by London James
The honey brown tendrils of her hair stick against her skin as the water falls down her body. Even though the shower is on, beating against her skin, I can still tell what is shower water and what is tears. Her lips turn red too, swollen, like she has bitten them while she cries, but she didn’t. “How do I live with the last time?”
“You live like every moment will be your last.” People don’t think about that. People get complacent. I’m guilty of it. I always think there will be a tomorrow, or the next day, or the next, but what if the next day doesn’t come? Am I truly going to be happy with myself if I know my heart beating for the last time, will honestly be its last time?
Everly nods and puts her ear against my chest again, listening. There is no way she can hear my heart right now. I kiss the ridge of her collarbone and sigh with a mixture of sadness and content. I shouldn’t be happy at all, but the woman I love is in my arms, helping me through another pain. “We can’t leave. The airports are closed. The snow is too bad.”
“We can’t even take them home and bury them? Or whatever they want?” her voice grows steadily with anger.
“Nope. We are stuck here. They will be at the local morgue until we can leave. In the meantime, that time will help me look over my father’s will and if your mother had one. I want to be able to give them the funeral they wanted. I don’t want to guess and them end up haunting us from the afterlife and all.”
“Here isn’t so bad,” she says. “I just wish the circumstances were different.”
“No, it isn’t.”
And for the first time in six years, I tell the truth when it came to Everly. I wish here was somewhere else and in another time. Maybe then she wouldn’t have left. Maybe then our parents would be alive. And maybe then, she would love me the way that I love her.
Hope can really be a fickle bitch because it makes me think I can still have all that. I am in denial. Even if she is in my arms now, she might not be tomorrow. And my dad is dead. So, the pipe dream I have, is exactly that now, a fucking useless dream.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Everly
It’s been two weeks since we found out our parents died. I’ve cried most of the tears, like usual. But the one thing that has made me feel better, is being here with Rowan. He is so strong. He only broke down once, and all the other times, he is the one holding me as I sob myself to sleep.
The storm is supposed to be letting up today, so hopefully we can get home soon and talk to the lawyers. We haven’t been able to get a hold of anyone because the cell phone towers stopped working the day we told our friends that our parents didn’t make it. Waiting for time to be in our favor, we laid around and watched TV, made love, cried, ate, and waited until we were allowed to leave the building. Anything to distract ourselves.
I’m not too sure what will happen when we can leave these four walls, but I’m sure Rowan and I will go our separate ways. Right now, emotions are high, and he is setting aside all the pain I caused him. He will remember, and I’ll have to start all over on figuring out how to get over Rowan Michaels. I don’t think it can be done because here I am, all these years later, only loving him more than I originally did.
The sound of Rowan’s phone ringing makes him roll off the couch so fast; it’s like he wasn’t even there.
“Hello?” he answers, gesturing with his hand to mute the TV. He jumps over the back of the couch and lands on the cushion. Rowan pulls the phone away from his ear and puts it on speaker. “Yes, we are here.”
“Mr. Michaels. Ms. Madison. I’m so sorry for your losses. I can’t imagine how this time has been for you,” the man on the phone says.
“Who is this?” I mouth to Rowan.
“Lawyer,” he explains.
Oh. That makes sense.
“Your parents combined their wills. They are a little unorthodox if you ask me, but this is how they wanted it. They want to be cremated, first off. And cast over the mountain they died on.”
“Well, that’s poetic,” Rowan responds, “They pick the damn mountain that killed them. I bet they wouldn’t choose it now, considering.”
I flick my gaze to Rowan and nudge him with my elbow to tell him to stop. He has been making passive-aggressive jokes like that the past few days, and I understand. People deal with pain on different levels, and this is how Rowan deals with his.
“Yes, well, regardless of that,” the lawyers flips a page in the background and clears his throat. “It seems the only way to get the inheritance and the house, is if whoever gets married first within the first thirty days after their death, gets it. The person must live and care for the property for six months. If no one marries, everything goes to your Uncle Roy, Rowan.”
Rowan and I stare at the phone like its lost mind. There is no way our parents agreed to that. There is no way. That’s impossible. Neither of us are dating people. Apparently, we stay quiet a little too long because the lawyer clears his throat.
“Hello?”
Rowan blinks, but I’m still dazed. I plop against the sofa and wonder who the hell I can marry within thirty days. They didn’t specify gender. I can always marry Blaire. She won’t care. And there will be no obligation for sex, since both of us are straight.
“Right, um, okay.” Rowan scratches his head. “So when do the thirty days start?”
“It started the day their death was officially recorded,” he says.
I gasp. We have lost almost half of our time! “That only gives us two weeks. That’s not fair,” I try and argue. We just found out about this. How can we prepare for something like this in just two weeks? Oh, our parents were cruel, cruel people.
“Don’t shoot the messenger. That is what they wrote in the will.”
“Okay, so we will talk to you in fourteen days. I doubt we will have good news, but there’s nothing we can do about it,” Rowan sighs, spreading his hand across his face until his thumb is rubbing his temple and middle finger rubs the other.
