by Ella James
“Finley…you remember how you told me…that first time…about your parents?” His voice shakes. “Inside the burrow?”
I nod as my throat tightens.
“You said you like ume candy…and phones with cords…that have colors?”
I nod, smiling a bit that he remembers.
“I like tacos,” he whispers, “and airplanes that can land on water. And I really, really love you. In college one time…I auctioned myself off…and this old lady got a date with me. And we went swing dancing.” He gets a breath, and smiles a bit despite his heavy eyelids. “I liked it. It was really fun.” His face is relaxed, and his eyes look sleepy. So I’m utterly unprepared for what he says next.
“When I was in seventh grade, my mom died. And this man…who worked for my school,” he whispers, “came to tell me. It was at night.” His voice cracks there. “And my mom…she died from suicide.”
He shuts his eyes and swallows hard and takes a deep breath, wincing after. “I was so…fucked up.” He licks his lips. Inhales. “He gave me Xanax. Laurent was his name.” His jaw clenches. “I wish I could hold you.”
I scoot up by him, and I guide his face so that his cheek’s against my chest. I stroke his hair. He’s panting.
I lean down to put my mouth over his—do the breathing thing I do when he’s having anxiety—but I don’t make it before he says, “He raped me. It was just that one time. I was thirteen, but…I didn’t fight him off. I think because of the Xanax. And I was so…surprised. I was so surprised he did it. He came back another time, and I attacked him. After that, I couldn’t sleep, so I needed the Xanax.” He swallows, and I press my lips against his hair. “I blackmailed him…with that secret. So he’d keep getting me the Xanax. I…wouldn’t let him…so he started going to my friend. Nate.”
He weeps as he speaks about Nate. He tells me all of what happened, of finding Nate’s body. Weeping hurts him, so I give him more tincture. As it begins to work, he whispers, “Usually…I try not to. I like pain…because it evens up the score.”
And I realize there’s so much here. There’s so much for us to talk about: a lifetime’s worth of secrets and the healing from them. I hold him as well as I can, and I kiss his cheeks and forehead. “Thank you for trusting me.”
“That’s all?” His voice is soft—so soft I scarcely hear it. “You don’t think it’s…fucking weird? And sick?”
“Weird is not even the second or third thing that comes to mind. I think I love you. And you’ve kept this secret for so long. And now you don’t have to, because I’ll help you. I’ll carry it with you.”
Tears roll down his cheeks. “I knew you’d say that.”
“Then that means you know I love you endlessly. Insensibly. All I want is happiness—for both of us. The Sailor and Siren. I know you’re bothered you were given the Dilaudid. I can feel it haunting you.” He wouldn’t look at me when he told me about it. “But…I trust you, Carnegie. I know how strong you are. Everything is different this time.”
He squeezes his eyes shut, and I wipe his tears. “I can’t believe you’re here,” he whispers.
“I knew I would follow you. If you made it, I knew I’d be on the ship behind you. What I didn’t figure was your father’s offer to come sooner.”
“I wanted you. If you wanted to come.” He whispers, “Needed you.”
“I want to say something.”
His eyes lift open to meet mine.
“Declan…I’m so sorry for what happened the night Doctor returned. I’m so sorry that you didn’t know. At first…” I shake my head. “After the burrow, I thought someone would tell you. So I kept away. Out of shame, I suppose, and perhaps a bit of practicality. And then, when by chance no one did—when no one spilled my secret…I suppose I saw a way into the light. Just for a moment.” I swallow.
I choose not to reveal more about Doctor that night. What Declan just told me should remain center-stage.
Doctor doesn’t come up until the next morning, when Sailor awakens just before his NSAID dose and starts to tremble. He is radiating pain. He grits his teeth and whispers, “I know that fucker hurt you. More than once. Tell me he didn’t…but don’t lie to me.”
I nearly laugh at that. As he holds the tincture under his tongue, I rub my cheek against his. “Don’t worry about that. He’s gone and we’re still here.”
