I get up off the bed and step behind her, pulling her body close to mine. “I don’t want your mom to be mad at me, but I just really want to have you all to myself. I’ll get you back by Sunday afternoon if that would work?”
Her body relaxes in my arms, and the edges of her lips turn up into a smile. “Yes, I think that will work, and I’ll let her know. So, it’s the Oregon Coast?”
“Definitely. It should be beautiful this time of year.”
“That’s kind of a drive, but it sounds like fun. I’ve never been.”
“Never?”
“Well, I’ve been to Portland of course, but never the coast.”
“Then you’re in for a treat, Emma. It’s amazing.”
EMMA
Sometimes I think John knows me better than I know myself. Mom had understood about the change in plans, especially when I’d mentioned that Dad had let me down again and that I’d just wanted to get away.
“Well, certainly,” she’d agreed. “Then I’ll see you on Sunday afternoon.”
The drive down to Oregon is a vacation in itself. We leave early enough so that there isn’t a ton of traffic, and we stop for lunch in Portland, both of us wondering out loud if we wouldn’t rather just spend the day on one of the bustling streets in town, shopping and trying out new food. But after someone blares their horn at a bicyclist who nearly runs both of us down in a crosswalk, we agree the Coast is what we really need for some actual relaxation.
“Is that a hot tub on the deck?” I ask a couple of hours later when we’re in our room overlooking the Pacific Ocean, a set of sliding glass doors opening up onto a large, private deck where steam billows out of a tub.
“That’s why I told you to pack your bathing suit,” John says with a smile. “But if you forgot it, I certainly won’t complain.”
“Nope, I’ve got it,” I laugh, turning to him and wrapping my hands around his waist. “But I won’t complain either if you forgot yours?”
“If only,” he says, bringing his full lips to mine and electrically charging my body with his kiss.
It’s no surprise that I find myself in bed with him before we can even investigate the deck and the hot tub. Sex isn’t the only part of our relationship that’s good—far from it—but it is an important component that makes me feel things emotionally and physically that I’d believed were lost to me. I’m no longer stuck in that black and white world I’d been in, torn between seeking out either numbness or some kind of feeling, even if that feeling had been attached to something frightening or to a guy like Ike.
With John, it’s just… perfect.
“I’m not sure how I survived before meeting you,” he says after pulling out of me, his breath slightly labored.
“I could say the same.” I turn my body toward his and rest my hand on his chest, leaning my head into the crook of his shoulder. “It’s a little scary sometimes.”
He reaches his other arm around me so that I’m safely surrounded by his body. “Yeah, I know what you mean. Emma, I feel like you’re a part of me now. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
I’d heard those words before, from Mr. Thatcher, and even Ike in the very beginning. There had been a frightening punctuation to the way in which both of those men had told me they didn’t know what they’d do without me, as if they were claiming ownership over both my body and soul. But with John, it’s different. I can sense in him the same joy and happiness I feel at being together, attached to the knowledge that, if the need ever arose to protect the other, we would let each other go.
The idea of that is misery inducing, but I’d never want to pull John down.
“I just hope you’ll always feel that way,” I say, hoping I don’t disappoint him, either with my past or something I might do in the future.
“I can’t imagine anything would change that for me.” He kisses my hair softly and then loosens his grip on me. “And I want you to know that you can talk to me about anything. You know, like about your dad?”
“Let’s not make this a pity party, John. You brought me here to get away from everything, didn’t you?”
“Sure, but I also brought you here because I wanted uninterrupted time with you, so we could talk, so we could get whatever we might want to off of our chests.”
I hadn’t wanted to spoil our time talking about the things we were trying to leave behind. And yet I don’t want John to feel like I’m holding back from him, even if there are things I just can’t tell him quite yet.
“Sometimes I think he just wants to forget he was ever married to my mom… or that he had me,” I say. “I used to feel like I was the definition of a daddy’s girl, but that changed after my parents’ divorce, and then it just got really complicated.”
“Do you know what changed?” he asks, softly stroking my arm.
My relationship with Dad had always felt strained once he’d remarried, but it wasn’t until Mr. Thatcher that things really went off course. He’d supported me through the trial and thrown me a life preserver when I’d needed it most, but when things settled down, he’d slowly disappeared again so that I was lucky if I saw him once a month.
“Just stuff,” I finally settle on. “I really don’t want to weigh you down with it right now.”
“I wouldn’t feel weighed down, but I’m not going to push you. You should know I’ve been through some things too… things I’m not especially proud of. My life isn’t as perfect as my parents would like it to appear.”
I’m sure he’s talking about the drug use that Michael mentioned, and I hope he’ll tell me about it in his own way when he’s ready.
“There’s nothing in your past that would upset me, John. Unless you went on a killing spree, I’m pretty much locked in, no matter what.”
“Even if I might want to be a prosecutor or an immigration attorney instead of a corporate one?”
“You can be any kind of lawyer you want,” I say, allowing a small laugh. “Honestly, I’d never imagined dating a guy with a law degree in his future, let alone—” I stop myself, just as if I’d been driving a car and slammed the brakes on to avoid hitting a small child.
