Only Him

by Melanie Harlow

  He smiled, then leaned over and kissed me. “Yeah. I know.”

  When we were done, we walked around some more, and finally made our way over to Comerica Park. Dallas held my hand again, and I stayed close to his side. I couldn’t say it out loud because he’d have hated it, but I felt so bad for him. The way his family had treated him as a kid—and still treated him, apparently—was so unfair. They focused on all the things he wasn’t without noticing all the things he was—smart, sensitive, charming, funny, talented, thoughtful, passionate, generous. The kind of person who stuck up for others. The kind of person who remembered your favorite song. The kind of person who knew when you were having a bad day and did his best to make you laugh.

  He wasn’t perfect. He was stubborn and impulsive and rebellious, he got moody sometimes, and there was obviously something going on with him he didn’t want me to know about.

  But his heart was huge, and being with him was so easy. It was almost as if we’d never been apart.

  I felt myself falling.

  Ten

  Dallas

  After my phone call with Finn, I wasn’t sure anything could put me in a good mood.

  That was before I discovered the wonder of the chakra-clearing blowjob by Maren Devine.

  Holy. Fuck.

  I don’t know if it was because she already had me all worked up, what with her sitting on my lap and one hand down the back of my pants and the other one doing all sorts of things to my front and the sound of her voice and the fact that she was devoting all her time and attention to me, or if it was simply the best blowjob I’d ever had—and it was—but I swear to God, I saw stars. Comets. Meteor showers. Quasars, and I’m not even sure what a quasar is.

  She was just … incredible. So fearless and unabashed, so eager to please me, so different than she’d been back then. Not that her shyness about it had bothered me back then—when you’re seventeen, a blowjob’s a blowjob—but there was something so erotic about watching her enjoy it so much today. I felt like she wasn’t doing it only for me. (Probably this is something guys tell themselves so they can justify shoving their dick in someone’s mouth, but I really did feel like it was turning her on too.)

  But it wasn’t only the blowjob. Every moment I spent with Maren felt good. I loved that I could still make her laugh. I loved that she wasn’t asking me a bunch of questions I couldn’t answer. I loved that she still kissed me like she was seventeen and no one was watching. I felt connected to her in a way I’d been unable to connect with any other woman I’d been with. Sex with other women had always left me feeling empty and unsatisfied. Sex with Maren made me feel alive.

  The last thing I wanted to do was to say goodbye tomorrow. But I had no choice—this thing in my head wasn’t going to magically disappear. I either had to treat it or let it do its worst, and neither of those were journeys I would let her take with me or even see me on.

  One night was all we had. Maybe two.

  “Do you want a souvenir?” I asked her in The D Shop at Comerica Park. “A shirt? A scarf? A beer mug? A pair of Detroit Tigers Multi-Logo Glitter Flip-Flops?” I held them up in front of her face.

  She laughed. “No, thanks. But I’m happy to help you pick something out for your niece and nephew.”

  “Come on, you need a memento from this weekend. And I want to get you something.” As if anything in here is going to make up for disappearing from her life again. Ignoring the voice in my head, I set the flip-flops down and picked up a women’s navy blue hoodie. “How about this?”

  She looked at me like I was nuts. “It’s like ninety degrees out.”

  “Right now. But it’s Michigan. It could be forty in a couple hours.”

  “True. But—”

  “No buts. It’s yours.”

  She tipped her head onto my shoulder. “Thanks.”

  For Olympia and Lane I picked out stuffed animals, T-shirts, and water bottles, and for myself I bought a hat. We found our seats and spent the next two hours rooting for the Tigers, booing the Red Sox, cursing the umps, and eating ballpark food—Maren refused to eat a hot dog but she did partake in popcorn, nachos, and even cotton candy. There were plenty of fancy options, but I told her it was sacrilegious to eat something called “Buffalo Cauliflower” at a baseball game, because for God’s sake it was vegan and came with celery sticks. In addition, I told her anything served with pepper-olive salad, balsamic vinegar glaze, or on a brioche was also out.

