He's Come Undone

by Weir, Theresa

  “No thanks.”

  “Wait, no? Listen, just think about it. Sleep on it a couple of days.”

  “I don’t need to. I’m not interested.”

  “The pay isn’t bad, and I’m sure you could use the money.”

  “If something comes along that’s a real acting job, give me a call. Otherwise, I’m not interested. Gotta go. Tell your wife hi for me.” I disconnected.

  My phone rang again. It was Charlotte.

  “Just thought I’d let you know I heard Julian and his sister are moving back to New Hampshire,” she said. “I drove past their house, and there was a U-Haul trailer there.”

  “So is he out of the institute?”

  “I don’t know. I wonder if they’re taking him to the one he was in when they lived back there.”

  I didn’t like the sound of that, and for a brief second I contemplated breaking him out all over again.

  “Ellie, I’m really sorry about all of this. It was stupid of us. I’m sorry you got dragged into it.”

  “I could have said no.”

  “Yeah, but… You were broke. I get it. Speaking of broke, Paige’s dad cut off her allowance and she had to get a job at Starbucks.”

  “That’s awesome.”

  We both laughed.

  “Come by and see us sometime.”

  “I will.”

  We disconnected and I pocketed my phone as the bus crossed Washington Avenue Bridge and hit the University of Minnesota campus. On a sudden impulse, I decided to get off at The Drink.

  Inside, I took a seat at the bar and ordered a beer. Shot the shit with the bartender a little while, admired his new tattoo, left a tip, then headed out the door.

  While I was inside, snow had started falling. It was coming down pretty hard, and I wished I’d brought a hat with me. I looked up at the darkening sky and the giant flakes falling in the lamplight, at people hurrying and laughing, caught up in the excitement of the first real snowfall of the season, and thought: Not for me.

  No bus in sight, I decided to walk the three miles home. I reached into the pocket of my baggy green coat, pulled out a pair of mittens, dropping one on the ground. I bent over to pick it up and a voice behind me said, “You might need this too.”

  I scooped up the mitten and turned around.

  Standing there, looking healthy and gorgeous in jeans, black wool coat, striped scarf and gray stocking cap, was Julian.

  My breath caught. And why wouldn’t it?

  It took me a moment to realize he was holding my beret, the one I’d left in the bar way back when I’d spied on him for the first time. God, that seemed years ago, but it had only been weeks. Weeks.

  “You’re out.”

  He nodded. “I’m out.”

  My chest was tight. “I heard you’re moving away.”

  “You can’t believe everything you hear.”

  I kept trying to inhale, but could only manage shallow breaths. “No?” And apparently very few words.

  “I convinced Valerie to go back to New Hampshire. She hasn’t been happy here.”

  “And you’re staying?”

  “I moved into an apartment. I was able to keep up with a couple of classes while under treatment. Hope to take a light load next semester.”

  “And running?”

  “I’m running again too.”

  I realized he was still holding my hat, and now he approached me, brushed the snow from my hair, and placed the hat on my head, arranging it at a jaunty angle, just the way I liked.

  “How are you?” he asked.

  “I have a job. At a place called Mean Waitress.” I looked away, looked up at the snow in the sky, then back to Julian. I was aware of the world beyond us, but the falling snow and the darkness seemed to evoke this sense of our own world, the world of Julian and Ellie.

  “I never meant to hurt you,” I whispered.

  “I know that now.” He stepped closer, then proceeded to slip my mittens on my hands, one at a time. “I had it coming,” he said once he was done. “I’m not going to use my past as an excuse. I treated those girls badly. I didn’t see it that way at the time. I thought it was what people did in college, but it was wrong.”

  For the first time in my life, I seemed to be at a loss for words.

  “I missed you,” he finally said.

  I wondered if I loved him. I thought I might, but I wasn’t sure what love felt like. I wanted to let him know what I was feeling, but how to describe this? The ache I’d felt inside since my arrest. The longing that was a pain that never stopped. Was that love? Was love pain?

