Never Let Go: Top Shelf Romance Collection 6

by Steiner, Kandi

  Which left him staring up at me.

  For a moment, we moved slow, his eyes locked on mine, his hands wrapped around my waist. We breathed together, bodies slick with water and sweat, and I felt it. I felt every ounce of pain, of abandonment — all the emotions I’d fought into a closet over the last two years broke down the door and flooded out. Jamie’s brows bent as one tear fell down my cheek and he caught it with his thumb, wiping it against my bottom lip before pulling my mouth to his. He kissed me with a promise I wasn’t sure I was ready to hear, because in that moment, I wasn’t thinking. I only wanted to feel. I wanted to burn.

  You know, they say that Bill Wilson asked for whiskey as his dying wish. The man was dying, at the end of the line, and he wanted the one vice he’d been fighting all his life. Even the co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous wanted whiskey on his deathbed.

  And so I laid in mine, hand around the bottle, lips pressed to the rim, and I didn’t regret a single minute of the night I sealed my fate.

  Not one.

  I regretted everything.

  “Oh God.”

  Those were the first two words out of my mouth when I woke the next morning, lying in bed with Jamie, his arm across my stomach. My eyes adjusted to the light streaming in through the window, the sky a bright gray, and I counted the half-packed boxes. Boxes I would be moving. Moving into my fiancé’s house.

  My fiancé.

  “Oh God.”

  I threw Jamie’s arm off, scrambling to my feet with the sheet still wrapped around me. It twisted at my ankles and I fell, squeaking. Jamie popped up then, hair mussed, eyes still half-closed.

  “Wha— you okay?”

  Popping back up, I wrapped the sheet tighter, lifting the fabric from around my ankle and storming over to my closet. “No,” I said firmly, closing the door to the closet behind me and dropping the sheet. I pulled on the first pair of jeans and shirt I found, still hopping into them as I spoke through the slits in the door. “No, Jamie, I am not fucking okay.”

  “What’s going on?”

  His voice was gravelly, thick with sleep, and it made me want to curl up with him. I kicked myself internally, huffing as I threw the door open, now fully dressed.

  “Oh, I don’t know. There’s a naked man in my bed and it’s not the one I’m engaged to.”

  Jamie scrubbed a hand down his face, watching me as I paced. “You’re not getting married.”

  “What? Of course I am,” I scoffed.

  Jamie’s eyes widened then, like my words were a shot of scalding espresso. “You can’t be serious.”

  “Listen, last night was a—” I paused, waving my hands, still pacing.

  “A what?” Jamie asked, standing. He was still naked, abs hard and rippling down to a V that pointed straight to the promise land. I tried not to stare, failed, and made a face when he didn’t even attempt to cover himself. “A mistake?”

  My brows bent together and I crossed my arms, meeting Jamie’s eyes and regretting it immediately. Too many thoughts were flowing through me, each one combatting the one that preceded.

  “Don’t you fucking say it, B. Don’t you say it was a mistake.”

  I cleared my throat, eyes on the window behind him. “I’m engaged,” I croaked, and Jamie let out a loud growl, cursing and running both hands through his hair before storming into the living room. I followed, guilt swallowing me. All I could see was Brad’s face, his smile, his trusting eyes. He would be so hurt if he found out what happened. The man who saved me from myself, and I repaid him by falling back into bed with the man who broke me in the first place.

  So fucking stupid.

  “I can’t believe you did this to me!” I screamed as Jamie tugged on his briefs. He swiped his jeans off the floor next, angrily shoving one leg in before the other. “I was happy, I was okay, I let you go. And then you just show up here, after two years without a single word, and you—”

  “You’re not happy. You’re numb. There’s a difference.”

  My mouth popped open. “Don’t tell me what I am, Jamie Shaw! If you’re so desperate to tell me something, how about telling me why you never called? Huh?”

  “Does it really matter?” He threw back, pulling his shirt over his head. It was wrinkled from the rain, but he still looked mouthwatering in it. “You said you’d wait, and I said I’d come. Why did you give up? Why are you trying to push me away right now?”

