by Mia Kayla
Happiness exuded from his pores, his elation uncontainable.
He grinned, lighting up the room even though it was dark outside, and then his lips met mine again in a soul-crushing kiss that I felt from the top of my scalp to my little pinkie toes.
Josh’s love hadn’t been fast and furious and fizzling. It had been slow-moving, creeping in when I hadn’t expected it, infiltrating every part of my being and melting into my soul.
And I knew this love…our love wasn’t fleeting. This was permanently real.
The next few months flew by in a blur, as if being with Josh had placed my life on fast-forward.
Every day was new and exciting. We experienced new restaurants weekly and walked at the park almost every day. Even the simple things, like sitting at a café while I read a book and he studied, were exciting. The comfort of his arms held me every night while he listened to me complain about my stressful days at work. We laughed together all the time and couldn’t get enough of each other.
I realized that I’d missed the stability of being in a relationship. My last real relationship in college seemed like eons ago.
With Josh, being in love was effortless, as easy as taking in my next breath.
I stood in the middle of my living room, waiting for Josh’s surprise.
“Are your eyes closed?” he asked.
“Why?” I crossed my arms over my chest and rolled to my tippy-toes and back down, digging my heels into the living room floor.
“Because.” He laughed. “Just shut your eyes, Princess.”
I tightly shut my eyes, and then a big thud made me jump. Something was pushing up against my foot. “What is this?”
“Don’t. Open. Your eyes.”
I pushed out my lip and placed my hands on my hips. “You’re being kind of mean and bossy. I’m not sure I like your alter ego.”
“You didn’t mind my bossiness last night.” There was an underlying seductiveness in his voice. He placed one hand on my hip, his fingertips caressing my side, blazing a trail of fire as they went.
My breath hitched when he pulled me against him.
“You want me to stop being bossy? You don’t like the alpha in this male?”
I laughed as his hot breath formed goose bumps against my neck. “Can I please open my eyes?”
He swiftly pecked me, and automatically, I leaned in, wanting more.
“Sure.”
When I opened my eyes, I blinked down at the large box wrapped in duct tape. I narrowed my eyes and tapped the box. “Really?” I complained.
He shrugged. “You’d better start. It was a bitch to wrap, so I’m assuming it’ll take you some time to open.” The glint of amusement brightened his face.
I dropped to my knees and started to peel off the gray industrial tape. Piece by annoying piece. “You don’t mess around.”
He chuckled before sitting Indian-style next to me, drumming his fingers on the floor.
“What is this for anyway? It’s not my birthday.”
“Can’t I get you a just-because gift?” He pecked my lips and backed away as quickly as he’d come.
“What’s up with you and your weekly just-because gifts?”
My man spoiled me rotten with flowers, chocolates, and stuffed animals. He’d hide the gifts in random places, just like he’d hidden his notes months ago.
He touched the tip of my nose. “Because I love you.”
Le sigh.
My heartbeat quickened each time he uttered those words.
Every time he said the L-word, a cheesy smile would adorn my face, and my insides would melt like chocolate flowing from a fondue fountain.
He poked my side, and I jumped. “Hurry up. I have an exam to study for.”
I saluted, and my hands worked double time, stripping each piece of tape from the box. Just when I thought I was done, I wasn’t.
I pouted when red duct tape appeared under the gray. “You’re so mean.”
“Keep going, Princess.” He fake yawned, stretching his hands to the ceiling. He lay down on the floor, one arm propping his head up.
Two dimples flashed my way—my favorite two dimples that made my heart go bumpety-bump-bump.
“Horrible. Mean. Boyfriend.”
He simply grinned.
Then, I saw it—the gleam of my KitchenAid. But not my old, rusty one that they didn’t even sell the replacement parts for anymore. No, this one was shiny, new, and bright red. The one I had always wanted and drooled over at the department store.
“Josh,” I breathed as I pulled at the tape, seeing the picture on the box. “Josh!” I peered up to meet his eyes. “This is more than a just-because gift. It’s a birthday, anniversary, and next birthday gift!”
