Thick & Thin (Thin Love Book 3)

by Eden Butler

  There she stood. On the stage. My Aly, forcing a smile meant to convince people that didn’t know her that she was happy. She wasn’t. I knew that because, once, she’d been like the afterthought of memory that lived in my dreams. No one knew her like I did.

  My mother’s hand on my arm refocused my attention. She seemed able to do that no matter what disaster I’d stirred up for myself. Her surprise mirrored mine. After all, Aly was family. She belonged to us all.

  “Ransom, wait, honey. Just wait a second.” Persistence was my mother’s greatest talent. Despite that tight grip, the paradoxical expression of calm on her face, I didn’t miss the look she threw my father’s way. It was a communication they’d perfected in the thirteen years or so since they found each other again—reading small cues in each other, subtle nuances they meant to keep from me, from my young siblings. It was practiced, perfect.

  I still didn’t miss what that glance meant and could feel the unbidden advice before it passed from my mother’s lips.

  “Ransom…” A quick shake of my head and she seemed to decide not to bother with softening the blow.

  “Keiki kane...” Dad started but I waved him off, noticing how he held onto Mom’s waist, guiding her, maybe, maybe insisting that she give me space with a touch of his large hand. “Wildcat…”

  “No, Kona. We can’t just…”

  I tuned them out, disregarding the small bickering that went between them. It was always this way with them—Mom wanted to meddle, rescue, Dad wanted to let me sort out shit for myself. But there was nothing either of them could say here, now. Absently I knew that I moved, that the space around me had grown thick with motion. My mother held onto my arm, squeezing my wrist as I walked from the seat, from that stage and the sight of my girl being kissed by someone else.

  Someone she’d said yes to.

  “Makana!” my mother called out to my baby sister, who broke free from our visiting cousin’s embrace. Her ten-year-old face was grinning when her gaze met my mother’s, and when her eye caught mine, I made sure to slip a feeble smile across my mouth. Makana loved Aly. She was the girl’s teacher, but it was more than just that. Hell, they had a connection that went beyond me, and I wasn’t going to spoil this moment with my own messed up confusion and disappointment. So when Makana ran to us and threw her arms around my father’s wide neck as he lifted her up for a hug, I hung back and let her babble on with excitement that comes from being in the limelight.

  It was, after all, Makana’s dance recital. Her powerful display of Kaholo dance had been a source of pride for all of us. It never had to be stated, but we Riley-Hales prided ourselves on family. Ohana, my father called it. The utter importance of never forgetting who lives in our hearts.

  “Ransom!” Makana wasn’t going to let me out of being part of her celebration. She waved at me across the aisle, insisting with her small fingers that I stand in front of her. It had been months since I’d been back in New Orleans and when you have young siblings, those weeks add up. I’d seen Makana and her older brother, Koa’s, first steps, heard their first words. I’d experienced every learned skill that kids pick up despite my college football and then later NFL career. I was present. Always, even when I was thousands of miles away in Miami. Still, my kid sister and brother did things like grow and get larger without me knowing. Every trip back home to New Orleans marked another change in them. This time, I had noticed that Koa was taller, his shoulders wider, though he was still a little scrawny. The soft, round features of Makana’s face were diminishing, growing less baby-like, and looking at her reaching those long arms toward me I realized it wouldn’t take many more trips away before I wouldn't recognize her at all.

  Soon it would be puberty for my kid sister. Soon, Koa would be into more than his Xbox and whatever social media site was taking his attention. All too soon enough, those kids wouldn’t be kids anymore.

  Makana stopped wiggling from Mom and Dad’s attention when I stood in front of her, grabbing her hand. One glance at her face, at that lowering smile, and I knew my kid sister wasn’t just interested in knowing what I thought of her performance. “Did you see that Ethan proposed to Aly? Our Aly?”

  “I did, kaikuahine.” I knelt in front of her, grinning at how her attention wandered, like most ten-year-old’s would. She looked over my head, at my side, elbowing Koa when he stood too close. The hint of theater make-up on her heart-shaped face made Mack look a little older than I liked.

