Forever, without end.
That smacks of commitment. It smacks of meaning, of investment, of purpose, of vulnerability and truth. And I have no experience with any of that.
I fucked her senseless, and she still doesn't know the truth.
I came here to do who knows what, and for reasons I don't fully understand; yet here I am in a maelstrom of my own creation.
God, I'm a monster.
It's going to gut her. And that, in turn, is going to shred me.
I'm up, out of her room and out the back door. I'm still naked but I don't care. The nearest neighbor is a mile away and their house is tucked into a copse of oak and maple. There's no one around to see. And I wouldn't care even if they could see me; let 'em look.
Her back porch is a piece of shit. Literally nothing but half a dozen unpainted, unstained two-by-fours laid across some cinder blocks. No railing, no steps, nothing.
But, holy hell, what a view.
The moon is gargantuan. A silver-white disk in the sky, shining brilliant, bathing everything silver. The fields are endless, extending for miles and miles in every direction, waist-high grass waving in a gentle breeze, a thick stand of cottonwoods a ways out, limbs waving in the wind as if dancing to some unheard song.
It's peaceful.
Reminds me of the ocean, in a way. The rippling, the soughing of the wind, the utter calm, the stillness.
I breathe it in, try to soak up some of the peace, try to get it into my veins.
But I'm still panicking.
My flight reflex is going haywire, instructing me on an instinctual level to run run run run run run--
But I can't.
I won't.
I owe this woman...something.
I owe her the truth.
I told her I'd be here in the morning, and I fucking will be. I'll cut open the vein and spill the truth to her, and then I'll leave.
But the thought of telling her the truth makes everything inside me clench and constrict. I don't want to tell her. I don't want to leave. I like it here. The wide-open spaces remind me of the ocean, and they fill a similar void in me. I don't want to tell her because I don't want to give her up.
I want to lay her down on that bed and show her what it feels like to be properly worshipped, what it feels like to be paid homage as a goddess of her calibre deserves. I want to spend hours and hours kissing every inch of her, making her come apart again and again and again until she can't take it any more. I want to feel her lips on me. I want to watch her sink that lush mouth of hers down around me. I want to get her on her hands and knees and rut into her like a beast.
What we just shared was just the beginning. It was a tease of what we could have.
I want to cradle her against my chest and love her slow.
Fuck, that word really just went through my head.
God, Jeeee-sus.
I step off the porch and into the cool grass, feeling it tickle and prick and poke. I wade through the grass like I'm wading through the sea. I stare at the moon and deny, deny, deny all of the preceding.
What the hell have I gotten myself into?
I am not in any way equipped to deal with something like this, to handle a woman like her. She deserves so much more than I've got to give. Money doesn't mean shit to her. None of my crazy adventures will impress her. My well-rounded stocks portfolio--thanks to Mom's financial gurus rather than my doing--won't mean a damned thing.
Who I am--that's what will mean something to her.
And who am I?
I don't know.
Fuck, that hurts: I don't know who I am.
God, I need a fucking drink.
You put a new heartbeat inside of me
I wake alone. The bed beside me is empty, the sheets cool, long unslept in.
I'm a sticky mess, and that sends a grin spreading across my face. I'm sore, and that too has me grinning.
Before anything else I pee, rinse my mouth with mouthwash, hop in the shower and scrub my skin clean. Find Lock's T-shirt still on my bedroom floor, so he's around somewhere. I slip his T-shirt on, and you bet your ass I take a second to inhale the scent of it, to relish in the feel of a man's T-shirt on my body.
I find him in my kitchen, clad in nothing but his jeans, unbuttoned, unzipped, no underwear. Fucking sexiest thing I've seen, that look. Makes my insides quiver. Or is that the memory of what he did to me, how incredible he made me feel? Both, I think.
He's at my table, feet hooked toe-over-heel beneath the chair. There's my bottle of serious emergency, big-time breakdown whiskey on the table in front of him, one of my resale-shop juice glasses in his hand, half full of whiskey.
