After the End

by Alex Kidwell

  “I’m not a contrast,” I protested, feeling the burn in my cheeks as his touch lingered against my skin.

  “You’ve been giving me the ‘kiss me now’ look since I made you laugh in the restaurant,” he murmured, shifting closer. I suddenly couldn’t find it in me to protest he was now getting the couch wet. “But you blush when I touch you and you get more nervous the closer I get.” He paused, eyes widening. “You’re not a virgin, are you?” Interpreting my stunned silence as a yes, he hastened to add, “It’s okay if you are! I just… I didn’t expect to—”

  “Jesus, no,” I cut him off, having to laugh at the absurdity of the question. “No, definitely not.”

  A grin curved up Brady’s lips. “Good. ’Cause I haven’t been with one since I was one and I wouldn’t have been sure how to do this next part.”

  “What next part?”

  I really shouldn’t have asked. I’d seen it coming the second he’d helped me take off my shirt. Brady leaned in, catching my lips, my question, and teasing them lightly with his. I sighed into it, an exhale that rumbled through my whole body, reaching up to catch my fingers into the wet fabric of Brady’s shirt. He took that as the “yes” it definitely was, drawing me in closer, the wet press of his tongue against my lips making me shudder.

  “Wait,” I whispered, and to his credit, he immediately did. He rested his forehead against my own, soothing soft strokes down my back, rubbing a thumb along my cheek.

  “Yeah?” he asked, then grinned slowly, nudging our noses together. “Hey.”

  “Hey,” I murmured back, heart thundering, a smile threatening my own lips. “I just… I’m sorry, it’s been a while.”

  “It’s fine.” Brady pressed one last kiss to the bridge of my nose before leaning back, his hand still making slow paths up and down my back. “That was kind of incredible, just like that.”

  It had been. Acknowledging that made me feel exhilarated and guilty all at once. But the guilt—I knew, I thought, I kept telling myself—was foolish, so I tried to concentrate on the giddy high instead. “It was,” I agreed softly, and when our hands found each other again, when our fingers laced together easily, I let myself sink into that sensation. We sat there for a few moments, Brady’s arm around me, our hands clasped tightly, listening to the rain.

  Into the stillness came a low, inquisitive rumble, a chirping hello, and then twenty pounds of pure fluff and disgruntled sass sashayed his way into the room. Winston, my odd, huge, squished-face cat, had decided to see what was keeping me from turning into his bed warmer.

  Before I had a chance to warn Brady, Winston made a beeline for his feet, nudging his face happily into the arches before he wound his way around Brady’s legs. Then, with one last happy exhale, Winston collapsed, engulfing Brady’s feet in a gigantic pile of contented feline.

  “He likes feet” was my weak explanation. Brady was laughing too hard to really care, it seemed, bending over to pet Winston, baby talking him as the cat rolled over to show his belly for even more pats. The boy was shameless.

  “Who’s a gigantic fluffy fatty?” Brady crooned while Winston’s stubby legs kneaded the air in bliss. His squished face made him look constantly displeased with the world around him, but there was nothing the cat loved more than attention. That or tuna.

  “That’s Winston Churchill,” I explained. Off of Brady’s amused look, I shrugged, reaching down to give Winston a scratch behind his ear. “My partner—my ex-partner—uh, he was a political history professor. When he found Winston, someone had abandoned him behind the university along with the rest of the litter. Winston was the only one who survived, so Aaron, um, he said the cat deserved a fighting name.”

  Brady absorbed that information, stroking the thick hair of Winston’s side. I really did need to take the poor cat to be groomed. It’d just been something we’d always done together, Aaron and I. The last time I’d broken down into tears in the parking lot. I really didn’t need to embarrass myself like that again.

  “So, political history, huh?” Brady gave me a quick smile. “You have a thing for smart guys?”

  I snorted out a laugh, shrugging. “Aaron was… yeah, Aaron was kind of beyond description. But sure, I like smart guys. Why, are you not smart?” I was trying to tease, trying to ignore the horrible ache in my throat talking about him was creating.

  “Well, I’m not a professor,” Brady returned, watching my expression carefully. “I’m an event planner. That’s how I met Tracy. I did a charity event for her firm.”

