Now And Always (Crown Creek)

by Theresa Leigh

  “Look at you!” I laughed. “Wow, you’re all noble all of a sudden. Why? You hate J.D. Why are you suddenly concerned with doing right by him?”

  Ethan licked his lips. “He’s not the same guy anymore.”

  “And apparently neither are you.”

  He was silent.

  “I trusted you. I…God, Ethan, you’re my fucking world. And I only just started to realize this, and I was never so happy to be surprised by anything as I was surprised by how much I love you. I trust you more than I trust anyone, my family, my friends, anyone.” I choked back a sob. “How could you do this to me?”

  He looked at me steadily. “Because you trust me to do the right thing.”

  I threw my hands up. “Yes! Not to tell him!”

  “The right thing was to tell him.”

  “You’re so full of shit!” I exploded. “How can you say this? It’s like I don’t even know you.”

  “Maybe you don’t, Claire.”

  I rolled my eyes. “And if you think I’m going to put up with this, then maybe you don’t know me, either.”

  He waited a beat. “Oh, I know you,” he said softly. He sounded almost wistful all of a sudden.

  “You do?”

  “Yeah. Well enough to know that you’re not going to put up with it.”

  Tears poured down my cheeks unbidden. “So you did it even knowing full well I was going to break up with you on the spot?”

  “I would expect nothing less.”

  “Fuck you, Ethan! You just tossed away the best thing either of us had ever had over some weird morality crisis that doesn’t even matter? He’s not this baby’s father.” I grabbed his hand and put it over my belly. “You are! Don’t do this. Call him and tell him you were fucking with him. Call him and tell him this was revenge for high school or something. Or hell.” My mind was spinning. There was still time to save this. “I will. I’ll call him back. Laugh at him for believing you. It would work, you know. And nothing would have to change.”

  He kissed the tip of my nose so sweetly. “But something has, Claire. I love you.”

  I shook my head. “No, that’s stayed the same, right?”

  He nodded. “Right, what’s changed is I’m brave enough to say it.”

  “But you don’t love me enough to save this?”

  He shrugged again. “That’s what I was trying to do, actually.”

  “Well, you were wrong. You didn’t save it. You ended it. Goodbye, Ethan.”

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Ethan

  Taylor glowered at me from behind the bar.

  And then, for the first time since I’d started coming to the Crown Tavern, he lifted the little door that separated him from his drunken patrons and came over to my side.

  Claire and I had been officially together for three months. In the grand scheme of things, that was nothing. We’d been officially broken up for three weeks, so by the law of breakups, I should be over her by now. Not forcing my cousin to close down his bar so my friends could watch me cry into my drink in peace.

  And yet, here we were.

  “Well,” my cousin said, settling onto the stool next to me. “This sucks.”

  I stared at the three empty pint glasses in front of me. I’d drunk enough that I should at least feel a buzz right now. But all I felt was muzzy-headed. And really fucking sad.

  “Yeah,” Ryan agreed from the other side of me. He thumped my shoulder awkwardly. “It really does.”

  “Claire was saying the same thing on Saturday,” Sadie piped up.

  All three guys on this side of the bar stared at the girl on the other side of the bar like she’d popped up out of thin air. Which, given it was Sadie we’re talking about here, she very well might have.

  “Was she?” I asked. Warily. She was a sweet girl that I felt super protective of, but there was no question that Sadie was Claire’s friend first and mine a very distant second. Anything I said right now would be sure to get back to Claire, so I needed to watch myself.

  But then again, I really wanted to know what Claire was thinking.

  Sadie nodded matter-of-factly. “She swore me to secrecy,” she said. “She told me, ‘I don’t want him to know I’m falling apart.’”

  Ryan covered his guffaw by coughing into the back of his hand. “So, ah, then why are you telling him?” he asked, speaking slowly like one would to a toddler.