It's not even good whiskey, really. I rarely drink it, but sometimes, early on, when things were still fresh and I was liable to just completely lose my shit over nothing, over a tiny little thing like remembering the way Ollie would have done something, or said something, or the instinctual urge to go "Hey, Ollie--" and then realizing he's not there--sometimes, when that kind of thing would happen, I'd pound a shot or two of whiskey and breathe through the burn and refuse to cry.
Eventually, I got to the point where I didn't need the whiskey, and that was a hard-won victory in learning the fine art of emotional numbness.
I watch Lock from the hallway for a moment. I don't think he's seen me yet, so it's an opportunity to observe him unnoticed. He's got the glass in one hand, and it's obvious he's gripping it tightly; his knuckles are white. He lifts the glass to his nose and inhales deeply. The way a hungry person would inhale the scent of food--with relish, with anticipation. He touches the rim to his lips. Tips.
But then he lowers the glass--slowly, deliberately, as if each inch downward to the table is a battle fought and won.
He sets the glass with delicate care on the tabletop. Lets go, and his hand is shaking.
Is he an alcoholic? That's what this is, a man fighting a demon.
And then, without warning, he bats the glass aside with a vicious swipe of his fist. "FUCK!" he shouts, and the glass smashes against the wall.
It's so suddenly violent and unexpected that I jump and squeal in fright, hand clapped to my chest.
I'm at his side in an instant, though. "Jesus Christ, Lock. What the hell?"
He slumps in the chair, head thunking against the chair back. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'll clean it up."
He moves to get to his feet, but I press him back down. "No, it's fine. I've got it."
I sweep up the glass, dump it, wipe up the whiskey and spray down the wall and floor, then wipe it again. And then I sit in the chair kitty-corner to his, and pull the bottle of whiskey closer to me. Away from him.
"Lock, are you...are you an alcoholic?"
"I don't know." He scoops up the cap, twists it onto the bottle, slides the bottle away. "I'm not supposed to drink."
"Sounds like alcoholism to me." I touch his hand, cover his hand with mine. "I'm not--it's fine. It doesn't have to be a big deal."
He shakes his head, more in frustration than denial. "It's...more complicated than that. I used to drink a lot, yeah. But it was social drinking. I told you I sailed the world, right? That included a lot of partying. But then there'd be days and weeks where I'd be actively traveling, trying to make time to another port, and I wouldn't drink at all, or very little. I didn't drink to pass out. It wasn't a problem. It was part of my lifestyle, but if you talked to anyone who knew me, they wouldn't say I was an alcoholic or a problem drinker."
"Then I guess I'm lost."
A deep, deep sigh. "Like I said, it's complicated." He stares at the table, spends a solid minute in silence, clearly working through what he's going to say. I sense it's important, and I give him the time to think.
Finally, he shifts his gaze to mine. His sea-blue, sea-green eyes are full of pain, hesitancy, and misery. "You ready for this?"
I wobble my head side to side. "The way you're acting, I feel like maybe I'll never be ready."
"No, probably not." He blo
ws out another breath. "Okay, here it goes."
But then he shakes his head, and doesn't say a word.
"Shit, why is this so fucking hard?" He shoots to his feet, paces away.
Leans against the counter, both hands braced against the edge. Head hanging. Muscles flexing as if he's literally, physically, fighting a war with himself.
I have to stand up, have to go to him. He's in pain, and I hate seeing it. There's something in that thought that scares me, but I ignore it. I move to stand behind him. Run my palm over his back in soothing circles.
Straightening and pivoting to face me, Lock latches onto my wrist, pulls me against him. My ear is against his chest, and once again I hear his heartbeat.
"Hear that?" he murmurs.
I nod against his skin. "Yeah. It's your heartbeat."
"That heartbeat you're hearing..." A deep, shaky breath sucked in, even more shakily let out. "It's Oliver's."
I am rocked to my core. "Wh--what? What do you mean?"
"The heart in my chest, the heartbeat you're hearing right now, that's Oliver's heart." His voice is low, deep, as if he's pulling these words from the deepest chasm of his being. "His actual, physical heart, the organ, is in my chest."
"Lock, why--why the fuck would you say that?" My eyes burn. My heart is rabbiting. My lungs can't catch air. My knees shake. "What does that mean?"