“I’m not sure why they did it like this. I questioned them, but they said they had someone they loved, but you kids were keeping that person at arm’s reach. They thought this would light the fire under your butts, so to speak.”
Oh, that’s just peachy.
“Okay, we need time to think about this. We will call you,” Rowan tells him.
“I’ll call you. Concentrate on the task at hand.” The lawyer hangs up, leaving us staring at a blank cell phone.
A few minutes of silence go by, and it is so awkward it starts to choke me. “I have no idea what to do,” I say.
“Me either.”
I tap my fingers against the coffee table, feeling restless all of a sudden, and let’s not forget the anger I feel toward my mother right now. I stand up, having no idea what to do with myself when I see the bar. “Want a drink?” I ask, sauntering over to the bar to start making myself a drink.
I want a good drink. None of that burning throat stuff. If men want more hair on their chest, that’s definitely a way to do it. I start making a Dirty Shirley, the one and only drink I know how to make and put cherry vodka in first. This resort really does have everything. “And if you say scotch, I’m not making you a scotch.”
“I’ll have whatever you’re having. Looks good,” he says, relaxing against the couch as he tilts his head up to stare at the ceiling.
I decide not to tell him what the drink is called because he may not want it then. And I want to see Rowan love something unexpected. And he will love this. Everyone does.
I make a pitcher of it, bring it over to the coffee table, and sit down two glasses. Everything clinks against the glass, and the pitcher spills a little, but I don’t care. I have no want, need, or energy to clean up after myself right now.
Two cherries are at the bottom of the glasses, and when I pour the red mixture in the cups, the cherries floated to the top.
He brings the drink to his mouth and narrows his eyes at me. “Really? This is all you know how to make?”
“I never sai
d I was a skilled bartender. I know what I like. I like this. There is no need to know any more.”
“I have so much to teach you,” he chuckles.
Hope wiggles its way in like a little buzzing bee trying to fit into a flower. Maybe he can see I’m not so bad and decide to spend the rest of his life with me.
I snort and chug my beverage. There is no way that will happen.
I eat my cherry, plucking it out of the cold liquid and pulling it from the stem with my teeth. “What are we going to do? I don’t have a line of guys wanting to marry me, let alone, marry me in two weeks.”
“I bet if I took you out right now, you’d find one,” he says.
“I don’t think you understand. I’ve never had a man come up to me and ask if I want a drink. They always say I’m intimidating, but that’s just a way to call yourself a pussy. I stopped going out. I never get asked out genuinely.”
“We should test that theory.”
“Let’s not and say we did,” I reply, wrapping my tongue around the straw in my yummy beverage.
“I want to see what you’re talking about.”
“Rowan, no one is going to talk to me with you around. You’d be the biggest cockblock of them all besides my awkward personality.” I laugh at my own joke. Sometimes, I’m funny.
“I’ll stay back. I just want to see because I find it ludicrous.”
“Can’t we play a different game? Do you know anyone single that will come over and marry me?”
Rowan sips his Shirley and hums. “Yeah, I’m not real sure what to do about that.”
I can’t help but stare at him as he does that. Every move he makes, he makes it seem like a graceful, choreographed dance. It’s beautiful and serene. The way he holds the glass, his fingers wrapping around the expensive crystal, gently, but still with a firm hold.
It’s kind of like the way he holds me. Carefully, but meaningfully. I can’t remember a time where he wasn’t eye-catching. All the women wanted him, and he dated a few, probably had sex with a few. And my teenage heart couldn’t even think about that. I’d always get so sad and down knowing he wanted others, but not me.
Now it isn’t the case, is it? I’m blinded by the confusion, the pain of losing my mom, my love for Rowan that never went away. Is it these four walls we are stuck in? Is that why this is so easy right now, not that love is easy—it never is—but is that why we were able to push through all the anger to get here, to this moment? What happens when we walk outside the door, back to the real world? I have to go to work, and so does he. Will these past few days be written history right alongside everything else?
It’s a hard pill to swallow. All the times he climbed up my bedroom window, sneaking in to watch Grey’s Anatomy. He said he hated that show, but I think he loves it, or he wouldn’t have kept watching it with me. And the school dances. I smile on the inside, not wanting to give away what I’m thinking. Even if he was dating another girl, Rowan did the thing he was never supposed to, he either broke up with them right before the dances or he would not go with them because he always went with me.
I swallow the emotion trapped in my throat, threatening the way I breathe. I stare inside my drink and sip from the small black straw. The sweet grenadine hits my tongue, but it does nothing to yank me out of the memories. All of them, written in history, never to be relived again.
“What are you thinking about?” he asks.
“Nothing, just the past, is all. We really were inseparable.” The only reason why we aren’t now is because of me. All the reasons or excuses I can think of to tell him why I did it, none are good enough.
He clears his throat and takes a large gulp of his drink. “Yeah, we were.”
The emotion and heartache on his face is all it takes to break me in. “Remember the bonfire?” I ask. Right as the words left my mouth, I knew I shouldn’t have said anything. I’m currently thinking of Malcolm and how Rowan acted. He was so protective.
