Never Let Go: Top Shelf Romance Collection 6

by Steiner, Kandi

  I looked away, toward the window, where the city was cast in an orange glow with the setting sun. I couldn’t answer that question without lying to him, so I changed the subject.

  “Why are you here?”

  Jamie followed my gaze, and we both looked out the window together. It felt like an eternity passed, like we watched the sun set and rise again before he spoke.

  “It’s been a long year.”

  His voice echoed in my empty apartment, gravelly and low.

  I simply nodded.

  “I had a lot of time to think about everything you said, and it killed me that I left the way I did without saying everything I wanted to say to you.”

  I closed my eyes, sucking my lips between my teeth and bracing myself. I wasn’t ready to hear more from him, I wasn’t prepared emotionally to do whatever it was he was about to ask me. But he wasn’t there to ask for anything, he was there to end it. And in a way, that was worse.

  “I want to stop hurting you,” he started, and I opened my eyes then, catching his. “I never meant to, and I guess I can’t really prove that, but I never meant to play all the games. I never wanted to hurt…” He swallowed, clearing the thickness from his throat with a small shake of his head. His eyes were on his feet then. “I want you to know that I love you, in every sense of the word.” My heart fell to my feet and my hand clutched at the fabric of my sweater, twisting, holding on, bracing for the storm. “Things are and always have been very real between us.”

  My breaths came harder then, because I knew he was right. No matter how fucked up it all had been, it was also real. It was all so, so real.

  “You’re my best friend,” he choked. I was so numb, like my head was submerged in an ice bath, and I couldn’t even look at him any longer, so I fixed my gaze on the window again. Jamie stood straighter then. “And I’ll always be somewhere for you, no matter the time, place, or circumstance.”

  A tear rolled swiftly and silently down the side of my face that Jamie couldn’t see. I didn’t wipe at it for fear I’d give it away.

  He crossed the room, stepping into me, and I smelled the honey and oak I’d always loved. I closed my eyes and inhaled a breath I didn’t let go of. Not when he kissed my forehead, not when he pressed a small box into my hand, not when he whispered, “Happy birthday,” and not when he pushed back again, scent leaving me in a whoosh.

  He walked slowly to the door, pausing with his hand on the knob. “I feel like goodbye isn’t the right term, so I’ll just say until the timing is right…”

  I kept my eyes on the window, and only when he closed the door behind him did I breathe again.

  I looked down at the small package in my hand, wrapped in brown paper and twine, and I cried.

  I was officially twenty-eight.

  It was such a strange birthday. I felt like I should have my shit together, and I clearly didn’t. My career was about the only thing I had a handle on, and even that was questionable. I’d lost the man I loved my whole life, fucked up with Mr. Right and the guy who wanted to spend his life with me, and I lived in a small one-bedroom apartment alone.

  Luckily, Jenna had showed up less than an hour after Jamie left.

  “I don’t care what you say, we’re going to this stupid, cheesy eighties bar crawl. And you’re going to wear this absurd dress with me and we’re going to get totally wasted and bring in your twenty-eighth year in style.”

  Jenna was holding out a fluffy, lavender dress on a hanger to me, puffy shoulders and all. She sat heavy on one hip, typing away on her phone in her other hand, probably to her boyfriend, Dylan. They’d been dating almost since the exact day I started dating Brad. Their relationship proved to be stronger than ours, though, and I had a feeling he would be asking her a big question soon enough. It was sweet that she was here to celebrate my birthday, but celebrating was the last thing I felt like doing.

  “I’d much rather opt for ice cream and wine in my pajamas.”

  Jenna scoffed. “Nope. Not happening. This is going to be your year, B. We have to kick it off the right way so the rest of the year follows suit.”

  “And an eighties bar crawl is the ‘right way?’”

  “Duh.”

  I chuckled, snatching the hideous dress from her hand as she smirked and waved me into my bedroom to change.

  In her defense, we did end up having a pretty decent time. We danced and laughed and drank. We drank a lot. But by the end of the night, we ended up right back in my apartment. In fact, we ended up in my favorite place in the apartment — my bathtub. Still in our Sixteen Candles-ish dresses, tulle fluffed up all around us, and a bottle of Makers Mark that we passed back and forth. Jenna’s playlist on her phone echoed off the walls of the bathroom and Jamie’s gift sat unwrapped, cradled in the mess of our dresses between us.

  “Okay, so are you drunk enough to open it yet?” Jenna finally asked around three in the morning.

  I took another swig from the bottle, eyes a little hazy, and laughed. “I don’t think that’s a reachable point.”

  “What are you so afraid of?”

  I shrugged, kicking the heels off my feet that hung out of the tub. Jenna followed suit, and we swung our bare feet as I passed the bottle back to her. “It’s not that I’m scared. I just don’t know what good it will do opening it.”

  “You’re not curious?”

  “Of course I am.”

  Jenna huffed. “So open the damn thing. I’m dying over here.”

  She tossed the box into my lap and I picked it up with shaking fingers, thumbing at the twine and wondering what it could be. It was light, and it rattled with each move of my hands. “I don’t know how I’ll feel after I open this,” I admitted, turning to Jenna then. Jamie had only ever given me one gift before then, and it was a funny one, an inside joke, but this felt heavier.

