“Your sister won’t be home for a few hours. Should we go get super-secret ice cream cones?” My voice was full of forced excitement, trying to convince this little boy that an ice cream cone was a sufficient replacement for the love of his mother, at least temporarily.
“Really? I haven’t had lunch yet.”
“Listen, sometimes life calls for super-secret ice cream cones for lunch.”
“Can I get swirl?”
“Sweetie, you can get whatever kind of ice cream you want.”
“Cool!” he said, all previous sadness erased from his gorgeous face.
“Very cool. Let’s go.” Before I could take even two steps, his little hand found its way into mine and my heart nearly stopped again.
I was exhausted. Not physically, but emotionally. I felt as if I could collapse on a bed and fall asleep instantly, and perhaps not wake up for days, just to make up for all the emotional upheaval Jaxy and I had been through that day. The worst part was, it wasn’t over yet. Devon would be home later and we needed to talk.
I had fed the children dinner, bathed them, and they were upstairs in their bedroom watching a movie I was sure they’d seen no less than one thousand times. When I heard the door just off the kitchen open and close, I knew Devon was home, and my heart rate spiked. He walked into the kitchen, looking just as exhausted as I felt. When he saw me waiting for him, his expression changed to surprise. That hurt me a little, made me feel terrible, that my waiting for him without a scowl or anger radiating from me would surprise him. I immediately felt like shit for everything that had transpired in the last twenty-four hours.
“Hi,” I said, knowing it was my responsibility to open the lines of communication between us. “How was your day?”
“Honestly? It sucked.”
“I’m sorry.”
He set his briefcase down on a kitchen chair and ran his hand through his hair, which was longer than he normally kept it. “It’s not your fault.”
“No, I mean, I’m sorry. For everything. Last night. This morning. I’m sorry. I blew everything out of proportion, and I shouldn’t have flipped out on you.”
“Evie, we need to talk about what happened.”
“Um,” I said, turning away from him, trying to hide the fact that I was uncomfortable. “I don’t need to talk about it. I’m okay. I understand. I get it. Really. It’s fine.”
When he spoke next, he was right behind me. “What if I want to talk about it?”
I swallowed hard, trying not to follow my natural instinct to run away. “What do you feel like you need to say?”
“When I came up behind you yesterday evening, when I wrapped my arm around you, I thought you were Liv. I don’t know why, it’s never happened before, but some part of my brain forgot she was gone for a moment, and I couldn’t stop myself.”
“It’s okay, Dev. She hasn’t been gone long and you’re still healing.”
“Yeah. You’re right. But when I realized it was you, that you were in my arms and I had kissed you, I wasn’t sorry it was you.”
“Devon…” I whispered, unable to say anything more.
“I was sad it wasn’t Liv, but I wasn’t sad it was you. Does that make sense?”
There were so many things in the world I wished I were doing, rather than having that conversation. His words had so much power: the power to save me, the power to kill me, the power to render me completely broken, unable to put myself back together.
“Losing her was the worst thing that ever happened to me, the worst thing that ever happened to my kids. But, if you were to go away too, I have no idea what I’d do, Evie. I didn’t think I could live without her, but somehow it’s happening. Life is moving on, going forward. It sucks without her, but only in a blunt kind of way now. The pain is duller, not so sharp. But, if we were to lose you too, because of something so stupid and instantaneous and stupid, I don’t think I could handle that.”
A part of me was hurt he’d called what happened ‘stupid.’ It was stupid. But it was so much more than that.
“I got into a fight with Jaxy’s teacher today,” I said suddenly, trying desperately to keep myself from saying something I’d regret, something that might alter our relationship in an irrevocable way.
“What?” he asked, his voice louder and a little concerned.
“Not really a fight. I just kind of went into her classroom and yelled at her. She took it really well.”
“What happened?”
“Jax drew a picture of his family that included me, and his teacher told him I wasn’t really a part of his family. It upset him.” I stepped away from him, pretending as if the dishes in the sink needed to be rinsed at that exact moment.
