by Erin Noelle
Once I press it, I toss the phone on the cushion next to me like a hot potato then try like hell to not think about when, or if, he’ll message me back. Shoveling the food into my mouth, I feed my doubts and insecurities throughout the rest of the episode and the entirety of another, but the phone never buzzes with an incoming text. Even though I’ve checked numerous times to make sure it is indeed working.
It’s almost 11:00 when I finally scrape my lethargic body off the couch to throw my trash away and brush my teeth. As I crawl in between my cold, lonely sheets, I sneak one last peek at my phone, making sure I haven’t accidentally missed any alerts. My hope sinks at the empty discovery, and to keep the tears at bay, I squeeze my eyes shut tight until sleep claims my disappointed heart.
TAVIAN
07.17.15
I lean back against my pillow and stare at the platinum band around my left ring finger, sucking the life out of me like a noose tight around my neck. Panic courses through me faster now than it did when I was driving a foreign rental car at top speed through a line of emergency vehicles to escape a terrorist attack, all while trying to keep the beautiful stranger next to me unharmed. And that was a pretty traumatic fucking day.
The scene I came home to tonight… there aren’t words to properly describe the utter shock and disbelief I felt. Annie and I have basically been living separate lives since she returned from her yearlong sabbatical, though Lord knows I’ve tried my damnedest to get us back on track. Anytime I’ve mentioned long-term future plans, she’s been noncommittal and evasive, and I can’t remember the last time we went on a date or even had sex.
I understand how what happened in Pamplona scared her. Hell, I’m pretty sure it freaked out thousands upon thousands of people who had friends and family involved or nearby. And unfortunately, terrorist attacks around the globe are becoming more common. But this proposal—especially inviting a big group of people here to witness it—is not Annie’s style. Not at all. But because of who was there, she knew as well as I did there was no option as to what my answer would be.
“Octavian West, what I’m trying to say is I love you more than anything in this world and would love to spend the rest of my life with you. Would you please do me the honor of marrying me?”
Swallowing hard, I searched frantically around the room, unable to find any words. My eyes landed on my mom’s beaming face, half covered by her praying hands pressed against her nose. The hope radiated off her and sliced into me like razorblades. How could I possibly devastate her again? The woman who has loved and supported me unconditionally every single day of my life. The woman who has lost so much already. The woman who is counting on me to provide her a family to love, a future of happiness.
“Tavian?” Annie’s voice drew my attention back to her and she lifted the ring box closer to my face. I didn’t miss the nervous tremble in her smile, but I wasn’t sure if it was because she had an audience for her proposal, or if she was worried I might say no. “What do you say? Wanna make it official with me?”
One last glimpse over at my mom, and with her encouraging smile, I looked at Annie and nodded. “Yes.”
I shudder like the fucking coward I am as the word echoes around in my head, and my pulse nosedives from breakneck speed to a skidding halt. What in the hell have I done? And more importantly, how am I going to fix it?
Before I have time to come up with any answers, the door that leads from our master bedroom to the en suite bathroom opens and Annie appears, freshly showered and dressed in a sheer blue nightie thing I’ve never seen before. I blink once, twice. All the moisture in my mouth evaporates as I sit in bed slack-jawed and stunned stupid. It’s like I don’t even know this person; she’s never worn lingerie for me before.
“Cat got your tongue, sexy?” She giggles.
After twirling around to show off her matching thong, she sashays over to me, hopping up on the bed and straddling my thighs. My entire body tenses the second her skin touches mine, and when she seductively licks her lips while batting her eyelashes, I suck in an uneasy breath.
Think, Tavian, think. This cannot fucking happen. Do something!
“Annie, no, wait,” I blurt, holding my hand up in the air. “We haven’t had a minute alone since I got home. I told you I needed to talk to you tonight.”
