by Jessop, K. L
“Yes. My mum has done nothing but talk about it and bake cakes. Are you going to go?”
“I was but I need a date. Will you be it?”
She grins. “You want me to go with you?”
“Well, let's face it: you’re going to be there anyway so you may as well come with me.”
“Oh, I’m going, am I?” Her eyes are now wide, the moonlight making them sparkle. Wanting to kiss her, I lean in, but she leans back. “What if I’m washing my hair that day. Or painting.” I move closer, but she drops back again.
I grin.
“Or maybe I’m painting my toenails… Or…”
“Or you can just shut up and let me kiss you.” I press my mouth against hers and the second I do, her lips part and our tongues connect. The smell of her hair and the way she holds onto my shirt collar has my dick twitching. I want her naked and panting as I take her under the night sky.
“Now that is something I like in my mouth.”
I laugh out loud and she falls onto her back. Throwing another log on the fire, I lay down beside her and she cuddles into me, her head on my chest as we look up at the stars. Thousands and thousands of them twinkle brightly and shine back at us: big ones, small ones and many in clusters. There’s nothing else like it. Stargazing is one of the most beautiful and fulfilling things anyone can do.
“Do you think my dad is up there somewhere?” she asks softly.
“I don’t think. I know.” I point up to the brightest star I can see. “He’s right there watching our every move, no doubt happy that his daughter has her smile back and that her heart is finally at ease, ready to restart the rest of her life.”
She doesn’t respond; she just glides her hand up my chest and slips her hand into the opening of my shirt to rest over my heart.
“You know, we shared so many good times down here but one of my favourite nights with you was when we’d just turned seventeen. It was late summer; the weather had turned a lot cooler and we came down here and stayed until dawn. We danced, we kissed, and you made me yours. I knew you were special, but the way you made me feel that night was something out of this world.” She pauses. “Adam. When you think about your future, does it scare you?”
Without you, yes.
“It depends.”
“On?”
“On what I’m actually thinking about. If it’s my career then no because if for any reason I have to stop doing wildlife photography there are other options I can take.”
“What about your happiness? Who you share your heart with?”
Sitting up, I look out over the lake. The reflection of the moon is almost like it’s a spotlight on me, my open opportunity to get out what I’ve been wanting to say, but instead I do a cowardly thing and turn the tables, needing to hear her words first.
“Everly, I think you’re asking me questions that you need to be answering for yourself. Just be honest for both of us. Tell me what you’re thinking.”
She sits up, hugging her knees as though what she is going to verbalise is going to hurt her.
“I don’t think I want to go back to Milford Haven, but I’m scared of what will happen to my heart if I stay.”
“What scares you?”
“The way you’re making me feel.” It’s barely a whisper.
Reaching out to her, I pull her onto my lap so she straddles me, cupping her cheeks to provide her all the comfort I know she is needing right now. “Tell me, precious.”
“Every time I say goodbye to you, it kills me. You're on my mind all the time and not just over the past week. It's been every day of every year I've not been with you. I don’t know what you are feeling, but I’m scared that too much time has passed: we are not the kids we once were. We are two different people and too much hurt has been brought upon us. I know I’m not the sole cause of that, but I played a big part in breaking your heart. So, I understand if…”
She closes her eyes and her lip trembles. I know what she is going to say, and I’m not going to finish the sentence for her. She needs this. She needs to be the one that gets the words off her chest because these last few days, I’ve seen the questions dancing in her eyes when she looks at me. “Say it, Everly.”
She opens her eyes and looks up at me, searching once again before she whispers. “I understand if this is too much for you. When I have bad days, they can be awful so being around me will be hard. I understand if you want to move on in life without me being a part of it because I’m too much to deal with until I’m stronger. But I can’t sit here and say that my feelings for you have changed over the years because they haven’t, Adam. Nothing in my heart has changed when it comes to you.”
Her admission leaves me speechless, not because I never wanted to hear it but because all these years that time has drifted between us, we’ve both been individually hanging on to the hope that one day we will get back what we lost.
I’ve always known I had to hold on to her in my heart for a reason and not let go.
Closing her eyes once more, a single tear falls down her cheek as she whispers an apology to me. It crushes my heart and I don’t wait another second by keeping my words from her.
When I kiss her tear away, she blinks up at me.
“I want to be the one that kisses away your tears. I want to be the one you hold at night. I want to be the one that protects you from the world. I want your good days and your bad. I need to be that person, Everly. I want you."
“You really want me?”
“More than you'll ever know. You drive me crazy, Ev. I can’t get you out of my head.”
“What if you get bored of waiting for me to heal?”
“I won’t.”
“How do you know?” she whispers.
I cup her jaw a little tighter and keep my voice serious so she knows that what I’m about to say is the truth. “I’ve thought about you every day for the last ten years, and not one day have I loved you any less.”