  “I’d ride a drunk dude for you,” I finally said.

  He laughed. “That’s nothing.” He held my mittened hand. He wasn’t wearing gloves, and I worried that he might be cold. “I’d go nuts for you.”

  And then we both laughed, and as we laughed he tugged me close until I was in his arms, until he was leaning over me, sheltering me from the falling snow while his lips found mine. And they were warm. Warm and soft. He tasted a little like coffee, and he smelled like wool and clothes that had been touched by winter—that crisp cotton scent that was so wonderful.

  The kiss deepened and the snow swirled, and the tightness in my chest blossomed into a different kind of pain, a good kind of pain. We finally broke apart and stared at each other in a way I would have thought annoying if I’d been one of the people passing on the sidewalk. Two people so infatuated they were kissing in the middle of everything.

  I said something about how he didn’t know me, and he said he’d fallen for the girl who jumped on a guy’s back. And it didn’t matter what color my hair was, or what kind of dress I was wearing.

  “Do you want to see my apartment?” he asked. “It’s nearby.”

  I took his hand in mine, covering his fingers with my mittens. Together, we walked down the sidewalk toward his place.

  I’d been wrong about the snow. It was for me.

  Chapter 35

  Five months later ~ Ellie

  It seems kind of magical the way it happened, the way Julian and I met and how it all progressed, one perfect and disastrous and perfect piece following another. Every day I worry that it will somehow end, but I try to tell myself to enjoy it. Julian has confessed that he feels the same nagging sense of worry, but when two messed-up people meet and find each other it’s understandable that we’re cautious and wonder if this is real. But as more time passes, and more good things continue to happen and nothing blows up in our faces, we’ve begun to think that this gift has been dropped in our laps and our job is to simply cherish it.

  And yes, Julian will forever be scarred in a way that I can never even imagine, and I will be scarred in a way that a weird childhood and the betrayal of a mother can only scar a person. But I trust Julian in all things, and I’m pretty sure he trusts me in all things.

  I’ve moved in with him since I was staying at his apartment most of the time anyway. It’s a cute place on the third floor of a red brick building, with ivy beginning to turn green now that spring has hit.

  My agent called me again, and this time it wasn’t for a reality show but a part in a movie being made right in Minneapolis by the famous writer/director brothers we claim as our own even though they grew up in a nearby suburb. I have the partial script and I play a quirky sister to a guy who just got out of prison and is looking for his next heist. I think it’s supposed to be funny but I’m not sure yet. You never know about those brothers. Other unbelievable news? Mad Maddy has gone into syndication, which means a steady income for me. Which means I can go to the University of Minnesota this fall.

  I think about my life six months ago, and think about my life now, and I can’t believe it. Almost like Julian brought something with him, like something right happened, and everything else fell into place.

  Julian is back to long-distance running, although I doubt he’ll ever come close to his marathon time of several months ago. I ho
pe not.

  The running replaces medication. Running and me are all he needs, he tells me. And I tease him and say running is his girlfriend and I’m his BFF.

  I jog with him on the trail along the Mississippi, and it’s sweet the way he takes it slow and sometimes tells me he needs a break even though I know he doesn’t. So we sit on a bench and stare at the water, sometimes touching, sometimes not.

  Today as we sit, the sun is shining down on our heads, warming our long bare legs, and there’s this feeling of promise that’s more than just the promise of warmer weather.

  Valerie is now talking to me on the phone, and she’s more the girl I met that day when we shared tea. She even told me she realizes I’m the reason for Julian’s improvement. That both scares the hell out of me and thrills me, because I worry about what would happen to him if something happened to me. Like what if I got hit by a car crossing the street. Or what if a plane fell out of the sky on top of me. These are the things I sometimes think about because our lives are so intertwined. It’s a responsibility, this love thing.

  And me… Julian and Valerie don’t realize it since neither of them knew me before, but I’m more my old self, the old Ellie before she was beaten down by life. Before my mother did those awful things to me. Before her cancer and death.

