by K. L. Jessop
“Maybe I want to fuck you again.” I kiss her neck, her collarbone, moving to the other side to repeat my path of kisses. The moment I feel her relax under me, I shift myself down her body and when I reach her stomach, I blow a huge raspberry. Her body curls, and deep, uncontrollable laughter bellows out into the night air.
“Why do you always do that?”
“It’s the child in me.”
“And I always fall for it.”
“Then you should pay more attention to my movements, Ms. Nelson. Besides, I love seeing you react like you do. Let’s hear it again.”
“No!” She giggles, but I ignore her, blowing twice more on her stomach as she tries to wriggle out from under me. “Stop. I can’t breathe. And I will pee myself.”
I laugh. “Not in my truck you won’t.”
Her phone rings again. “Oh listen. Saved by the bell.”
“For now.”
I shift off her, and she scrambles away from me to get her phone. I’m left thinking about how much fun has come from today. It’s been one of the best I can remember, all because of this woman next to me. She makes my soul feel complete, and my heart without a doubt is full of everything I’ve never had with any other woman.
Fuck, I love her, and I want to tell every man and woman in Virginia just how much, right after I tell her first.
But then, like the universe has other ideas, Nora answers her phone, and when her beautiful little face falls, everything stops.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Nora
“I’m sorry. We did everything we could.”
“I’m sorry. We did everything we could.”
“I’m sorry. We did everything we could.”
My blood runs cold as the words repeat over and over in my head as I stand and look at the doctor, willing him to apologize for the mistake they’ve made and for his words to change to something different.
The silence that suddenly hits causes an ice-cold shiver to race down my spine, my heart feeling like it’s stopped. My body begins to shake and the thick lump in the back of my throat aches to the point I feel it will choke me as I try to decipher the words that have just shattered our world into a thousand pieces.
The soft cries of my mother begins to fill the room as those standing around me lower their heads with devastation. Meanwhile, an unbearable ache begins in my heart as I look at this doctor I’ve never seen before through unshed tears, speechless.
If they’d done everything they could, my dad would still be here.
He would still be with me.
My Pop.
He would still be with me.
My chest becomes tight, and I struggle to breathe. I shake my head; tears stream down my face as I focus on the hard floor of the hospital that I now despise more than ever.
“No…” It’s barely a whisper, but the agony it unleashes in my stomach is like a double-edged sword tearing me apart. “No. You’ve got it wrong.”
“Nora, sweetheart.”
I hear my mother cry, but it’s Grayson’s body that blocks the bright lights of the hospital family room—the same room we were in not that long ago and one I’d secretly sworn to myself that I’d never see again.
Yet here we are.
Only this time, Mark has replaced my brother.
I want my brother.
I want my Pop.
I’m sorry. We did everything we could.
Nausea cripples me as my body tries to fight hard to stay up right. I need to go. I need air.
“No.” I step back from Grayson before he’s even reached me. “You’re wrong. It’s a mistake.”
“Shortcake,” he whispers.
This isn’t real. It’s a dream. A twisted nightmare that I’m going to wake from any second. With each step I take back from Grayson, my legs become weaker, and the hollow ache in my heart has spread through my body like a cancer, bleeding its way into every part of me and slowly taking me down.
I can’t breathe.
This is all wrong.
“This is wrong. They are wrong.”
I’m sorry. We did everything we could.
He’s gone.
He’s dead.
Oh God. No…
I shake my head, hoping to rid the deathly spell I’m under as tears fall. “No. This isn’t right.”
“Nora.” When Grayson tries to hold me, I push him away and step back. This time I hit the wall and have no escape. Where is Asher? I want him here. He needs to be here.
I’m sorry. We did everything we could.
No. No. No. No.
I can’t breathe.
I need to get out of here.
“Tell me they’re wrong,” I plead, needing him to make it right. “Tell me I’ve not lost him.”
But when Grayson touches me again and shocks me into looking at him, I see the tears in his eyes and it’s right then that I have no control over my body and everything hits me. Hard.
A deep, gasp leaves me, and it’s like I’ve been hit with a sledgehammer as the nightmare I wish to wake from becomes an ice-cold reality.
I’m sorry. We did everything we could.
“I’m so sorry, Nora.”
“No!” A howl I don’t recognize as my own leaves me, and I lash out at the man who is trying to care for me, hitting his chest repeatedly as he stands there and lets me. Excruciating pain fills me, and I scream at him with a deep, harrowing cry, begging him to tell me it’s not true.
When I have no more strength and I witness his own tears fall, I collapse to the ground taking him with me as my heart breaks. A deep, uncontrollable sob leaves my wrecked frame, and I ask any god who may be listening why they had to take him—why it had to be my dad. I ask why they have been so cruel to our family, taking a man from us who had deserved more from this world.
“I’ve got you, baby.”
“It’s too soon. I never got to say goodbye,” I weep, gripping onto him like I need his strength as he rocks us. “Please. Please, make it stop.”