I knew how much an industrial KitchenAid cost, and it wasn’t cheap. How could he afford this by selling shoes? Josh’s grandfather had made sure that any access to Stanton money was denied. Not that Josh would take money with stipulations.
I wanted to hug the box and jump up and down, but I was worried about his finances. “Josh, you can’t afford this.”
He shook his head. “Stop. I work.”
I blew out a breath. “No.”
“Why not?” He sat up, reached for my hand and pulled me onto his lap. “A simple thank-you will do.”
I took his face in my hands, fiercely kissing him on the lips. I was so grateful for his selfless nature, but this was too much. “Maybe when you’re a big, bad child services lawyer.”
He nuzzled his nose against my cheek. The mere touch of his skin against mine sent a warm shiver through my body.
“I doubt I’ll be rich and famous by then. I’ll be working pro bono mostly. But it doesn’t matter. I’ll get us by.” He tenderly kissed the corner of my mouth.
I peered into his eyes that held such adoration, such love. The way he’d said us, the confidence in that word, widened my smile.
“Accept it.” He tucked some loose strands of my hair behind my ear. “It’s selfish really. You’ll save time, so you can bake me more brownies and cookies. What do you say?” He pushed out his bottom lip in the cutest pout. “Please.”
I took in his boyish face, his warm brown eyes, and his nonstop selflessness. “Thank you, baby.” I kissed his cheek and then his lips. “Thank you so much.” For everything did not need to be said.
I stood and pulled him to his feet. “So, what’s the plan tonight?”
He wrapped his arms around my waist as I admired the new box, eager to open it.
“I was thinking, maybe you could cook my just-because-I-love-you dinner?” He flashed his sexy dimple, the one that melted my insides and made me swoon.
“For sure.” I buried my hands through his thick hair and pulled him in at the nape of his neck. After a chaste kiss, I pushed him toward my couch in the living room. “Go relax, my mighty shoe salesman, and study your heart out. I’ll be slaving over your frozen pizza in my kitchen.” I winked.
He kissed my cheek. “I’ve hit the jackpot. Jack. Pot!”
I watched his sexy ass swagger over and sit down on the couch, his oversize book in his hands.
I didn’t really cook Josh a frozen pizza. He deserved the finest steak, but I only had burgers in our fridge, so that was what I served an hour later.
We were seated at the kitchen table when Chloe walked in, her sharp suit wrinkled after a day’s work.
“Hey.” After an awkward wave, she strolled into her bedroom and emerged in jeans and a T-shirt. “Hey,” she said again with another weird wave.
“Hey, Chloe.” Josh’s head ducked toward his book, as he continued to chomp on his burger. He hadn’t noticed Chloe’s weird behavior.
Thing was, I knew Chloe like the lines on the inside of my palm. She was upset about something.
I frowned. “What’s wrong?”
She shifted her weight, fidgeting with the edge of her shirt. “Nothing.” She plopped on a chair opposite Josh and right next to me.
“Do you want a burger?”
I tipped my head back to the stove. “I put one in the pan for you.”
She shook her head and blew out a long breath. “So, have you turned on the television lately?” she asked, her tone cautious.
Josh’s head popped up mid bite. “She’s been cooking, and I’ve been studying all day.”
The air was sucked out of the room, like a vacuum sealing a bag.
Chloe and Josh shared a knowing look. One that was understood without words.
I knew something big had hit the wall, and it probably had to do with a certain rock star.
“What happened?” Anxiety bubbled up my throat. I didn’t want to know, but I did.
Chloe bit her lip and wrung her hands together on the table, her fingers turning a light pink.
“Oh, for Christ’s sake.” I stood and stalked into the living room, toward our coffee table. I grabbed the remote and turned on the television before dropping the remote back onto the table.
“No!” Chloe said.
But she was too late.
My hand flew to my heart as I watched the newscaster say, “Dana Calvin, the mother of Def Deception’s Hawke Calvin, died today, losing her battle with cancer.”
