The Finish Line

by Stewart , Kate

  “You didn’t lose me. You discarded me, cruelly, purposefully,” I remind him. “You forced me out.”

  “I had to! I couldn’t even protect myself!” He curses in both English and French, searching my face. “Am I too late?” He regards me for seconds before he slams a fist on the dash, eyes red-rimmed and losing focus.

  “How much did you drink?”

  “Not nearly enough!” I flinch, and he shakes his head.

  “Fuck, I’m sorry. Don’t be afraid of me. Jesus Christ, stop being afraid of me!” He jumps out of the car and rounds it, yanking me from the driver’s seat just as I grab my purse, his expression hopeful as he runs his hands over me. “I have a surprise.”

  And I have fucking whiplash.

  Physically, I can feel the ache inside him, his desperation to turn it all around and not later, now. He’s drunk as hell, but all he’s feeling is visceral. I can sense his hurt, his guilt, his agitation with our situation, and my refusal to fully let him in.

  And because of that, my newly returned King is coming undone.

  He guides me into the house, and once inside, he presses me to the door and flips the lock behind me.

  One, two, three.

  He lowers his eyes with shame when he sees me take note of his actions. “It started when my parents died, and I had to lock Dominic in the house. I had to make sure he was safe. It’s a false sense of security, and the logical side of me knows that, it knows, but it doesn’t matter. Somehow, counting helps. When counting isn’t enough, running helps exhaust my racing thoughts. And smoking helps me at times in between my run and my first sip of gin.”

  My heart is in the midst of exploding when he lifts volatile eyes to mine.

  “Do you understand that?”

  I nod, unflinching. “It’s a nervous condition and nothing to be ashamed of. I’m sorry if I ever made you feel uncomfortable talking about it.”

  “It’s…” he lets out a resigned sigh, “sometimes it takes over.”

  I cup his jaw, and he molds his hand over mine, seeming desperate for the contact, and my chest swells further with ache. “It’s anxiety that stemmed from a very hard and very traumatizing time in your life. When I’m stressed the most, that’s when the worst of my dreams manifest.”

  “It got…so much worse when I sent you away,” he admits and closes his eyes. “Running, smoking, gin, nothing is helping today. Come,” he grips the hand he’s holding and drags me into my destroyed kitchen. Burnt veal cutlets sit on the counter, along with an empty bottle of gin and two Louis Latour bottles. Caked mixing bowls and utensils line the counters, and it looks like he fought a bag of flour and lost at one point. I wrinkle my nose as I survey the damage.

  “Did you smoke in my kitchen?”

  “I had one.” He holds up two fingers.

  “Don’t smoke in my house.”

  “Your house,” he parrots, and I feel the sting that comment causes him. He glances at the stove. “I made you dinner.” He furrows his brows. “Well, I burnt dinner, but I’ve got this!” He reaches for an empty bottle of Louis Latour on the counter and pours three drops into a glass before thrusting it toward me. “Saved you some.”

  I eye it and bite my lips to stifle my laugh as he hangs his head in defeat. “This is not how this was supposed to go. Not any of this. Forgive me.”

  I glance at the newly shredded book, which lays just below a fresh scuff on my wall. He follows my line of sight.

  “Another one bites the dust,” I say through a sigh.

  “That’s not,” he shakes his head back and forth. “That’s not us. That will never be us. I don’t at all like your perception.”

  “All I see right now is a very drunk, very tired, very stressed-out Frenchman who had a bad day and needs to sleep it off.” It’s then I notice the absence of the other Frenchman in my life. “Did you leave Beau inside when you ran?”

  His eyes bulge in fear before he races out of the room. A minute later, I hear an audible protest from Beau for being accosted. In the next second, Tobias carries my dog into the kitchen before presenting him to me in his palms like a trophy. “He’s here.”

  I take Beau in my arms, and the confused dog licks my lips. I murmur my hello as Tobias snaps at the both of us. “I’m jealous. Of. A. Dog.”

  I shake my head, unable to hold in my grin, and glance around the kitchen. “Looks like you had a more than productive day. I appreciate the thought.”