I can’t breathe.
I want Asher.
“I wish I could,” he whispers, his own tears now mixing with mine. “I wish I could.”
His tight grip never loosens as my lungs roar and hot tears stream down my face. I can hear the cries from my mom, but I’m powerless to move.
He’s gone.
And he’s taken my heart with him.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Grayson
“Hey, this is Ash. I’m obviously not available. Please leave a message and I’ll get back to you.”
“Mother fucker,” I hiss, throwing my phone down on my desk after yet another call has gone to voicemail. I’ve heard nothing from him.
Nothing.
I have been holding my girl tight as she cries herself to sleep at night because her daddy is gone forever and because her brother—who she’d believed would be home soon—is nowhere to be seen.
I need to tell her. I want to tell her, but how can you tell someone who’s already fragile that her brother ran away from all of this to begin with.
Resting my head in my hands, I sit at my desk and close my eyes, Nora’s face immediately in my vision and like a recurring dream: the feel of her beating my chest, begging me to make it stop, and the echoes of her cries haunting me every second since that fretful night.
Pete had been taken to the hospital in a critical condition with what was thought to have been another seizure, only his body had decided to play a twisted game and finish him off with a severe stroke that had no way of keeping him with us. With it being so intense, his body was just too weak to handle the stress that it had caused, even though the doctors did everything within their power to try to save him.
The sound of her scattered breathing after her tears, the whispers to her daddy in the darkest hours, and the look of pure, undeniable pain etched on her face when the sun rises for another day have left a heavy weight in my chest that is slowly breaking my ability to breathe. Never have I felt so helpl
ess. I’m lost for words at a time when she needs me the most, and I feel like a failure as her lover and as her friend.
She needs me—they both do—and having been through this agonizing experience myself, I should know what the fuck I’m doing. But I don’t. I have no words because it’s not just their hearts that are breaking, it’s mine, too.
I miss him.
I really fucking miss him.
The void is unbearable, and if there were ever a time when I needed him it would be now because I’m at a loss of what to do for the best.
“Hey.”
I look up to find Mark entering my office. “I didn’t expect to see you today.”
“And I didn’t expect to find you at work.”
With a heavy sigh, I lean back in my seat and scrub my hands over my face. I don’t want to be here. I want to be with Nora, but when I get no words from her and Fiona wants time to herself, I’m left with no choice but to seek solace in my work—a place I once drowned in when dealing with my grief but being here for the same reason now feels like a betrayal to those I care for because I should be with them.
“I’m not even working. I’m just sitting here, staring into space and wondering what the fuck to do for the best.”
“How do you mean?”
“She’s not eating. She’s hardly sleeping and spends most of her time in the tree house just staring into space. Fiona is coping better, considering, however, I feel like I’m intruding in their space every time I’m there and I’m at a loss.” My chest grips tight as my eyes sting. I’m trying hard to keep it together, but the truth is, I don’t know how much longer I can take it. I’ve never been good at this shit, and many times, I’ve cursed Pete for not giving me the advice I clearly need to care for his family. The promises I made to look after her and love her, I will always stand by, but what good will I be if I can’t even support her when she needs me at a time like this.
Before sitting, Mark walks over to the mini bar and pours us both a shot of whiskey before coming back to hand me a glass. As I wipe my eyes with the back of my hand, I knock back the strong liquor and welcome the burn it has on my insides.
“First of all, you can stop with this self-blame shit. Stop beating yourself up about being a bad person just because you’re at war with yourself right now. It’s normal to feel hopeless, Gray. And second, it may not seem like Nora wants you right now. She may push you away, tell you she’s fine or not say anything at all, but she does need you. She will need you. You just have to be there in whatever capacity that may be.”
“I guess you’re right.”
“I am right.” He takes a drink before sitting forward and looking at me as if he’s trying to figure something out. “So how are you coping?”
“What do you mean? I’ve just told you.”
“No, you told me how Nora is doing and how you feel helpless when it comes to her. You’ve not told me how you yourself are coping. This affects you, too, and it wasn’t that long ago you lost your mother.”
The image of my mother’s face appears as if she is sitting right in front of me. The first time it happened so vividly was the night Pete passed, and since then, guilt has ripped through my heart like never before because it made me realize that I’ve not thought about her as much as I probably should have these past few weeks. Every day, before Nora had come home from campus, the ghost of my mother had been everywhere I turned. The more Nora has helped me on the right track to finding my freedom, the less my mom has haunted me. But fuck me, I’d hated myself the night she’d reappeared in my thoughts. It had felt like a punishment, and I’ve not been able to get her out of my head since.
“Is it possible to mourn for someone more at a time when you should be grieving for someone else?”
“Of course.”
“Pete was like a father to me, but like a double bullet, losing him has hit home how much I miss Mom. How much forgiveness I actually have for her now. She had become a selfish drunk who cared more for booze, but even though I’d known alcoholism is an illness, it’s as if losing Pete has made me realize just how sick she was. You know? Back then it was just words. Now, if anything I understand that it was no one’s fault. Not hers, and certainly not mine.”
