Finding Him

by Van Dyken, Rachel

  I tucked her hair behind her head and kissed her forehead. “Being alone when you feel like shit.”

  She exhaled like she’d been holding her breath and then nodded. “That’s true. I don’t know if I told you, but I’m crashing at my parents’ apartment until I figure out what I want to do. They’re not here, so it’s just this big, empty . . . lonely thing.”

  “I know big, empty, lonely things well,” I teased. “Let me take care of you, friend to friend.”

  She relented. “That would be good. I haven’t eaten much, and I think it’s just . . . a lot, talking about Noah, sitting here . . .” She gulped and looked into my eyes. “With you, I mean it feels heavy, I don’t know how I ever thought I could do this on my own.”

  She wasn’t on her own, though.

  She had me.

  I gave her an easy smile and said, “Then as your typist and friend”—hate that damn word—“I say we call it quits for the day, put on a movie, eat, and just . . . relax. Hang out. Alright?”

  “You’re not busy?” she asked in a voice that basically said Please don’t be busy.

  And I loved it.

  I loved that she wanted to stay.

  Even if it gave me false hope that we could be anything other than what we already were.

  Maybe if we didn’t have this book between us.

  Maybe if we didn’t have this guy that would be immortalized forever.

  Maybe if it wasn’t less than a year after his death.

  Maybe if we were both normal.

  I ignored the way my thoughts tried to steal all the joy I had at being able to take care of her and said, “The only thing I have on my schedule for the next few days is you.” Right along with, honestly, wondering what the hell I would do when I had to actually go back to work instead of eat donuts with Keaton and live off the crumbs of her kisses.

  She offered me a watery smile and then gave me a side hug that did more than cement us in the friend zone. It freaking catapulted us there with a giant middle finger.

  And I was too far gone to even really care, wasn’t I?

  I would take whatever I could get.

  “Pizza sounds really good,” she said, interrupting my thoughts.

  “Then pizza it is.” I kissed her forehead and left her in the bathroom and went in search of my phone. The old Julian would have said something snarky about eating pizza, only because I’d always been so particular about what I ate, even shaming Izzy, when she was still my fiancée, for eating chocolate.

  Shit, I had been an asshole.

  With Keaton, I would be pissed if she went on a diet. I wanted her to eat, because eating meant she was healthy, it meant she was okay.

  It meant no more puking.

  It meant a strong immune system.

  Already I was feeling better that it was just something minor, like emotional stress over the situation.

  Strange how almost dying puts everything into perspective . . . even eating a piece of damn pizza.

  “Extra pepperoni!” She appeared back in the living room looking like she needed to sit down.

  So I ordered the pizza and a double order of breadsticks, then promptly grabbed a blanket and tucked her in tight on the couch. “Relax and I’ll get you something to drink. Rosé good?” I watched some light return to her eyes and immediately exhaled in relief.

  “Hmm, chilled?”

  “Is there any other way to rosé?” I joked.

  “Ah, he’s got dad jokes.” She burst out laughing.

  “Hey, I can be cheesy.” I winked, enjoying the way her laugh filled my empty, lonely apartment.

  She eyed me up and down; red stained her cheeks. “Yeah, there is absolutely nothing cheesy about you.”

  The compliment would sustain me for hours.

  Chapter Thirty

  KEATON

  I should have gone home.

  The only problem? I didn’t want to.

  Something about being in his apartment, locked away from the world, felt eerily like being at the cabin. It was just us.

  Well, us and the laptop, which seemed to be the only tether or reason for us to even be in the same building.

  The pizza sustained me in a way that only good carbs and cheese could, and I found myself relaxing more than I ever had in my entire life.

  It wasn’t the rosé.

  For some reason it tasted funny, so I opted for water and ate three pieces of pizza and side-eyed the donuts.

  “Saw that.” Julian smirked at me. “I’m almost jealous of all the looks you keep shooting that box, you’re about to incinerate the cardboard.”

  I slugged him in the shoulder with a laugh. “Chocolate sounds good!”

  “Chocolate always sounds good.” He gave me a look I couldn’t decipher, then lazily stood and made his way over to the cardboard box. There were plenty left, but I wanted the chocolate one. He picked it up and held it out to me. “Is this the one you want?”

  I could taste the freaking thing on my tongue, the chocolate frosting, the soft dough. Big O Donuts were legendary, and I was about to make that one my bitch.

  I bit down on my lower lip and nodded excitedly as the sound of Riverdale filled the living room.

  I would never get tired of the way Julian stared at me, or the sparkle in his eyes when he was about to do something that would make me grab something sharp.

  He held out the donut until it was about an inch from my face, until my mouth was watering with excitement, and the bastard jerked it back and shoved half of it into his mouth with a moan.

  “JULIAN TENNYSON!”

  “Sooo good!” His cheeks were puffed out with half the friggin’ donut, and I just snapped. Clearly, I was feeling better if I was ready to jump on his back, which is exactly what I did.

  “Give it to me!” I pounded his back with my fists while he made a run for it to the bathroom. “Give me the donut!”

  He ran into the shower with me on his back and put his hand on the knob. “Don’t make me turn the water on.”