  She glanced at me, blinking fast, small flecks of eye make-up and glitter falling onto her cheeks to catch the light and sparkle playfully there. “You gonna tell her congrats?”

  “Think I should?” I nodded to several fans as they passed me, but wouldn’t sign autographs. Not with my little sister wanting my attention. Not when my folks and little brother expected me to be just Ransom, not Ransom Riley-Hale, NFL player, when I was with them.

  “I don’t know. Mr. Willis is a nice guy. He’s always bringing her white roses and those fancy chocolates she likes.” She shrugged as though those small gifts proved this Ethan guy was husband material.

  Makana could charm a snake with one grin and her Pollyanna, ‘everything is wonderful,’ attitude. My mom swore she learned that from me. And I will admit, Mack’s grin had me forgetting that Aly had said yes—almost, until I thought of it again. A handful of months with this guy and she was already promising forever.

  My sister wasn’t upset over the proposal. Why would she be? Everyone thought that Aly and I had parted ways four years ago. It was what she’d wanted. But that hadn’t kept me from going to her, begging to be with her again, or even just for a little while more if she’d have me. It was convenient to think that nothing but distance had changed for us. But that wasn’t true. We had changed, her most of all. Two years ago she stopped letting me inside her condo when I visited. It had been the longest two years of my life.

  “So chocolates and flowers matter?”

  Makana fiddled with my collar, ignoring Koa when he tugged on her pāʻū skirt trying to pester her. “I don’t know, I guess.” Glancing up at me, seeming bored already with the conversation, Makana turned away from me when one of her friends called her name.

  As Makana moved away from me, my mind couldn't keep from Aly, and what had happened tonight. God knows that I always thought there would be more time. We always promised to reserve time in our future lives, something that would always be on the horizon when Aly had her studio running smoothly and my career wasn’t so unstable. No matter where we went, even if we were apart, there would always be tomorrow.

  At least, that’s what I’d believed.

  A glance up at the stage and the burning knot in my gut only twisted harder. Aly soaked up the attention—here was my girl entertaining. That firm grin dazzled against the stage lights as this Ethan guy held her next to his chest, politicking for the crowd. I wanted to hate him. I wanted to imagine violent things done to his body. He was no giant, not like me. But the guy had swagger, he had charm, that much I could tell just watching him dote on Aly. He entertained too, chipped away at the veneer of happiness she wanted everyone to see. And the look he gave her? That wasn’t forced. How could I fault him for looking at her the way I always had? How could I hate him for falling for the woman who still filled my dreams, who still kept my heart pounding with the smallest thought of her? Still, on principle, I decided to at least be annoyed by this guy.

  “You mad, brah?” My kid brother stood next to me, arms crossed over his chest, mirroring my stance. Koa was thin, but still tall, coming close to my shoulders. Makana may have been close to Aly, but Koa was the reason she’d come around in the first place. My parents had been exhausted, worn out by their careers and the family they’d created for themselves after decades apart. Makana in utero was a burden Mom didn’t want anyone to think she couldn’t handle. But being heavily pregnant, working, and trying to take care of a little 18-month old monster named Koa took too much out of her.

  Enter Aly and that amaz
ing way she had for taking care of everyone.

  She’d signed on to help out my parents and rein in Koa through the terrible twos. I’d managed to convince her to love me, as well, and in the process, she became family.

  College, the NFL draft, her career, her ambition, the struggle of being in love with me, we survived it all. At least, I thought we had. Until that October night. Until I could not convince her stay another minute.

  “No matter where I go, Ransom, my heart will stay with you.”

  Did she still mean it? If she did, how could she say yes to someone else?

  She wasn’t supposed to stay gone. I wasn’t supposed to forget that she had. Life wasn’t supposed to get in our way. But it had. We’d let it. The arguments beforehand had been brutal—

  Aly unable to watch my games at the end for fear of another injury, her being petrified that one more concussion would leave me damaged permanently. Her telling me I didn’t see her. That I didn’t give her the respect she deserved, that my success was more important that hers. The shouting, the distance, the disappointment when I continued to play, when she kept away from my games, when she’d had enough of me assuming she’d stay even though I didn’t give her what she needed. Before I realized how quiet our condo was at night, before I noticed the smell of her perfume no longer lingered on our pillows, Aly was gone.