Her breath catches. “Adam…”
“Now I know you’re scared, and I get that and I can’t force you to stay in a place that holds bad memories, but you need to know that wherever you choose to build your future, I’m right next to you building ours.”
“I can’t ask that of you.”
“You can. You are my home, Everly. My home is wherever you are.” I rest my forehead on hers, desperate to make her see how much I need her. “I can’t lose you again.”
“You won’t. I promise.”
“You’re the reason my heart beats. I love you, so much.”
“I love you, too.”
Our mouths crash together and every part of who we are becomes one in a kiss that has no limit of passion and power behind it. We kiss each other hard, slow and with every ounce of love that is bound between us. I’ve got her back: my one and only true love—the girl that stole my heart and kept on stealing it every time I closed my eyes over the ten years without her. From now on, she will be worshipped, loved and taken care of in the way I’ve wanted to do since I was fourteen.
This is us, and nothing will break us again.
29
Adam
It’s funny how getting everything you’ve ever concealed and wanted to say off your chest can bring so much comfort. Whether it be the simplest of words or the hardest of all, if those words have the power to change the way you feel in life, just saying them—thinking ‘fuck it’ and just getting them out there, means you thrive on the feeling of pure fucking euphoria like you never had before, then just do it.
I feel like I’m floating—I mean, it could be to do with the fact that the love of my life has not long woken me up to start my morning in the best way.
Waking up with Everly in my house, in my bed, is like pure heaven. Our night around the campfire where we both opened our hearts and truly connected with each other with words was made greater in a declaration of love when I worshipped her body under the night sky. The glow of the moonlight against her bare skin, the sparkle in her eyes and the hea
t of her against me was out of this world.
There are no amount of words I can use to describe how beautiful it was and how happy she’s made me feel.
Screaming how much I love her from the top of my lungs will still not be enough to express how much she means to me. I’ve waited—so long I’ve waited—and every day of hurt that I went through has been worth it because I finally got my girl back.
“Good morning, handsome.” She beams coming into the bedroom with two cups of coffee and my camera around her neck.
Once we had come home from the cabin the other morning, we stopped off at Everly’s so she could pick up some of her clothes. Each new outfit that hugs her body in the way they used to makes my dick twitch. Today, her hair is up in a messy bun, her white linen shirt is buttoned down only to her midsection so I can see her flat stomach and those fucking short denim shorts that display her toned legs make me hard just looking at her. She is picture perfect.
“Morning, beautiful. Why are you dressed? I thought we were spending all day in bed.”
“We did that yesterday. Besides, I got dressed because Bailey needed to go out.”
I sit up and she hands me a coffee, followed with a quick peck on the lips.
“I see you’ve taken my camera hostage.”
“Do you mind? It was on the kitchen table and I wanted to snap some pictures of the flowers in the garden before it rains.”
“Is it meant to rain today?”
“I hope not because it’s the summer fair, but who knows—with the British weather anything is possible.”
“True.” I nod to the camera. “Get anything worth keeping?”
“Nothing special. I mainly just wanted to take some shots of the colours to use for inspiration when I start painting properly again.” She sits on the edge of the bed beside me and flicks through the images on the screen—all yellows and oranges until she gets to one of my own that I took of the red deer. “You know, I was looking at this and I don’t know what you plan on doing with it, but it would look amazing in black and white, don’t you think?”
It’s an image I took early one morning. Dawn had just been about to break and three stags were grazing on the grass. The early morning mist is low in the photograph, and the rising sun behind them creates a silhouette of the animals, giving the final image an eerie feel. If I do what Everly is suggesting, the black and white effect will give the picture it’s final ‘pop’. “You know, you’re pretty good at this art stuff.”
“Well I do try.” She bats her lashes, right before Bailey comes in all excited. “Your battery power is getting low; do you have another?”
“In a box under the stairs. Hey, boy!” I put my coffee down and grab his face with both hands, ruffling his jaw as Everly leaves the room, shouting at me to get in the shower because her mum needs help taking the cakes to the fair later. “Ugh, Bailey, she’s been here five minutes and she’s giving orders already.”
“I heard that,” she shouts back as I get out of bed and chuckle to myself, heading for the shower.
We’ve talked a lot about our future these last couple of days, what we want in life apart from each other and where we go from here. Everly has openly said that even though being back in Keswick hasn’t been easy, she feels in her heart that she is meant to stay because she feels close to her father and that leaving her mum would be hard. Respecting her decision, we have decided that once the summer holidays are over in a couple of weeks and I’m be back to taking classes at the school for the new term, Everly will head back to Milford Haven to spend a little time with Anita and sort things out there before moving back. Both our mums are thrilled with the fact that she is staying and that we are happy, and naturally, I’ve had to reassure Everly from time to time that things will be okay and that I’m with her every step of the way through her good days and bad. She’s also promised to restart her counselling sessions again so she can finally get her mental state back on track. I, too, have said that I am willing to seek professional help to talk about the life I had at home with Jamie and how now he’s had an even bigger impact on our lives.
