What Comes After

by Toppen, Melissa

  “She’s been on my ass today about upgrading the servers. I keep telling her I’m waiting until the next roll out but she’s determined to get her way now.”

  “Just be firm with her. Tell her no.”

  He gives me a knowing look. “When have you ever known Janice to take no for an answer.”

  “Remind me again, who owns this company?” I ask, leaning back in my chair.

  “Yeah, yeah.” He turns, peering through the glass walls of my office into the hallway. “I think the coast is clear. I’m going to try to run out and grab some lunch while I can.” He spins on his heel and heads for the door. “Thanks for letting me hide out,” he calls over his shoulder, pausing at the door to look both ways.

  “Anytime.” I giggle, watching him take off speed walking down the hallway moments later.

  ——

  “Ugh. I feel like shit.” Henna drops her purse on the chair before kicking off her shoes. “Today has been the worst.”

  “Rough day I take it.”

  “Just one of those days where nothing seems to go right.”

  “I know those days.”

  “I say we order pizza, crack open one of those bottles of wine on top of the fridge, and binge watch Outlander. I’m still like six episodes behind.”

  “Wish I could but I have plans tonight,” I tell her, drawing her attention to my pale, yellow sundress that I partnered with floral white sandals.

  “Plans with who?” She narrows her gaze at me.

  “Just a friend from work.”

  “A friend from work? Which friend?”

  “You don’t know him.”

  “Oh, so it’s a him.” A slow smile turns up the corners of her mouth.

  “It’s not like that.” I lock my iPad and lean forward, setting it on the coffee table in front of me.

  “You say that and yet that cute little outfit you have on says otherwise.”

  “It’s just a sundress.”

  “Just a sundress.” She snorts. “Your other friends might buy that line but you forget who you’re talking to.”

  “Honestly, Henna, it’s just dinner with a work friend.” I put an emphasis on the word friend. “Speaking of which, I should probably get going.” I stand, smoothing the front of my dress.

  Even though I’m not scheduled to meet Abel for another half an hour, my anxiousness over seeing him coupled with Henna’s twenty questions has got me ready to get out of here.

  “So where are you and this friend of yours going?” Henna’s eyes follow me as I head into the dining room to grab my purse off the table.

  “Tachiais.”

  “Tachiais?” she questions. “You don’t even like sushi.”

  “I like sushi,” I disagree. “It’s just not my favorite thing in the world.”

  “Uh huh.” She studies me for a long moment. “Well, you have fun with your friend,” she calls after me as I head toward the door.

  “I will. Don’t wait up.” I give her a little wave as I quickly exit the apartment.

  ——

  “So,” I gesture around the restaurant. “Tell me the truth. You’ve never been here, right?” I ask.

  I spent half the day researching every Sushi restaurant in the city, trying to find the perfect one that I was certain Abel hadn’t been to.

  He doesn’t answer, instead he slowly shakes his head, a wide smile forming on his mouth.

  “Shit. You have?” I bite down on my lower lip.

  “A couple of times, actually.”

  “No way.” I shake my head in disbelief.

  “Yes way. But.” He leans back, his smile still firmly in place. “To be fair, there isn’t a Sushi restaurant I haven’t eaten at in Chicago.”

  “That’s not possible. There are tons,” I tell him, having not actually known just how many there was until today.

  “I’m aware.”

  “So then what? This was some kind of set up?” I narrow my gaze at him.

  “I wouldn’t say set up.” He chuckles.

  “How is it that you’ve eaten at every Sushi restaurant in the city when I didn’t even know most of them existed until today?”

  “Sushi is my mom’s favorite. And because I’m the youngest, and was the last to leave the house, and because my father despises Sushi, I was the one that got roped into going with her every time she got a hankering for it. We hardly ever went to the same place twice. Needless to say, it didn’t take us that long to mark them all off the list.”

  “So then why lure me here under false pretenses?”

