. You’re the one for me, and we were special together. Look at me,” he begged. “We know this was special. We know because we lived it.”

“I know, but you didn’t trust me. I trusted you and you broke that.”

“I did and whatever comes from that I’ll have to take. But I can’t forget about us, what we had, and know how special it was.”

An anger shot right through me, fierce and unexpected, and I wasn’t going to hold back. “You’re right. What we did have was special, and I think that is the hardest part of all of this because now I don’t know what to do with this…feeling…of stupidity I feel like is written all over my forehead. It did seem special, and it was a love I’d never known before. Never in my life did I think such devotion existed. But now, I feel so naive for believing. I feel so damn stupid for believing in the fairy tale, but like those fairy-tale weddings I help plan, it was all an illusion.”

“And that breaks me apart inside, beautiful. It makes me want to run and hide it hurts so bad, but I’m going to stand here and take it. It’s my penance for what I did. Any other time in my life, I’d try to pin it on someone else or allow others to think, Oh, that’s how Abel is. Not this time.”

“Why should I believe you?”

“I don’t know why. Maybe because this has finally made me grow the hell up. Maybe because when I lost you I knew my actions had reactions and I never want to feel that way again. Maybe because I’m getting help to understand all of it. Or maybe because I’m telling you everything, that I’m leaving it all on the table this time. There’s nothing I’m holding back, and I know you can’t trust in that right now, and I need to prove it to you, but it’s everything I have. Everything I have I’m giving to you.”

His pleading eyes broke through all I was holding together. A lump formed in the back of my throat, and I couldn’t find the words to continue. I came looking for answers, but as I stood there, I had hundreds more questions.

“I need to go,” I whispered.

He opened his mouth to respond, but before he did, his jaw snapped shut. “Okay,” he said, nodding. “I’ll walk you out.”

The silent pauses between us must have lasted longer than I’d thought because as we exited Marshall’s office, the bar was empty. The candles had been extinguished and the bar had been wiped down to a shine. I paused, running my fingers over the smooth surface while I recalled how I fell in love with him here. He was still here, but it was all different.

“Did you forget something?” he asked.

My back was to him as I considered if I did forget something. I’d said I wanted to leave, so why couldn’t I?

“Evelyn?” he asked.

“You moved?”

“Ah, yeah. I’m sure Callie filled you in, but it was the right thing to do. I should’ve done it a long time ago. This makes sense considering how much money and…”

He trailed off, and I wasn’t sure why. I had to turn around to see he was doing his own daydreaming. Night dreaming. Dreaming.

His gaze was focused above my head when he said in faint voice, “I forgot a lot of things, but mostly I was thinking about you seeing my new place. It’s such a dump, but it doesn’t really bother me.”

“As long as you’re happy,” I said.

His eyes shifted as if he remembered where he was, who he was with. “I’m not unhappy, but—”

“No buts,” I said, stopping him. “That’s enough. And you’re teaching, yes?”

He smiled, and it was the first time I’d seen his dimples in months. It was also the first time I’d seen anything resembling happiness come from him.

“Freshman high school English.”

“I was always afraid you’d end up in high school.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re going to have a whole lot of young girls falling in love with you.”

“I doubt that. I’m pretty hard-core.”

“A dreamy-looking teacher with wit to match? Come on.”

The dimples disappeared and he frowned. “Dreamy and wit? You still think that?”

“I never stopped thinking that.”

The stare down that followed rivaled any epic battles. Everything around us stood still—time, the earth—except our breathing. With every rise and fall of his chest, my heart beat faster, harder. I’d never know who moved first or why, but we met in the middle. Two large strides for him, and nearly a sprint for me, before our bodies crashed into each other, creating the most beautiful annihilation.

Our mouths, our hands, all at once. It was like the day out in the alley, but it was nothing like that. The alley was all in vain and shrouded in torment. Today was a release, a remembrance.

He lifted me up onto the bar, but our kisses never broke. We’d already had so much broken. I grabbed at his shirt to bring him closer, as close as I could get him, with such force I was sure there’d be scratch marks on his chest left behind by me.

His lips tasted of bourbon and him. One familiar and the other a recollection backed by a flood of memories.

He pushed it all into me. Every lie, every regret, and he placed it all on me.

He gave me it all and I took every single bit of it. I took from his lips and in the fistfuls of his hair I held in my hands. I took his muttered words against my lips, the way he repeated over and over “I’m so, so in love with you.”

He was so brave, so unafraid. I wanted to push him away for reminding me why I fell in love with him.

I took it from his tongue moving with mine because he still knew how I liked it.

I took it all because there was nothing left of me.

And he fucking owed it to me.

We were winded and weak not only from the kisses, but from all the things they were backed by. He leaned his head against mine, brushing his fingers up and down the back of my neck. My own touch moved across his stubble, his jaw and down his neck.

“The dandelion outside?” I whispered.

“It was the last wish I had.”

“I need time,” I said.

“And I’m going to give it to you.”