  Love can mess you up and make you go crazy, but it can also fix you.

  “What do you think about getting a dog?” Julian asks. “A puppy. I know it’ll be a lot of work, but…”

  Puppies symbolize family. Long-term commitment. I imagine a puppy in our apartment. Imagine it running and sliding across the hardwood floor. We’ll get a puppy together; bring it home, to our home.

  “I don’t know much about dogs,” I say. “I mean, training dogs. We never had any pets when I was a kid. My mother said they were too much work.”

  “We always had dogs. Dogs are good.”

  The fact that he can talk about something from his past in such a positive way is another sign of healing.

  Without discussion, we get to our feet and return to the jogging path.

  Back home, as the sun sets and the air gets that night chill to it that smells like damp soil, I shut the kitchen window and we sit down, Julian with his school work, me with lines I’m memorizing for the movie. Occasionally I reach across the table and touch him almost absent-mindedly, and sometimes he gets to his feet and brings us both a cup of tea, his hand on my shoulder as he places the steaming mug on the table. I look up at him, at his blue eyes and his dark curly hair hanging over his forehead, his jaw that needs a shave, and I think, You are so loved. Do you know how loved?

  He knows. Of course he knows. How can he not? But I think people need to hear the words. Words I’ve not yet spoken because I worry about scaring him, which is silly considering how crazy he is about me. And then again, maybe I’m saving the words, savoring the words in my head. But it’s almost time to release them.

  Maybe today.

  Maybe right now.

  He’s back in his seat, leaning over his textbook, the hanging antique lamp above the table casting him in lovely shadow, accentuating his cheekbones as he concentrates. I want to pull out my phone and take a picture of him, capture this moment.

  Instead, I once again stretch my arm across the table, lightly touching the back of his hand and the curve of his knuckles. He looks up, ready to smile, and then he sees my face and watches me with curious expectation. A heart unbroken.