  When the game was over, we walked back to the parking garage. My head was aching again, but I wasn’t ready to go home. The hours were passing too quickly.

  “You know what I want?” I said to her as we got in the car.

  She laughed. “I have a pretty good idea.”

  I reached over and tugged on her hair. “Not that. I mean, yes, that, but first I want a Boston Cooler. With real Vernor’s.”

  “Mmmm, those are so good. I haven’t had one in years.”

  “Me neither. Think we can find one?”

  She pulled her phone from her purse and googled it. “Corktown. The Burger Bar.”

  “Let’s go.”

  The Burger Bar was noisy and crowded, but we managed to find two seats at the bar after a ten-minute wait. We put in our order, and our floats arrived a few minutes later. “Here you go,” said the guy behind the bar as he set them in front of us. “Two Boston Coolers. Made with Vernor’s ginger ale and Stroh’s vanilla, as authentic Detroit as it gets.”

  “Thanks.” I tasted it, and the flavors took me back years. “Fuck, that’s good. I mean, it’s not whiskey, but it’s good.”

  Maren sipped hers through the straw. “Tastes like childhood, doesn’t it? Delicious.”

  The guy who’d brought them smiled and nodded. “Glad you like them.” Then he looked at Maren a little quizzically. “You look really familiar.”

  She seemed surprised. “I do?”

  “Yeah.” He crossed his tattooed arms over his chest. Right away I noticed he wore a wedding band, and he didn’t seem like an asshole, so I wasn’t too concerned I’d have to mess up his face. Still, I sat up taller and listened carefully.

  “Do you come in here a lot?” he asked her.

  “No,” she said with a shrug. “I’ve only been here once with my sister. She knows the owner.”

  He grinned. “I’m the owner. Who’s your sister?”

  “Emme Devine.”

  “That’s it! You look like her. I’m Nick Lupo, Coco’s husband.” He held out his hand, and she shook it.

  “Oh, of course,” she said. “I’m Maren, and this is my friend Dallas. He grew up here but lives in Portland now, so we were on a mission to find him a Boston Cooler.”

  Nick and I shook hands. “Glad you came in,” he said.

  “Congratulations on the new baby.” Maren clapped her hands excitedly. “What’s that, your fourth?”

  Nick’s grin grew even wider. “Yeah. But the first girl.”

  “You’ve got four kids?” I asked. Damn. He didn’t look that much older than me. No wonder he had more gray hair.

  “Yep.” He looked proud of himself. “I’d have more too, but I’m pretty sure my wife would castrate me.”

  Maren laughed. “I saw pictures of the baby. She’s adorable.”

  “Thanks.” Nick smiled. “I’m totally that dad who shows off pictures to anyone who comes in here, but we’re a little slammed so I should get back up front. I was just helping out for a few minutes behind the bar.”

  “Go on.” Maren shooed him away with one hand. “Nice to meet you.”

  “You, too,” he said over his shoulder as he walked away.

  “I totally forgot Coco’s husband owned this place,” Maren said. “He seems like a nice guy.”

  He did seem like a nice guy. The kind of guy Maren should end up with—successful, friendly, responsible, proud husband and father. More like my brother than me, but with ink.

  “They named the baby Frances,” Maren gushed. “Isn’t that cute?”
<
br />   “Four kids. Jesus.” I shook my head. “I thought one brother was bad. Imagine that poor girl with three.”

  Maren sipped her float. “Are you looking forward to seeing Finn this week?”

  “Not really.”

  “Want to talk about it?”

  “Nah.” I shrugged. “Things have always been a little fucked up between Finn and me.”

  “Because you thought he was the favorite?” She poked around in her drink with the straw.

  “Because I knew he was the favorite. It’s not like it was ever a secret in my family that son number two was not quite living up to the standards set by son number one.”

  “But is it still that way? I mean, you guys aren’t kids anymore. And your parents have had years to accept the fact that you are not your brother.”