I will do anything to help Everly and our relationship because I want nothing more than for her to be happy and feel safe.
Once showered, I pull on my jeans before heading back to the bedroom. I find her near the window, my camera still firmly in her hands as she looks through the lens. The way she is resting the weight of one side of her body for her hip to pop out makes her look sexy as fuck. I go up beside her, wrapping my arms around her waist. “You look good enough to eat,” I groan in her ear. “Did you find a new battery?”
“I did. Amongst other things.”
I pull back to look at her a little confused. Reaching in the top pocket of her shirt, she takes out the silver star she gave me that has her name engraved on it. “You kept it,” she whispers.
I take it from her and play with it between my fingers. After I’d held it in my hands for the first time a few weeks ago, I’ve taken it out the box every day and looked at it, waiting for the right time to place it back into my wallet.
“Why did you keep it, and everything else I gave you in the box?”
I look at her and speak truthfully. “Because having them made me feel close to you and getting rid of them wasn’t an option. It would have meant losing you forever and I didn’t want that, but I couldn’t bring myself to carry this on my person either. So I boxed it up. Not long after you arrived back was the first time I looked at it in years. Somehow that box of treasures meant everything and nothing.”
“And now. Now that I’m with you?”
“Now I know why there was a reason to keep it and a reason to put it back in my wallet. Because of you.” I look back at her and smile.
“I’m not going anywhere, Adam. I promise.”
“I know. I love you.”
“I love you more.”
I grin at her words before kissing her. “I love you forever.”
* * *
The town and park are buzzing with people. Flagged bunting, tabletop games, gazebos with food stalls, live music and beer and wine tents line the streets and fill the park while families and kids laugh and spend time together. The Summer Fair is yet another time where the community come together and put on a show for everyone involved. It’s one of my favourite times of the year and this year makes it even more enjoyable because I have everyone around me that is important. Mum, Everly, Bailey, Mrs B and Mac: the only people that forever make me smile and the only family I need.
“Oh,” Mrs B clasps her hands together when she catches me tickling Everly. “It’s so good to see you both so happy.”
“It’s been a long time coming that’s for sure,” Mum says, smiling at us both as she drinks her wine. We are all under a gazebo in the park as a shower of rain falls overhead, battling against the sun that still shines and forming a double rainbow. The kids, however, couldn’t care less about the weather and continue to dance and play.
“I feel like the luckiest man alive right now.”
“I know. I’ve never been happier,” Everly says leaning into me as I finish my beer. “I just wish Dad were here. Then everything would be perfect.”
I kiss her on the head and as squeeze her. “Would you like another drink?”
“Yes, please. I don’t know what wine they have over there but it’s amazing.”
I chuckle. “Well whatever it is has your cheeks flushed. I’ll be right back.”
“Make sure you are. I want to dance with you.”
Leaving her talking to Mum and Mrs B, I head across the park to the beer and wine area to get replacements.
“Adam,” Mac shouts. He’s sitting on one of the benches that are undercover, a pint of Guinness in his hand and his trilby hat on his head. I’ve hardly seen him of late, and I feel bad because there was a time when I would see him every day.
“Will you stop smiling. That face of yours is enough to put a single man off his beverage.”
I laugh,
taking a seat next to him. “Seriously, Mac, I don’t think I can. I’m so fucking happy right now.”
“No shit.”
“Sorry, I’ve not been around much recently.”
He shakes his head. “Nonsense, boy. I get it. They say all good things come to those who wait, and you’ve sure waited long enough to have your Everly.”
I look back over at Everly, who is beaming while she talks to the people around her. I still at times can’t believe that she’s here. It’s crazy.
“I sometimes wonder if I’m going to wake up and realise that it’s all been a dream. Then I hear her laugh and it just confirms everything I ever doubted.”
He cups my shoulders. “Adam, I know how tough life has been on you, and I’ve seen you push through it as best you can as time has gone on, but Everly is very much here. Now I’ve only known you from the years I’ve been down by the lake making that decaf coffee crap, but I’ve watched you grow and stand tall when you’ve wanted to cave. And because you’ve risen on every occasion and become the man you are today, I’ve never been prouder of you, son.”
I have to swallow back the lump that’s in my throat. “Thanks, Mac. You’ve been more of a father to me than anyone. I’m glad I’ve had someone to rant to and someone to pick me up when I’ve needed it.”
“I’m always here.”
I hug him hard.
“She’s a beautiful woman.”
“She’s incredible.”
“Just remember to tell her that, if she ever gets bored of you, my door is open.”
“Ha. Not a chance.”
* * *