“And you yelled at her?”
“It was wrong of her. Imagine, poor Jaxy, after losing his mother, some person telling him it was wrong to love someone, wrong to be loved by someone else. The last thing he needs is someone taking more love from him. I was upset.”
He was behind me again, closer than he was before, and his hands came to rest on top of my shoulders. He gave me a gentle squeeze and my breath stopped, my heart halted. “He’s lucky to have you, Evie. And you’ve always been a part of this family. Regardless of whether Liv is here or not, you’re a part of us.”
His confirmation should have made me feel better, but all I heard was him alluding to the fact that nothing had changed between us. I was the same to him, with or without his wife. All the feelings about Devon and our argument and Jaxy were swirling in my brain and making my whole world hazy. I didn’t want to be confused anymore. Didn’t want to be unsure. But then his hands squeezed my shoulders again and the swirling got more intense.
“I just wanted to let you know, in case he said something about it. And I wanted to tell you that I was sorry about everything. Really.”
“Can we just go back to normal now?”
Normal? His normal could turn out to be my ruin. “Sure.”
“Great.”
“Great.”
Then we were drenched in silence. Uncomfortable silence. Luckily, Jax and Ruby chose that moment to reappear and the room was filled with the noises of children welcoming their father home. After a few moments, Devon ended up on the couch in the family room, Ruby on his right and Jaxy on his knee, listening to stories of disfigured mummies and super-secret ice cream cones.
I grabbed my purse and slowly snuck out of the house, glad to see the three of them thriving, but also grateful to have some time to myself to lick my wounds.
Chapter Seven
Summer between Freshman
and Sophomore Year
I tried to ignore the butterflies swarming in my stomach. I wanted to look like the cool, calm, and collected person I wished I was, but I probably resembled the bumbling fool I felt like. I was about to leave my house, with a boy, to stay for the weekend in a cabin. The whole weekend. With a boy. Well, a guy.
Elliot had told me his parents had a cabin near the mountain and said we should go there for a weekend sometime. I said, ‘sounds like fun.’ The next thing I knew, he was making plans for us. Us. I was still surprised there was an us. School had been over for a month, and true to his word, he’d driven to my town to see me twice, both times making it seem like the nearly four-hour trip was no big deal. I knew it was. I felt it. And although I appreciated that he wanted to see me and had driven all that way to do so, it was a lot of pressure. Pressure I’d never really dealt with before.
I saw his red pickup truck turn the corner onto my street and the butterflies not only multiplied, but they grew larger. I was trying to convince myself I wasn’t going to throw up.
The two times he’d come to visit, he’d been a perfect gentleman. He’d shown up, taken me out, done everything by the book: insisted on paying, pulled out my chair for me, made sure we had my favorite snack at the movies. Perfect. He held my hand, and I felt the tingles. Those telltale shivers, which only came on when special people showed you affection. I wanted to hold his ha
nd, and when he brought me home, I’d purposefully instructed him to park down the block from my house so my parents couldn’t spy on us.
His kisses were incredible. He tasted like summer, sunshine, and spearmint. He’d pulled me to his side of the bench in the cab of his truck and kissed me until I was breathless. Kissed me on the lips, on the neck, on the shoulder, but never pressured me for anything more. I knew he’d wanted to take things further, but he was letting me lead, and I appreciated that more than I could ever tell him.
Now, I was to spend an entire weekend with him. Surely, something would happen between us. I just wasn’t sure I was ready for it. I wasn’t normally a nail biter, but I’d chewed my nails to the quick just thinking about how I would tell him I wasn’t ready to sleep with him.
From my bedroom window on the second floor, I watched him park his truck and then walk to my front door. He was wearing khaki cargo shorts and a blue cotton t-shirt that only made his blond hair look more sun-streaked. He reached forward and I heard my doorbell ring. This was it. I walked as smoothly as I could down the stairs, not wanting to appear at the door too soon and seem too eager. I didn’t want him to think I’d been sitting in my bedroom waiting for him.