  “Because this isn’t right! This,” I said, motioning to my empty living room between us. “Isn’t okay. We’re toxic, Jamie. All we do is hurt each other, hurt the ones who love us, hurt ourselves.” I was trembling, and Jamie noticed. He exhaled, moving toward me like he wanted to comfort me, but I held up a hand to stop him. “Don’t.”

  Jamie paused, and for a moment we were both silent, the seriousness of the moment settling in around us like dust after a demolition.

  “You want to know why I never called?” he asked, his voice low. “You think that will make you feel better? Because it won’t.”

  I didn’t answer, and Jamie sighed.

  “B, I signed the wedding certificate the morning of the wedding. That was always the plan, sign the certificate before the day began so we wouldn’t have to worry about it, and then we could put it away somewhere safe, and take it to the courthouse on Monday.”

  My stomach fell hearing about Angel. “Okay…”

  “I signed it. Before I found out what she did.” He sniffed, eyes connecting with mine. “After I left, she signed it, too. And that Monday, when I was trying to figure out my plan of attack to handle shit with her and get to you as fast as I could, she showed up at my house, claiming we were officially married. She went to the courthouse without me, B. We were legally married.”

  My heart stopped, for three long seconds, and started again with a kick. “Oh my God.”

  “Yeah,” Jamie said, stepping closer. “At first, she begged for me to take her back, to make it work, but obviously, I refused. Then, she got her lawyer involved, and they said they’d go after me for everything because I’d been cheating on her with you.” He laughed, shaking his head. “They had camera footage of us together in the hotel on what was supposed to be my wedding night with Angel.”

  My head was spinning, and I reached for the back of the couch, holding it to steady my shaking legs.

  “If it was just my Jeep, or just my shitty house she wanted, I wouldn’t have cared, B. But my father made me partner — officially. It was my wedding gift. And she wanted to take that, too. She wanted half of everything, if not more. She…” his voice trailed off, and I saw in his eyes that it was painful to even talk about any of this with me. “I got a lawyer. I had to block your number, my family, too. Until it was all resolved, any phone call or email or message on Facebook could have incriminated me. It didn’t matter that she’d admitted to cheating the night before our wedding, because in the court’s eyes, we’d still gotten married anyway. It was the biggest fucking mess, all of it, and I hated working with slimy lawyers and an even slimier ex. I hated waiting. But the only thing that kept me going was knowing that you were waiting, too. For me.”

  I tried to swallow, but came up dry. I had to sit. I fell to the arm of the couch, hand over my mouth.

  “The day Angel finally gave up,” he continued, his voice lower now, gruff and sad. “The day I received the finalization of our divorce? That was the same day I received your wedding invitation.” He choked on a laugh. “Talk about sick irony.”

  I shook my head, too many times, temples pounding as my thoughts raced to catch up. “You should have called me. Somehow.”

  “I did! I called you from what I’m pretty positive is the only payphone still in existence, several times, and you never answered,” Jamie shot back, chest heaving.

  All the unknown numbers…

  My temples throbbed again and I kneaded them with my forefingers, still shaking. “You thought I would wait, and I thought you changed your mind.”

  Jamie moved to me then,
slowly, as if he was waiting for me to stop him. Then, he bent at the knee to meet me at eye-level. “I could never change my mind about you.”

  I pulled away from his nearness. It was too much. It burned, and not in the way I loved. “No. No, you should have found a way. You gave up too easily. You should have answered my call, or had your lawyer call me, or told Jenna, or fucking smoke signaled. This is too much. You abandoned me.”

  Words flew from my mouth, but none of it made sense. I felt everything crashing in at once, the universe laughing in the background. It had won again. Timing laughed with it.

  “Stop doing this! Stop self-destructing, stop making this harder than it has to be,” Jamie said, exhausted. “Maybe you’re right, okay? Maybe I should have figured out a way to reach you, but I didn’t, because you were supposed to wait. And none of that matters now, want to know why?” He touched my chin, lifting my eyes to his. “Because you still love me. And I love you.”

