by J. H. Croix
“I think I do,” I said slowly.
“I would have liked to have been able to figure it out myself. But—”
I couldn’t help but cut in. “Larry was into some criminal things.”
“Fine, he was,” she muttered. “It was a different situation, and it was happening right now. All you can do is help someone get safe, but once they're safe, well, the rest is their call.”
“Wisdom from my sixteen-year-old sister,” I offered dryly.
“You don’t have to listen, but you were right about Larry, and I can admit it. Maybe you should listen to me. I have a point.”
“I know you have a point,” I said softly. “I'm glad you're okay.”
“I'm getting there. Now, I gotta go because my friend’s texting me. I love you.”
“I love you too.”
I turned into the parking lot at work, sitting in the car for a few minutes to gather my thoughts. Lifting my phone, I typed out a text to Mae. I hit send and hoped she'd reply before the end of the day.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Mae
Rowan: I figured something out. I know you're right, and I'm hoping we could talk tonight.
I stared down at Rowan's text, my lips curling into a smile. I missed him a lot, enough that it hurt. And we did need to talk. I didn't need any more time away from him, and I also wanted his feedback. I typed out a reply.
Me: Why don't you come over tonight? I'll make dinner. Also, I think Sassafras misses you. I should be home by 4:30ish. You can come over whenever you want. It’s supposed to snow, so don't be out late.
I laughed as I hit send. I was pretty sure Rowan could handle himself in the snow.
I stopped by the grocery store after work. I was planning to make an old favorite of ours from college. Like many college students, we’d been just getting by when it came to money. We ate a lot of ramen noodles, straight out of those crinkly packages. I'd decided to teach myself how to make it one night. We’d promptly discovered homemade ramen was waayyyy better than the kind from the packages. But with being busy college students, we never had enough time, so we'd only made it twice. The first time, and then I’d made it for our very first dinner date. That was also the night of our very first kiss.
After I got home, I started prepping dinner. Sassafras was super curious about anything I did in the kitchen. She liked to watch me from her perch on the windowsill. She seemed to understand she wasn't supposed to get on the counter, which was kind of surprising because usually, she did whatever she wanted.
When I heard the knock on the door, I turned the burner down, practically sprinting from the kitchen into the living room to open the door. It had only been five days.
Rowan was standing there, and the snow was falling around him. I stood frozen in place for a few beats before he prompted, “Can I come in?”
“Oh!” I leaped back.
Closing the door behind him, I watched as he hung up his jacket and toed off his boots. He ran a hand over his hair, which was damp from the snow. We stood there for another moment, and I felt silly.
“Come ’ere,” he murmured.
A second later, he folded me into his arms. I took a deep breath, relaxing for the first time in days.
“How are you?” he asked as he stepped away.
“I'm good.” I curled my hand around his, giving him a light tug. “Come watch me cook.”
Sassafras had followed me out to the living room and eyed Rowan suspiciously from the armrest of the closest chair. Rowan scratched under her chin as he walked by.
When we walked into the kitchen, he commented, “Smells good. What are you making?”
I smiled up at him. “Ramen.”
His brows hitched up, a smile slowly curling his lips. “This will be the first time I've had homemade ramen since the last time you made it for me.”
“Seriously?”
He nodded. “You’re the only person who ever made it homemade for me. It's kind of trendy now, I think.”
“I got your favorite beer,” I offered as I dropped his hand and strode to the refrigerator to open it.
“What's my favorite beer?”
His eyes were warm, and my belly shimmied.
“I got that kind you like from the brewery in Anchorage. It's hip.” Rowan chuckled. “Sit.” I gestured to the table.
“Oh, you're gonna wait on me?” he teased as he sat down.
“Sort of. I'm just waiting for the ramen to finish simmering.”
“Are you going to have a beer?” he asked.
“I’ll have some wine. You can have wine if you prefer.”
“Beer is always my preference.”
I fetched him a beer and poured a glass of wine for myself before sitting down across from him. I felt nervous, but I wasn't sure why. I suppose I just needed to spit it all out. I opened my mouth to talk, but he interjected. “Can I say something first?”
I went still and stared at him before replying, “Of course.”
My heartbeat started to strum a little faster.
His eyes bored into mine, and he cleared his throat. “You were right, but I didn't understand.”
“What do you mean?” I whispered.
“I wanted to do something about what happened with Chet, or rather what Chet did, but that's not my place at all. Whatever happens is your decision, and I should’ve respected that. I just felt so helpless and so angry. I understand why you got upset with me.”
He fell quiet as emotion rushed through me. I took a shuddery breath. I wanted to cry, and tears stung my eyes.
Rowan’s eyes widened. “Mae, I didn't mean to upset you,” he said hoarsely.
I shook my head quickly. “I’m not upset. I'm just emotional. Thank you for understanding.” A part of me wanted to apologize for getting upset with him. But it was important for me to be able to simply hold to that.