She ignores my protests and buries her face into my lower abdomen, trailing her freshly glossed lips down the thin line of hair that travels from my belly button and disappears beneath the flannel cotton of my pajama pants. “We have the rest of our lives to talk. I haven’t had you inside me in way too long, and I’m not waiting any longer.” Her teeth clasp around the waistband and she drags the pants down far enough to reveal my goods. She frowns at the sight of my flaccid, clearly unaroused shaft, and then glances up at me, her brow wrinkled with confusion. “You didn’t miss your fiancée?”
The way she says that word—the same way she’s said it all evening long, at every chance she could get—grates on my nerves for a reason I’m not even sure of. She hasn’t done anything wrong exactly, but she expects me to be the same man I was when I left here a couple of weeks ago—the man who was comfortable and content in his life and relationship, happy even.
I’m no longer that man. Not even close.
Meeting Lyra changed everything; my life’s formula completely flipped around. She’s the answer I didn’t know I was searching for. And now I’ve come home to a huge mess. But I couldn’t bear to devastate my mom. Not again.
And as far as Annie… I am enough of a gentleman not to embarrass her in front of all our friends, coworkers, and family members. I may have realized I don’t love her like I thought I did, and I know telling her that is going to cause enough pain; she surely doesn’t deserve to be humiliated on top of that.
“I did miss you,” I insist as I reach down and yank my pajamas back up over my hips, prompting the crease in her forehead to deepen, “but we need to talk. I have things I have to tell you about my trip.”
I pause to wet my cracking lips with a nervous swipe of my tongue. The movement draws her worried gaze away from mine and down to my mouth, and then she quickly crawls up the length of my body and kisses me. Her tongue plunges deep and determined, her chest pressed flush against mine. She smells like desperation and tastes like regret.
“Whatever happened while you were there,” she whispers against my lips in between kisses, “it’s okay. I understand. Just leave it there, in the past. We can focus on the future. With each other. Your wild oats have now been sown.”
Her mouth returns to mine as her hand wedges between our bodies and slips inside my waistband, fingers stroking my shaft feverishly, frantic for a reaction. My cock, the Judas bastard, responds despite my brain’s opposition. And that’s when I know what I have to do.
With force harder than I intend, I grab Annie’s shoulders and shove her off me, causing her to fall off the bed and land ass-first on the floor. “No!” I roar the word I should’ve said earlier tonight. The word I was too much of a fucking coward to say. But not anymore.
Guilt claws its way up my pounding chest as I jump to my feet and bolt from the room. It doesn’t matter if it’s eight months or eighty years, Lyra Jennings is the only future I want.
TAVIAN
07.18.15
The alarm clock on the nightstand reads 12:58 a.m. Annie has been locked in the bathroom for the past ninety minutes, acting like a young child throwing a temper tantrum each time I try to coax her out to discuss things like two adults. I’ve been awake for going on thirty hours straight now, and I’m not only tired of dealing with her bruised ego and immature behavior, I’m flat-out exhausted.
I should just go to sleep and worry about cleaning up this whole fucked-up situation tomorrow, but no matter how hard I try to turn my brain off, I simply can’t. Especially not while she’s still hiding out in there. I owe her an explanation.
I’ve run through the full gamut of emotions multiple times since I pushed Annie off me and she s
campered away to the bathroom, a sobbing mess. And it’s the guilt that weighs heaviest of them all. Like a two-ton anchor pulling me down with it to the muddy bottom of the ocean floor. I feel guilty for saying yes to Annie’s proposal when I had no intentions of marrying her. I feel guilty for the heartbreak and disappointment I’m going to cause my mom when I call off the engagement. But mostly, I feel guilty to Lyra for saying yes to Annie to begin with. The first chance I have to be the man she deserves, and I fail miserably.
If I’d have just said no to Annie… if I hadn’t been a fucking coward and made a decision solely to please other people—something I swore to myself I’d never do—then I wouldn’t be sitting here watching these damn LED numbers mock me as they creep their way into the early morning hours. Sure, it would’ve been awkward as hell when all of the guests left comforting Annie instead of congratulating her, and the argument that ensued after would have been difficult and probably a bit heated, but now… now the anxiety of what’s to come churns like acid in my gut.