“Let alone what?” he asks, curious.
Let alone marry one.
The way our relationship is going, it feels as though we’re heading in that direction, even if there are still so many things that have yet to be said, things in our past that I’m beginning to believe shouldn’t matter one bit.
“Let alone one who wants to fight for justice,” I say instead. “The world needs men like you.”
“Oh, sure.” He chuckles. “But I’m only worried about one person needing me at the moment.”
I turn to face him, knowing by his eyes that he’s talking about me. And then he does something quite unexpected. He attacks me with those magic fingers of his, waging a tickle war on me that I’m wholly unprepared for. I giggle and scream like I probably used to do on the playground, and my only option for escape is to jump out of bed and make a run for it.
JOHN
My tickle war led Emma and I to the shower and eventually into the hot tub. It’s dark out now, fewer people out on the beach below, but still some bonfires in the distance, the sounds of crashing waves, and the lights of boats out on the inky black horizon.
“Would you tell me about Madison?” Emma asks, looking so beautifully natural across from me that I’m at first confused by the question.
“You don’t really want to talk about her, do you?” I say, holding her stretched out legs and feet on my lap.
“No, I guess she wouldn’t be my first choice, but if I knew what it was your parents liked so much about her, then maybe I could try—”
“To be like her?” I fill in. “Emma, I don’t want you to be anything like Madison.”
“I’m not saying that exactly. But if it would make it easier for your parents to accept me… if it would make it easier on you… then maybe I could present myself a certain way to them.”
“I’d never
ask you to do that.” I let her feet down and float over to her side of the tub, putting my arm around her. “My parents will just have to learn to accept things, okay?”
“Sure… yeah… but John, it just worries me. I know it can be romantic to be us against the world and all, but people have a way of interfering.”
“That won’t happen to us,” I assure her, though if I were being completely honest with her, I wouldn’t put much past my family. And it’s a little tough knowing that my best friend still has a lingering interest in Emma and that Madison, for whatever reason, can’t seem to let go of our relationship.
Emma is pressing those plump lips of hers together, as if she isn’t satisfied by all of my assurances.
“Do you really want me to tell you what Madison was like?” I sigh.
She nods. “I know it’s stupid, but it might help me.”
“Fine.” I relent. “All you really need to know about Madison is that she’s good at anticipating her audience. The woman she presents to my parents and the rest of the world isn’t the same girl she presents in private. When she doesn’t get her way, all hell breaks loose.”
“Sounds familiar,” Emma says.
“Yeah? You had a boyfriend like that—Ike?” Even asking the question makes me shamefully jealous and a little sick to my stomach.
“I was thinking of Angela, actually,” she responds, seeming to not even want to acknowledge Ike’s name. “She’s used to getting what she wants.”
“That’s Madison in a nutshell.”
“But you were with her for seven years—that’s a really, really long time.”
I’m beginning to feel a little judged for that, but I’m not sure what I’d think of Emma if she’d been with the male version of Madison for just as long.
“I loved her in the beginning,” I admit. “It’s not like she’s a monster, just that she’s happiest when things go her way, and I got stuck in letting her plan my life out for me. It makes me sound pretty weak, but things were easier if I just went along with it, especially when so much of my focus needed to be on school.”
“I don’t think you’re weak,” she says.
I offer her a faint smile. “Yeah, well, I eventually got to where I couldn’t do it anymore. I wanted to be happy for me, and you’ve brought me more happiness in the time we’ve been together than the seven years I had with Madison.”
“Okay,” she finally says after a stretch of silence, sounding strangely relieved. “Thank you for explaining.”
“And what about you?” It’s not that I’m anxious to hear about any other guy that might have held her as close as I’m holding her, but I feel like maybe I should know.
“I don’t think you want to hear about Ike.”
“No, not especially, but I’d like to know how not to act.”
She practically scolds me with her eyes. “You don’t have to worry about being anything like him. Really, John, you’re worlds apart.”
“But you must have liked him at some point, with all those tattoos and the whole bad boy thing.”
“I don’t have a thing about guys like that,” she assures me. “I was in an entirely new school, and Ike realized I was easy prey. He was a terrible boyfriend, but like Madison for you, he kept me in his orbit, and it took some work for me to finally be free of him.”
“Was he trying to rekindle things that night at Rampage?”
“Maybe, but I’ve told you it was just Angela that invited him along. I wouldn’t have gone with her had I known.”
“And then maybe you and I would have never met.” There is a sinking feeling in my gut at even considering our paths not crossing.
“I’d like to believe we’d have met eventually,” she says. “Even if it wasn’t then. It doesn’t seem possible we weren’t meant to.”
“No, it doesn’t.” I pull her closer to me until I’m finally kissing those sweet lips of hers.
“John.” She says my name softly when I pull my lips away.
“Yes?”
“Do you really think we’ll be okay then? I mean, do you believe in fate, like things happening for a reason?”