The picture that flashed on the screen was of Hawke in front of the hospital, sitting on the sidewalk. His hands were covering his face. He clearly looked emotional and broken as millions of photographers snapped their pictures around him. Near a limo, Cofi was standing only a few feet away from where Hawke was mourning.
I knew Hawke was at his weakest moment because he hated the Satan Posse, and if they were witnessing his suffering, that only meant, for once, he was unconcerned about them watching him.
The reporter continued, “Hawke Calvin was there during her final hours. Our hearts go out to him during this time.”
Then, the screen flashed to a picture during Hawke and his mom’s happier days. Hawke must have been around twelve or thirteen. His mom had ducked close to his face and taken a picture.
“Dana’s push and marketing of a group of young boys from Madison, Wisconsin led to their success, playing in sold-out stadiums worldwide. Hawke shocked his fans when he emancipated himself from his mother at a young age of sixteen. Her addiction…”
The TV shut off.
When I turned, Josh was holding the remote, a guarded look in his eyes. I blinked up at him, unmoving, as my stomach churned with anxiety.
Chloe rushed toward me and gathered me in her arms. “I know it must be hard, seeing him like that, but he’s going to be fine. He’s going to be fine.”
Josh studied me, unsure of what he should do, probably wondering what I would do next. I wasn’t sure myself.
Even though we weren’t together, I hurt for Hawke. I could feel his pain.
The picture of Hawke cowering into himself would forever be embedded in my brain.
My hand flew to my chest as memories of my own mother’s death rushed to the surface. I had held her lifeless hand within mine, crying tears that would not stop.
I sat down on the couch for the next few minutes, just quietly letting my thoughts race, while Josh cleaned up the kitchen. My face stayed even for his benefit. I had done my best with not letting my emotions show. I knew Josh was worried about me, probably curious why I cared so much about a guy I was no longer involved with. But, as much as I wanted to deny it, I was still emotionally attached to Hawke.
I tried to stop thinking of Hawke’s mother and the hurt he must be feeling right now. I tried not to think of Hawke and the way he was suffering. But, most of all, I tried not to think of his upward battle with the same type of addiction his mother had fought before cancer had taken her life.
Deep down, I hoped he would beat the system.
Deep down, I prayed that he already had.
Chapter 9
Josh sat at the edge of the bed and watched me from the corner of his eye. I opened my dresser to change, and the first thing my fingers reached for was a Def Deception T-shirt, faded over the years. It was my usual go-to at-home T-shirt, but I had stopped wearing it after Hawke and I had stopped talking.
Pushing it aside, I reached for another shirt with an animated panda on it and slipped on some shorts.
After I climbed into bed, Josh pulled me into his arms. I wanted to feel the comfort of his hold, the tenderness of his touch, the love in his voice, but it was wrong. Wrong to have him comfort me about a man he despised.
“It’s okay to grieve, to feel sad. And to even wonder how…Hawke is doing.”
I noticed the hesitation in his sentence, the drop in his tone as he’d said, “Hawke.”
An awkwardness filled the room, which was not typical in our relationship.
I pulled his arms around me tighter. “Just hold me, please.” I needed the warmth back into my body, life into my next breath.
And he did.
Because he always did.
He held me until he fell asleep. I closed my eyes and tried to clear my mind, hoping the rise and fall of Josh’s chest against mine would lull me to sleep, but when my eyes shut, I pictured Hawke, alone and in pain and suffering over his mother’s death.
My cell rang against the nightstand, and I blinked, staring, not moving. My heart rate picked up, and I threw my legs over my bed, slipped on my slippers, and walked over to the other side of the room.
“Hello?” My voice was whisper-soft, barely audible.
There was no way.
No way.
No way it could be him.
“Sunshine?”
It was him.
My name fell from his lips in a sore sigh. There was an ache in his voice, and I hurt for him, but I immediately realized his voice did nothing to my heart.