  “I didn’t. I suggested Sushi, you agreed.”

  “Yeah, because you conveniently left off the part where your mom is some kind of Sushi queen.”

  “I think someone is a little salty that she lost,” he teases from across the table.

  “I’m salty because the game was rigged,” I fire back.

  “So,” he leans forward, rapping his fingers lightly on the table. “Do you wanna know what your dare is?”

  “Well, tell me already,” I interject when he doesn’t continue.

  “Nah.” He grins. “I think I’ll make you sweat for a while.”

  “You’re an evil, evil man.” I slowly shake my head, not able to fight the smile that slides across my lips.

  ——

  “Okay, we’ve eaten dinner. Had drinks. And are now standing in front of your apartment building. Don’t tell me you’ve decided to waste a perfectly good dare.” I cross around the front of the car to join Abel on the sidewalk.

  “Not a chance.” He takes my hand when I reach him. “I’ve just been saving it.”

  “Well the offer expires at midnight, so you better get on with it already.”

  “So impatient.” He chuckles, tightening his fingers around mine as he pulls me toward the entrance of his building.

  “I mean it, Mr. Collins. Midnight.”

  “What happens at midnight? Do you leave me with only a glass slipper?” He stops at the door, glancing down at me for the briefest moment before pulling it open and guiding me inside.

  “That depends, you got a pair of glass slippers laying around?” I quip.

  “Fresh out, unfortunately.”

  “Shame.” I giggle when he knocks his hip into mine.

  “Okay.” Abel stops in front of his apartment door. “I’m ready to tell you my dare now.” He fishes his keys out of the front pocket of his dark jeans, his ocean blue eyes locking with mine. “I dare you to stay the night with me.”

  “What?” I question, assuming there’s more to it.

  “I dare you to stay the night with me,” he repeats, the hesitance on his face endearing.

  “That’s what you want to use your dare on?” I gawk at him like he’s lost his damn mind. He could have dared me to do anything and this is what he chooses?

  “You never stay.” He shrugs.

  “I never knew you wanted me to,” I tell him truthfully, my heart kicking up speed in my chest.

  “Neither did I.” He reaches out, his fingers lightly grazing underneath my chin as he guides my face upward.

  “But you do now?” My breath hitches as he slowly leans forward.

  “I do.” His lips brush gently against mine. “Stay with me,” he repeats his request, sucking my bottom lip into his mouth.

  I swear my body just about takes flight from the swarm of butterflies flapping wildly inside my stomach.

  “Okay,” I agree without a second of hesitation.

  Why would I hesitate? The man I’m falling for hard and fast asked me to stay the night with him. I know it may not seem like much to some, but to me it says the world. Because it means that whatever this is between us is evolving. It’s growing into something that’s beyond just hooking up. I see it when he looks at me, feel it when he touches me, hear it when he speaks to me. This is more for him, just like it’s more for me.

  It isn’t until Abel pulls back and his hand slides along my cheek that I realize something...

  My
gaze follows his hand as he lowers it, my heart drumming so hard in my ears I can’t hear myself think.

  He’s not wearing his ring.

  I blink, looking to his other hand, thinking maybe I’m turned around.

  Nope, no ring.

  My stomach twists and my mind spins in every direction.

  He’s not wearing his ring.

  I had gotten so used to seeing it that I stopped paying attention to it, which is probably why we went the entire evening and I didn’t notice.

  But I’ve grown accustomed to the cold bite of the metal when he touches me. Which is why as soon as his hand slid across my face I knew.

  He’s not wearing his ring.

  I try not to get too carried away. Maybe him taking it off has nothing to do with me. Or maybe it has everything to do with you, a little voice in my head interjects.

  I want to silence that voice, push her down to the deepest pits and never hear her again. But it’s already too late. The thought is already there. The hope. It’s gone from a simmer to a complete boil and now I’m afraid there’s no stopping it from bubbling over.