  “I am not bored,” he says softly. “I’m…adjusting.”

  He steps in front of me and runs his knuckles along my jawline. “I didn’t think it was possible to miss you more than I did before I got here, but I do. And I want to fuck you so bad,” the ache in that declaration and his tone is comical, but the sentiment hits hard.

  “Wow. Okay. You get points for honesty.”

  He grips my hand, and Beau snarls at our feet. Tobias snarls back. “She was mine first, fucker.”

  I lift his chin with my finger as he stands off in a cock fight with my dog. “Think you might want to sleep it off, and maybe we can talk in the morning?”

  He entangles our fingers. “I don’t want to be your thorn, Cecelia.”

  “I know.”

  “I am yours.”

  “Yes,” I muse as we stand in my obliterated kitchen, “in all your glory.”

  He frowns. “I fucked this all up. I was going to wine you, dine you, make you come,” he murmurs, his thick lips tempting even in his state. “I was going to make you remember how good we are. I want to do things for you like I used to. You used to let me.”

  “I’d say you’ve done enough for one day.”

  “This has to stop. You have to face me.”

  “I’m looking right at you.”

  He places his palm over where his heart lies, his eyes intent, his voice urgent. “I’m sorry.”

  “I know.” Eyes dipping to where his hand rests on his muscular chest covered partially by my fiery-pink, lipstick-kissed apron, I lift it to inspect a painful-looking grease burn. “Does it hurt?”

  “Stop, look at me.”

  I do, and in his gaze, I see nothing but yearning.

  “I want to live here.”

  “You are living here.”

  “I’m existing here, but we can make a life here if that’s what you want. I’ll give you whatever you want. Dream with me again, Cecelia. Dream a thousand more dreams with me, and I will make them all come true. I can give you promises. Promises I couldn’t before.”

  “Tobias—”

  “I don’t want to be your goddamn thorn or the moon you cry for!”

  When I jump due to his outburst, he closes his eyes, running his flour-crusted fingernails through his hair, coloring more of his onyx strands white.

  My eyes narrow as I weigh his words, his actions, his desperation. “This is about more than the book. What aren’t you telling me?”

  Haunted. That’s exactly how he looks. Even in the bright lights of the kitchen, I can see the tortuous shadows of the past closing in on him.

  “Tell me we’re still possible, Cecelia. Tell me I’m not too late.”

  “Sleep it off. We’ll talk when you’re sober.”

  “It’s hard for me to make sense of my life so you understand.”

  “You’re making perfect sense.”

  He shakes his head as though he’s not getting through to me. He pulls his hand out of my grip, sliding down against the cabinet onto the floor. “I want to tell you…so much.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “Your heart isn’t open to me, and until it is, you won’t truly hear me.” He pauses for several seconds and closes his eyes. For a minute, I think he might’ve passed out until he speaks up and his eyes open to slits. “The morning, at Roman’s house, the day I confessed to you, you said…that Dom said something about us, about you and me,” He brings glistening eyes to mine.

  I nod, tears filling my own eyes. “I’ll tell you tomorrow when you’ll remember.”
>
  “I can’t forget anything. Don’t you understand?” He grips his hair, agony twisting his features. “My mind does this to me.” He chokes on emotion. “I can’t ask you tomorrow,” he whispers hoarsely. “Please understand I can’t ask you again.”

  “Okay,” I sink to kneel in front of him and survey his face. The face of a man in torment, not the confident man I collided with. “Then I’ll tell you without being asked. But you should know he wanted you to be happy.”

  “Do you think it’s possible?”

  “I think that you’re upset right now, and it’s not a good time for us to talk,” I answer. I grip his hand again and press a kiss next to his angry, blistered skin.

  “You still love me,” he whispers, watching my face intently. “But you don’t want to love me anymore,” he says mournfully before brushing his thumb over my lips. “Tu es si belle.” You’re so beautiful. “I never thought I’d find you, and when I did, you weren’t mine.”