  I flew off the couch, running my hands through my hair before spinning to face him again. “No, it does matter. Because I’m getting married.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  “Yes, I am!”

  Jamie stood, jaw tight. “You’re not marrying anyone but me.”

  I scoffed, and even as the laugh left my lips, his words sent a harsh yet warming zinger straight to my core. I loved hearing him say that, and hated myself for loving it.

  “You can’t do this. You can’t walk in here, at the one time I finally have my life together, and make me rip it to shreds.” The tears didn’t slowly build and bubble over, they struck fast, glossing my eyes after one blink and sliding down my cheeks with the second one. “All we do is hurt. All we do is destroy, and one of us is always picking up the pieces, trying to move on or forget or not get our hopes up. It’s sick. We’re toxic.” I was crying harder now, and once again Jamie reached for me, but I backed away. “And now, I risked everything I have to be with you last night, because I literally can’t say no to you.” I shook violently then. “I cheated on a man who didn’t deserve it, on a man who wants to spend his life with me, on a man I love, all because of my inability to let you go.” I cried, tears streaming freely, hot and scarring down my cheeks. “Your love is poisoning me, Jamie!”

  He cracked, something between a sob and a groan rumbling in his throat as his face twisted. Jamie crossed the room in three steps, shaking his head and mumbling no before pulling me into him. He held me tight, and I fought against another sob until he bent, his lips pressing into mine. I shoved him back hard.

  “Stop it! Stop! You have to go, you have to leave, Jamie.” My breaths were wild, voice too high-pitched.

  Jamie stood there, staring at me, willing me with that damn stare of his to change my mind. When I didn’t, he growled, punching a box of pans as he passed it and I jumped with the noise. I didn’t watch him leave, didn’t watch his back move through the door, didn’t see his face when he whispered that he’d always love me, didn’t hear the slam of the door behind him. All I heard was my heart, beating in my ears. All I saw was my hands, hitting the ground, tears falling to land next to them. All I felt was everything — every aching, shitty thing that had ever existed. Guilt, regret, love, lust, desperation, want, need, pain, fear, loss — all of it, all at once, like being caught inside a huge wave that broke just in front of me, swallowing me down into the depths of a dark, cold ocean of feelings I’d avoided for so long.

  I don’t know how long I stayed crumpled there on the floor, or how long I cried before my tears dried up along with my voice and I just laid there. My phone rang in the other room, but I didn’t move. I soaked in my regret, in the horrific pain that only comes with a relapse, and I paid my penance.

  I’d never hated myself more than in that moment.

  I was still sore from Whiskey the night Brad and I finalized our wedding song.

  And three months later, on the date that had been crumpled on an invitation between Jamie’s hands in my apartment, I married Bradley Neil. I wore the white dress, he wore the black tux, we danced and ate cake and I smiled through it all. But it was a dead smile, a smile that never reached the corners of my lips, and I wondered if I’d ever smile again.

  I wondered a lot of things.

  I wondered if it was Jamie I saw escaping the back of the church when the priest asked him to speak now or forever hold his peace. Was that him, or had I just imagined it?

  I wondered if the gaping hole where Jamie’s warm buzz used to exist would ever close, if I’d ever get that part of myself back, or if it’d always belong to him.

  I wondered if there would ever be a day, a single day in my entire life, where I would truly shake my addiction.

  When I closed my eyes on my wedding night as Brad slipped between my thighs and thought of Jamie instead, I knew I never would. No matter what I said, no matter what I did, my addiction to Whiskey would always live on.

  Whether I fed it or not.

  Chapter 23

  A Love Letter to Whiskey

  So now, we’re all caught up.

  It’s crazy how fast the buzz comes back after you’ve been sober for so long.

  I opened my door and felt tipsy just at the sight of him, eyes blurring and legs shaking. It used to take me at least a shot to get to this point, but my tolerance level had been weakened by distance and time, and just seeing him warmed my blood. I gripped the knob tighter, as if that’d help, but it was like trying to chug water after passing the point of no return.

