After Always (Always Series Book 5)

by Lindsay Becs

  She leans forward and kisses me once. It’s quick, and then she searches my eyes, waiting for my next move.

  I swallow and close my eyes. “I can’t…” I start, letting her wrist go and leaning my head against hers with my hands on either side, bracing my weight on the wall.

  Her hands snake into my hair, and I like the feel of them on me more than I want to.

  “It’s OK. I’m not going anywhere,” she whispers.

  Lifting my head, I stare into her brown eyes that are captivating me. “I’m sorry.”

  “There is nothing to apologize for.”

  “I don’t know when I’ll be ready. Which is fucked up. It’s been nine years.” Why can’t I just kiss the beautiful woman whose hands feel good, who cares about my daughter and me?

  “You know, I really did just want to show you the place before tomorrow’s opening,” she says, sliding out from being caged between the wall and me. “Pervert,” she teases over her shoulder, walking back into the kitchen.

  I drop my head with a shake, laughing.

  If I’m capable of loving another woman, I hope it can be Tilly Lane.

  I’m fucking exhausted. Mentally, emotionally… Ollie, Tatum, Penny and I went to the pond, just the four of us, to celebrate Josie’s birthday. She would have been fifty today. And she would fucking hate it.

  The day itself was good. It’s been a while since just the four of us have been together. Bex had to work at the hospital, and Benton is racing across the world. Ollie always takes the day off to spend with me. Tatum is usually a wild card, but with her expecting again, she’s been staying at their house in Graves with the kids. I took Penny out of school today so we could have the day together. I don’t usually do stuff like that; hell, I don’t take many days off from the garage myself, but I did.

  We ate our ice cream on her bench and talked about her and to her. We all danced with the grass under our feet as ducks tried to cut in, but Tate said it was probably Josie’s anger for not being there with us. Then, Ollie joked about her being grumpy as an old lady who was now half a century old.

  I’m out back now, lying in Josie’s lounger, staring at the stars. I just read one of her letters, and I want to burn it and never read it again. My Birthday, it’s labeled as.

  OK, I know birthdays are hard. I also know that you never understood the importance of celebrating them. Here’s how we’re going to go forward…

  Penny: You better celebrate the shit out of her and give her whatever kind of party she wants. End of discussion.

  You: You better celebrate the shit out of your life. Because you deserve to be celebrated each and every day.

  Me: Stop. Just don’t, baby. It’ll get to be too hard or annoying or whatever. I want you to keep celebrating, not going back to a dark time. Forget my birthday and move on.

  Celebrate everyone else’s lives but not mine. Not in this way anyway. You have to be able to move forward, not backward.

  Now, I know you, so how many have you celebrated that you’re still reading this? Did I reach fifty in your mind yet? Because if I did and you’re still celebrating, that means you don’t listen. Stop, baby. It’s not healthy.

  Celebrate our life in other ways on other days. Don’t memorialize my birthday. I was just one person in a sea of many. I hope you’re meeting more people worth celebrating. I’m celebrating you enough to last a thousand lifetimes. Now, I sound hypocritical, huh?

  I love you. I know you love me. I miss you. I know you miss me. Now, go be happy.

  Always,

  Josie

  Forget her? She was clearly high on meds when she wrote this one. I scoff thinking about her words. Balling up the paper, I throw it, hearing it hit the glass door, frustrated for the first time in a long time with my deceased wife.

  “You alright?” I hear Tilly ask. I close my eyes, willing her to leave me alone, but she doesn’t. Instead, she sits at my feet.

  “You should go back home,” I grunt to her. Of course, she doesn’t listen. “Go fucking home, Tilly!” I yell at her after a while, standing up and walking out into the yard to get some distance from her. But she follows me instead of listening. Again. “Why can’t you listen?”

  “Because you obviously need someone to talk to.”

  I huff and shake my head in frustrated annoyance. “I’m not talking to you about this.”

  “Are you having a hard day? Because of her?” she asks quietly.