I can no longer hear Annie crying behind the door, nor making any other noise, and I wonder if she’s passed out on the floor. Glancing at the clock for the umpteenth time, I sigh heavily, accepting that sleep and I won’t be meeting anytime soon, and slide my legs off the mattress until my feet hit the floor. I quietly pad barefoot out of the bedroom and down the hall to the kitchen, where I grab a bottle of water from the fridge then pick up my phone off the charger on the bar. Collapsing onto my spot on the couch, I turn the TV on to ESPN—the volume low enough not to wake Annie if she is asleep but loud enough to fill the silence—while I wait for my phone to power on.
The screen lights up, and a notification for a missed text from a number with a 504 area code pops up. I rapidly punch in my passcode but then pause before opening the message, not wanting to get my hopes up that it’s Lyra. That area code doesn’t match any used in New York City—yes, I looked them up on the flight home—but I haven’t given anyone else my number recently, and it’s clearly not anyone local.
It’s got to be her, Tavian. Stop being a pussy and read the damn text.
All thoughts of Annie and the brewing storm here is pushed to the recesses of my mind as I hold my breath and my hovering finger presses down to pull the message up. When a photo of a mouthwatering Philly cheesesteak sandwich and the words Wish you were here to help me eat this. I hope you made it home safely. appear on the screen, the pressure of the anchor lessens slightly and I exhale a relieved whoosh of air. I’d been afraid Lyra may wait a while before reaching out, and I was going to have to be a creepy stalker to find her, but I never should’ve doubted her. Fuck, I think I may love her.
Shut up, dumb ass. You know you love her.
Somehow, just knowing the lines of communication are now open, that she wants to continue this as much as I do and she’s already missing me, too, makes whatever the hell I have to go through with Annie, no matter how ugly it gets, worth it. To Jupiter and back. I’ll do anything to make her mine as long as I can.
Me: I wish I was, too. More than you know. That looks delicious, but it’s still got nothing on Stan’s.
Smiling like a damn loon as I program her name as “Buttercup” into my contacts, I hit send and stare at the screen expectantly, knowing she’s most likely sleeping since she sent the message over three hours ago. But I can’t help but hope that maybe she’s up, too. Unable to sleep without being together.
Brah, seriously, get a grip. Your man card is seriously in danger of being revoked.
“Who in the hell are you texting with right now?”
Annie’s harsh voice startles me, having been so caught up in thinking about Lyra that I didn’t hear her come out of the bathroom, and I fumble the phone through my fingers, dropping it onto the sofa cushion. Her gaze instinctively falls to the screen, where Lyra’s nickname is printed in bold, capital letters at the very top. I jerk up, spine ramrod straight, as my entire body steels, bracing for what’s about to go down.
“What?” I ask flatly, pinning her with my defensive stare.
Annie’s nostrils flare and her mouth gapes open as she points an angry finger at my phone and stomps her foot. Again with the childish shit. “Not what, Tavian. Who?” she demands. “It’s 1:00 in the morning. I’m bawling my eyes out and wondering why you rejected me earlier, and you’re out here smiling and texting with someone. This should be the happiest night of our lives! What in the hell happened to you while you were gone? Do you have PTSD from the bombing or some shit?”
I blink hard several times and inhale what I hope is a calming breath. The two of us don’t argue often, but when we do, it’s an ugly battle of stubborn wills. She’s not going to admit we’re not right for each other and bow out gracefully.
“No, I do not have ‘PTSD or some shit,’ and a lot of things happened to me on my trip. If you recall, I’ve told you a couple of times I needed to talk to you about it,” I reply calmly, though my voice trembles as I struggle to keep from blowing up.
“Well, talk. I’m all ears now,” she snaps. “Who the hell is she?”