No pitter-patter. No shortness of breath. No irregular heartbeats.
I was over him.
All I felt was loss. Loss for him and a familiar ache caused by pain from death that was now shared between us. We’d both lost our mothers.
“Sunshine.”
He sounded like he was crying, and my insides churned.
I gripped the phone tighter against my ear. “Hi,” I croaked out, sympathy leaking in my tone.
When Josh shifted in my bed, I went into the bathroom and shut the door behind me.
“She’s dead,” he said with such a woeful finality that heat formed behind my eyes.
A jagged breath escaped him, hoarse, rough, and raspy. “I can’t leave my hotel. It’s crazy outside. And, right now, I can’t deal.”
I bit my lip and played with the edge of my shorts, swallowing a lump the size of a baseball in the back of my throat. “Were you with her?”
A desolate cry broke from his lips that sent razor blades to slice open my chest.
“I’ll tell you everything. She’s dead, Sunshine. She’s dead.”
That word brought me back to years ago when my mother had died.
“Dead,” the doctor had said.
“Dead,” Chloe had consoled.
“Dead,” the pastor had uttered.
“I…I feel so alone. I am alone. When I close my eyes, I see her lifeless on that fucking hospital bed. All I hear is the breathing machine and the heart monitor flatlining. I can’t fucking take it, Sunshine.” He released a soft cry, like the sound of an animal in pain, one that would not come from a male of his stature.
My breathing slowed, and I tried to stop the upheaval of emotions coursing through me. An internal battle began. A part of me needed to console him, but another part of me—Chloe’s voice—told me it wasn’t my problem to deal with. My thoughts flickered to my boyfriend lying quietly in my bed.
“I’m with Josh now,” I said.
Hawke should know that I’d moved on, that my heart belonged to someone else, that I was in love with someone else.
There was silence on the other line for several long seconds, and I heard him inhaling and exhaling.
“I only want to talk,” he said, his voice shaking with a desperation that made my muscles tense. “That’s it. Pl
ease.”
The misery in his tone was palpable, vivid, as though I could picture him, all alone, in a dark hotel room, cowered over and crying. The visual in my mind broke me down.
When I didn’t say anything for a moment, I heard a strangled sob escape him.
“I didn’t know if I should believe her until…until it was too late, and we were both trying to make up for lost time.”
The cry of this broken man slashed my insides, like paper through a shredder.
“Please. I need you. I don’t talk to anybody else, and I don’t want to turn to anything else.”
I could feel Hawke teetering on the brink of utter destruction.
His vices. He was talking about his addiction.
He was choosing me over his addiction. He was reaching out for help.
And then, suddenly, that tiny space in my heart, the one he’d once occupied, opened.
“I just want this to end. All of it. This hurt. This pain. The guilt. I just want to talk. I haven’t touched shit in months, and…right now, I want to numb it all. To forget.”
My eyes fell shut, and anxiety stirred within me, an anxiety caused from the fear of what could happen. And the fear of Josh. How Josh would think and feel and react. But death brought on a misery that you wanted to forget. Of all people, I understood that. If anyone, I knew what could happen to Hawke. I knew how much worse he could get.
“Okay,” I finally whispered. Because I couldn’t deny him someone to talk to, and if I was it, I had to be there for him. Most of all, I couldn’t have his desperation turn him to using.
“Tonight? Promise me, Sunshine,” he asked, pleading.
“I promise.” Because time mattered. Every second counted when you were dealing with an addict.
“I’ll send the car. I’m not in Chicago but close.”
“Okay.”
And then he hung up.
With my hands planted against the sink, I took deep breaths to calm myself because my mind was a jumbled mess. Visions of my mother in her sullen state flashed behind my eyes. The desperation in Hawke’s voice and the wretchedness in his sobs were so familiar.
After I brushed my teeth and combed out my hair, I slowly opened the door and tiptoed into the room to find Josh awake, sitting on the side of the bed. The clock on my nightstand flashed red at twelve forty-seven.