His arm is around my waist, holding me against him. Too tight, almost. As if to keep me from escaping.
A prudent precaution, I think.
He's silent. I feel him shaking, as if a man of his stature, his strength, could be terrified into trembling.
"Lock? Talk to me. You can't say something like that and then clam up."
"I was born with a congenital heart defect. My great-grandfather had the same defect and he died at sixty. My grandfather at forty-five. My dad at thirty-eight. The doctors told me I'd likely not live past thirty."
"Oh my god, Lock."
"I made it to thirty-one. My heart gave out on my thirty-first birthday. I actually died on the operating table, but they were able to bring me back. Kept me on all those machines and whatever the fuck. I'd told my mom I didn't want to be kept alive, but she--you know what, that's not important right now. Point is, I have the rarest blood type in the world, plus an unusually large heart. The chances of finding a heart that my body would accept were...essentially nil."
I'm faint.
Shaking my head.
No. NO. NO.
It can't be possible.
He sucks in another of those shuddery breaths. "There was no hope. I was going to be kept alive on the fucking machines until my mom finally told them to pull the plug. And she should have. I'd signed a DNR saying I didn't want to be forced to exist that way. I should be dead right now. But then a miracle happened. That's what the goddamn doctors called it--a fucking miracle. A donor, against all odds. A heart big enough, and the same blood type. They put that heart in my chest, put me through all the rehab, the monitoring, and the months of tests. And then...sent me away. Told me I had 'a new lease on life'. Go, live, be free!" The bitterness, the sarcasm is venomous. "What the fuck was I supposed to do? I'd gone my whole life knowing I was going to die. Being told I was an extremely poor transplant candidate. Prepare for the worst, I heard them tell my parents more than once. Lived my whole life with a fucking deadline. That's what I called it. A deadline--some kind of terminally ill humor. Not really funny unless you're the terminally ill. And then, just like that, boom. Someone died, and I got to live." He wipes his face with both hands. "Fuck, listen to me, making this about me. It's not about me. Forget all that bullshit I just said."
"Lock--I don't--I don't understand." I'm still leaning against his chest.
Listening to his heartbeat.
Oliver's heartbeat?
Could it be? That's what it sounds like he's saying.
"Oliver died in that car crash on the PCH. His organs were harvested and donated, and his heart...it was transplanted into my chest." He takes my hand, guides my fingers to those scars.
I shake my head. "You're lying."
"I wish I was."
I back away. Stare at him. Blinking hard against the flood of tears. "That's Oliver's heart? In your chest?"
He nods. "Yes."
"It was your heartbeat I fell asleep listening to last night?"
"Yes."
"After the most--the most earth-shaking sex I've ever had in my life?"
"It was for me, too." He says this quietly, as if the admission takes a lot of effort to get out.
I back up again, but then my legs give out and I collapse ungracefully to my butt, sitting on the kitchen floor. "And you knew? You've--you've known, this whole time?"
"It's why I'm in Oklahoma, Niall. I came looking for you."
"Then my truck dying, the way you rescued me--" Everything spins, a million thoughts and conjectures coruscate through me, take up my headspace, make me dizzy. "Everything, it was all--"
He kneels on the floor in front of me. "No, Niall, no. That was pure accident. Or fate, or...coincidence. I saw you trying to push that truck and I had to help. I didn't know it was...you...as in the woman I was looking for, until I went to have them fix it. I found your registration in the glove box, and that's when I realized it was you. I'd been looking, because I knew you were down here somewhere. But I had no idea how I'd actually find you. And then..." He shrugs. "You were there. And everything since was real. I haven't lied about anything."
I scoot backwards on my butt across the floor away from him, because I don't know what to think. I just don't. It's all too much and I'm sobbing, because I heard Oliver's heartbeat. I heard his actual heart beating. Just thinking about it slices me to pieces, and I collapse further, prone on the floor, roll to my side and curl up in the fetal position.
"Ollie--my Ollie...he died, and you lived."
"Yes."
I swallow hard against the knot. Breathe past the sobs, summon words past the hurt. "You knew. You kissed me, you...we made love...we fucked, or whatever you want to call it--and you knew the whole time?"