  “Don’t make me claw your eyes out!”

  He burst out laughing. “Fine, fine, you can have the other half.”

  “OH! I want that half too.” I smacked him harder. “Cough it up!”

  “I’m not regurgitating donut!” He slowly twisted the knob. “You’ll have to pry it from my—”

  I crashed my mouth against his in a moment of pure insanity brought on by pizza, two sips of rosé, and emotional trauma.

  At least that was what I told myself.

  And he really did taste like chocolate donut, the best kind, with sugar on his lips and frosting on his tongue.

  I could feast on that sort of taste, on this sort of man.

  He kissed me back. All of the donut was obviously already out of his mouth, leaving only bits of sugar behind, so why was I still kissing him?

  Because it was him.

  Because he made me laugh.

  Because he made me feel safe and alive.

  I kissed Julian because I was falling way too quickly for a man who was totally wrong for me, and I kept kissing him because once I’d had a taste, I was completely lost.

  Slowly, I slid down his side until I was facing him in the shower. He was still holding the donut high over our heads. Then eventually it made its way down until it was pressed against my mouth.

  He leaned in and whispered, “Bite.”

  My breath hitched as I took a huge bite, chewed, and then smiled when he dipped his finger in the frosting and smudged it across my lower lip.

  His teeth tugged the soft flesh, making me moan out loud, and then his tongue was sliding across and sucking as though my mouth was made of sugar and he had to get every last bit.

  He gave me another bite and did the same thing with the frosting, and with each lick my body lost more and more control until I was shaking with the need for more, just more of him, more of us. Heat exploded between us when I ate the last bite, his hands flew to my hair as he jerked me against his hard body.
And every single part of him was like colliding with muscle and masculine aggression.

  We broke apart, chests heaving.

  “Sorry,” he said between breaths. “I think I’m addicted to you.”

  “Me or the donut?”

  His eyes locked on mine. “The way you taste would haunt me for life, the way you feel is so right that I can’t stop touching you—fuck the donuts, Keaton, I just like kissing you.”

  A chaos of emotions hit me all at once.

  We were in his shower.

  Eating donuts.

  Making out.

  I’d puked two hours before, but that didn’t matter to him now.

  And this man, this very clever, gorgeous man, was taking time out of his busy life to help me write a book about the only man I’d ever loved.

  It was almost too impossible to believe.

  And then I realized . . . that was why Julian was special.

  Because when he wanted something, he went after it full force, with all his soul—and all his heart.

  Which just meant I needed to be more careful.

  Because when hearts are involved they usually end up bruised or broken, and I would rather die than break this man’s heart.

  I wondered if he realized he still had one, even after his mom’s death. It was just hidden beneath a lot of pain and sadness that I knew so well.

  Grief was a giant.

  It was a monster.

  It demanded to be heard.

  One day his giant would come knocking.

  And Julian would have no choice but to let his heart break.

  I only hoped I would still be here to help him pick up the pieces and to, of course, give him donuts between kisses.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  JULIAN

  Kissing her was going to be my downfall, wasn’t it? I pressed another kiss to her cheek and then grabbed her hand. “Let’s go finish watching another episode, yeah?”

  She looked like she was going to say something.

  Her eyes darted between my mouth and my eyes. I was almost afraid to let her speak, because I was so damn worried she would say something horrible like “I’m sorry” or “It was an accident.”

  It wasn’t an accident.

  And neither of us were sorry.

  But it almost felt like we needed to say that because there was someone between us, and even though logically I knew she wasn’t cheating and that this was okay, I also knew that the chasm separating us wasn’t going to just magically fill anytime soon.

  There were too many obstacles.

  Huge ones.

  I smiled and wrapped an arm around her, then whispered in her ear, “I’m not sorry.”

  It earned me a laugh.

  And then she leaned up on her tiptoes and kissed my cheek. “I am.”

  I paused. “What?”

  She darted past me and ran into the living room, then very adorably grabbed another donut, and shoved it in her mouth.

  It was the last chocolate one.

  Should have known.

  My eyebrows shot up. “Feel better?”

  She nodded, because she probably couldn’t talk with all that donut in her mouth, and I think my heart did something funny in my chest, because I couldn’t look away, and my smile hurt my face.

  She grabbed a napkin and sat down on the couch, and I walked over to join her. I wanted to hold her hand.

  But I didn’t know the rules.

  Because we existed outside of them, and as long as we were in isolation it didn’t matter, did it?

  I reached for her hand.

  And she let me.

  Hours later, I still had no idea what the hell we watched. I was too focused on our hands touching, on the easy way she laughed when something was funny, or the way her eyes widened when something shocked her on TV.

  And finally, the way she leaned her head on my shoulder and fell asleep.

  That actually might be my new favorite thing.

  I was careful not to wake her as I picked up her feet and laid her out on the couch, tucking a black down throw around her body.

  Like a creepy idiot, I smiled when she made a noise in her sleep and tucked her hands beneath her chin.

  God, she was pretty.