“Her name is Lyra.” My pulse quickens and my breath catches when her name leaves my tongue. “She’s the woman I escaped with from the airport.”
Annie shoots deadly daggers at me with her fierce glare as her face and neck turn bright red, waves of fury rolling off her. “Are you shitting me? What, because you saved her life, she had to repay you with a good fuck? Did you even tell her you had a girlfriend, or is she just some attention-starved home-wrecking whore who opens her legs for any guy that’ll give her the time of day? Please tell me you didn’t fall for that crap, Tavian!”
By the time she finishes her rant, she’s screaming so loud I’m sure our neighbors can hear, even in their sleep, but all my fucks fly out the window when she calls Lyra a home-wrecking whore.
Wrong. Damn. Words.
“Are you kidding me right now?” I roar, jumping to my feet to assert my dominance in the argument. I’m respectful enough to not get up in her face, but she’s not going to talk to me like I’m beneath her. Fuck a bunch of that. “Eighteen months ago, you just up and left me to go find yourself in this world, with one goddamn day of warning. Days before I planned to ask you to marry me, leaving me to just figure shit out by myself. And then a year later, you show back up on my doorstep, expecting to pick things up where we left off, without any explanation of what happened while you were gone.”
“You never asked! You didn’t—” she interjects, but I cut her off before she gets any further.
“That’s bullshit!” I shout. “I’ve tried and tried and fucking tried to talk to you since you’ve been back, but you never open up. You never give me more than that fake-ass Colgate smile and say things you think I want to hear… and that’s when we’re actually in the same room at the same time to talk to each other. For the past few years, I’ve been living my life and you’ve been living yours, and the more time passes, the less they intersect. We’re not the eighteen-year-old college kids we were when we met, Annie. We’ve grown apart. You know it as well as I do.”
“If that’s true, then why did you say yes?” She crosses her arms protectively over her chest as the numbers in her eyes burn bright. “Just hours ago, you said you loved me and wanted to spend the rest of your life with me!”
Running frustrated fingers through my hair, I release a heavy sigh. “Look, I do love you. We’ve been through so much together… there will always be a part of me that loves you, but we’re not in love anymore. This thing between us”—I motion between our bodies—“it’s been over for a long time. Since before you left.
“I have no idea where your proposal came from. It was the absolute last thing I expected when I got home, especially after I’d already told you we needed to talk. And honestly, I think you invited everyone here because you knew I wouldn’t be able to say no in front of them—mainly my mom. And I really don’t appreciate you using her as a pawn in whatever game you’re playing.”
Annie takes a step toward me and reaches out to touch my chest, but I back away and shake my head adamantly. “No. We can’t,” I say gruffly. “I’m really not trying to be a dick, and I truly wish you happiness in the rest of the long life you have in front of you, but I’m not the man who can give it to you. I want… no, I need to be with Lyra. She’s my One.”
Her entire body tenses at my words, quills locked and loaded like a porcupine on high alert, as the waterworks mysteriously dry up at will. At first, I think her reaction is because of my dismissing words—the cruel sting of rejection is never easy for anyone, even if they know it’s for the best—but when a vindictive smirk curls the corner of her lips, I know I’ve fucked up. I’ve said too much.
“She’s dying, isn’t she?” Annie spouts maliciously, almost as if she’s happy to learn someone’s life is about to end.
“What?” I try my best to keep a poker face as my gut burns with unease and my chest constricts like I’m caught in a vise. “What are you talking about?”
“Lyra? That’s her name, right?” she spits like it leaves a bad taste in her mouth. “Her numbers say she’s dying, and you think you can save her. Am I right?”
With her heartless laugh and roll of her eyes, I’m a little shocked at how quickly her sadness and despair have turned into fury and bitterness. We may not be close like we once we were, but I’ve never seen this side of Annie in the almost nine years we’ve been together. Sure, she’s stubborn and likes things her way, but this is downright ugly and spiteful. I’m speechless.