I hit the bottom of my drink, slurping past the ice. Then lean forward to pour another Shirley. “Do you want another?”
The silence is deafening before he says, “Sure.”
I pour him another glass and scoot back on the couch again, pulling my legs up to the side. I should have never mentioned the night of the fire. It was the night we had sex for the first time, and the moment I left him, dropping him like he meant nothing. But he always meant everything.
“I remember,” he says, twirling the straw around in his drink. “I remember you coming to the fire looking so beautiful; it took my breath away. That little plum dress hugged all your curves just right. You took my breath away. You always did. I had planned on telling you that night how much I loved you, even if we were going our separate ways. I had to tell you how I felt because it was about to burst out of me.”
“I was going to tell you too,” I answer.
“And then Malcolm fucking pushed himself on you. I about lost my damn mind.”
“I remember,” I nod, suddenly feeling cold as a shiver works through my system.
“I saw red. I wanted to kill him for putting his hands on you, on someone that wasn’t his. I felt so protective and possessive. I knew right then that anyone else touching you, would make me feel like that.”
My body heated with nerves from the memory of feeling Malcolm against me, pushing me against the tree. “I appreciate you coming to my rescue. I don’t think I ever said thank you.”
Rowan leans forward and puts his elbows on his knees. “You never have to say thank you for something like that, Everly. Anyone decent would have done it.”
“Yeah, but it was you who did it. How many people were there, and you stepped up? Who knows what would have happened.” I don’t even want to think about it.
“And then we had sex in my truck,” he says flatly.
I don’t think I can ever think of that experience with no emotion. “It was the best night of my life, Rowan.”
He snorts and snatches the straw from the cup, tossing it on the floor. He downs the rest of his drink, the ice clinking together as he turns the glass up. “You sure knew how to show it.”
The first tear breaks free from the hatred in his tone. “You don’t understand.”
“Make me understand. Make me understand how you can say you love me so much, and then leave me like I didn’t mean shit to you. Do you know what it did to me, Everly? Do you know how depressed I got? My heart was numb. I didn’t start to feel it again until two years ago. I was finally getting over you, I think. But then every time I thought I was, you’d pop back in. And I’d fall all over again and start at square one. I was ready to give it all up for you. I was ready to follow you to the end of the fucking world because you were my world.” His eyes turn red as tears threaten his eyes.
“That’s why I left. It’s why I never answered your calls. I wanted to be with you, Rowan. I cried every night for you. I missed you so much. I couldn’t sleep the first year without you. I was so used to your arms wrapped around me. But I couldn’t be the reason why you didn’t go for your dreams or mine. You always said you were going to be successful. You were going to be rich. And I didn’t want to be the one holding you back. We could have resented each other.”
“And I resented you anyway.”
“I know,” I say. “But your dreams came true.”
“My dream was you, Everly. All the money, the company, it would have happened either way.”
“I thought I was doing the right thing. I’m sorry,” I say.
“You should have talked to me. You shouldn’t have taken that opportunity away from me. I deserved that.”
“You did,” I concede. “I know that now. I made a mistake, but it was never a mistake giving my virginity to you, Rowan. All my firsts are with you. That means something to me.”
“It was my virginity, too!” he shouts, the vein in his forehead popping out from the frustration. “It was my virginity, too. I had never had sex before, Everly.”
“What?” I w
hisper, the drink nearly falling out of my hand. “That’s impossible. All the girls…”
“All the girls meant nothing to me like you did. I thought dating would eventually dim my feelings for you. But no one ever did. Sure, I kissed a few people, but I never wanted them the way I wanted you. I guess you could say I waited for us to have the opportunity. I wasn’t sure if it would ever happen, but having sex for the first time, I knew it had to be with you.”
The breath leaves my lungs in a big swoosh. I don’t know what to say. My entire body is shaking from shock. “I had no idea.”
“You didn’t stick around long enough to find out.”
“You felt like you knew what you were doing. I would have never known. Unlike me,” I say, pushing my hair behind my ear. “You made the experience amazing, Rowan.”
“You felt so good. I can’t even put into words how amazing it was. Everything fell into place for me that night. I knew I had to be with you,” he says.
“It’s still amazing.”
He nods, “It only gets better.”
I finish my third drink by the time we are talking about this and walk over to the bar to make another since the pitcher is empty at this point. Alcohol always makes things easier to talk about. Otherwise, I don’t think I would have talked to him about it. I should have. I know that. I’ve known that for a while now.
“I still love you,” he says in a low hush.
I sit my drink on the bar and strut over to him. I take off the straps of my dress on the way over. He uncrosses his legs and spreads them wide. Rowan’s arms rest on either side of him. His pants tent higher and higher the further I drop my dress below my breasts, and that’s all it takes for it to fall to the floor.
He sighs as he looks my body up and down. “So beautiful.” He runs his hands up my belly, placing it over my heart. “I think I’ll always love you to the point of madness, Everly.”