  Whiskey stood there, on my doorstep, just like he had one year before. Except this time, there was no rain, no anger, no wedding invitation – it was just us.

  It was just him – the old friend, the easy smile, the twisted solace wrapped in a glittering bottle.

  It was just me – the alcoholic, pretending like I didn’t want to taste him, realizing too quickly that months of being clean didn’t make me crave him any less.

  I told you we couldn’t start here.

  And we can’t end here, either.

  It didn’t really hurt to see him, didn’t really heal, either. I had become so numb since my wedding day, so completely void of emotion. Jenna was worried about me, she wanted me to go talk to someone, and my mom was slowly shifting over to her side, too. I guessed I couldn’t really blame them, not when I had self-destructed yet again, ending my marriage after less than five months. The truth was after Jamie left, I’d never been the same. I’d never recovered. I couldn’t love Brad because I only had room to love Jamie, and I couldn’t love Jamie because it hurt to do so. It was a mess, and I didn’t know how to clean it, so I just walked away from it.

  I’d moved out of Brad’s place over a month ago, and yet boxes still sat stacked in my apartment, and wedding rings still glittered on my finger. I couldn’t unpack, I couldn’t move on, I couldn’t admit to the fact that I’d ruined everything in my life. Work was the only place I wasn’t struggling, and it was only because reading and writing and working were my escapes. I turned off my emotions there, and that’s when I thrived.

  “Can I come in?” Jamie asked. He looked nice, dressed in slacks and a salmon button up that was cuffed at his elbows. His hair was short again, face cleanly shaven, and I swore he’d aged ten years in the twelve months since I’d seen him.

  I nodded, backing up and letting him inside. I wondered how he’d found me, if it had been Jenna or if he’d just tried my old apartment hoping I’d be there. I was lucky it was open when I moved out of Brad’s. It felt like home, and at the same time, it was tainted with memories — especially of the last night I spent with Jamie.

  I wish I could accurately describe what it felt like that day with him, but I was so numb. I had reached my all-time low, and I had no one to blame but myself. It was the moment before I could do anything to change it, the moment when the only thing I was capable of was breathing, and even that was just barely doable.

  Jamie had his hands in his pockets, and he looked around my apartment, almost exactly h
ow it had been the last time he’d seen it. When his soft eyes found mine, he offered a sad attempt at a smile. “Hi.”

  “Hi,” I whispered back.

  “You’ve lost weight,” he said, and it wasn’t a compliment. I’d always been thin, and I knew I didn’t look healthy at the moment. But this was the game we played, wasn’t it? We always commented on what had changed since the last time we’d seen each other, always ignoring what hadn’t changed — which was the way we felt.

  “And you’ve shaved.”

  Jamie rubbed at his jaw before tucking his hand back in his pocket. “I’m sorry I showed up unannounced. I had a work conference down at the Omni and I just… I just wanted to see you.”

  I swallowed, crossing my arms in the large sweater I was donning. “You want something to drink?” I asked, making my way into the kitchen. I almost reached for a bottle of whiskey, but shifted and grabbed a water from the fridge instead.

  “I’m okay.”

  It was awkward, and it reminded me of when I’d ridden beside him in his Jeep the weekend he was supposed to marry Angel. We hadn’t talked since he’d left, since I’d chosen Brad over him. I was mindlessly playing with the wedding rings still on my finger, rings I’d yet to take off even though I knew I should, and Jamie caught the motion with his eyes. His jaw clenched as he leaned against my kitchen island.

  “So how are you?”

  I almost laughed. How was I? Was it appropriate to tell him I was crazy, that I was depressed and broken and crippled by anxiety and what ifs? I knew it wasn’t, I knew he didn’t need my bullshit nor did he deserve it, so I forced a smile.

  “I’m okay.”

  He nodded, and I took a moment to really study him — the edge of his jaw, the bulge of his biceps against the fabric of his shirt, the hint of sadness in his eyes as they fell to my wedding rings again. “Are you happy?”