I opened my mouth, my habit to apologize for making any man uncomfortable, almost overriding my feelings, but I snapped it shut quickly.
“What were you about to say?” he pressed.
“In a way, I want to say I'm sorry I got upset, but it is really important. It’s also not really about you. It's just important to me that I be able to… to manage this, I guess. I don't want to pursue anything legally at all. I want to be able to just let it go. I know trying to do anything about it now isn't going to solve anything. It's really not. I thought about it a lot, and I looked into it again after we talked.”
“What do you want to do about him emailing you?” he asked quietly.
I met his eyes. “I already replied.”
His brows flew up, and his eyes widened with alarm. “Mae, why—”
I held a palm up. “It's fine. He can't do anything to me. He can't. I basically told him to fuck off, and that if he reached out to me again, I might pursue my legal options. And if he does, I might do that. I didn't do it by myself. I was with Phoebe, and I got sick of staring at the red dot on my phone.”
I could see the muscles in his jaw clench. He took a deep breath, his shoulders rising with it, as he leaned his head back and closed his eyes. He let it out with a sigh when he leveled his gaze with mine again. “This isn't easy for me.”
“What?” I pressed.
“I have his number. I want to fucking call him and tell him to go straight to hell. I’d also like to kick his ass.”
“Please don't. Just don't open that door, Rowan.”
“I haven't, and I won't,” he said somberly.
“I think you should delete the number from your phone.” I could tell he didn't like that suggestion.
“Why?”
“Because if you don’t, it’s going to burn a hole in your phone and tempt you. If I change my mind and I want to track him down later, we can get his number one way or another. In the world of the internet, it's not that hard to find someone even when they don’t want to be found.”
“I know but—” he began to protest.
“Rowan, this is important
to me.” I held my hand out.
Muttering something indecipherable, he slipped his phone out of his pocket and pulled up the number. I watched as he hit delete. “You promise you'll tell me if you change your mind.” His eyes lifted to mine again.
“Absolutely. Look,” I reached for his hands across the table. The moment we touched, relief coursed through me. This was Rowan. We'd reconnected and finally built on that friendship that had been so important to me once before. “You're my best friend. You were before, and you are again.”
“I hope I'm more than your friend,” he said quietly.
“You know you are. I love you, and I love that you're protective of me. But you know what?” He cocked his head to the side. “In the movies and in books, there's a perfect happy ending where it's tied up with a bow. If there’s a bad guy, he goes to jail. And maybe that will happen for Chet someday, but it won’t change the past. It's not going to help me to chase him down. It's not. I wish there was some kind of way for me to know that he would never do it again. I just feel relieved he had to leave the school because of my report and someone else's. That's the most I can hope for.”
“Mae.” My name was a ragged whisper.
“Rowan, you know there's not much else that will happen. Maybe the world will change, and things will get better. But the world we live in now is one where somebody made a nail polish to prevent what happened to me because it's that common.”
His palms were warm as he squeezed my hands. “It's not fair.”
“I know it's not fair. I really do.”
He studied me quietly before nodding slowly.
“Can we stop talking about it now?”
He swallowed and nodded again. “We’re sure not going to solve it tonight.”
“I know you like to fix things, so I know how hard it is for you to step back and let this be something I figure out. If I want your help fixing it, I'll tell you, but I'm okay. That’s what matters.”
We did actually manage to move on from that dreaded topic. That was a miracle in and of itself for me. Back when I’d severed my friendship with Rowan in college, I'd believed I'd never be able to think about Rowan without getting all caught up in my head about what happened with Chet. Life and Rowan had proved me wrong because Chet was a footnote in the early part of our story. I refused to let it be anything more. We had so much more to our life together.
We had ramen, and it was delicious. Then I got to fall asleep beside him again.
Afterward, he helped me string Christmas lights in the living room and promised me that the next day, no matter how cold it was, he would hang them on the outside of the house.
Even though I only meant for us to watch television and snuggle, I somehow ended up tracing my hands over his chest and straddling him. I was too greedy, and I’d missed him so, so, so much. Before I knew it, we were half undressed, and I was rising up over him as he filled me. The glittering lights cast a shimmer over his face as his hands pressed into my hips, and he brought me to a shattering climax.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Rowan
The two weeks that passed before Christmas were some of the best weeks of my life. When things finally fell into place for Mae and me, I was flooded with joy. Facing what I had to fight against—to let her handle things the way she needed to—was intensely uncomfortable for me. Yet it opened up a doorway in our intimacy, taking it to a deeper level. As painful as it was to absorb what happened, we were able to build on the foundation of our friendship.
Willow Brook around Christmas was beautiful. Snow glittered under the sun on the mountaintops, and the evergreen trees were dusted with white. The landscape was all winter wonderland.
The very weekend after we made up, I even managed to finish getting that hideous shag carpet out of Mae's house. Life was feeling just plain good, the kind of good that felt solid and stable. I hadn’t even known I craved that feeling, but I did.