  So pretty, so innocent looking that the guilt tried to climb back up through my throat, tried to force me to say words like “I don’t deserve you,” or “You should go.” Instead, thankfully, she was asleep. I tamped down the guilt, even though the laptop seemed to have a laser beam connected to it as I walked by.

  How did a person move on from a past love when that one was still very much alive in the present? Because he was, Noah existed in her heart still, he was there every day in the book she was writing. How did you win that battle?

  I had no fucking clue.

  I grabbed a glass of water and set it on the coffee table along with a few stale crackers—it was all I had, but if she woke up feeling sick, I wanted her to have something.

  By the time I made it into my bedroom, it was two in the morning and I was wide awake.

  I hadn’t finished watching the home video I’d started, and part of me wanted to turn it on if only so my mom could meet the girl I was falling for, even though I knew it was stupid. But something about my mom’s voice coming across the speakers and the knowledge that Keaton was in the next room did something to me. It made my chest hurt and my heart slam against my rib cage like it needed a quick escape plan.

  Even though it hurt, I pressed play on the TV.

  I watched ten minutes of smiles and laughter.

  Ten minutes that I still remember as if it was yesterday.

  A snowball fight.

  My mom won. Then again, she always cheated and had premade snowballs when she challenged us to a fight so she would have enough ammo to destroy both me and my brother with a few good aims.

  “Not this time!” I roared on the video, running straight for her.

  A battle cry followed.

  Along with four snowballs all at my face. Mom was scrappy like that.

  I went down hard. Bridge charged after me.

  And tripped over his feet, causing our mom to laugh so hard that tears streamed down her cheeks.

  It was bittersweet.

  Then again, mourning always was. You remember the good, and oddly enough, the bad seems to exist in a gray area where your brain refuses to visit—but even though you remember all the good times, you realize that your memory is a fucking imposter.

  I was once told that when the brain conjures up memories, physically and mentally it’s like reliving what happened.

  I call bullshit.

  Because I would do anything to conjure up this memory and feel the snow on my face while hearing my mom’s laughter echo through the trees.

  No, memories weren’t reliable. I stood by my beliefs.

  “Hey,” a groggy voice sounded, causing me to nearly fall off my own bed.

  Keaton had the blanket wrapped around her. She was standing in my doorway with sleepy eyes and a small smile.

  I couldn’t press pause fast enough.

  She turned, just as the screen froze on my mom’s smile.

  Keaton gasped. “She’s beautiful.”

  I wanted to kiss her for leaving out the past tense.

  “Yeah,” I agreed, taking in my mom’s jet-black hair and blue eyes. “Absolutely stunning.”

  “Your apartment is too quiet.” Keaton made her way around the bed and sat on the opposite side like I’d invited her into my room. I was too surprised to respond as she made herself comfortable. “You left crackers and water. I woke up feeling like the biggest jerk on the planet.”

  Not what I expected. “What? Why?”

  “You were talking about being selfish, and here I am, crashing at your apartment, asking you to help me write a book about my dead boyfriend. And here you are, in your room, still alone.”

  It stung.

  I looked away as my stomach dropped and a heaviness settled on my
chest.

  And then her hand was on my arm. “What I meant to say, and didn’t get across because I’m still tired, is that you’re more selfless than you realize. You don’t have to help me. You could tell me to go screw myself, you haven’t known me long.”

  I let out a sigh. “Maybe I have bad intentions. Maybe I just want to fuck you again.”

  “Don’t!” she snapped. “Don’t revert to the asshole in order to protect yourself. That’s not you anymore—you know it, I know it.”

  Damn it, she was right.

  I still couldn’t meet her eyes. “I really like you, but it’s not just that.”

  “What is it, then?” The room was too silent, the confession in my head too loud.

  “I lived my entire life trying to make my dad proud and finally realized that I would never be enough for him. My mom, however, was proud when I colored inside the lines, she was proud when I lost a tooth, proud when I didn’t spill my juice, proud when I came home and announced I had made the basketball team. She probably said she was proud of me a dozen times a day, hundreds of times a week.” I licked my dry lips. “Why the hell did I spend my life wanting to hear that one word from my dad when I was always enough for my mom? I ask myself this all the time. Why was I so blind? It’s like being told every day that you’re enough but not believing it because it’s from the wrong source, but she wasn’t wrong . . . and now she’s gone.”

  Keaton sank onto the bed beside me and slid her hand to my shoulder. “Her absence from this earth doesn’t make her any less proud, Julian.”

  I squeezed my eyes shut. “I should have tried harder, in the end, to make things right with my brother, been more charitable, to do—”

  “Stop.” Keaton’s voice was soft, and she gave my shoulder a gentle squeeze. “You can’t live your life that way, even if you fixed all of those things, even if you were the perfect son and you did everything right up until the time she died—you’d still doubt yourself because that’s what grief does to you. It tells you that if you just knew all the little reasons, if you just did this one thing, it wouldn’t hurt so bad. But that’s a lie, death hurts. The only thing that’s true about death is that it hurts those it leaves behind. Hurt is hurt, Julian. Let yourself feel it.”

  “Do you let yourself feel it?” I countered, finally meeting her gaze. “Have you cried yet?”