  I shake my head. “I hate how admitting it feels, and I wish you would stop making me, but I’ve always been yours.”

  “But you really loved them.”

  I nod. “Tell me what you need to tell me, Tobias.”

  “These things I think about? Trust me, you don’t want to know.”

  “You promised.” There’s a warning in my voice.

  “Which admission do you want?” His brows furrow into a deep v. “That I’m scared that every day I wake up with you, every time I fuck you or make love to you, I’ll feel guilty. That every day I live this life with you, I’ll hate myself a little more.”

  “You can’t—”

  “The more I try to let go, the more my head refuses to let me. There’s so much you don’t know. Most of my life I lived without you. Thirty-one years of life I lived without you, and my brother was there, my brother,” he swallows, “he was with me for most of that time…I can’t move on from that. Dom…” he chokes on his name, and it cracks my heart. He’s still grieving as though he just lost him. “There’s no escaping it.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “How different would this have all turned out if I would have just fucking listened to them?” His voice is tattered when he speaks. “You have to think about that. I know you do. About the future you would have had with one or both of them if I wasn’t in the way. It kills me that you might still think about that. Dream about it. I can’t…this feeling, Jesus Christ, this jealousy I still feel at times. It eats at me. I saw how you loved them, and I still did it, I did it. I forged my way in, purposefully, as the man in your life because that’s how much I wanted you. Brothers be damned, everyone be damned. And you know what that did? It damned everyone, including us.”

  He lifts his chin defiantly, and it’s clear his nemesis is staring back at him in the reflection of my gaze. “Maybe I shouldn’t want your forgiveness. Maybe I need you to continue to punish me. Because I don’t deserve the pardon, Cecelia. It’s fucking wrong that I get you, while my brother rots in the ground.” He gathers some of the scattered pages from the floor with his free hand and lifts them between us. “Maybe I hate this,” he crushes the pages in his hand, “because it’s the truth.”

  “Did you finish it?”

  “Yes.” He shakes his head. “I want to give you a better story. I just wish I could give you a better man. My brother was the better man.”

  “Tobias—”

  “Just tell me if I’m too late, tell me the truth.”

  “The truth? All the good admitting the truth got me with you before,” I snap.

  “It got me here!” he roars. “It got me here. But I want the ugly, Cecelia. I need it. Fucking tell me, so at least I know where I stand with you.”

  “You have never dealt with honesty well, Tobias.”

  “I need it!”

  “You’re drunk.”

  “I’m miserable! You called me out for being a coward. Pot, kettle, Cecelia. Stop backing away from this.”

  “You’re unforgivably selfish! Is that what you want to hear? And maybe I don’t want to forgive you for the years I spent crying for you, dreaming about you, or for the hell I endured eight months ago, begging you to see what was so fucking clear to the both of us. You sent me away to ease your own guilt, pain, and fears, never taking into consideration how much I suffered alone—or if you did—it wasn’t enough to keep you from hurting me again. If you’re unforgivable, it’s for that. And what you’re doing right now is equally as selfish.”

  “I know that, Cecelia, but there are no magic words. There are no gestures grand enough or deeds good enough to make up for what I’ve done to him, to you, to Sean. I couldn’t figure out how to work my way around it then to get back to you, and I can’t figure it out now. So, maybe I need you to keep punishing me,” he chokes out. “Maybe it’s the only way I’ll be able to live with myself. I’ll endure it every day for the rest of my fucking life just to be with you. I’ll do anything,” he chokes again, “and we can joke about this situation, but this is truly hell for me. I love you, Cecelia, but it fucking hurts.” His eyes droop, and he lets out a defeated sigh. Scrambling for the words he just confessed doesn’t make a difference. I inevitably come up empty as he lowers his eyes and studies the back of my hand, stroking his thumb along my skin before pressing his lips to it. “Will you lock the door three times if I go to sleep?”

  “Yes.”

  Relief sags his shoulders as he sinks back against the cabinet and releases the pages, which scatter to the floor. “Thank you.” He begins to fade out, his head lolling, as he slides further down the door.

