Hold on to Hope

by Jackson, A. L.

  I quietly crawled out of my sleeping bag and over to the tent flap. I cringed when I pulled down the zipper and it came off sounding about twenty times louder in the dead of night. I opened it only enough so I could squeeze through, and then I slipped on my flip-flops.

  Quieting my footsteps, I started for the path at the back of the camp in the direction of a place that my heart would always know.

  A place that was filled with memories of so much joy that it would always feel like stepping into a sanctuary.

  The moon was high, close to full, the milky haze sweeping over the smooth gray rocks that had been my playground as a child.

  I started to climb the path that felt so familiar.

  Higher and higher to where the rocks became slick, smooth from the years of water flowing in different directions, small crevices carved out from ages ago.

  Once I made it over the cusp of the ridge, the expanse of the lake came into quick view.

  Glittering and dark.

  Fascinating and foreboding.

  I crossed the invisible barrier that I’d been forbidden to pass when I was little, and I climbed toward the summit.

  With each step, the crash of the waterfalls grew louder, the vibration of them reverberating underfoot, my spirit feeling lighter as I made my way toward the place the felt like freedom.

  It tasted of childhood dreams.

  Murmured of teenaged hopes.

  I kept going until I made it to the boulder that was almost shaped like a heart.

  A big crack down the middle.

  Evan and I had deemed it the Heart of Stone.

  Fractured but unbreakable.

  It had always been our favorite place.

  Where we’d played and jumped and laughed before it’d become the place where we’d dreamed.

  With a shaky hand, I dragged my fingertips through the narrow crater, as if maybe it was real and alive and would hold all the answers I was searching for.

  We’d climbed this thing like we thought we had to conquer it, put a flag in it and call it our home, sneaking up here most every time we came to the lake.

  Our sacred place.

  A shiver rolled across my flesh when I felt the presence approaching from behind.

  Like instinct.

  Intuition.

  The boy my sixth sense.

  The same as I was his.

  Both of us drawn here the same.

  I slowly turned around.

  Evan stood in the opalescent beams of the moon.

  Wavering.

  Hesitating.

  Like he didn’t know if he should trust to step into the thousand secrets and regrets that toiled in the distance between us.

  His hair appeared almost white in the glow.

  His face this mix of torment and desire.

  Damn him.

  He still wasn’t wearing a shirt, and my gaze was gettin’ unruly again, unable to stop myself from drooling over all that firm, packed muscle.

  Never had I understood the phrase a sight for sore eyes better than in that very moment.

  Finally, I managed to drag my attention back to his face. That wasn’t any better because my pulse was racing through my veins like a freight train.

  A collision right up ahead.

  We stared, locked in that moment.

  I didn’t know for how long.

  The only thing I did know was something fierce and unrelenting rose up in the middle of it.

  Pushing and pulling and compelling.

  WHERE IS EVERETT? I found myself asking. I thought it would be a safe topic, but there was no way to hide the way my hands moved like a plea.

  A song.

  Everett.

  Evan gruffed an affectionate sigh. The sound of it wrapped me like a dream.

  I wondered if that was what this was. If I was still back in my tent and the nightmare that had chosen to torture me tonight was this.

  Loving him and never being able to touch him again.

  My favorite froggy.

  “My mom has him. He was fussing, and she claimed they have more space in their tent so he might be more comfortable, but I know she really just doesn’t want to let him out of her sight.”

  “She’s already madly in love with him,” I murmured, knowing he would feel it, the emphasis of what I meant.

  He gave a tight nod. “Yeah.”

  “They missed you.”

  “I missed them, too.”

  “God, Evan. I wish you wouldn’t have gone away. I wish you wouldn’t have done this to us.”

  It was out before I could stop it, and even if I could, I wouldn’t have taken it back.

  I needed him to know.

  Pain radiated from Evan, his spirit echoing off the rocks, ricocheting back.

  “Why did you?” I asked. Desperate.

  He took a step forward.

  The earth shook. A rumble of the caverns and a shiver of the cliffs.

  I DIDN’T KNOW HOW TO STAY. His movements were fluid, mesmerizing as he signed.

  “Why? Why would you ever think this wasn’t where you belonged?”

  His throat bobbed heavily as he swallowed, his own war raging inside of him. “My entire life, everyone always did everything for me. I figured it was my turn to return the favor.” He edged closer, and my breaths were getting shallower, sorrow billowing and getting all mixed up with the insane attraction I felt for this boy.

  This man who I was aching to touch. To caress and love and remind how important that he was.

  “A favor?” I realized it was a cry. That I was pleading with him to help me understand. “How in the world could you possibly think leaving me was doing me a favor?”

  He kept coming closer.

  Energy sparked with each step.

  A frisson in the air.

  So vivid I could almost see the circuit glinting in the space.

  Awareness churned, every hair on my body lifted and on edge.

  I wondered what I was thinking, coming here.

  To our secret place. I guessed it was the masochistic side of me knowing that he would follow. The part that needed to understand.

