EVERETT COULDN’T BREATHE. Not around the tangle of emotion in his chest, and not through the burning in his lungs.
This had been...
It had been indulgent, and it had been as impractical as it got.
And she had been a virgin.
And, God help him, if June knew what he’d done to her granddaughter in this frilly floral bed...
“You don’t think you might have wanted to tell me that you were a virgin, Lila?”
“I wasn’t a virgin,” Lila said, glistening eyes round in the lamplight.
“You were very clearly a virgin.”
There was no mistaking that. The way she had tensed up, cried out in pain. How tight she’d been. He wasn’t a man who’d had a whole array of experiences, but he knew enough to recognize that.
“Have a lot of experience with virgins?”
“No,” he said. “But I hurt you. It’s not supposed to hurt.”
“I’m sorry,” she said finally. “It didn’t seem relevant. They say that for some women it doesn’t hurt, so I thought maybe it wouldn’t hurt me. Apparently, I was wrong.”
“Are you okay?”
“Yes. Of the two of us, you are the only one surprised by my virginity. I have been very aware of it for the last twenty-four years. Well, no, that’s a lie. I’ve probably only been aware of it since I was about fifteen. But you get the point.”
“Why?” he asked. “Why me?”
The anger drained out of him. He was just awed. She had chosen him. It all bled away, that anger. And he wished that he could hold on to it. Grasp it and keep it up against him, because it would protect him.
“It was you because it had to be,” she said. “Don’t you... Isn’t there any unfinished business in your life?”
He thought back. And no. All the business in his life had been firmly finished. His father was dead, and there was no yelling at him. His mother was taken care of. His ex-wife was very much his ex-wife and he had said everything to her that needed to be said, and she to him. And then some.
“No.”
“How? How are there not...? Things that you want to... Everett, you’re the reason that I’m a virgin.”
He froze. The words replayed themselves over and over in his mind. And for some reason, he could think of only one response. “Actually, I think I’m the reason you’re not one,” he said.
“Okay,” she said, forcing a small laugh. “Fair play. But I mean...you were my unfinished business. My...white whale.”
He closed his eyes, and his lips twitched. And he didn’t know why in the hell he wanted to make a joke now, because he never made jokes. “Are you saying that I’m your Moby—”
“It’s too easy,” she shouted, sitting up and flinging her hands wide. “I can’t even respect that.”
“You were the one that said it.”
“I was being sincere.”
“And I was being funny. First time for everything.”
“I’m always sincere,” she said. “It’s one of my greatest flaws.”
“While it’s not a flaw to say what you mean and feel real things.” He thought about his own life, practical and pieced together in perfect ways. His marriage had been messy, and he had resented that, because there was no way to rationalize what was going on between himself and Tonya. If he made her happy he had to disassemble the life that he’d created, and it was the most important thing to him. He couldn’t think of another way to take care of her, and she had only been cavalier about it because she didn’t know what it was to be left uncared for.
He would never have married if he couldn’t take care of his wife’s physical needs. Shelter, medical care, food. He would never bring children to the world if he couldn’t do it, and the only reason Tonya thought that was something he could stand to care less about was because she didn’t know what it was like to exist without those things.
His mother had been strong. A farmer’s wife had to be. She’d carried the weight of his father’s burdens, and her worries for her son, for herself, on her slender shoulders.
She’d done it all without complaint.
She’d kept the unspoken parts of the vows that were made between a woman like her—dutiful, faithful, traditional—with a man like Everett’s father, stubborn, determined, tough.
She’d made dinner with what food there was, every night. There might not always be breakfast beyond coffee, or much lunch to speak of, but his mother could stretch ingredients like no one else. And she’d never said a damn thing about it.
Not when the money was gone. Not when the house was cold because the electricity had been turned off, or they just couldn’t afford to heat it.
She’d cared for them both when they were sick, while never taking time off for her own illnesses.
He was convinced that his mother had died of exhaustion, at the end of it all. She’d gone only three years after Everett’s father.
He’d sworn to himself he’d never put that burden on a wife.
“It hurts, though,” she said. “To be such a big...ball of feeling.”
“It can hurt to be a brick wall, too,” he said, and he didn’t know why, or where it came from. But she was naked, and so was he, and his guard felt a little lower than it ever was.
Anyway, she was Lila Frost, and she was soft and as pretty as ever, and in no way scary.
Except as he let his gaze drift over her soft, pale shoulders, he felt a little bit afraid. Damned if he knew why.
“Well, I’m here,” she said. “I can stand beating my head against a brick wall, for a while.”
When she reached out and brushed her fingertips against his chest, he realized how lonely he’d been. How long he’d gone without being touched. And how much he missed it. Not just sex, but being around another person.
Practicality didn’t seem to always make a space for that. He put his hand over hers. “For a while,” he repeated.
“I need an ally, anyway. All these women are going to henpeck me to death when I don’t give all of them booth number seven. I could always call them all booth number seven...”
“Yeah, you would just be setting yourself up for a good old-fashioned brawl.”
“Definitely don’t want any part of that.”
“They’re all harmless,” he said. “Somebody’s going to be disappointed. There’s no avoiding that. Everybody can’t have what they want.”
Lila looked incredibly thoughtful. “I guess not. That’s...depressing.”
“They’re just craft booths,” he said.
