by Max Monroe
He’s standing by the kitchen island, drinking a glass of water when I arrive.
The instant he sees me, his entire face melts into a smile. I’ve never had anyone look at me like he does. It wraps around me like an actual blanket. I can’t believe how good it feels.
I move in his direction slowly, stopping across from him with my belly to the counter. I feel sore, but I also feel good. He did such a good job taking care of me, and he didn’t even know how much he needed to.
I glance at the clock behind him, but his eyes never leave me. I can feel the weight of them all the way down to my bones.
“I really should be going,” I say. I’ve been gone without a word or a mode of contact for the last ten hours. I’ll be surprised if Heidi hasn’t opened a case with the FBI.
He smiles sadly as my eyes find his again. “In the interest of full disclosure, I don’t want you to.”
My heart flutters in my chest, and I have to lift a hand to the flesh over top of it to settle it.
“Harrison.”
His smile grows then, and he flashes a wink as he rounds the counter.
“It’s okay. Don’t even give it a second thought.”
I nod around a dry, uncomfortable swallow. It feels wrong to leave, but I know I have no other option.
His scent is overwhelming as he pulls me into a hug and turns my face to fit it in the crook of his neck. I hug back with all my strength, taking in all of him through every sense I can. I want it to last.
Harrison’s lips linger on the skin of my cheek long after he pulls away. I pull farther away in an attempt to numb my still tingling nerve endings, but the effort is very nearly futile.
“It was good to see you, Rock.”
I laugh at his bizarrely apt understatement. “Yeah, it was…good.”
“Great,” he counters then, the dimple in his cheek sinking all the way in and practically creating a neon arrow pointing to his sparkly green eyes. “Amazing, actually, if I’m being accurate.”
I shake my head, but a smile of my own settles deep into the features of my own face.
“So…” I giggle. “I guess I’ll see you in another twenty-five years?”
“Let’s shoot for ten or less,” he replies with a wink.
I smile. “Sounds like a deal.”
“Where will I find you?” he asks, and my throat closes up around a lie I can’t help but deliver.
“I don’t know.”
He nods slowly, and I feel each bow of his head all the way to the tips of my toes. “Well…” he says, holding both of his arms up to the apartment around us. “That’s okay. Because you can always find me in New York.”
Raquel
Just call my heart Elvis, because she’s left the building.
When I wake up the next morning from what feels more like a coma than sleep, I feel hollow inside. Like the crying jag that I maintained even during my sleep-fueled dreams has drained every last organ right out of me.
My heart? Shriveled. Nonexistent. Drained of all its blood.
My head, however, pounds with more pressure than seems physically sustainable. It hurts behind my eyes, in my temples, around the edges of my jaw—fucking everywhere.
I pick up my phone again and hit the contact I’ve practically glued to my thumb overnight, but the result is still the same. “We’re sorry, but the number you’ve dialed is—”
“Goddammit!” I scream, throwing the phone to the floor and praying it will shatter.
It doesn’t. Because even simple blessings are apparently working against me.
Frustrated, I pick it up with an angry swipe of my hand and flip it over. But my throw has performed some tasks, opening up my messages somehow, and there, in my recent thread, is a message from Caplin Hawkins telling me not to make a birth plan because he’s already made plans of his own—speaking as my unborn child, of course.
Without giving myself the chance to chicken out, I open the message and start typing as fast as I can. I’m angry, that much is apparent, and if I can’t get in touch with Harrison directly, I just want someone to know.
Me: Tell your friend that if he was going to change his number, he could have at least had the decency to talk to me in person first.
Cap: Um…what?
I practically yell as I’m typing, I’m so fucking annoyed by his innocent act. These guys gossip as much as a group of high school girls. There’s no way Harrison didn’t tell at least one of them what was going on so it could spread to the group like a rash.
Me: Harrison! We had a fight! That doesn’t give him the right to drop off the face of the planet like we never even existed! Changing his number?! That’s the lowest, scummiest, most horrible move possible.
Cap: I can tell you’re upset, honey, so I hope you know I say this with love…but you’ve completely lost your fucking cookies. Whore-i-son’s number hasn’t changed since the day I met him, and it sure as shit hasn’t changed today. I just talked to him this morning, the melancholy little fucker. And HE’S walking around acting like you devastated HIM. So, maybe you need to take another look at what’s going on. Respectfully.
What? Immediately, I start to pace the room as I scroll through my contacts again and click on Harrison’s name to dial. I wait, but the same motherfucking voice message rears its ugly head immediately. I go back to the texts with Cap and type out another one.
Me: I just tried to call him again, and it’s not working. STOP LYING.
Cap: Raquel, I don’t know what to tell you, but I’m not lying.
My skin absolutely crawls with upset and confusion. If he’s not lying, what the fuck is going on, then? My heart races, and my mind makes a bid to keep up with it. But as much as I try, I can’t seem to settle on anything that makes this whole mess make sense.
The only thought my mind can manage is a singular line from what seems like a lifetime ago. From a summer night spent falling in love.
You can always find me in New York.
I don’t hesitate. I don’t waste any time.