  Abel turns, having no clue about my sudden internalization over the fact that he’s not wearing his wedding ring, and inserts his key into the door, pushing it open moments later.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Abel

  My eyes dart open and instantly land on the waves of blonde hair spread out across the pillow next to me. I can’t resist the urge to reach out and run my fingertips through it. Peyton doesn’t stir when I do.

  I didn’t plan last night. When the evening started, I had a much more creative use of my dare in mind. But then I saw her from my balcony. She was climbing out of her car, the wind whipping through her hair and causing her dress to flutter in the breeze.

  She looked so beautiful that I nearly forgot how to breathe. Like a perfect angel sent down to Earth just for me. And that’s exactly how she looked with the sun glittering off her blonde waves. An angel.

  I look at my hand as it slides through Peyton’s hair. It’s been two days since I took off my ring, yet every time I look down I expect to see it there. It’s strange but was something I needed to do. Claudia was right, it was time.

  When I slid the band from my finger it felt like someone had stuck a knife in my side and was turning it over and over again. The pain was enough to put me on the verge of vomiting.

  But then something strange happened. A sort of calm washed over me. It was like this heavy weight had lifted. I felt lighter than I had in years and I knew, in that moment, that Finley was with me. That she was there, telling me it was okay. That I was doing the right thing.

  I roll onto my back and look up at the ceiling where the bright morning sun peering through the blinds casts stripes of light across it.

  Peering back toward Peyton, I let out a slow breath. I keep waiting for the panic to claw at my chest and my stomach to coil the way it always did when I’d wake up next to some random girl after a night of drinking, but I don’t feel an ounce of that. That has to mean something, right?

  In fact, if anything I feel happy. It’s been so long since I’ve felt the sensation I had almost forgotten the feeling.

  And yet there’s still that voice – the one telling me that I can’t possibly give her what she needs.

  That’s what scares me the most. How could I ever be enough when I have so little of myself left to give? Peyton doesn’t deserve someone who can only give her half a heart. She deserves someone that can give her his everything.

  I want to be that man. I want to be that man for her. But deep down I know I can’t be. I already gave myself to another, and when she died she took me to the grave with her.

  Deciding there’s no way I can possibly go back to sleep; I gently toss back the covers and roll out of bed. Grabbing my shirt from the floor, I slip it over my head, then tiptoe out of the bedroom in an attempt not to disturb Peyton.

  Pulling the door closed softly behind me, I pad out to the kitchen and start a pot of coffee. Before Finley, I never drank the stuff. I couldn’t stand it. But after living with her and Claire, I just got in the habit of making a pot every morning. When I moved to California, the first morning I woke up there I immediately went to the coffee pot and started brewing a pot. It took me a good two minutes to realize that I was making coffee for no one. Because I was alone and I would always be alone.

  The thought of never brewing a pot of coffee again was so unsettling that I poured a cup and made myself drink it. I did it again the next day and the next, until one day when I sat down and put the steaming cup of coffee to my lips, it didn’t taste quite so bad. Somewhere along the line I had gotten used to it.

  I’ve been a coffee drinker ever since.

  It takes a few minutes for the pot to run through. I pass the time by tidying up the kitchen and putting away the dishes I left on the counter to dry the night before.

  I’ve just grabbed a coffee cup from the cabinet when Peyton appears in the doorway of the kitchen wearing the sundress she had worn the night before.

  “Hey.” She smiles, running a hand through her hair.

  “Hey.” I smile back. “Coffee?” I grab a second mug before waiting for her response.

  “Yeah, coffee sounds great.” She moves to the far counter and hoists herself up onto it, her legs dangling off the edge beneath her.

  “Did you sleep okay?” I glance in her direction as I fill our mugs.

  “Really good, you?”

  “I slept pretty good as well,” I admit. “Sorry if I woke you.” I gesture back toward the bedroom.

  “Oh, no, you didn’t. I’m usually a pretty early riser. Especially when I’m in a strange place.”