  ~

  ~

  ~

  The end…and the beginning…

  ~~~

  City of Lakes

  New Adult contemporary romances set in Minneapolis, Minnesota

  Come As You Are

  He’s Come Undone

  For information on upcoming titles in the City of Lakes books, sign up for Theresa’s new-release emails.

  NEW RELEASE ALERTS

  Theresa’s website

  Like Theresa’s New Adult romance page on Facebook

  New Adult contemporary romances with a touch of magical realism:

  Girl with the Cat Tattoo

  Geek with the Cat Tattoo

  The cat tattoo books are set in Minneapolis and Saint Paul, Minnesota. These novellas are sweet New Adult contemporary romances partially told from a cat’s point-of-view.

  About the Author

  Theresa Weir (a.k.a. Anne Frasier) is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of twenty-five books and numerous short stories that have spanned the genres of suspense, mystery, thriller, romantic suspense, paranormal, fantasy, and memoir. During her award-winning career, she’s written for Penguin Putnam, Simon & Schuster, HarperCollins Publishers, Bantam Books/Random House, Silhouette Books, Grand Central Publishing/Hachette, and Thomas & Mercer. Her titles have been printed in both hardcover and paperback and translated into twenty languages.

  Her first memoir, THE ORCHARD, was a 2011 Oprah Magazine Fall Pick, Number Two on the Indie Next list, a featured B+ review in Entertainment Weekly, and a Librarians’ Best Books of 2011. Her second memoir, THE MAN WHO LEFT, was a New York Times Bestseller. Going back to 1988, Weir’s debut title was the cult phenomenon AMAZON LILY, initially published by Pocket Books and later reissued by Bantam Books. Writing as Theresa Weir, she won a RITA for romantic suspense (COOL SHADE), and a year later the Daphne du Maurier for paranormal romance (BAD KARMA). In her more recent Anne Frasier career, her thriller and suspense titles hit the USA Today list (HUSH, SLEEP TIGHT, PLAY DEAD) and were featured in Mystery Guild, Literary Guild, and Book of the Month Club. HUSH was both a RITA and Daphne du Maurier finalist. Well-known in the mystery community, she served as hardcover judge for the Thriller presented by International Thriller Writers, and was guest of honor at the Diversicon 16 mystery/science fiction conference held in Minneapolis in 2008. Frasier books have received high praise from print publications such as Publishers Weekly, Minneapolis Star Tribune, and Crimespree, as well as online praise from Spinetingler, Book Loons, Armchair Interviews, Sarah Weinman’s Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind, and Ali Karim’s Shots Magazine. Her books have featured cover quotes from Lisa Gardner, Jane Ann Krentz, Linda Howard, Kay Hooper, Jamie Ford, and Nicholas Sparks. She is a member of Sisters in Crime and International Thriller Writers.

  The Orchard, a memoir

  An Oprah Magazine Fall Pick

  Featured B+ Review in Entertainment Weekly

  Number Two on October Indie Next List

  BJ’s Book Club Spotlight

  LIbrarians’ Best Books of 2011

  Maclean’s Top Books of 2011

  On Point (NPR) Best Books of 2011

  Abrams Best of 2011

  Publishers Lunch (Publishers Weekly) Favorite Books of 2011

  Eighth Annual One Book, One Community 2012, Excelsior, Minnesota

  Target Book Club Pick, September 2012

  Title List

  Writing as Anne Frasier

  Hush, USA Today bestseller, RITA finalist, Daphne du Maurier finalist (2002)

  Sleep Tight, USA Today bestseller (2003)

  Play Dead, USA Today bestseller (2004)

  Before I Wake (2005)

  Pale Immortal (2006)

  Garden of Darkness, RITA finalist (2007)

  Once Upon a Crime anthology, Santa’s Little Helper (2009)

  The Lineup, Poems on Crime, Home (2010)

  Discount Noir anthology, Crack House (2010)

  Deadly Treats Halloween anthology, editor and contributor, The Replacement (September 2011)

  Once Upon a Crime anthology, Red Cadillac (April 2012)

  Woman in a Black Veil (July 2012)

  Dark: Volume 1 (short stories, July 2012)

  Dark: Volume 2 (short stories, July 2012)

  Black Tupelo (short-story collection July 2012)

  Girls from the North Country (short story, August 2012)

  Made of Stars (short story, August 2012)

  Stars (shor
t story collection, August 2012)

  Zero Plus Seven (anthology, 2013)

  From the Indie Side (February, 2014)

  Stay Dead (April, 2014)

  Writing as Theresa Weir

  The Forever Man (1988)

  Amazon Lily, RITA finalist, Best New Adventure Writer award, Romantic Times (1988)

  Loving Jenny (1989)

  Pictures of Emily (1990)

  Iguana Bay (1990)

  Forever (1991)

  Last Summer (1992)

  One Fine Day (1994)

  Long Night Moon, Reviewer’s Choice Award, Romantic Times (1995)

  American Dreamer (1997)

  Some Kind of Magic (1998)

  Cool Shade RITA winner, romantic suspense (1998)

  Bad Karma, Daphne du Maurier award, paranormal (1999)

  Max Under the Stars, short story (2010)

  The Orchard, a memoir (September, 2011)

  The Man Who Left , a memoir and New York Times bestseller (April, 2012)

  The Girl with the Cat Tattoo (June, 2012)

  Come As You Are (October, 2013)

  The Geek with the Cat Tattoo (December, 2013)

  He’s Come Undone (March, 2014)

  www.theresaweir.com

  Dear Reader

  If you enjoyed this book, please consider leaving a review. It doesn’t have to be eloquent, and it doesn’t have to be lengthy. Did you know reviews are important to a book’s algorithms on sites like Amazon? Book reviews and ratings feed into algorithms and have a direct impact on a book’s visibility in online stores. Greater favorability and a higher number of reviews drastically increase the likelihood of a reader finding the book in the first place, which in turn helps writers support themselves. So thank you, readers. You matter more than you know.

  XO