Immediately, I take action without turning back.
First, I call the doctor’s office and get Dr. Simpson herself on the phone. I beg her to let me fly this late in my pregnancy and offer her an obscene amount of money to be my medical escort for the flight. She is none too pleased at first, but eventually agrees.
Then, I call a plane charter service and a private car company I know I’ve never used before. Eventually, once everything is set, I text Cap again, but this time, I make sure to be a little nicer—because I need a favor.
Me: I’m sorry for the misunderstanding and the yelling, but I need you to help me out.
His response is nearly immediate.
Cap: Anything, Raquel Weaver.
Hallelujah!
Me: I need you to make sure Harrison is at his apartment in about 7-8 hours. I’ll text you about thirty minutes before my arrival. Can you do that?
Cap: You bet your Hollywood starlet ass. The Cap-i-tain is all over it. Consider the Whorey Son officially locked down.
Good. Because I’ve got a team to ditch and a plane to catch.
“Raquel?” Heidi calls through the door right then, her timing insanely impeccable. I narrow my eyes at her soft demeanor. Now that I’m not so deep in the throes of a nervous breakdown, the way she’s acting—and the way she handled me last night—is suspicious at best. Not to mention she’s the only person to have contact with Harrison that I know of.
Yeah. Shit certainly isn’t adding up.
I’d like to imagine that there isn’t a person evil enough in the world who would purposely ruin the relationship between two innocent people for their own gain, but it’s also time I woke up and stopped being so naïve. There’s way more motive behind Heidi’s actions than my own happiness and well-being, and there has been for a long time.
But right now, dealing with her is my priority.
Thinking quickly, I scrub my face to make my tears look a little bit fresher and open the door. She pouts at th
e sight of me, and I have to laugh. I really thought getting a knife stuck in my back was the kind of thing I’d notice sooner.
“Aw, sweetie. I’m sorry.”
She pulls me into a hug, and it’s all I can do to hold myself back from punching her right in the vagina. But I know Heidi well enough to know one thing—confronting her now, rather than going behind her back to get the hell out of here first, will only end in disappointment for me. She is a schemer, and she’ll never let me win if she knows I’m an active opponent.
“Thanks.” My voice is pitiful and pathetic, and she eats it right up.
“Is there anything I can do for you this morning?”
I shake my head, playing the part she’s forced me to play. She should be happy, though. She’s always telling me to act like the professional actress I’m being paid to be.
“No. Thanks. I’m going to go down to his apartment for a little bit. I know he’s gone, but he gave me a key, and I’d really just like to see if I can get some closure.”
She nods. “Do you want me to go with you?”
Not in a million years. “No, thanks. I really think I need to do this on my own.”
“Okay. We’ll see you in an hour to get ready for your interview with Maximum magazine?”
I nod before mentally taking a long, hard look at the life I’ve spent the last twenty or so years trapped in, mostly skirting around her.
I turn back at the door and smile. “See you soon.”
And I’m not lying. I will see her soon enough. And if I find out she had a direct hand in scheming up this whole mess, she’s going to get hers and then some.
Once I’m out the door of my apartment, I’m gone like the wind. I won’t make the same mistake twice—tomorrow is another today; but today is better.
There’s no time to waste. I’ve got a flight to catch.
Harrison
There’s a war inside my heart, and sadly, I’m weaponless against it.
A loud, pounding knock hits the wood of my apartment door, and I choose to ignore it.
I don’t care who is on the other side of that door. They can just fuck right off.
I’ve been back in my New York apartment since insanely early this morning and I’ll be honest, what used to feel like home feels like a foreign country where I don’t speak the language.
How in the hell did everything get so screwed up?
When I first got here, I felt guilty for leaving LA, even though she told me to, even though she refused to see me or talk to me. I didn’t want to leave. Hell, I don’t even know if leaving was the right thing. She’s so close to her due date, and what if she needs me or what if something happens or what if, what if, what if….
I can name an infinite number of reasons why I wanted to stay, why it feels wrong that I didn’t stay, but there’s only one reason I have left—she didn’t give me any other choice.
Mostly, though, when I arrived in New York, I felt unsettled and heartbroken about not even getting to have the goodbye conversation I deserved. I even broke down and tried calling Rocky again. It rang and rang, but ultimately, she never picked up. So, I texted.
Me: Please, Rocky. I just want to talk. Say the word, and I’ll hop on a plane back to California.
Me: Fuck, I hate this. We should be together, baby. Not apart. This feels wrong in every possible way. Please…just talk to me.
No answer.
My next step was to take out the one bottle of whiskey I keep in my apartment and drink enough to make me numb enough to pass out. I know I never would have slept without it, and I just wanted a few hours to stop feeling this agony. It may have seemed logical at the time, but drinking like a fucking alcoholic after going months without having anything was a piss-poor idea at best.
My throbbing heart now has a compadre to keep it company—my head.
Long story short, company is not at the top of my list to receive a warm welcome.
The pounding on the door gets harder though the longer I ignore it, and stopping the spiky shards of spear-like agony that shoot through my brain with each thump is most definitely of the highest priority.