  Sadie’s pale blue eyes went stormy. She rounded on Ryan, imitating his slow, careful cadence in a mocking sing-song. “Because I think this is stupid,” she intoned. On the other side of me, Taylor sat up straighter, and I wasn’t too drunk or heartbroken to miss the admiration in his eyes. “Ethan, Claire loves you. You love her, right?”

  “I need another drink to answer that.”

  Sadie glowered at me—she must have been taking lessons from Taylor, because her glowering game was top-notch—and tossed her head. “Men,” she sighed, begrudgingly pulling the tap. She poured me a glass of mostly foam, and I wasn’t entirely certain it was by accident.

  I upended the foamy glass into my mouth and swallowed down nearly all the liquid that pooled at the bottom. Then belched.

  “Nice,” Ryan muttered. “Can’t imagine why you’re single, man.”

  “I’m single because I’m stupid,” I mumbled back.

  “No, you’re single because Claire broke up with you,” Sadie corrected sunnily.

  “Thanks for reminding me."

  “You’re welcome.” She beamed. “But if it makes you feel any better, she didn’t want to.”

  “So why did she?”

  “Because, you silly person. You let her.”

  I blinked. Then turned to Ryan, who spread his hands in a helpless shrug. Then turned to Taylor, who seemed to find something fascinating on the ceiling. “I’m sorry, what? I didn’t let her do anything. Claire does what she wants, and no one can stop her. I mean, have you met her?” I lifted my chin at her and waggled my empty glass.

  She poured me another, this time with less foam. It felt like an apology and made me add smugly, “I never had a chance.”

  “That is the most idiotic thing I’ve ever heard,” Sadie snapped.

  Again, all three of us guys stared at her openmouthed. She glared at Taylor. “Please don’t tell me you think like this.”

  “I don’t,” my cousin agreed.

  “Excuse me? Think like what?” I drained my glass.

  “Like someone who gives up the moment things get hard.”

  “Um, she told me goodbye, Sadie. I don’t know what eighties movies you’ve been watching lately, but pursuing a girl after she tells you no is frowned upon these days. John Cusack’s character in Say Anything is basically a stalker.”

  She slammed her hand down on the table. “You love her. So that means you think you know her, right?”

  “Better than you do,” I mumbled into my empty glass. Would it be gross to lick the last dregs up like a dog?

  Oh boy, I was trashed.

  “Then you know that Claire doesn’t trust easily. She doesn’t let people help her, and she’ll push herself to the point of exhaustion to prove she can do things herself.”

  “Yeah, I’m well aware.” I slumped miserably into my stool. “I should have never told J.D.”

  “Whoa, you’re really drunk now.” Ryan chuckled. Or maybe I only thought he said that. I seemed to have lost track of my senses.

  “It was dumb, yeah.” Sadie loomed over me. "But I'm glad you did anyway."

  I stared up at her, trying to make sense of her words, but coming up short. “My cousin really likes you,” I said instead.

  “Watch it,” Taylor warned. “He’s drunk,” he said to Sadie.

  “I know!” she trilled. “And he’s gonna wake up with a head full of pain and a stomach full of regret too.”

  “You sound awfully happy about that.” Ryan wavered in front of me like a reflection on choppy water.

  “I am!” Sadie laughed gleefully. “Because it means
he’s hitting bottom, and when you hit bottom, you have no choice but to come back up again.”

  “Whoa,” Taylor murmured.

  I narrowed my eyes at her, trying to get her to stop going all fuzzy. “You’re smart,” I blurted thickly.

  “I know. Weird, right?”

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Claire

  A warm spring breeze puffed in through the open door and windows, letting in the scent of sun-warmed earth and that peculiar smell I'd always associated with my brother Finn digging earthworms for bait. The lilac bush in our side yard was just starting to bud out, and the branches of the willow trees down by the creek were tinged in that pale spring green that made everything feel like it was bursting with potential.

  It honestly felt like Mother Nature was messing with me. As I filled my water glass from the kitchen tap, I scowled out of the window at the twittering birds.

  Then I heard the engine in the driveway.