I passed on Stephanie’s message to Mae, and they’d texted back and forth a few times. It was a small thing, but I was glad Mae had reconnected with her.
One evening, after a training exercise at work, I was getting out of the shower at Mae’s house, and she called my name.
“You need something?” I asked. I walked down the hallway in my jeans, dragging the towel across my damp chest.
“I think that attorney’s calling you.” She pointed at my phone where I'd left it on the counter.
Glancing down, I read where the screen flashed NC Attorney. I lifted my eyes to hers. “Should I ignore it?”
“Answer it. Let’s see what she has to say. Any idea why she’d be calling you?”
I shrugged. I genuinely didn't know. Christmas was three days away, and I didn't want to ruin it.
Mae nodded encouragingly when I raised my eyes to hers in question. I lifted my phone, swiping my thumb across the screen.
“Hello?”
“Hi, Rowan. I know we left it that you would call me if your friend wanted to follow up, but I had some information,” Jill explained.
“Oh, do you mind if I put you on speaker? Mae’s with me.”
Mae had been stirring something on the stove. Pausing, she turned the flame under the burner down, then shifted to face me.
The attorney replied, “Of course not.”
Once I had the phone on speaker, I held it between Mae and me, offering, “My girlfriend, Mae, can hear you now.”
“Oh, hello, Mae,” Jill said politely. “I had an interesting piece of information that I wanted to share.”
“What's that?” I asked.
“I did a little digging, and, apparently, the perpetrator didn't report the situation with the college on his bar application, which is a requirement. This guy had official consequences at the university. I didn't want to do anything without your permission, but we do have the option to report that to the bar. Maybe it's not the same as a legal case, but the bar association records are public information. What do you think?”
Mae and I stared at each other. I could tell she was anxious. She held a slotted spoon in her hand, and her fist was clenched tightly around it. My heart felt caught tight in a vise. I reached over, curling my hand around her arm and sliding it down. Her eyes lifted to mine as she uncurled her hand from the spoon and set it on the counter.
She took a shaky breath before replying, “I think that's a good idea. Does it involve anything from me?”
“Not at all. You and someone else reported him to the college, and he wasn't allowed to return the following semester. The college has a disciplinary record. While they can refuse to release the report, he’s required to disclose the status of it on his bar application. I can take it from here if you're okay with that.”
Mae swallowed. “I am. Would you mind updating me?
“Of course not. Should I call you directly, or should I contact Rowan? Whatever is most comfortable for you,” Jill said.
“Either is fine. Let me give you my phone number.”
The attorney took down Mae’s phone number, then she wished us happy holidays, and we ended the call.
When I met Mae’s gaze, I wasn't sure how to read her expression. “Well?” I prompted.
I slid my hand down to curl around hers.
“That actually feels right.” I opened my mouth to say something, and she held a finger up. “I know you don't think it's enough. And in a way, maybe it isn't. But I would be a terrible witness in a court case, Rowan. I honestly don't remember much of it clearly.”
“He drugged you, Mae,” I said, my throat aching with every word.
“I know. It's just not that simple. Maybe if more women come forward, there can be some kind of combined case, and I would testify in that. This is enough. It's not right that he lied on his bar application. I don't even know how he would think that was okay. He might as well have some kind of consequence, other than not being able to return to school.” She shook her head slowly, her lips twisting. “You know, you read about this in the news. But, wow,
our world lets some people off really easy.”
“I know,” I said quietly.
“With this, it’s also way better that I don’t have to do anything.”
“And if he tries to email you or call you?” I pressed.
“If he tries that, you can talk to him.”
“Are you really okay?”
Mae nodded. “I hate that it happened, and I hate what it did to us, but I'm really okay.”
“If you're okay, then I'm okay.”
Her eyes held mine, and she leaned up, pressing a soft kiss on the underside of my jaw. “We have a thing to do on Christmas Eve,” she said when she stepped back.
“We do?”
“Dinner with my parents.”
“Apparently, there's a thing at the fire station too. I don’t have the details.”
“Oh, we can do both.” Mae smiled up at me.
“You sure?”
“Yeah, my parents are old. They want to have dinner at five.”
I chuckled. “We can handle dinner at five and then head to the fire station.”
Epilogue
Mae
Christmas Eve dawned clear and icy cold. Sunny days in Alaska in the winter tend to be the coldest. The sun cast bright shards of light across the landscape, and icy stalks of dead grass glittered. I wrapped a scarf around my neck and tugged my hat on before I stepped outside.
Rowan had to go into the station this morning, and he'd already warmed up my car. I smiled to myself. When I stopped in at Firehouse Café, Phoebe was sitting at a coffee table with a man I didn't recognize. She waved me over.
“Hey, do you remember Archer?” she asked when I stopped beside the table.
I looked over at the man in question. “Archer Cannon?” This man was something all right. He had burnished gold hair and almost silver eyes. The only way to describe his face was chiseled, which felt ridiculous, but it was the only word that came to mind.