“No,” she said. “I mean, yes, I guess. But it’s more than that. It’s... I guess I can’t just smile a lot and make sure that everyone is happy, when they’re not going to be happy. Because they want different things. Or they all want the same thing, and there’s only one of it. I’m probably going to have to give in and make some lists,” she said.
“What made you change your mind on that?”
“Would you believe that the sex was a transformative experience?”
He thought about it. “I’d love to say yes, but no.”
She laughed. “I just... Actually, it was kind of this. Us. I can’t stay the same forever. And I think I keep trying to. I keep doing everything I can not to disrupt the balance of my life and not to change too much. I kept thinking that happy made it okay. I’m optimistic, and I’m cheerful, and I get my work done. So...I’ve been functional. And I’ve never had to confront any of the things that I’ve failed at in the past. My relationship with my father, my relationship with JJ. Organizing anything. Having an intimate relationship with another person,” she said, looking at him meaningfully. “But I think this has clarified some things for me.
“Change isn’t always bad,” he said. “Change isn’t always good, either. Usually, it’s kind of a mixed bag.”
“Yeah.”
He shifted. “I thought that getting married would solidify some things for me. It was part of that practical life that I had laid out for myself. That was the one thing about my parents, Lila. What they had together was real. I figured that if I set up a life that didn’t have the burdens of poverty, that my marriage could only be stronger. It wasn’t something I was ready for. Wasn’t something I was even particularly suited to. I’ve learned that I’m better alone.”
“You didn’t love her enough,” Lila said softly.
The soft words were like a bullet, cutting straight through to his heart.
“What?”
“She didn’t love you enough, either. If she had, she would have stayed. I think about that a lot. Because the way my parents did it... That straight fifty-fifty split, to me that is a lot about the way they saw their marriage in general. I’ve always thought you had to be willing to give all of yourself, to let go of everything. And the person who loves you would never ask you to do that. But you’ve gotta go all in, one hundred percent. You can’t give fifty percent. That’s the kind of thing that leads to you being able to easily take your half right back. Divide your assets, divide your kids.”
“Maybe you’re right. But I could never give all that to someone else. I didn’t have any control growing up. Everything was the way my dad said it had to be. He worked that land like a man possessed, and that didn’t make it give us anything that we could hold on to. It was useless. Worthless. Failed us more often than it yielded anything valuable. My mother supported that dream with all of herself. She went hungry, and as a consequence, so did I. I couldn’t do that to any woman in my life. To any children I might have. My father never knew what a support system he had in her. He used her until she was broken and I know he didn’t mean to do that, but she stood by him and never complained and... I never wanted to build a life like that. One where I took and another person gave and I never even knew it was happening.”
“I guess it’s complicated,” Lila said, sounding sad. “I always want to think that I can figure all this out. But I’m going to find some magic amulet, or something someday, and it will help it all click.”
“You really do spend a bit too much time on fairy tales.”
“Maybe that’s part of the problem. But fairy tales are simple. They punish the bad and reward the good, even when it all seems impossible. People with pure hearts and optimistic minds win in the end.”
“Yeah, sadly not any life I recognize works that way.”
She looked at him for a long moment, and he could feel a gulf expand between them, in spite of the fact that they were both still naked. “I think it probably is for the best if this just happens once.”
He didn’t know exactly what had caused that reversal, and he couldn’t figure out whether he was relieved or disappointed to hear it.
“Reason being?” he asked, because she was one to fling pushy questions around whenever she felt like it, and he didn’t see why he couldn’t do the same.
“I think I learned what I needed to.”
He didn’t like the idea of this being a lesson for her.
“I didn’t learn anything.”
“Well, maybe I’m not a lesson for you. Maybe I’m just...another experience.”
“You have to make everything mean something, Lila?”
“I try. Because otherwise, my father didn’t want me, and my mother is too distracted to care about anything but herself. The one person who really loved me is gone, and all I have left is her house. What happened between us years ago was just me being overdramatic and hurting myself. I’d like to think it’s all connected. All threads that go together to make the tapestry of a person’s life. Intentional and beautiful when you stand far away from it, even if you can’t see it up close.”
“I think that’s optimistic, honey,” he said.
“Well, I’m still an optimist. Even if I acknowledge the need to make some lists.”
“All right,” he said. “I better get dressed and head out.”
Once was for the best. He couldn’t give her anything. She was the kind of woman who needed promises made to her.
Because if everything she told him about her life was true, then the poor girl needed someone to care. And he just wasn’t the right guy.
Lila said nothing. Instead, she tucked herself into bed and watched as he dressed.
“You still going to help me,” she said. “Right?”
“Yeah,” he said. “June asked me to.”
Lila nodded. “Right. Of course.”
“I’m not going to let you down, Lila. My word is my word. I don’t break it.”
Except marriage vows, he supposed. It wasn’t death that had broken him and Tonya apart, just his own hard-headedness, and while he didn’t regret the end of that marriage, the reality of that—a broken promise that size—seemed to linger between them and call him a liar.
“I believe you,” she said.
Everett finished dressing, and the last thing he did was put on his hat. As ridiculous as it seemed, it also felt like the right thing to do to tip it once before walking out of her bedroom.
“See you soon,” he said.
“Yeah,” Lila said. “See you soon.”