  We tried. We came back together only to lose sight of how to maintain the life we’d wanted with each other. We tried again and again until, finally, we forgot to try just one more time.

  “You gonna talk to her?” Just then, Koa seemed so much older than he was. Those narrowed eyes, the easy lift of his eyebrows as he watched me, like a man waiting. Like he knew I had a plan beyond what I’d told my folks I’d do: Remind Aly how much she loved me. Koa watched me, waiting, expecting me to give him a reassurance I wasn’t sure I could offer.

  “Maybe.” I had no idea how I could. Was that even my place? To interrupt her night? Another glance at my folks—Dad talking on his cell as it kept ringing and buzzing with alerts and Mom speaking to her cousin Leann—and I realized that we were here, all of us, because of Aly. On the stage she twisted away from Ethan, doling out hugs and kisses as her students approached. She held center stage, touching those kids, laughing at them, those green eyes sparkling bright.

  She belonged with us. I knew that. She always had, even more than a decade before when she first came into our lives out of necessity and stayed because she needed us as much as we needed her.

  Ohana. Always.

  Despite the small shock of the impromptu proposal, my folks walked up the aisle with my siblings tagging behind; I held back. I wasn’t ready to talk to Aly yet. I wasn’t strong enough. As I watched my family on stage, I noticed proudly that there were no judgments, in spite of the long stare Koa shot at Ethan and the way Makana rolled her eyes when the man tipped his knuckle under her chin. Aly took the offered hugs and kisses, letting my family congratulate her because that’s what you do—support, nurture, love even when you’re damn scared. Even when the person you love is throwing away their happiness with both hands. Watching them all up on that stage, seeing the way they looked at each other, seeing how Aly held onto my mom’s hand and interacted with my siblings, made my chest hurt. Would this end too with her marriage?

  Aly and I were like a gentle, constant ripple, ever widening, intersecting to pull toward each other. Our friends, our family, our lives were connected, always would be and could be ignored, overshadowed by life, by the selfish pursuit to build ourselves into something resembling accomplishment, but what we were, who we were together would never go away. That ripple touched so much of who we had become; of who we were.

  The noise around the auditorium still buzzed even though the crowd thinned. Still, my family lingered, and I stepped in the shadows, near the lobby, waiting for them to say their goodbyes.

  There was nothing for it. How could I stand there watching, waiting and not take her in? Not remember the way her back arched when I slid inside her? Not remember the tight grip of her body over mine, the peppering of sounds—pleasure, surrender all coalescing into a song she sang just for me anytime I loved her. The way she held my hand no matter where we were. How her smile was all the encouragement I needed when I was tired, when my body ached from how badly I wrecked it on the field.

  There wasn’t an inch of her body that I wasn’t familiar with. There wasn’t an expression she made that I couldn’t interpret. There wasn’t a happy memory in my past that didn’t involve her. She’d come into my life when everything was cold and lifeless and broke me from that darkness.

  She’d been mine, body and soul, and watching her now—that sweet heart-shaped face, those full, perfect lips, I realized just how much her walking away four years ago still affected me.

  It still hurt like hell.

  I wouldn’t speak to her, not yet. Not with an audience. What I had to say was for Aly alone. So when they left, my parents didn’t ask why I wanted to grab a cab instead of go with them. They knew. They understood when I stayed back, disappeared backstage, into the last dressing room on the right—the one she always took—as the auditorium emptied and the cleaning crew began the task of clearing away the programs and sweeping the glitter and rhinestones and sweat from the stage.