  My anger pings even with her soft, gentle, caring tone. I turn around, narrowing my eyes on her. “Don’t,” I grit out.

  “Why will you talk to everyone else about her but me?” she pushes.

  “It is none of your fucking business.”

  “Right,” she huffs and turns to leave me alone like I wanted.

  “I don’t talk about her to anyone but my family. And I sure as shit am not going to start with you.”

  “What have I done to make you think I would be anything but compassionate and understanding? I only want you to let me in, Travis. I don’t need anything in return. I’m only trying to help. I hate seeing you hurt. I wish I could take some of it away or ease your pain in some way. But you won’t let me.” She turns and starts to walk away again, and I hate myself for letting her leave, but I also hate myself for wanting her to stay.

  I fight myself but finally say, “Today’s her birthday.”

  “Is that why Penny didn’t go to school?”

  I nod. “Yeah, we all celebrated her birthday today.”

  “How old would she have been?” I wince at her wording… would she have been.

  “Fifty,” I say, a small smile threatening at the corner of my mouth when I see Tilly’s eyes go wide. “Yeah, she was older than me.”

  “I knew that, but I didn’t realize… I thought… I don’t know what I thought,” she laughs, shaking her head.

  “I fell in love with my best friend’s mom. I’ve loved her since I was sixteen. Told her when I was nineteen, finally convinced her the rest of the world didn’t matter and to be with me when I was twenty-one, married her when I was twenty-three, became a dad at twenty-four, and lost the love of my life at twenty-six. I’ve spent the last nine years mourning the loss of her, and I don’t know if I will ever stop.

  “Yet, she wants me to stop celebrating her and her birthday. Can you believe that shit? She keeps saying she wants me to live and be happy, but she doesn’t understand that I don’t know how to do the two together without her. I’m living, I’m trying to be happy, but it’s so damn hard to do without her. She died when her heart stopped, but mine stopped too. It doesn’t beat the same without her here. She was my entire world. Or she was until Penny entered our universe. She is my always.”

  I finally stop rambling and look over to Tilly. She’s got tears streaming down her cheeks that I only see from the glow of the moon.

  “I’m sorry, Tilly. I tried to tell you. I don’t know if I’ll ever be ready or able to move on, to love someone else. I can’t promise you a future. I wish like hell I could, but I just can’t.”

  “It’s beautiful,” she whispers so quietly I almost don’t hear her. “I can only hope that one day someone will love me a fraction of the way you love her.”

  “I hope so too. You deserve to be loved, Tilly. You deserve to be someone’s always.”

  “I don’t need to be anyone’s always. I just want to be someone’s right now, and if that turns into more, then that’s a bonus,” she says, cupping my cheek.

  “You should get more than what I have to offer.”

  She sniffs with a small smile before she turns to leave, but I can tell she doesn’t believe me. And it’s the first time I wonder what happened to make her feel like she doesn’t deserve more.

  TILLY

  Minutes After Begging

  Digging my nails into my palms to keep from breaking any more in front of him, I walk inside my house. The second the door closes behind me, my body falls against it, sliding to the floor. Sobs wreck through me. No
t because I’m upset about Travis not being ready to move on. No, I’m crying because I can only imagine what it would be like to be loved by Travis, so unconditionally.

  I thought I had that once…

  I was wrong, and I lost everything because of it.

  Listening to Travis tonight talk about how he fought for her, for their love to prevail, and how it did in the end… it was so beautiful. Breathtakingly tragic.

  He told me I deserved to find that same love. Even a fraction of that kind of love seems like more than I should be allowed in my lifetime.

  If he knew, he never would have said those words.

  Chapter 11

  Travis

  Ten Years After Josie

  “Papa? Can I have more ice cream?” Poppy asks from where she’s lying on the floor that’s covered in blankets, a fort in front of the couch where I’m sitting.

  She and Harry are staying with us while Tatum is in the hospital. She gave birth last night to King baby number three, Ruby Rose. I still can’t believe she is a mother of three.