  “Oh.” I thought I did a pretty good job of keeping my expression neutral, but Brady grinned at me, nudging my leg with his elbow.

  “You totally just dismissed me!” he said with a laugh, not appearing offended so much as amused. “My God, as soon as you heard the words event planner you completely dismissed me.”

  “No, I didn’t,” I protested, but Brady simply grinned impishly, waving me off.

  “You did. You think all I do is swan around and plan parties for the über-wealthy.”

  After hesitating a moment, I ventured, “Is that not what you do?”

  Brady smirked. “I like to think I don’t swan so much as sway.”

  He was teasing me. I got that after a moment and sighed, rolling my eyes at his laugh. I turned back toward him, though, when his hand found mine.

  “You’re going to re-evaluate your ideas of event planners,” he told me, confident and somehow astoundingly sexy as he held my gaze. “Because you, Quinn O’Malley, are smitten.”

  “Excuse me?” I asked, sputtering, but Brady laughed at me, leaning in to kiss away the protests.

  “You are smitten with me,” he repeated with a little grin. “Tomorrow, you’re not going to be able to stop thinking about me. And you are going to rethink this whole ‘event planners are beneath me’ thing. After all, that professor is your ex for a reason.”

  I paused. It was too long a pause; it turned teasing into dreadful silence. The air practically burned with my stillness, with that horrified nothing. The smile slid away from Brady’s face as my hands, shaking, dropped from his. “Quinn?” he asked, but I shook my head, swallowing hard.

  Smile. I had to smile while I said it. I had to make it sound light. Casual. No one wanted to hear about this: it was too awkward, too terrible, too real. Tracy told me I needed to not dominate every conversation with this, that I needed to learn to let go. That Aaron would have wanted me to let go.

  “He died,” I explained with that horrific smile on my face, my voice cracking at the edges as I strove for lightness. “So, uh, that’s why he’s an ex.”

  Brady went pale; his mouth dropped open. “Shit. Shit, Quinn, I’m so sorry. I had no idea. Tracy…. Fuck, Tracy just told me you were getting over someone.”

  I shook my head, drawing back, feeling like the room was spinning. Like there was a white, rushing noise in my ears that made it hard to hear anything else. “It’s fine,” I was saying, still smiling, still desperately smiling. “I asked her not to tell anyone a while back. I was tired of the way people looked at me when they knew.”

  His hands were on me again, pulling me close, and it took me a moment to realize he was hugging me. Tightly, he held on, and after a few beats of not being sure how to react, I sagged into him. I rested my head against his shoulder and closed my eyes, wishing I didn’t feel exactly the same every time I said his name.

  Guilt followed that thought promptly, an overwhelming wave of it. Why shouldn’t I feel this? He was gone. If I let go of that grief, if I had a moment of not missing him, how could I ever say I’d loved him?

  “How did it happen?” Brady was asking, distantly, and it took me a while to struggle through the answer.

  “Cancer.” Such a stupid little word. It was far too little, too simple, to explain what had happened. To fully encapsulate the horror of watching that big, booming man with wild red hair and a grin that lit up the sky turn into a skeleton. That the person who’d once taken up a broadsword in class, swinging it
around with a manic grin while he told his students of the War of the Roses, who’d tramped across hiking trails like there was no time at all between himself and his Viking ancestors, or who’d held this tiny, mewling, starving kitten in his hands so gently, that that person had been slowly killed off, piece by piece. That he’d died in stages, in starvation and sores and sickness. That the man who’d kissed me so passionately, who’d touched me and made me come alive, who could turn me on with a look, the man who I was supposed to grow old with, had been stolen.

  Cancer was an ugly word. But one word could never fully encompass the soul-sucking terror of living through it. And I’d do it all again, every heartbreaking moment, because it would mean that for a little while, I’d have Aaron back again. I’d have my soul in one piece.

  “I’m so sorry.” The most useless phrase in the world. Brady was patting my back, was trying to say something that would mean anything. There wasn’t, though. I knew that. He was trying, and that was the point. “When did you lose him?”