With my arm wrapped around her, I want to believe in that, but so much of what happens in the world is bad. “Maybe us meeting, but I think the rest of it is up to us. I think we have to be vigilant, if that makes sense… you know, fight for what we have.”
She nods, her eyes looking so thoughtful. “You’re right. We do have to work on it. And we do have to be honest, but can we promise one another to wait a little longer?”
I’d thought we had already decided not to bare all of our souls earlier, but it’s obviously weighing on her mind, and I hate to imagine there is something in her past she thinks I wouldn’t accept about her.
“That’s fine, Emma,” I say in a voice I hope is soothing. “I’d rather think of you and I as a house with open windows… you know, where our truths can float in and out like the seasons, like a spring breeze or a fall wind instead of all shut up with walls between us.”
Emma relaxes and laughs. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard a metaphor like that before.”
“I probably picked it up in college… or from my dad,” I say, hoping she doesn’t think I was trying too hard. “But, you get what I mean, right?”
“Yes,” she says with a smile. “I do.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
EMMA
I’ve had to cut my hours at Patrice’s, but Burk has been more than accommodating and promises he’ll “fire that new twit I hired” if and when I want all of my hours back. I’ve told him I appreciate the sentiment, but there isn’t enough time in the day to work full time, go to school and spend time with John.
Our weekend getaway a couple of weeks ago had been great. I hadn’t wanted to come back, but I’d promised to help Mom go through some of the junk in the condo, so we’d returned that Sunday afternoon. Still sober, Mom was willing to let go of a lot of things she’d been holding onto because they reminded her so much of our old life, a more innocent time.
“Things really changed when Paige’s dad died,” she’d said as we went through a bunch of old Strawberry Shortcake dolls that had been so played with that I wasn’t even sure Goodwill would want them.
“Yeah,” I’d agreed. “Paige moving away was pretty traumatic too.”
“We both lost a friend. Miranda used to come over for wine sometimes. We’d sit out on the front porch and watch you girls play while we sipped our Merlot and talked about life. She really thought they’d come up with some kind of cure for Paige’s dad. She was almost sure of it.”
But they hadn’t, and Miranda Kessel, Paige’s mom, lost her husband to the ravaging effects of multiple sclerosis long before his time.
“I’ve been thinking about Paige a lot lately,” I’d said.
“I wish you hadn’t stopped writing those letters to her. I used to have so much fun walking up to the post office with you and dropping them in the box. I wonder what she’s doing now… if life in that small town agrees with her… Basin Lake, wasn’t it?”
“Yes,” I’d said, sometimes wondering what happened between Paige and the two boys she often talked about in her letters back to me. Had one of them become something more than a friend?
“Well, you’ll have to look her up.”
“I will,” I’d agreed, and I had tried in the last couple of weeks. I’d since lost her home address and couldn’t seem to find an address or phone listing anywhere for her family online. Plus, Paige was difficult to find on social media, and I’d eventually given up, deciding that I’d pick my search up again when life got less hectic.
I’m still thinking about Paige when I’m walking out of my fashion merchandising class and literally run into Jennifer.
“Oh my god!” I say, bending down to help her pick up the books that flew out of her hands after I’d rounded a corner too quickly. “I’m so sorry, Jen.”
“It was my fault,” she says, looking tired once she stands back up, bo
oks in hand, facing me. “I wasn’t looking where I was going. Too much else on my mind.”
“Is your brother okay?” It’s the first thing I think about, even though Kevin had looked pretty healthy when I’d visited Jennifer’s family.
“He’s fine,” she says, almost like an afterthought. “And he’s itching to get back overseas again. The military is pretty much his life, much to Mom’s chagrin.”
“So, what’s wrong then?” I ask, hoping it’s nothing major.
“You want to maybe grab a bite… to talk?”
“Uh, yeah, maybe a quick one.”
“Great,” she says.
We walk into the first café we see heading north on Broadway. We both order some sandwiches, and I’m hungrier than I thought, allowing Jennifer to skirt around whatever is bothering her until we’re finished eating, her bubbly persona nowhere in sight.
“Are you going to finally tell me what’s actually bothering you?” I ask, sipping on a Coke and so full that I could burst.
She nods and gives me a look that I take as sympathy.
Weird.
“I’m not sure if you already know this or not. I’m kind of guessing you don’t?” She takes a moment, as if she’d rather not be the bearer of her news.
I shake my head, beginning to worry. “No… I’m not sure what you’re talking about.”
After pursing her lips, she continues. “Mom was pretty involved with the trial… for Mr. Thatcher. She wanted to be one of your advocates, you know?”
I nod, not especially liking where this is going.
“So, she has all kinds of alerts set up… and it sounds like he’s going to be released from prison soon.” She watches me with a tentative expression.
I’m almost sure I can feel the color draining from my face as a direct hit of anxiety burns through my gut.
“Emma? You okay?”
“I’m… I’m just a little taken aback. I mean, shouldn’t they notify me too?” I’d always known Mr. Thatcher would get out, but the reality floods me with all sorts of conflicting emotions.
Broken by Love (The Basin Lake Series Book 2) Page 14