  I’m so damn proud of Tatum though. She has kicked ass from motherhood at a young age to being a role model and icon for young girls everywhere. She puts her kids and Benton first in all things, all while ruling the world. But did any of us really think she wouldn’t?

  “I don’t know, Pops. You know your mom doesn’t like you to have too much sugar before bed,” I tell her with a smirk, taking her bowl to the kitchen for a refill. “Sprinkles?” I ask as I scoop more ice cream into her bowl.

  “Duh, Papa!” she yells from the living room, sounding like her mom.

  “Excuse me, Princess Poppy,” I say, handing her bowl back to her.

  My eyes look over to see Harry asleep on Penny’s lap. She looks up with a smile, in awe of her little nephew. “You good?” I ask her.

  “Yeah, he’s fine.”

  “If you want me to carry him up to bed, let me know,” I tell her as I lean back to finish the animated movie we’re watching.

  The next day, Tatum and the baby are released to go home. Once I get the all-clear text from Benton, I head over to their place with the kids.

  Poppy, I can tell, is a cross between excited and jealous about her new baby sister, whereas Harry has no idea what’s going on, with his normal happy-go-lucky demeanor.

  “Daddy!” Harry yells when Benton opens the door for us. Crouching down with the baby in his arms, he puts a finger to his mouth to signal for his kids to be quiet since the baby is sleeping. Harry stops and tiptoes the rest of the way to his dad with his finger to his mouth mimicking Benton. “Is my baby sleeping?” he whispers when he reaches them.

  “Meet your baby sister, Ruby,” Benton tells his son, pulling him into his side for a hug. “Poppy, come meet your sister,” he says, then looks up to where Poppy is still standing by me.

  “I want to see mummy,” Poppy says, walking past them to head inside.

  I give Benton a sympathy grin before walking past him to follow her inside with Penny, who is excited to see the baby. I stop when I see Poppy curled up with her mom on the couch, talking animatedly about her stay with us the last couple of days. Tatum looks a little tired but good as she listens attentively to her daughter.

  But Poppy stops as soon as Benton comes in and gives the sleeping newborn to his wife. Looking at the baby a second, Poppy then gets up and begins to leave the room.

  “Poppy, come see the baby,” Tate tries with her.

  “I don’t like her,” Poppy says simply. And just like that, a six-year-old leaves us all speechless.

  “I like her!” Harry exclaims, crawling up with his mom and Ruby.

  I see Tatum trying to fight back tears as she smiles down at her son. “I’m so glad. Ruby was so excited to meet you, she fell asleep,” Tatum tells him.

  “Silly baby,” Harry says with a laugh.

  Tatum’s eyes meet Benton’s, a conversation between them without words. “I’ll go talk with her,” he says, heading toward Poppy’s room. “Thank you, Travis, for helping with the kids.”

  “They don’t call me Papa for nothing! I gave them all the sugar they asked for.”

  “And we made a fort!” Harry adds.

  “Did you? That sounds quite fun,” Benton tells Harry, giving me one last smile of gratitude before finding his oldest daughter.

  I give Tatum a kiss on the head and tell Penny we should go, knowing they need time as a family to adjust to their newest member. It makes me a little more grateful that Josie and I only had Penny.

  “Come off, you piece of shit!” I hear Jesse yell from under a car at Pretty Girl. Then I hear a laugh that I know all too well because it belongs to my daughter.

  “Bet I can get it off,” Penny taunts, pulling his legs to make him roll out from under the car. “Get up, let a girl show you how it’s done. And you owe a dollar.”

  He scoffs at her but gets up. I don’t miss the smile that twitches at the corners of his mouth when she rolls under the car. “Please, Penelope, show me your ways,” he teases her, using her full name. I know he’ll pay for that one, but it’s too good to interrupt them when they go at it like this. I chuckle to myself, shaking my head at them and sticking to the purchase order I’m going over instead.

  A minute later, I hear her triumphant cheers. “In your face, Jesse!”