  “Tobias,” I nudge him, and his eyes open briefly before they lose focus. “Oh no you don’t. Good God, you crazy French bastard, at least help me get you to bed.”

  After much effort, between comatose steps, a few scary dry heaves, and some unintelligible French, I manage to get him face down on my bed before I set off to start repairing my kitchen.

  On my way back from the bedroom, I spot the new chessboard in the living room sitting next to the fireplace. Dozens of roses in different shades are arranged in vases and mason jars throughout. His intentions for our night clear. He wants us back. And the stinging truth in my throat tells me the feeling is mutual, but after so many years apart—in a way, a lifetime—I still can’t summon myself to open completely after the way he let me leave so easily the last time we parted. Hovering over the board, I inspect the new pieces, the set almost identical to my father’s. Setting the king back down, heart heavy, I make my way into the kitchen.

  I’m halfway done cleaning when Beau whines to be set free. It’s when I open the back door that my breath catches, and my heart bottoms out. Strung high above my garden are lights intricately woven across the yard and secured by wooden posts. And they aren’t just any lights. They brighten and dim, an unmistakable twinkle in pale yellowish-green.

  Fireflies.

  His attempt to recreate our sacred place.

  Somewhere between his racing thoughts, the last of his gin, too many glasses of Louis Latour, and his read of The Thorn Birds, his plans for date night went south. A book I’d entertained far too long that I thought resembled my life and our relationship. But he’s right, it’s not our story, and for the first time since he showed back up, I open my needy heart to the possibility that we may be able to write a better one.

  The sight of the twinkling lights underneath a star-filled sky fills me with hope. Though we’ve just scratched the surface of our issues, the truth is, we were cut short, our unwritten pages ripped from us before we even had a chance to live them out.

  Despite our losses, he still believes in it, in us, in magic, because I begged him to.

  The rest of his sentiment rings clear as tears fill my eyes. I walk out further into the freezing night and envision my first dream. A dream I’ve long since forbidden my heart to imagine, the lapping of seaside waves on our feet as we walk down a shoreline, safe, in a faraway place I can picture so clearly because I’ve seen it.
It’s then I finally answer his question aloud. “It’s possible, Tobias. It’s possible.”

  After ushering Beau in, and with one last look at the lights, I close the door and flip the lock three times.

  Age Twenty-Four

  The echo of an obnoxious engine followed by the telltale ‘fuck you’ of horns sound as Dom whizzes through the terminal. I manage to smother my budding grin with a scowl just as the sleek muscle car comes into view. He’s spent nearly two years restoring it from frame. He skids to a stop a foot away, his dark tinted windows down, a menacing smirk firmly in place. Agitation fleeing just from laying eyes on him, I retrieve my duffle from the sidewalk, and he holds up a hand before lifting a poster board that reads Giorgio Armani.

  “Hilarious,” I snap, “and you’re twenty minutes late.” I step off the curb and open the passenger door, tossing my duffle between us before sliding in and surveying the interior, unable to conceal how impressed I am.

  “This looks…fucking amazing.”

  Pride shines in his eyes at my reaction. “Just picked it up from the paint shop. That’s why I’m late. You’re the first passenger. I made sure of it.”

  Cupping the back of his neck, I pull him to me and press my forehead to his. “MIT. I’m so fucking proud of you, little brother.” A rare but wide smile cracks his face as he sinks in the contact briefly before pulling away.

  “I read a lot of books. They made me smart.”

  I return his grin. “You remember that conversation?”

  “I remember everything.”

  “I’m still pissed I had to hear you got accepted from Sean.” Like me, Dom keeps his cards close to his chest, only showing them when his hand is forced, an issue we’ve butt heads on more than once, but he’s cut from the same cloth.

  “It’s not that big of a deal.”

  “Agree to disagree.”

  He rights himself in the seat before peeling away from the curb, cutting a taxi off in the process. I shake my head at his deep chuckle.

  “You’ll have this fucking thing impounded in a week.”

  “Sean predicts days.”

  “My money is with him.”