  Aly always stayed behind after a recital was over, waiting for the scenery to be broken down and the props put into her SUV. She’d always hang back to make sure none of the kids had left anything behind and to collect the things that were. Despite the ridiculous amounts she paid to contract the venue for a recital, Aly was a control freak and had to make sure things were handled for herself. Watching her from the doorway as she moved around the dressing room, I wondered how long I had with her. Would this Ethan guy stick around while she finished her work? I was hard to miss and she had to have told him about our relationship. Hell, six years is a long time to be with someone. There was no way my name had never come up. He had to have seen me tonight and maybe he expected me to keep my distance, to let them enjoy their new engagement.

  He’d be disappointed.

  Her arms were full. No flowers now. No congratulatory shit that weighed down those toned arms. Aly was in instructor mode, boss of the studio, stuffing programs into her bag and forgotten dance shoes into a plastic blue box with a click lid. The dressing room was dark, lit only by the yellow lights around the make-up tables and what eked in from the hallway.

  Her movement cast shadows as she packed away the mess in her arms. A pair of abandoned shoes escaped her grasp to fall at her feet, and I couldn’t help but marvel as the tight, form-fitting dress she wore slid over her muscular legs when she bent to pick them up. I ached to touch her. Just one kiss against her shoulder, maybe a small graze of my fingers over her hips. It had been so damn long.

  “If you’re going to lurk,” Aly said, back still facing me, “the least you could do is say hello.” When she turned, that giant rock on her left hand glinted against the table light and she watched me trying so hard to keep my gaze from that ring.

  Two steps toward me and Aly held her fingers together behind her back, sparing me the reminder that she was someone else’s now. “Ransom…”

  “Hello.” The greeting came out slow, annunciated with a lot of attitude, but when I stepped just inches from her, watching, I got that it hadn’t bothered her. Maybe she was too caught up in the way I leaned forward, greeting her with a brief kiss on her cheek. “Hello.” The word came out in a small growl, just the slightest breath against her ear.

  Attraction, chemistry, it had never been a problem for us. We were combustible, two crackling fuses waiting to be ignited and generally the matches came out the second we ended up in the same room together. Standing there, smelling her perfume, catching the small hitch her in breath when I grazed her bare arm with my fingers, when she moved her eyes, locking her gaze on my mouth, I realized that crackling energy had not been extinguished.

  “Ransom…” she tried again, eyes bli
nking quick when I grazed my hand up her bicep. “I didn’t expect Ethan to…”

  “It’s cool.” One smooth lie I knew she didn’t believe and my girl watched me close, those beautiful green eyes flickering over my features.

  “Ransom…”

  Aly didn’t flinch, didn’t move at all when I held both her arms in my large hands. “You love him?”

  “What?”

  “Easy question, sweetheart.” I saw the anger rising inside her. That was clear in the straightening of her spine and the rigid way she held her shoulders. Still, I ignored the warning. I’d loved this woman for most of my adult life. God knows I could read her. The way she held herself was a warning, but not one that would make me step away from her. “I hope to God you’d never agree to marry someone you don’t love. That’s not your style.”

  “If you believe that then why bother asking?” A small blanket of chills skirted across her skin but I didn’t try to warm her, didn’t do more than hide my smirk when she curled her arms over her chest.

  “Just making sure my girl is happy.” My body was drawn to hers, always. She stepped away, I came forward, wanting to be near her. No matter that it was no longer my place.

  “Ransom.” Aly stepped back further, removed me from her space with a backtrack. I let it slide, too focused on her features, ones that I hadn’t seen up close for months. Ones that I thought I wouldn’t miss so much. “I haven’t been your girl for a long time.”

  “You and me are end game.”

  I’d meant that four years ago as Aly dressed, my smell still on her, her skin still flushed from our love making in her hasty retreat from our lives. I meant it still. Back then, when I first said it, she’d offered me a nod that I’d taken for confirmation. Now, I wasn’t so sure she was still in agreement.

  I wouldn’t push her, but there was no way I’d let her brush me off like I didn’t matter at all. “You’ll always be my girl.” The sharp points of her chin, the soft angles of her cheekbones fit perfectly between my fingers as I held her face and tried to suppress a chuckle at how she leaned toward my hands.