“You were scared of him.”
I rub his hair. “Carnegie,” I murmur.
“I scared you,” he groans, “that night. I’m sorry I scared you.”
I abandoned him there on the floor when Doctor appeared, and it’s he who’s sorry. I realize something more in that moment: It must have bothered him…to see me that way, beneath Doctor. Given his own background…
“It makes sense, though, your reaction. Please, let’s not dwell there. I want to be here with you. Only here, and nowhere else.”
His tired eyes well. “You do?”
“Yes.” I wipe his eyes and brush a kiss over his lips.
“I might not play again.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know about my shoulder…”
“You still have to endure rehab with it, yes?”
“It might not come back…good enough, though.” He looks anguished.
“I’ll be praying it does, if that’s what you want.”
“You still pray?” His voice cracks, and I stroke his damp cheek.
“I’ll always pray.”
I help him swallow some Advil and feed him a bit of bread and more tincture.
“I don’t see the point.” His eyes are shut now. I can’t read his face.
“It’s okay if you don’t.” I mean it sincerely.
I wrap myself around his lower body, hugging him about the waist, and Declan groans. “I wanna touch you.”
“I know, love.” I kiss his side, and he groans…and I realize I can see him straining at his pants.
“Touch me.”
My hands hover above him. “Are you sure?” My eyes search his. “What if it hurts?”
“Please. If you want to,” he rasps.
Relief fills me as I realize the tincture is working a bit now. I can scarcely stand to see him hurting.
“I want to make you feel good.” I start stroking him, and he groans, lifting his hips. “Does that hurt?” I murmur.
“Fuck, no. It’s been ten days.”
“You can’t touch it yourself.”
He shakes his head, and I realize…I’m in for fun. I tease him wickedly—taking breaks to check how he’s enduring. When he spends deep in my throat, I suck his sex until he groans harshly.
“Do it again.”
I realize over the next few days that he’s back in the burrow…with respect to how he feels. His body hurts beyond his wounds due to the hiccup with the Dilaudid, and he craves sex.
“We’ll do it all again,” I reassure him one afternoon. I stroke his hands, which I’ve realized he likes, and kiss his cheeks. “And you’ll progress again. And you’ll feel better again.”
That night, I straddle his lap, and we make love with his sex sporting one of the condoms I ordered online at his direction.
Afterward, we shower, and I change his bandages. I see the round hole in his shoulder and the corresponding one at his back, and I can’t help weeping at the sight of it.
“It barely even hurts,” he whispers. “The worst part is not moving the arm. Because I want to hold you.”
That tincture is a bit like truth serum.
“Do you?”
He nods as I re-wrap the area.
“When I was on the boat…”
“Mm?”
“The Celia. I remember…I just…wanted you.”
“I’m so sorry that I wasn’t there.”
“I’m sorry I missed what happened with the doctor.”
“I passed out as Father Russo tried to get the gun from him. I believe I remember the gunshot sound, but that’s it.” I swallow. “I never s
aw him.”
I get his arm back in its sling, and change the dressing on his right shoulder—the one that had the surgery. Before I get it back into the sling, he strokes my hip with his fingers, presses his cheek against my belly. It’s one of his hugs.
“Don’t feel sorry,” I say. “Not for that.”
I get him settled with his two slings, and he shakes his head at the mirror.
I quirk a brow at his reflection. “Isn’t he that famous baseball player?”
He smiles sadly. “I don’t think so.”
“He’s sure easy on the eyes.”
We wander back into the bedroom, and I stop by my bedside table.
He whispers, “Get down on your knees Finley.”
And that is how he finds some equilibrium those first two weeks…until he’s able to move his arms more, bit by bit.
“Sit on my face, Siren. And stuff your fingers into your cunt.”
I do as he demands, and he licks me till I’m screaming.
Every day, it’s, “Suck me harder. I just need to…fucking come.”
So every day, I help him come.
And in the mornings, we walk slowly underneath the lovely trees, with my arm wrapped about his waist.