I opened the door and his smile assaulted me, left me feeling a bit like Jell-O.
“Hey, babe,” he said as he stepped into my house and gave me a chaste kiss on the mouth. Apparently, I’d been upgraded to a pet name. “Are your parents home? I wouldn’t mind saying hello.”
“Uh, no. They have a dinner thing they do once a week with their friends. Kind of like a kid-free, we-want-to-pretend-like-we’re-teenagers-again thing. It’s a little pathetic. They drink and then my mom usually falls on her way up the stairs, giggling loudly then shushing my dad. Then I have to pretend like I don’t hear them.”
He laughed at my description. “Oh, okay. Maybe when I drop you off then.”
I was a little suspicious that he was so concerned with wanting to see my parents, but I chalked it up to his reputation of perfection. Perfect boyfriends would have a good relationship with parents. But he wasn’t my boyfriend, was he?
“Are you my boyfriend?” I spat out before my mind had even processed the words.
He laughed again, louder this time, his arm wrapping around my waist and pulling me toward him. “We haven’t really talked about it,” he said, leaning down so our eyes were level. “Do you want me to be your boyfriend?”
I thought about his question. Did I want him to be my boyfriend? I wasn’t sure. I had boyfriends in the past, and they’d only turned out to be disasters. Possessive and overbearing. But nothing about Elliot made me feel like he could be possessive or overbearing if he tried. I felt like if Elliot were my boyfriend, he’d only be sweet and attentive, chivalrous, playful. I also thought he’d kiss me a lot, which I wasn’t opposed to – he was an excellent kisser.
“I’m not opposed to you being my boyfriend.”
“Well, that’s a convincing response.” His words indicated I might have hurt his feelings, but his face was still smiling, those damned blue eyes sparkling. He leaned forward again and pressed his lips to mine. This time, the kiss wasn’t chaste. It was hot. And wet. His eager tongue barged into my mouth, took control, tasted every part of me, and left me panting when he pulled away. “Tell you what. You hang on to your answer for now. When I drop you off on Sunday, I’ll ask you again, and maybe you’ll have a more convincing answer.”
“Okay,” I breathed, literally unable to form any words besides the one. He picked my backpack up off the floor and then motioned for me to leave the house ahead of him – ever the gentleman. He helped me into his truck, hands on my waist, which I was becoming accustomed to, even started looking forward to. When he was in the driver’s seat, he turned his head my way and crooked a finger at me. I smiled and moved to the middle so our shoulders were touching.
“I’m not driving for two hours without being able to touch you.”
“You’ve already driven so much today. I could have met you at the cabin, you know.”
“But then I wouldn’t be able to drive you home. And trust me when I say, Evie, taking you home, saying goodbye, those are some of my favorite times with you.”
I blushed because I knew he was thinking about all the making out we’d done in his truck down the street from my house. I couldn’t argue with him. Those were some of my favorite times with him as well.
For two hours we drove, listening to the radio, telling each other memories the songs brought up, learning a little more about one another. Either his hand was on my thigh, my knee, or wrapped around mine, his fingers threaded through my own. I’d lost track of where we were as we headed into parts of the state I was unfamiliar with.
When we pulled off the main highway onto a gravel road, my nervousness spiked. I was comfortable being alone in his truck with him, but we were venturing into new territory. Would he assume we were staying in the same room? Did I want to stay in his room? If I stayed in his room, would he expect sex? I shook my head at the thought. Of course, he wouldn’t expect sex. Elliot was, and had always been, exceedingly respectful. Perhaps I was just nervous that I would want to have sex with him.
He gave my hand a squeeze, but then released it, needing both hands to mind the steering wheel as he navigated the unpaved and pothole-riddled road. The shaking of our bodies as we drove over the road hid the trembling of my hands, which I was grateful for. The truck pulled around one last bend in the road and I saw two things immediately. The first was a gorgeous and rustic-looking log cabin. It only appeared rustic though, because I could tell by looking at it that it was pretty new. Exposed logs on the outside made it look like every log cabin I’d ever seen in movies or books. It was almost too perfect.