  It was the low rumble of a truck. But not the right kind of rumble. So I knew—I knew!—that it wasn’t Ethan pulling up in the driveway. But that didn’t mean my heart didn’t skip a beat before I remembered and scowled again.

  It was a Sunday. The only reason I knew this was because my parents had tried to get me to go to church with them this morning. I'd just laughed at the idea of seeing people and pulled the covers back up over my head.

  Yes, I was a hermit now. Me, Claire King. I knew how weird this was, but I didn't care. I didn't want to see anyone, so the engine's rumble made me freeze like a deer caught in the headlights. I considered making a run for it back up the stairs.

  "It's the delivery guy," I admonished myself. I'd been doing some serious retail therapy online. Boxes landed at our doorstep every day lately.

  I waited for the truck to pull away. But then the engine cut out. Curious, I went to the window, expecting to see a delivery person mounting the steps to the front porch.

  Instead I saw J.D. Knight.

  The glass of water fell from my hands onto the welcome mat. Blood thundered in my ears.

  J.D. slowed, approaching the door with his hands up. “Hi.”

  I moved my hand to the screen door latch and slid it closed. It wasn’t much in the way of a barrier; in fact, it was basically useless. But it made me feel a little bit better. “What are you doing here?”

  In response, his eyes went to my stomach. “Wow.”

  I cupped my hands around my belly and stepped back. “Yeah,” I said, unable to keep myself from shielding her from his eyes.

  He pressed his lips together. “I thought—well, I wore a condom, right?”

  “And I was on the pill,” I shot back. “We both thought—”

  “Right.” He fell silent, then cleared his throat. “Right,” he said again. “I guess trying to figure out how it happened is kind of pointless now.”

  “I didn’t bother you.” I was proud of how steady my voice was. “I didn’t want this to affect you at all. You weren’t supposed to know.”

  “But I do.”

  “Yeah. You do. Not my doing, you’ll recall.”

  “Don’t be mad at Ethan.”

  “Too late for that.”

  He looked away, something like pain flickering over his face. “I heard about you two breaking up. That’s real shitty, and I’m sorry.”

  That surprised me. “What do you care?”

  His deep blue eyes blazed. “Of course I care! Ethan is a really good guy and you’re the mother of my child!”

  I took another step back, too frightened by his expression to really hear his words.

  He dragged his hand down his face. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to yell.” He gestured to the house, the door. “So you’re okay then? With your family? They’re taking care of you?”

  “I’m taking care of myself,” I snapped.

  But the pain in his face didn’t go away when I said that. Instead, it deepened, settling over him like a mask. For the first time, I noticed the deep crease of worry on his forehead, the dark shadows under his eyes. It was like I was seeing him for the very first time, and all the other times I’d seen a projection. What I wanted to see and what he allowed me to see. I cleared my throat. “But yeah,” I amended, softer now. “They’re all helping me a lot. My friends too. Your sister.”

  His mouth twisted up in a rueful grin. “My sister Sky, you mean.”

  “She’s gonna be my sister too, soon.”

  “Yeah, she told us Finn proposed. That’s awesome.”

  “Did she tell you how he did it? Right in the middle of Beau’s wedding. I would have murdered someone for upstaging me like that on my wedding day, but Rachel actually encouraged it.”

  “That’s pretty cool,” J.D. said with a grin. And then looked at me, startled.

  I felt it too. The simultaneous realization that we were standing here shooting the shit like old friends.

  "J.D.,” I started to say.

  But he waved me off. “Look. I get why you wanted to do it alone. I was pissed Ethan stepped out like that, but now?” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Now I’m glad. To know, I mean. That would have sucked to have had a baby and not…not…claim it somehow.”

  “Claim?”

  “You know what I mean. Like…what my dad did to Sky.”