  His head drifted to the side as he stopped two feet away. His overwhelming presence and the subtle scent he wore like cologne hit me in a crashing wave.

  The lake and the masculine kiss of the sun.

  “I was so tired of seeing the fear written in you and knowing I was the one who was responsible for it.”

  “And you think that fear was going to up and go away because you moved across the country? Because you ripped yourself away from me? You think it didn’t grow a thousand times worse?”

  Our conversation had become nothing but breaths and gasps. My pulse hammered so hard I could feel it pummeling against my skin, this thrum, thrum, thrum that climbed through the bare space that separated us.

  “I wanted it to.” The words quavered, and Evan was right there, his pants washing over my face, his presence making me weak.

  “Did you really think I loved you so little? That my love was so superficial that you could leave and I’d forget you? Did you really think you could erase the spot where you are carved inside of me?”

  He’d left a cavern so wide there was no chance of it filling. No way it could diminish or even cave in.

  “That would be like believing we no longer needed the sun.”

  “Frankie,” he rasped, erasing the last bit of space, and he leaned down to run his nose along the length of my jaw. Inhaling as he went.

  I sucked in a sharp breath, shivers racing my flesh. I inched back, like I could possibly be strong enough to shun the pull this boy had on me.

  Magnetic.

  Hypnotic.

  My back hit the cool, hard surface of the rock.

  Pinned.

  That’s the way he’d always had me.

  Completely trapped and never wishing to get away.

  “Frankie . . . I missed you . . . so goddamn much,” he murmured at my ear, and he pulled back a
fraction to look down at me.

  “You know that I missed you.”

  More than I wanted to admit.

  Evan reached out and took a lock of my hair that was blowing around my face. He twisted it in his finger.

  The air shivered and danced.

  “It’s killing me . . . killing me seeing you with him. Fucking torture, Frankie, having to watch my girl with someone else.”

  What the hell was I supposed to say to that? Tell him that I agreed?

  Because it was.

  It was torture.

  Sheer, utter torture.

  All of it.

  Him leaving me and him coming back a daddy and the way that I still felt.

  Those eyes watched me like they were looking for an answer, his chest heaving, and God, my stupid stomach was twisting in all these knots, butterflies scattering when they had no business taking flight.

  “Only have one question for you, Frankie Leigh.” That raspy voice was gruff. Hard and almost mad.

  “What?”

  “Do you love him?”

  Flames lapped.

  Singeing.

  Searing.

  We might as well have still been looking at each other through the fire.

  Attraction and greed and everything we’d ever promised each other roiled in that unending connection.

  “I-I . . .” I turned away from him, unable to remain looking at him and not completely crumble.

  Evan reached out and took me by the chin.

  Softly.

  I felt myself caving. Everything coming apart. I struggled to find defenses. “I don’t owe you an explanation, Evan.”

  “You’re right. You don’t.” He edged closer. The words a ragged growl. “But I need to know.”

  “Evan . . .”

  TELL ME, he demanded, his movements harsh, his face in profile where the moon slanted down.

  So gorgeous it was unfair.

  “Why do you need to know?” It felt like a last-ditch effort that came bleeding out.

  “So I can do this.”

  Evan’s mouth crushed against mine.

  Possessive and hard.

  A desperate assault, though his hands took hold of my face like it might be a treasure.

  “Tell me,” he demanded at my mouth. “Do you love him?”

  There was nothing else I could do. Nothing else to say. “No.”

  His lips closed over my bottom one, sucking slow, just the tip of his tongue running the flesh.

  A stake of ecstasy plunged to the middle of me, way down deep in that cavern he’d left in the perfect shape of him.

  I gasped in shock.

  I knew he was swallowing the sound down, taking it in like a word, listening to what my heart would say.

  Every inch of him tightened, his muscles flexing and bowing as he pressed me deeper against the boulder, his cock hard where it urged against my belly.

  Oh God.

  This was crazy.

  Bad and wrong and I knew in an instant that I could never get enough.

  Dizziness swept through my mind. My body drenched in need.

  Desire and lust.

  Something so much bigger than my consciousness swelled in the atmosphere.

  Something profound and irresistible.

  My fingertips raked against his bare skin, clinging to his shoulders.

  “I missed you, I missed you, I missed you,” I realized I was mumbling into his kiss. Like my soul was giving him my answer. The whole, bitter truth.

  He groaned around it, the sound a tremor that tumbled down my spine and took a dive straight into that pool of need.

  It sloshed in a slow-slide of chills that rippled beneath my flesh.

  Evan coaxed me into submission with his maddening kisses.

  Reservations dislodged.

  Every molecule in my hypocrite body was screaming hell yes.

  Wanting what it shouldn’t have.

  Demanding it.

  Evan’s lips were firm and tender and imploring as they moved and tugged and nipped, and he whispered my name over and over again.

  “Frankie. God. Frankie. I missed you. Can’t go on like this. Not anymore.”

  My hands moved in the space between us, right over his chest. E-V-A-N.

  I knew he would feel it.

  Hear it.

  No one had ever listened to me the way that Evan Bryant did.