  “Did you just refer to my home as a strange place?” I quirk a brow in her direction.

  “You know what I mean.” She crinkles her nose playfully.

  “How do you take your coffee?” I ask, turning with both mugs in my hands.

  “Just black is fine.” She reaches out, taking the cup from me the moment I reach her.

  “Gross.” I grin as I lift the warm cup to my lips.

  “Gross?” She giggles. “Are you or are you not drinking your coffee black?”

  “I am,” I tell her after I’ve swallowed, the liquid warming a path all the way to my stomach.

  “Then how am I gross exactly?”

  “Because it is gross.” I laugh at the confused expression on her face. “I don’t drink it because I like it.”

  “Then why do you drink it?”

  “I don’t know. Because it’s part of my habit now. I mean, why do you drink it?”

  “Because I like it.” She gives me a funny look, then tips the cup to her lips, taking a tentative sip.

  “You mean to tell me you actually like the taste of coffee?”

  “I do.” She sets the mug on the counter beside her.

  “I could maybe understand if you loaded it down with cream and sugar or something but just plain, black coffee?”

  “Just plain black coffee.” She picks up the cup and takes another drink, smacking her lips together at the end. “Mmm.” She hums, setting the mug back down.

  “Gross.” I chuckle, taking another drink of my coffee. While I may have gotten used to the flavor, that doesn’t mean I actually think it tastes good.

  “Again, says the man drinking his coffee the exact same way,” she quips, her gaze going toward the other room when her ringtone starts playing through the apartment. “Crap,” she grumbles, sliding off the counter to go in search of her phone.

  I slip around the corner right in time to watch her snag it off the coffee table and hold the device to her ear.

  “What the hell? I’m fine,” she says, then pauses to listen before continuing, “I had too many glasses of wine last night and crashed on my friend’s couch.”

  There’s a long pause where I assume she’s listening to the person on the other end of the phone.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t
call. I didn’t know I had to.” Another wave of silence.

  “Okay. Okay.” She sighs, pinching the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger. “Yeah, I’ll be home in a few.” Pause. “Okay, bye.” She ends the call and drops the device back onto the table.

  “Everything okay?” I ask, pulling her attention to where I’m leaning against the wall, watching her.

  “Yeah. I forgot to text Henna last night to let her know I wasn’t coming home.” She lets out an audible sigh. “Apparently, this is something she never does that she expects me to do.”

  “Sorry I got you in trouble,” I tease, winking.

  “You better be. Now I’m going to have to face the inquisitor when I get home.”

  “The inquisitor?” I chuckle.

  “Yeah. There’s no way she bought a line of what I just told her. Which means she’ll make it her mission today to figure out where I really was and who I really was with.”

  “So then tell her.”

  The instant the statement leaves my lips her eyes widen, but then she seems to become aware of her reaction and quickly tries to mask it.

  “I thought we were keeping this between us?” she speaks slowly.

  “Yeah, we are, but there’s no reason for you to lie to your best friend over it. It’s not fair of me to ask you to.”

  “So I’m just supposed to tell her the truth?” She seems unsure, like maybe this is some kind of trick.

  “If you trust that she can keep it to herself, then yes, tell her the truth.”

  “And what exactly is it that I’m telling her? That her boyfriend’s brother and I have decided to have casual, uncomplicated, amazing sex and we don’t want anyone to know about it?”

  “Amazing, huh?” My lips quirk up as I push off the wall and cross the room toward her. “How amazing?” I set my coffee cup on the table next to her phone before stepping up directly in front of her.

  “Mind-blowingly amazing.” She smiles sheepishly, the slightest pink hue creeping up her cheeks. “I have to go.” She stops me right as my lips reach hers.

  “You don’t have to leave right this minute,” I tell her, sliding my arms around her to secure her body to mine.

  “I told Henna I’d be home in a few minutes,” she weakly objects when my lips slide against hers.