"Yes."
I can't fathom it. And looking at Lock right now, clearly neither can he.
"I'm sorry, Niall. I--" He shakes his head, as if he can't finish the rest, or as if there's nothing to finish. "If I could give it back--if I could give my heart so Oliver could live? I would. By all accounts, he was a better man than me in every way. I didn't...I never asked for this."
"Why didn't you tell me sooner?"
"I tried. I wanted to. But I just...couldn't. I mean, how do you come out with something like that? 'Oh, by the way, I know this might sound weird or whatever, but your dead husband's heart was transplanted into my chest.'" He barks a humorless laugh. "How do you think that would have gone down?"
"Better than this." I curl into an even tighter ball. "You need to leave. I need some time."
"I--yeah. Okay."
I watch through the bars of my fingers as he buttons his jeans. Zips. Trudges slowly into my room, finds his shoes, sits on the edge of the bed and tugs on his socks, stuffs his feet into the boots. Stuffs his underwear into his hip pocket. Moves, still shirtless--because I'm wearing his shirt--to the front door. Opens it. Stands in the opening.
Turns to look back at me. "I didn't mean for it to go this far. I never meant to cause you any more pain. I--" He closes his eyes slowly, as if summoning something from deep inside. "You took me by surprise."
"I took you by surprise?" My turn to laugh bitterly. "Got that backwards, pal." I force myself to my feet; force myself to move to him.
"I spent my whole life doing nothing, Niall. Avoiding anything and everything, because I felt like nothing mattered. Nothing I did mattered, because I was going to die soon." He looks at me intently, emotion boiling in his features--too much, too many, too intense to name. "You took me by surprise. I never expected to--to feel..." He trails off.
"Feel what?" I ask, my voice faint.
He w
aves a hand vaguely. "So...much. For one person. For the wrong person. It wouldn't have meant anything had I stopped to help anyone else in the entire fucking world. But it was...you." He lets out a sigh. I swear he's close to a breakdown himself. "It was you."
I shake my head. "Jesus, Lock. You can't do this. You can't do this to me." I could cry again. But I don't.
I move close enough to touch him. Put my hand on his chest. Feel his heart beat. Ollie's heartbeat. And now I do cry.
"You can't fucking do this to me, Lock. I can't take it."
"I know. And that's yet another reason why I hate myself. Not that I have any shortage of other reasons." He backs up, out of my touch, away from my reach. "Bye, Niall."
He turns and trots down the steps. Out to the dirt road, still shirtless.
I run out after him. I don't know why. I don't want him to go, but I need him gone so I can think. I stumble to a stop in front of him, pushing him to a halt. I stand in front of him. Stare into his eyes. I peel his shirt off myself, slowly. I reach up and gently tug it up over my head. I'm standing utterly naked in front of him, tears on my face, a turmoil of emotions raging inside me.
Even now I want him.
And, even now, his gaze rakes over me as if he can't get enough of looking at me. "Jesus fucking Christ, Niall. You should have just kept the goddamn shirt."
"Why?"
"Because you look the way you...you look at me the way you're looking at me and--" His hands are on me, he's yanking me against him, wrapping his fists in my curls and kissing the hell out of me. "Because I have to do this, when you look the way you do."
"It's just me. How I always look."
"Exactly."
I want so much. But inside, I'm a mess.
And he, clearly, is even worse off. I back away. "Where are you staying?"
"La Quinta." He digs a little envelope out of his back pocket, in which are two key cards. He hands me one. "Two-nineteen."
"Don't leave town, Lock. Please?"
He sighs. "If that's what you want."
"I don't know what I want. I just know I need time to figure it out. And I don't want you to leave until I do."
"Okay," he says, as if the word, the agreement, is a heavy burden. "I won't leave until you tell me to."
He grabs his shirt back and tugs it over my head. "That's my favorite shirt, so it's a kind of insurance."
He backs away from me--as if it physically hurts to do so--out of my reach. Backs away another few steps and then, with a heavy sigh, turns and jogs down the road. With an easy gait, he quickly approaches the main road.
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