“I’m sorry I can’t hold you.”
“I’m sorry my husband shot you.”
It’s the first time such things have been said. We laugh so hard, it brings him pain, and we’re forced back inside. I tease his scalp with my nails and feed him an Orange Creamsicle. He likes eating them. I think somehow it must distract from the sensations of withdrawal. I kiss his cold, orange lips, and he whispers, “Turn around.”
I do, and there’s a strange man at the door.
“Who is that?”
He smiles.
It’s the kiln he had his father promise me when he called Tristan to invite me here.
Declan watches me at the pottery wheel in afternoons. Our precious days together stretch into weeks. His left arm heals enough so he can push his fingers into me. We shower together, eat food a truck delivers, and tuck in close at night.
Some weekends, his father visits, and we’ll drive down to Seattle. Sailor’s grown so very lean, but when we go into the city, he eats. After some time passes and he’s hurting less, we roam all about the downtown, gorging ourselves.
It’s a slow road, with his shoulders. Dutifully, with the discipline of a teetotaler, he cuts the marijuana tincture back for use for PT only. He’s healing physically, but he still has his Laurent nightmares. He holds me against him in the night and breathes into my hair.
“You’re the only thing that’s ever made me feel better. At rehab, they say it can’t be someone else. But I don’t know how to do it any other way.”
Twenty-Two
Declan
Living in the woods of Washington with Finley is a revelation.
For the first few weeks, I’m so fucked up. Withdrawal, and pain. I’m worried that she’s here…with me. There’s so much I want to say to her, but I can’t get my head on straight. I feel like a little kid—helpless. I can’t even hold her when we sleep. Can’t squeeze her back and kiss her hair. I can barely use the bathroom by myself. And when they did my shoulder, the right shoulder, the surgeon said that pitchers hardly ever come back from it.
I’m so fucking sad and tired. But Finley is a miracle-worker. She helps me get a leg up on my pain and figures out a way for us to sleep. She cooks some, and my dad helps her get a bunch of other shit delivered.
At night, she helps me get showers and re-wrap all the bandages. She’s never watched real TV, and it’s kind of funny because she likes all the things that everybody likes. HGTV. House Hunters. We lie in bed with the top part tilted up and Finley snuggled up against my side, and she watches these motherfuckers pick out houses for hours.
In the mornings, when I wake up hard, she teases me—but not too much. She seems to understand how much I like, and how much feels like too much in those days when I can’t touch her.
In the moments when I’m sick of this shit, she takes all my orders. When I tell her that she better ride my face or shove some fingers into her cunt, she lets me be a bastard—and she smiles while doing what I tell her to.
I’ll never forget the rhythm of those early days together. After we get out of bed, we eat some breakfast. I eat whatever she gives me, if I think I can keep it down, and when we’re done, we head into the woods. Finley wraps her arm around my waist, and I watch as she oohs and aahs over the nature shit. It’s all new to her, this terrain. The critters. We see a deer one day, and Finley squeals so loud, the damn thing flees in terror, and she’s sad.
“You want a deer?” I can’t help laughing. “I think we can lay some feed out, and they’ll all come.”
“Will they really?”
“Could bring deer. Could bring out the unicorns.”
She elbows me and then gasps in alarm, but it’s funny. “C’mon, you think you can hurt me with your little elbows?”
She gaps again, this time in mock offense. Her mouth curves into a playful grin. “I think they’re more threatening than yours are, tough guy.” She jumps out ahead of me and strikes a karate pose, chopping her arms in my direction. “Eh, eh, eh?”
I whoop. “Below the belt!”
“I do believe you mean in the slings.” She snickers, and somehow we’re kissing. I can’t hold her, but I want to. I’m so fucking hard. She looks around—as if someone’s hiding out here on our eighteen acres. Then she leads me over to a tree. I lean my back against it, and she goes down on me, blows me till my fists are balled up with the need to pull her hair. I come so hard, the sky between the pine needles seems to pulse.