  I caught my breath. The pain in J.D.’s eyes was a palpable, living thing. The legacy of secrets his father had passed down to him, the hurt Sky had endured learning her childhood was a lie. Regret boiled up like acid in my stomach, and I clapped my hand to my mouth. “Oh my God, I didn’t…I wasn’t thinking of how—” I took a deep, steadying breath. "J.D., shit. I am so sorry. I should have told you from the beginning." Ethan's words came back to me, clanging like a gong. You don't get to make decisions like that for other people. "I shouldn't have assumed I knew how you'd react." I shook my head at myself. "I can't believe I didn't think of your dad and Sky."

  “Course you didn't,” he said gently. “It’s not your problem, it’s mine. But I want you to know that I’m not him, okay, Claire?” He put his hand on the doorknob, felt that it was locked and then gave up and put his hand on the screen. He stretched his fingers wide. “I’m here. I’m not going to leave my baby. I don’t want anything from you, Claire. You don’t have to even put my name on the birth certificate if you don’t want. I just want to have my baby know it’s mine. And it, he, uh—”

  “Her,” I supplied. “It’s a girl.”

  His face cracked open in a wide smile. “A girl?” he breathed.

  I nodded, then reached for the knob. “You want to come in?”

  He nodded once, then seemed to think better of it. “Nah. I shouldn’t. If one of your brothers comes by, they’d punch me in the face.”

  “I’m surprised they haven’t already.”

  “Honestly? Me too.”

  I laughed. “That’s because I made it clear I don’t want anything from you either, J.D.”

  “Okay, thanks, well…I get that?” He paused, then leaned in. “But if she does,” he said, his eyes fixed reverently on my belly, “then I’ll be there.”

  My throat felt too tight all of a sudden. “Okay,” I whispered.

  “And Claire?”

  “Yeah?”

  He licked his lips. “Maybe give Ethan another chance.” His smile kicked up ruefully. “He really laid himself out there. It was fucking brave as hell, pardon my French. I didn’t realize he had it in him.”

  “Yeah, me either.”

  “No offense, but he’s kind of a better person than either of us.”

  There was a time in my life when I would have argued with him. But he'd just shown me he was better than I'd imagined. And I'd just realized how terrible I'd been to him.

  But my opinion of Ethan hadn’t changed. It never had. “You know what?" I told J.D. "You’re right. He is.”

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Claire

  "Okay," I breathed. "One two three, whoop!" I sucked in a deep breath, but it made no differe
nce at all. The pants that had fit me yesterday wouldn't button anymore.

  "Ugh." I dropped to my knees to reach under my bed for the plastic bin full of old sweatpants and warm-up clothes from my track days. "Where are you?" I muttered, reaching deeper. My fingers closed on a plastic tub. "There you are!" I cried in triumph and pulled it out.

  Then let out a long sigh. I hadn't pulled out my old clothes. I'd pulled out my old vision boards.

  "Fuck," I exhaled as I opened the lid and lifted the board at the top of the pile. Five Year Plan, it announced in bold, confident letters. I'd glued a graphic of a highway to the center, and carefully affixed my goals as "street signs" along the side.

  As I ran my fingers over the glossy surface of the magazine paper, I remembered exactly how I'd felt the night I'd put this together. I'd plugged in my headphones and tuned up a carefully curated Kicking Ass playlist before setting to work with my scissors and gluestick. When I was done, I'd hung it up on my bedroom wall where I'd see it first thing in the morning and last thing before going to sleep.

  I'd taken it down when everything seemed to be going to plan. Just like all the other boards in this box. All these visions of a future I was so sure was inevitable that I couldn't imagine things daring to not go my way.

  But now, as I leafed through them, I frowned in confusion. I wanted this? I thought as I frowned at the board titled Future Husband. The douche-y looking perfume model I'd chosen as my ideal looked plastic and flat to me now.

  His hair was way too styled. It would look so much better flopping into his eyes.

  My mother knocked softly on my door, making me jump. I slammed the lid down onto the box and shoved it under the bed like it was something illicit. "Yeah?" I squeaked.

  She opened it up. I tried to smile at her like everything was fine, but I wasn't fooling either of us. Every time she looked at me these days, the worried crease between her eyebrows deepened. “Family dinner this afternoon,” she said. "I just wanted to remind you."