  “No way. I loosened it for you, Nugget, and you know it,” he tells her, not wanting to accept defeat like every other warm-blooded male.

  “Psh! Whatever helps you sleep at night,” she tells him, patting his cheek, leaving grease on his face while she drops the bolt into his hand.

  “You are asking for it,” Jesse tells her, and I know what’s coming next.

  “Jesse!” I bark out to him, making him pause, but his eyes are still on my girl. “We work here. You can play at home.”

  “Yes, sir,” he tells me with a salute and cocky smirk. “Yeah, Nugget, we work here,” I hear him mock to Penny before her giggles ring through the air.

  These two will be the death of me, I swear. I let out a groan, stretching my arms up over my head and seeing it’s almost quitting time anyway.

  “Come on, you two troublemakers, let’s go home,” I call out to them. They answer with hoots and hollers like I’ve kept them captive for the past three days, when in reality they come after school for a couple of hours to help.

  Penny hip-checks him as they walk out of the main garage bay heading to Jesse’s truck. He hops in and locks her out. I watch as she stomps her foot and yells at him. I imagine he’s cracking up as her anger rises. When he starts to slowly let the truck roll forward, she yells louder, banging on the window. He does the typical stop and go each time she tries to get in until she finally gives up and jumps into the bed of the truck.

  “Penny, get down from there! You know I don’t like you riding back there!” I yell at her when they start to leave for home.

  “It’s fine, Daddy. Jesse only goes ten over the speed limit,” she yells before blowing me a kiss as they turn the corner.

  Yep. Killing me slowly.

  Penny begged me for a bonfire tonight. The weather is starting to get colder, but today was warmer than it’s been in a while. We invited Jesse and Tilly to come out and join us, and I was happy when they did.

  Now, those two crazy young teens are running around the yards competing to see who can capture more lightning bugs. Although, with the cooler weather I’ve only spotted one or two, but that doesn’t stop them.

  “They are perfect together. Don’t you think?” Tilly asks, and I look at her, confused by what she means.

  “I guess.” I shrug. “They’ve basically grown up together, acting more like brother and sister than neighbors.”

  “Travis,” she says my name like I’m missing something. “Look at them. Really look at them. They don’t act like siblings—well, not most of the time anyway. No, they’re soulmates. Can’t you see it?” she asks, and I can almost hear reverence in her voice with how she says it.
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  “She’s not even thirteen yet.”

  “Didn’t you say you knew you loved your wife when you were sixteen?”

  I look at her, surprised she remembered that from the night I went off on her. Not one of my finest moments. “Yeah,” I sigh after a beat.

  “I don’t think they fully know it yet or even understand it. But you can almost feel it between them when you’re with them,” she says, smiling. “It makes me feel like I finally did something right by my family with him.”

  I look at her even more confused. The more she says, the more I think I need a map to understand her thoughts tonight. She must notice it by the look on my face this time.

  “I messed up with my family a long time ago,” she says on her own sigh. “I’m surprised I was the one awarded custody of Jesse, even if I was the only family he had left. I wanted so much to do right by him, right my wrongs. Seeing how he turned his anger around, how he is with Penny, it feels right.”

  “We all make mistakes. They don’t define us forever, Tilly.”

  She drops her chin, and a small grin of disbelief flashes on her serene face. “Thanks. But I did a horrible thing. A couple of horrible things.”

  “What? Did you kill someone or something?” I ask with a laugh, but her face shoots up, and the look of fear in her eyes makes me feel like shit. It couldn’t have been as bad as what I said though, right? I mean, she’s here and not in prison, after all. “Tilly?” I ask all the questions I have by only saying her name.

  “You’re going to look at me differently if I tell you.” Her head falls back. “Everyone does,” she adds on a whisper.

  “I’m no saint, Cookie. I’m not going to force you to tell me anything you aren’t ready to share. But I’d like to think I know you well enough to know that you are one of the most caring people I’ve ever met.”