  I finished my drink, trying not to get worked up about Finn all over again. “Pretty sure I caused them enough disappointment to last a lifetime. And even now when they look at us, they see a clean-cut neurology professor at Harvard, happily married to a fourth-grade teacher and the proud father of two. Then they see me. College dropout. No wife, no kids, no house with a picket fence or a pool in the yard. A drifter with tattoos. A failure on their part to make me into someone better.”

  “You mean into someone like them. Or like Finn.” She shook her head. “It’s so wrong.”

  “But it’s the way it is, and I’m used to it. It doesn’t bother me anymore,” I lied, setting my empty mug on the bar.

  “Well, it bothers me.” She sat up taller on the stool. “I can’t imagine what it would feel like if my parents had tried to make me into one of my sisters. Or if they had told me I was a disappointment when I left ABT. Or if they looked down on me for my tattoos or my job or any of my choices. Parents should love their children unconditionally and teach them that it’s okay to be who you are. No, that it’s imperative to be who you are. Otherwise, you’re going to spend your life miserable.”

  God, she was cute. “It’s okay, Maren.”

  “It’s not.” She sighed and set her half-full mug down. “You should be proud of who you are, Dallas. I’m proud of you.”

  I frowned. “For what?”

  She tossed a hand in the air. “For lots of things. For staying true to yourself. For becoming a tattoo artist. For coming here after all this time just to say you’re sorry. Plenty of guys wouldn’t have bothered. I mean, you weren’t even eighteen yet. Practically still a kid. What did you really owe me?”

  I looked at her in disbelief. “Everything you said I did yesterday. An explanation. The chance to say goodbye. An apology for breaking my promise to stay out of trouble.”

  “I did say all that yesterday, didn’t I?” Her posture deflated a little, then perked up again. “But you know what, I’ve had a chance to think a little more since then. And I understand better why you did what you did. You thought you were doing me a favor by setting me free.”

  I nodded. “But I never forgot you.”

  She blushed and dropped her eyes to her lap. “I never forgot you, either. In fact, I had this”—she squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head—“oh my God, this is really embarrassing, but I had this pillowcase made with your face on it.”

  My jaw dropped as I turned to face her. “What?”

  The pink in her cheeks deepened to scarlet. “After you left, I had a pillowcase made with your face on it because I missed you so much. I used to hide it from my mother by keeping it under my mattress, but every night I would take it out and put it on my pillow. I did my own laundry by then, so she never saw it.” She giggled, cringing a little. “My sisters found out, and they tease me about it to this day.”

  “Do you still have it?”

  “No. Eventually, I was too angry to even sleep with your face. And I knew I had to get over you, so I threw it out before I went to New York.”

  “You threw out my face?” I pretended to be horrified.

  “Well, I’m sorry!” She threw both hands in the air, then leaned forward placing them on my thighs. “I had no idea you were going to come back into my life. I would have saved it if I had known.”

  “Then I win.” I signaled the bartender and pulled out my wallet.

  Maren sat up straight again. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, I kept your face all this time.” I opened my wallet, took out the sketch of her profile, and unfolded it. “See?”

  She stared at the picture as if transfixed. Her mouth fell open. Slowly, she reached for it, taking it in both her hands. The bartender came over, told us our drinks were on the house courtesy of the owner, and I thanked him, pulling some cash from my wallet to leave as a tip. When I looked at Maren again, she hadn’t moved. Tears dripped from her lashes.

  “Hey,” I said, rubbing her back. “That wasn’t supposed to make you sad. It was supposed to prove that I’m a better person than you are.”

  She laughed, but the tears continued to fall. “I’m sorry, it’s just … You’ve really carried this in your wallet all these years?”

  “Yeah. I drew it the night before I found out I had to leave.”

  “I remember that night. You picked me up from ballet, and I was mad at you for getting in trouble again.”

  I nodded. “We sat in my car in your driveway and I remember looking at you and thinking how badly I wanted to draw you.”

  “So when did you do it?”