  “Almost two years ago,” I said lowly, fighting off the urge to cry. I certainly didn’t know this man well enough to start bawling in his arms over my dead partner.

  Brady drew back, studying my face. “I really am so sorry,” he whispered. I’d heard those words over and over, so much they all blurred together. But I could tell he meant them, so I gave him a sickly smile and shrugged, eyes dropping away from his.

  “It’s okay,” I told him, voice nearly steady again. Then, taking a slow breath, I tried for some levity. “Man, this has got to be the worst first date in history.”

  Brady snorted inelegantly, glancing at me before he let himself smile. “Oh, honey, you clearly haven’t had many bad dates. Trust me, this is nowhere near the worst. In fact—” He reached out, lightly laying his fingertips on the back of my hand. “—I kind of think it was pretty great.”

  He stood, carefully folded my towel, dislodged a grumbling cat with one last pat goodbye, and gathered his shoes and his sweater. I walked with him to the door, feeling wrung out and unsure. Brady smiled at me, leaning in to brush a kiss across my cheek. “I really do think you’re smitten,” he told me, and I found myself smiling, just barely, back at him.

  Then he was gone and my apartment was empty again. Just me and a fat, now snoring cat, and the ghosts of what once was.

  Chapter 2

  “COME on, admit it. You loved him.” Tracy’s words were practically tumbling over themselves, my enthusiastic friend foregoing any normal greeting in favor of pressing for information about my date. She hugged me, grinning impishly, wild red hair a haze of curls around her head. “Spill it, Quinn. Tell me how good I am.”

  “You’re a terrible person,” I replied dryly, hugging Tracy’s wife, Annabeth, as we both rolled our eyes indulgently at Tracy’s exuberance. Annabeth was nearly as tall as me, slim and graceful with dark hair and blue eyes, the polar opposite of the firecracker who was my best friend. And yet they fit so wonderfully. I’d bawled like a little girl at their wedding, standing up front in my tux, clutching Tracy’s bouquet and watching them exchange vows in dresses that made the whole thing look like a fairy tale. “I’m going to go order our coffee. Still take it black, Anna?”

  “Quinn!” Tracy’s voice rose in that impatient plea I remembered so well from childhood. It was why she always won at Monopoly, even when I had both Park Place and Boardwalk. “Do not walk away from me. I want to hear details.”

  I ignored her. Not for long, I knew. No one got away from Tracy’s inquisitions for long. That was why she made an excellent attorney. But for the moment, I escaped into the line for the barista, ordering three coffees—one black, two with extra sugar and cream—when my turn came. Standing there, blankly staring straight ahead, gave me time to get my head on straight. Last night had been…. Well, I still wasn’t sure what last night was. How I felt about everything. Brady had been wonderful, sweet and perfect and gorgeous. And those kisses had definitely resurrected certain areas I thought had been packed up in mothballs and forgotten.

  But last night, I’d dreamed about Aaron. I’d woken up with a smile hovering on my lips, reaching out to a side of the bed that was cold and empty. How was I supposed to kiss someone else, to even think about someone else, when Aaron’s pillow was still there? When his clothes hung in my closet? When I slept sometimes wrapped in one of his old cardigans, desperate for even the smallest scent of his cologne? There was no point in talking about last night, because the man I loved, the only man I should be thinking about, wasn’t ever coming back. What on earth was I supposed to say?

  “Quinn?” That low voice, a soft drawl, caught my attention as I was nodding thanks to the café worker handing me the drink tray with three steaming mugs. Startled, I jumped, sloshing coffee everywhere. I definitely would have gotten burned in a fantastic display of my own carelessness if someone hadn’t reached out to steady the tray, to gently take it from me when I couldn’t stop staring.

  Brady. Here. In my little sanctuary of a café with its nearly too pretentious local art on the wall, the piped-in sounds of some wailing folk singer, and the cheerfully mismatched ceramic cups.

  “Hey,” I finally managed, blinking, absently drawing my scarf tighter around my neck. My voice sounded all weird and strangled, and I cleared my throat, staring at him. The corners of his eyes were crinkled in an amused smile as he watched me, all poise and grace and skinny jeans.