“It’s funny how the death of one person can make you realize you never truly accepted the death of another. Maybe now you can properly move on like you’ve wanted and not feel the guilt you’ve been drowning in for some time.”
“Yeah.” I blow out a breath and think of what has happened in the past two years. “How can two families be fucked over like this? Can anything else go wrong for us?”
He clears his throat. “Well, there is something else that could be a problem.”
My stomach drops. I’d known there must have been a reason for his visit today. “Why do I get the feeling I’m not going to like this.”
“Because you’re not. I’ve got news on Asher.”
“Where the hell is he? His phone is still going to voicemail.”
Last I heard, Mark had been contacting Jackson to send Asher home. Only that was days ago.
“He’s still in Cali. He’s been spotted several times coming out of bars, drunk.”
My anger grows. “I’m sorry. He what?”
“Maybe he just needs time.”
“How much fucking time?” I slam my glass down on the desk and raise my voice. “We bury his father in two days.”
Pushing my chair back, I head over to the window, resting my hands on either side and look out over the parking lot. My lungs burn with fury. My head is spinning with the news I’m trying to digest while my heart aches for the woman I’ve left at home to mourn.
I can’t fucking believe this.
“So not only did he leave Nora, it seems he’s too busy getting wasted to come back and say goodbye.”
“He might be back yet.”
“He doesn’t even know when the funeral is!” I roar. Taking a deep breath, I drop my head between my shoulders. I need to calm down as the burn of my own emotions for Pete and the void that he’s left claw at my chest.
Lowering my voice, I say the words we both know are true. “When you called Jackson and asked him to bring Asher back, nothing was arranged for Pete then. You know that as much as I do. For all Asher knows, his dad could be in the ground already.”
Silence settles around us as I continue to look out of the window to regain my breathing. It’s funny how a place like Chesapeake can look so bright and sunny on a day like today when I feel anything but that inside.
“The question is, what do you want to do now? Because I think it’s time Fiona and Nora know what’s going on.”
I close my eyes. I don’t like this one bit. How do you even tell someone that their son or brother clearly doesn’t want to come home and say goodbye or pay his respects to a man he once looked up to because he’s most likely getting shitfaced in a bar someplace else.
Fucking bastard.
I know he can be selfish. I know his head isn’t in the game and hasn’t been for a while. I know of late that when Asher is troubled, he’s driven more to drink, and this is clearly his only escape. But this. I never thought he’d do this—not to the family and the sister he’s always so eager to protect. Where is his protection now when she needs it the most?
But Mark is right, I can’t say nothing anymore. I need to tell them what’s going on. But I hate the fact it’s me who’s going to shatter their hearts that are already broken at the expense of my friend who clearly can’t see the importance of family right now.
With a heavy exhale, I let the words fall out of my mouth, knowing that everything will change once I’m home. “I don’t want to give them anymore heartache than they already have. But you’re right, it’s time they knew.”
As I enter the tree house, the anxiety in my chest eases when I see Nora sleeping amongst the beanbags. She looks so peaceful, but I can see from her pale face and red eyes that she’s been crying again while I’ve been gone. Makenna ha
s not long left and said that Nora had been asking for me, and I loathe myself for not being here.
After my conversation with Mark and the news of Asher, I’d decided to take some time out and went to the beach to clear my head, trying to work out how I was going to tell her about Asher.
Walking over to her, I lower myself onto the beanbags to lay beside her, placing Scuttle between us because I know it gives her comfort. Her delicate breathing brushes against my face as I move close to her, stroking her nose like I love doing.
I love her so much it hurts, and I can’t wait for the moment to tell her, but today is not it. I can’t break her with one bombshell then try and patch it back together with my adoration.
When her eyes flutter open, her fatigued gaze holds mine. I long to see the spark that was once in it. Her skin is pale, and dark circles are cast under her eyes from exhaustion. But even in the evidence of her struggles, she is still beautiful to me.
“Hey,” I murmur, stopping stroking her nose and instead moving to stroke her hair. “You okay?”
She nods, and I feel her hands move before her eyes fall between us.
“I have Scuttle,” she whispers.
“I thought it would give you comfort while you slept.”
“How long have you been back?”
“A while. I’ve been talking with Makenna. She didn’t want to leave you until I was back as your mom is out.”
“Any word on Asher?”
The blade of guilt slices my stomach in two with her question, and she instantly sees my reaction that I failed to hide.
Fear clouds her eyes, and I sense her grip tighten on Scuttle. “What’s wrong? What’s happened?” Panic causes her to sit up before I can even try and reassure her as fresh tears fill her eyes. “Tell me, Grayson. What’s happen to him?”
“Nothing. Asher is fine.” As I face her, the heaviness in my chest almost crushes me as the words leave my mouth. “But I do need to tell you something. And you’re not going to like it.”
“Tell me anyway.”