  “When I got home. I was going to give it to you, but the next morning my parents told me they were shipping me out, and I forgot about the picture with all the chaos.” I paused. “And by chaos, I mean frantic sexual acts in the church parking lot.”

  She sniffed, her lips tipping up. “Yeah, that night was intense. I remember thinking later how it made sense, since you knew you were going. And whenever I started to feel bad about myself and doubt that you’d ever loved me, I would remember that night and tell myself you wouldn’t have seemed so tortured if you hadn’t really cared.”

  I stared at her. “You thought maybe I didn’t love you?”

  Her shoulders rose, and she looked up at me with a helpless expression. “What was I supposed to think? You told me you loved me, but then you were gone without a word. I figured I hadn’t meant that much to you.”

  For a second, I was dumbfounded. Then angry with myself. Then determined to make her understand what she meant to me, if it was the last thing I did.

  I grabbed her arm and yanked her off the stool. “Come with me.”

  “Dallas, what the hell?” She stumbled along behind me, still holding on to the drawing, her feet scrambling to keep up with my long strides. I led her around the back of the brick building, toward where we’d parked, but was too impatient to wait until we reached the car. As soon as we were alone, I swung her around and took her face in my hands. Her skin was luminous in the dark.

  “Listen to me,” I said. “Not a day has gone by that I didn’t think of you and regret what I’d done. Not one fucking day.”

  “Really?” Her voice was shaky.

  “Yes. I walked away because I was young and stupid and ashamed, not because I didn’t love you. I did.” I hesitated, then thought, fuck it. “I still do.”

  Her eyes widened. “What?”

  “I never stopped loving you, Maren. I never even tried.”

  She started to cry so I crushed my lips to hers and kissed her, deeply, desperately, my tongue sweeping into her mouth, her tears wetting my cheeks. Inside me, something was happening—I could feel my resolve weakening. I wanted this. I wanted it too much.

  I broke the kiss, pressing my forehead against hers, my eyes closed tight. “Goddammit. I’m not supposed to be here. I was supposed to ask your forgiveness and let you go. This is all wrong.”

  “No, no.” She shook her head between my palms. “I refuse to believe that. I never got over you, Dallas.”

  “You should. I’m no good for you.”

  “You say that because you spent too many years listening to people who were suppose
d to love you cut you down when they should have built you up.” Her tone was fierce. “It’s not true.”

  I pulled back and looked down at her. “You don’t understand. I can’t give you what you want.”

  “All I want is you. All I’ve ever wanted is you. And if what you say is true, if you still love me, then we belong together, Dallas. We deserve a second chance.”

  I felt myself being torn in two. How could I argue with her? How could I destroy this impossible dream she had for us, when I wanted it just as much?

  “Let me love you, Dallas,” she pleaded, her eyes glittering in the dark. “I know it’s not easy for you. I know you don’t think you deserve it. But you do. Let me.”

  God help me, I wanted her love. I wanted to believe what she was saying. I wanted to feel like the man she thought I was, even if it was only for tonight.

  “Okay,” I whispered.

  She threw her arms around me, and I held her tight, lifting her off her feet.

  “Take me home,” she said softly in my ear. “I need to be close to you.”

  Eleven

  Dallas

  We went back to her house, shedding our clothing as we kissed and stumbled from the front door to her room, where we fell into bed, skin to skin, limbs twined, mouths sealed. My need for her was like a living, grasping, starving thing inside me, powerful and wild and all-consuming. I let it take over, let it silence every other voice in my head. She was the only thing in my world, and there was nothing I wouldn’t do to make her happy.

  Including lie.

  “Tell me,” she begged breathlessly as I eased inside her. “Tell me we can find a way. Promise me.”

  “I promise,” I said, my heart breaking open. “We can find a way.”

  Her eyes closed as her head dropped to one side, lips parted. I felt her hands pulling me closer, her heels tight on my thighs. She was warm and wet and soft and beautiful and mine again, mine tonight, mine forever … I closed my eyes, rocking deeper into her body, feeling her tighten around me, like I belonged inside her, like I was part of her.