The second thing I noticed was we pulled up right next to another car parked in front of the house. I looked at Elliot and he was wearing a sneaky grin, but before I could ask him who the car belonged to, Olivia came bounding out the front door, yelling “Surprise!” She launched herself toward the truck, but I quickly turned to Elliot.
“How did you…? What is she doing here?”
He didn’t have time to answer before my door was pried open and I was yanked out. Olivia had her arms around me in a tight hug. “Are you surprised?”
“Yes,” I managed, even though she was depriving me of oxygen. As she loosened her grip on me, I saw the front door open again and Devon came out, walking toward us with a smile. I tried not to notice how the sunlight brought out the lighter brown highlights of his hair. I hadn’t seen him all summer, so the difference in him physically was a little startling. He was bigger, if that was even possible.
When we’d met in the spring, he’d already been one of the biggest guys I’d ever met. But, he was bulkier now. More imposing.
“Evie.” Devon said my name with such ease, as if I was one of his best friends. “Glad to see you’re surprised, and that this one here didn’t blab to you that we’d be here,” he said as he wrapped his arm around Liv’s shoulders.
“I don’t blab,” she said, insulted.
“Babe, you keep secrets for shit.”
“That’s not true,” I jumped in, ready to defend her. “When it really counts, she keeps a good secret. It’s gossip you’re thinking about. She spills gossip faster than butter melts in a hot pan.”
“Thank you, Evie. I think.” She stepped out of Devon’s arm as the two boys did that typical male handshake, back-pound ritual.
“I’m glad you guys could make it up. I think it’s gonna be a fun weekend.” With that, Elliot took my bag from the truck, as well as his own, and then nodded his head in a way that said I was to follow.
We walked into the foyer and I tried to keep my mouth closed, but I felt it drop open in awe. The cabin looked like it could have been staged for a photo shoot in some home journal magazine about the filthy rich’s vacation homes.
“Wow,” I breathed. I was used to my family’s humble split-level home. We weren’t p
oor, not by a long shot, but I was not familiar with that kind of luxury. “This place is really nice.”
“Thanks. I’ve only been here once before. My parents bought it while I was at college, so I never really got a chance to use it.”
“Wait, this is your house?” My head snapped to look at him. In the back of my mind, I knew it was his. We’d planned all along to go to his cabin, but I’d never imagined something like this.
“I don’t think I’d fare well in jail, Evie. I’m not into B&E.”
“Of course not, uh, I just didn’t know…”
“That my family has money?” I nodded, feeling any words I might have been able to conjure up getting stuck in my throat. “Don’t go all weird on me now. My parents have money. Not me. I’m the same guy you’ve been talking to all summer.” He shrugged. “Sometimes I take advantage of the fact that my parents are well off,” he said, moving his arm to motion to the great expanse of the beautiful house we were standing in. “But most of the time, you’d never be able to tell.”
“You’re right. I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I think I was just caught off guard.”
He smiled his relaxed, happy smile. “Follow me.” I let him lead me through the house as he pointed out the important features. Bathrooms, kitchen, family room. I tried to be nonchalant about the movie theatre room, the hot tub, and the infinity pool. When he led me into one of the bedrooms, my pulse started thundering through my ears.
“So, this is the room I’m staying in,” he said as he placed his bag on the bed. Then he turned back to me, his eyes gentle and warm, with a tiny smile playing across his face. “I’d really like you to stay here with me, but I understand if it’s too soon. I promise I’ll keep my hands to myself, if that’s what you want, but I have imagined waking up next to you all summer.”
His words both melted and frightened me.
“I’ve never shared a bed with anyone before. Well, anyone besides Liv.”
“How is that possible?” he asked, stepping closer to me very slowly, almost as if he thought I would spook and run away.
The Absence of Olivia Page 7