And then I’m laughing, and she’s smiling.
“This is so fucked up,” I mumble.
She pulls my underwear and pants up, and she stops to kiss my fingers, hanging from each sling. “That you’re T-Rexing it here in the wilderness?”
I snort in laughter when stretches up to kiss my mouth. I bite at her lips. “Who’s sucking dick in the woods, mm?”
“These are memories to cherish.”
“Are they? Is this everything you’d hoped for when you thought of leaving Tristan?”
“Actually, it’s everything, yes. Do you know what it was like for me—with him?” Her eyes glitter with tears, and I grit my teeth as my arm reaches for her automatically.
She kisses my side and the back side of my shoulder. I can hear her get a deep breath.
“He was horrid…like my father. When I first knew him, he wasn’t so. He was more like…someone older. I suppose perhaps a father figure. When he proposed the idea of marriage, it was more so he could remain on the island. You can’t do that, you know—unless you marry in. Not even doctors can become true residents.”
I feel her breathing against me, and I try to turn so I can see her. But she’s got her face pressed against the area behind my right shoulder. I realize I don’t think she wants me looking at her, so I try to get a hold of myself.
“He said it would be companionship—and only that. And then he broke his promise.” Her voice cracks. “He wanted…more of me…and when I didn’t give it—” She sighs loudly. “I’d like to remind you what a good cook I am. And how fashionably I plan decorate my own home one day. Please don’t see me this way…but…he hit me,” she whispers. “More than once. So I grew terrified of him.”
She’s back in front of me, wiping her eyes, clenching her jaw and looking pissed as hell. “The bar’s quite low—yes, you could make that point. But I enjoy it here because you’re here. I have a T-Rex fetish and a bona fide addiction to this.”
She gives me a teary smile as her hand covers my bulge, and I shut my eyes, trying not to get hard when I can’t do what I want with her. Christ, I want to carry her back home and fuck her till she can’t think of anything, but especially not that fuck.
As it is, she rides me later that night. That weekend, my dad brings some deer feed out, and we spend the n
ext week sitting in rocking chairs on the back porch, waiting for the deer to come. I’m doing a little bit of PT on both arms—not much, though—and she’s practicing pilates.
On a Sunday night, as Finley’s pulling homemade cinnamon rolls out of the oven, I see them through he window.
“Hey, come here. Look at this,” I whisper, pointing. “That’s a buck, and that’s a doe. See how he has the antlers?”
We don’t move as we watch them eat what we left. When they’re gone, Finley is laughing, and she’s wiping her eyes.
“What?” I chuckle. “We’re crying over deer now?” I lean up against her, kissing her shoulder and then her hair. “It’s okay if you wanna cry.” I kiss her hair back from her forehead—just this funny little move I learned to do with my mouth—and Finley’s soft lips catch mine.
She kisses me deeply, and then she pulls away and whispers, “No, you lout. I’m crying because I’m happy to be here with you…and you moved your arms so much today. The right one in particular pleases me,” she clarifies. “And I’m crying because I’m late with my cycle.”
My stomach feels like I just swallowed a brick. “How late are you?”
“Only a day…but I’m frightened,” she whispers.
I’ve never been so grateful for a little bit of range of motion in my arm. I hold her just a little and wrap one of my legs around hers. And I know we’re still okay, because that makes her laugh.
“You ever been a day late, Siren?”
“No.” She wipes her eyes, and more tears fall.
“What bothers you about it? Just…the baby thing?”
“I adore babies.” Behind her, Baby hears her name and raises her head. “I don’t have a home, though. I know not a single soul here in America but you…and your father. Everything is gotten with money. Your money. More than anything, I don’t want to be a burden to you.”
Now she’s sobbing, and oh shit, somehow I’ve fucked up with this.
“Shit, Finley. This is your home. Wherever I am, that’s your home. You want a card with your name on it? We can go get one at the bank tomorrow.”
She’s shaking her head.
“You don’t?”