As such, I have no choice but to compromise by opening the door and then mitigate the consequences by bolstering it with a swift second action—telling whoever it is to fuck right off.
I stride to the offending sound, turn the lock, and grab the knob to rip it open to reveal my new nemesis.
The irony hits when I see who it is. Joke’s on me. There’s nothing really new about this nemesis at all.
I sigh. “What are you doing here?”
Cap shrugs, shoving me out of the way with a hand to my chest and stepping inside without invitation. “Checking on the biggest schmuck in the Western world. Tell me, what’s it like to find out the truth that the rest of us knew all along?”
“What’s that?”
“That Raquel Weaver is too good for you.”
I cringe and walk away from the open door. “Gee, it’s so sweet of you to come by to try to cheer me up.”
“Aw, dude, come on. You know I’m just kidding.”
I turn toward him slowly, crossing my arms over my chest. “You’ll excuse me for not laughing, but as of yesterday, we’re no longer together. So, yeah, the wound’s a little fucking fresh.”
“I know,” he says, completely unfazed. As if he somehow already knows that Rocky and I broke up. Jesus Christ, has it already reached the fucking media? But before I can even entertain that thought process, he adds, “That’s why we came over.”
“We?” I ask, just as the sound of my apartment door closing behind me startles me into turning around. All I can do is blink.
Literally every single one of my closest friends—Kline, Georgia, Thatch, Cassie, Wes, Winnie, Trent, Greer, Quince, Emory, Milo, Maybe, Ruby, Theo, and Lena—are standing in a big group, just inside my door. They all wave at once, as if choreographed.
“What the hell?”
Finally, it hits me that Cap led with an insult as a way to distract me so that the rest of our ridiculous friends and their wives could slip through the open door.
“We’re here, dude. And we’re not leaving until we’ve completely broken you of things like crying and moping,” Thatch says.
“And to make sure you keep up with your hygiene,” Greer adds with a wrinkle of her nose.
“Guys, I’m fine,” I say, knowing full well I don’t mean it. “And how in the hell do you know—?”
Cap’s laughter cuts me off, and the damn thing is so loud it makes my ears ring. “Right, Harry. You’re splendid.” He shakes his head. “You can’t fool me. I’ve been there before, and I know you’re just a few seconds away from stripping off your clothes and lying naked on the couch in an attempt to fuse with the cushions.”
I roll my eyes. “That was you.”
“Uh, yeah. My heart was broken then, and yours is now.” He lifts up a hand to the rest of the group and shakes his head. “It’s like he’s trying to help me win the case.”
I want to ask them a hundred questions about how news traveled so fucking fast, but I fear I might not want to hear that information just yet. So, I choose deflection as a way to cope.
“Listen, guys, this is sweet, but I’m really just in the mood to be alone. I promise to shower and eat, and after last night, I promise not to binge drink again. Scout’s honor.”
Georgia’s eyes start to look kind of panicked, and she turns to Kline violently. My eyebrows draw together at the weirdness of how attached they are to staying here, but Kline comforts her easily and uses his voice to be reasonable like always.
“How about we hang out for just a little while longer?” he suggests. “Long enough for the women to dote on you with all the goodies they made the men go to the store and buy. Then we’ll leave you alone. Okay?”
I sigh heavily, but as the women separate instantly from the group of men and flock to the kitchen, it’s obvious the decision has already been made. Cap claps me on the shoulder and mov
es to join his wife at the kitchen island. “Just go with it, dude. It’ll be worth it.” He winks. “Cap-i-tain’s honor. ’Cause you know I’m not a Scout.”
I may be captive to their theatrics for the next thirty minutes, but I don’t have to be a willing participant. I turn the other way and walk into the living room to take a seat on the couch. Unfortunately, the women follow me, filling all the space around me, the seats on either side of me, the arms of the couch, and in some cases, perching atop the coffee table.
Cassie, however, makes sure to slap me on the shoulder before taking her spot. “We told you you were going to need us! We welcomed you into the club and gave you the password to the support system, but did you use it? No!”
The other women nod. “You should have called us in way sooner,” Lena insists. “I know how this whole thing works. Fashion is dog-eat-dog too. I could have helped you.”
I laugh sardonically. “Pretty sure your husband would just love if I contacted you regularly.”
She rolls her eyes. “Please. Theo’s got no reason to worry, and he knows it. I show him at least two times a day that he’s the apple of my eye.”
“Oh my God,” I groan. “More than I needed to know.”
The women, it seems, feel differently. There’s so much hooting, I temporarily mistake my location for the center of a group of owls.
“Twice a day? Really?” Cassie growls. “Thatcher’s gotta step up his dick game.”
Lena laughs. “You have kids. It’s different.”
“Not if he wants to keep his cock crowned as king, it’s not.”
“Not to be dramatic,” Maybe chimes in. “But this powwow is supposed to be about Harrison.”
“No, no. Really, I’m fine with—” I try to defer, but it’s too late.
“Why didn’t you call us sooner?” Winnie pushes.
I shrug helplessly. I’m sweating. This is like being called to the witness stand in court times a thousand.