  His name came like a promise.

  A plea.

  The second I said it, he took us deeper, into that blissful madness I had never been able to resist, his tongue sweeping into my mouth to tangle with mine.

  At the contact, we were nothing but a chemical combustion.

  Sparks and fire and greed.

  All hands and panting moans, and Evan’s eyes were wide open, tuned in to me as our worlds rocked and our bodies begged.

  He spread a hand down my side and hooked it under one leg.

  I opened up.

  Muscle memory.

  Knees going weak as he pressed me firmer to the boulder to keep me standing, so I wouldn’t crumble at his feet, so he could fit his magnificent body between my thighs.

  Pinning me.

  Owning me.

  Torturing me as his hand splayed across my neck and down over my breast.

  He slid it under the fabric to tweak my nipple, and he exhaled a needy moan when he touched my flesh.

  I whimpered. Arched for his touch.

  “Unicorn girl,” he mumbled against my lips, his fingers flitting across the necklace I still wore around my neck. “I’d never cut your wings.”

  Oh God.

  I nearly lost it right there.

  Nearly came apart in his arms and begged him to make it true.

  Belief just teasing at the edges of my periphery.

  Emotion pulsed and throbbed and wept, and his hand was moving lower, his erection still rubbing at my shorts.

  Evan had always known how to work me, how my body would succumb to his magnificent hands.

  He spread me wider, palm smoothing up the back of my thigh.

  Chills raced, and he was slipping his hand through the leg of my short shorts to the soaked bottom of my bikini.

  He pushed the fabric aside.

  My heart stampeded.

  My spirit sang.

  Fingers dragged through my lips, plunging in once, before they were finding that sweet spot and sending me soaring before I could even process what the hell I thought it was that I was doing.

  The recklessness that he evoked.

  This boy who had always possessed me in every way.

  The boy I wanted to hold.

  An orgasm stormed through me like the bright, blinding flash of lightning followed by the low rolling rumble of thunder.

  Shattering out to touch every one of those cells that had been so on board for this.

  And I was whimpering, holding on tight before my mouth was moving across his jaw, his throat, before I was pressing a thousand kisses to the scar at the middle of his chest.

  I didn’t even realize I was sobbing until his hands were back on my face and prying me away, those eyes roving my face, reading me, pads of his thumbs working to gather up the moisture that was making it hard to see.

  “Frankie.” It was a command. Misery. A terrifying promise.

  Panic surged in behind the aftershocks that left my legs trembling and weak, and I was choking, gasping, twisting out from where he had me pinned.

  Stumbling, I got about ten feet away before I flipped around and looked at him in horror.

  “Frankie.”

  “Why are you doing this, Evan?” I rushed through the vacant words, trying to wipe away the onslaught of moisture that rushed down my face. “Why?”

  His jaw hardened. BECAUSE I LOVE YOU.

  Oh God. How desperately I had wanted to hear those words.

  To cling to their truth.

  My hands were on my chest, trying to hold back my heart that was already crawling through the crac
ks, through my fingers, through my defenses. “You left me,” I couldn’t help but beg. “You. Left. Me.” I could barely get it out I was crying so hard.

  I wished he could take it back.

  That he wouldn’t have left all those scars written on me.

  “I loved you, Evan. Needed you. If my love wasn’t enough for you then, how would it be now?”

  “I was wrong,” he begged. “I never should have gone, Frankie. I know that now. But I wanted you to have the chance at a normal life. A family. Children. Everything I couldn’t give you.”

  He took a step in my direction. “More than that? I never wanted to see you with that look on your face again, Frankie Leigh. I’ll never forget it, you coming through that hospital door. Couldn’t stand the thought of being the reason for that much fear.”

  Hot tears streamed out of my eyes. Soaking my face and trailing off my chin. All that pain was getting free. Everything I’d held inside threatening to climb right out to be set at his feet.

  And I knew, standing there, that I had to tell him.

  But how could I do it when I knew it would absolutely devastate him? What if it sent him running again?

  “Evan.” My throat tremored.

  “I love you, Frankie. Tell me you still love me, too.”

  I blinked, wanting to just confess it all.

  Memories rampaged through my mind. Us as children. The bond that should have been inseverable. Our love that had blossomed from the most beautiful place. The devotion I’d thought would come with that.

  The pain. The betrayal.

  The darkest night I’d ever spent.

  I blinked through them all, and a sob caught in my throat.

  Everything crushing down.

  Unsure that I would survive that kind of pain again, I turned and I fled.

  Problem was, the whole way back, I could hear him calling my heart back to his.

  Fourteen

  Frankie Leigh

  Tension curled through the cabin of Josiah’s Tahoe as we headed back for our duplexes. Every mile it grew thicker. The silence denser. This dark echo that had followed us all morning like a heavy cloud.

  We’d packed up and left early. I’d tiptoed over to my mama’s tent and woke her, told her we had to take off because Carly wasn’t feeling well.

  Carly had told me I was welcome to throw her under the bus, but I owed her big time.