  “Hey.” His reply came with a gentle squeeze of my arm, with a quick scent of oranges and spice that seemed to follow him. So different from Aaron’s cologne of choice—he’d favored something with sandalwood. In that moment, I couldn’t have said which I preferred, although Brady’s was heady: completely masculine, sweet, and totally him.

  I was the worst person in existence. I was comparing my blind date’s choice of scents with my dead partner. Not enough therapy in the world.

  “So….” Brady’s voice trailed off into a smile. Drinks still in hand, he looked at me expectantly. While I’d been having my little moment, apparently the world hadn’t stopped to wait for me. The world at large was unbearably rude sometimes.

  “So,” I breathed out with a little laugh, embarrassed and quick, and rubbed a hand through the short spikes of my hair. “Sorry. I’m just surprised to see you.”

  “I’d ask if it was a good surprise, but I promised myself I wouldn’t use cheesy lines on you,” Brady teased, taking my elbow easily and leading me away from the counter. “So I’ll just assume it is.” His grip was strong, confident, not assuming anything but just reassuringly there. His deep brown eyes went to the tray and the three cups. “I take it you’re busy, though.”

  “Just Tracy and Anna,” I said, renewing my claim on the tray. “We had a brunch date.” There was an awkward pause as he looked at me and I realized I should invite him. God, I didn’t know if I could. If my scrambled brain could handle all of Brady Banner this early in the morning.

  “Well, don’t let me keep you,” he finally said, all smiles, not a trace of censure for my stunning lack of manners.

  “It’s not….” Christ, I was fumbling over my words like a goddamn teenager, tongue too thick in my mouth to let me speak properly. “I just was….” Waving my hand helplessly back at the table, I let out a long sigh. “We’re going to talk about you.”

  After a beat, Brady’s polite smile slipped into a grin and he started to laugh, teeth flashing as he reached out to grip my hand. “Well, now I insist on staying, sweetheart.” He gave me a wink and bundled us over to the table, ignoring my blush to rest a hand on the small of my back. Greeting Tracy and Annabeth with kisses brushed against cheeks, he pulled out my chair and fussed over the coffee before slinging himself back, legs folded, hands clasped properly in his lap.

  “I hear we’re gossiping,” he said with relish, eyes sparkling. “And Quinn looks so disturbed about my presence I just couldn’t resist.”

  “We have to have the post-date debriefing,” Tracy smirked, taking a si
p of her coffee. I was too busy gaping at everyone, which was probably why Brady stole mine and took a sip, our shoulders resting comfortably together. I wasn’t going to think about how achingly domestic this all was. “I was going to call you later.”

  “He’s smitten with me.” Brady nodded seriously at both women, dimples showing as he grinned at Annabeth’s snort.

  I wanted to die. I wanted to crawl under the table and die. My friends seemed to be having far too much fun teasing me, though. I was aware this was one of the first times I’d been out in public doing anything but grieving. I was…. Well, I laughed at Brady’s exaggerated smirk, at Annabeth’s teasing glance, at the way Tracy was crowing about how she should be a professional matchmaker.

  “I think that’s called a pimp, dear,” Annabeth told her dryly, a smile hidden in her eyes as Tracy stuck out her tongue. They kissed lightly, their hands laced together on the table, and I let the chatter wash over me as I watched that simple sight. Just the gentle, chaste touch of two people together, two people in love. Something I’d taken for granted so many times. I’d give up the world, I’d let it all burn down around me, for one more chance at something that wonderful. That simple.

  “Hey.” Blinking, drawn from my thoughts, I turned my head to find Brady right there, smiling at me softly. There was a hint of concern in his eyes as he studied mine. “Want to get out of here?”

  Warmth flushed my cheeks, and I immediately started to stammer out an excuse, only to have his quick, breathless laugh stop me.

  “Not like that, horndog,” he murmured, teasing. “I meant a walk. You look like you could use some air.”

  Oh. Right. Not a lewd invitation to further what we’d done last night. Not lips meeting in a clash and a soundless whimper, or hands sliding along aching, warmed skin. Just a walk. Which was totally all I wanted to do anyway.