  “Well that’s why I’m here,” Jenna said with a smile. “To help you figure it out.”

  She squeezed my leg through the puffy fabric of my dress and my hands gripped the box tighter. I chewed my lip, unsure, but my fingers were already peeling away at the twine and paper. It was strange, the way my heart raced the same way it always had in the presence of Whiskey. Maybe it was the Makers, maybe it was the unknown gift, or maybe it was my body waking up, realizing before even I did that twenty-eight really would be a year of change.

  When the paper was shed, I let it fall beside us, popping open the lid of a small, navy blue box. There was tissue paper inside, wrapped around something, and I was still shaking slightly as I peeled it back.

  “Oh my God,” I whispered when the tissue was gone. Jenna leaned in closer as I rubbed the cool metal of a simple charm keychain.

  There were six charms, and one small note.

  Even if you must move on, please don’t ever let us go.

  I read the note over and over, eyes misting before I thumbed through the charms. There was no explanation needed for them.

  It was a keychain, which reminded me of our drives, so many of them over the years. The nights we laughed, nights we hurt, nights we just existed as a boy and a girl. His passenger seat would always be mine, and this keychain proved it.

  The first charm I noticed was a music note. Classical music, our rare and kind of weird relatable preference. I thought of the playlists we’d had over the years, of The Piano Guys, of music that didn’t need words the same way Jamie and I never did.

  Next was a surfboard, followed by a cat. I laughed at that one, wondering if that story had really meant more to him than I ever knew. Then, there was a bottle of whiskey. It looked similar to Jack Daniels, and memories of the bon fire at Alder flooded my mind at first before I realized it was also our first shot together. In my kitchen, all those years ago, when the addiction hadn’t yet been discovered and yet we had both felt it playing just below the surface.

  So many times we’d been burned, and yet every time we wanted more.

  The last two I focused on made my chest ache. One was a simple silver airplan
e, and I thought about the distance between us over the last several years. Between Florida and California, and then Florida and Pennsylvania, and always in our minds. Distance and time had always dictated so much for us, and for the first time in my life, I was starting to wonder why I let it. The very last charm was a flat, rose gold heart. I didn’t have to think hard on that one. His heart belonged to me, just like mine would always belong to him.

  “You okay?” Jenna asked after a moment. I was so silent and still, save for the slight movement of my thumbs over the charms.

  “He loves me,” I whispered. I’d known it all along, I’d heard it a million times, yet it was the first time it actually hit me. “Even after all this, Jenna. He loves me.”

  She nodded, leaning her head on my shoulder and passing me the bottle of whiskey. “I think he always has, babe.”

  I sniffed, not wanting to cry because I wasn’t sad. I really wasn’t. I was relieved, and hopeful — even if unrightfully so.

  “What am I supposed to do? All we do is hurt each other. How do I know we’ll ever be able to make it? How do I trust him with a heart he’s broken so many times?”

  Jenna thought while I thumbed through the charms again, thoughts racing.

  “What’s your biggest fear with it all? You know as well as I do that if you give your heart to him, really give it to him, he’d never do anything to hurt you. If anything, it should be him who’s afraid — and clearly he’s not. So what’s the real issue?”

  I chewed my bottom lip, answers to her question swirling in my head. “It’s just, look at the path of destruction we’ve laid. He cheated, I cheated… twice.” I cringed with the admission. “We’ve hurt others around us, and we’ve never really been together. It’s always been about not being able to have each other. What if it’s just about wanting what we can’t have? What if that’s all part of the allure? It just feels wrong, and in the eyes of most sane people, it is. We’re built on lust and bad decisions.”

  “But are you?” Jenna challenged, sitting up again. She turned to face me, tucking her feet inside the tub. “No, you and Jamie never had it easy. And yes, you hurt a lot of people along the way. But at the end of the day, it’s your life, B. You have to live with it, no one else. So you can’t think about the people around you, how you’ve hurt them or what they think of you. It’s up to you to be happy because no one else is going to do it for you.” She smiled then, blue eyes bright in my dim bathroom. “Whatever you choose, make sure it makes you happy.”

  “That sounds a little selfish.”

  Jenna shrugged. “Yeah well, sometimes selfish and smart are synonymous.”

  It was like surviving an explosion. For over a year, my ears had been ringing, eyes adjusting to the smoke, and now, all of a sudden, everything had cleared. I’d let myself be ruled by fear and anger, pain and sadness, but I’d never once thought of the possibility that with Jamie, I would find happiness. It might not have been an easy road, and there were likely many more bumps ahead, but in the end, I couldn’t imagine my life with anyone else but him. He was it for me. He always had been.

  “Why have I always seen him as an addiction? As a bad thing?”

  Jenna leaned into me, stealing the bottle I had yet to drink from since the last time she passed it. “Sometimes we’re more terrified of the good things in life than we are of the bad. We feel we don’t deserve them, or that they aren’t real, that they’ll disappear quickly and easily and we’ll be left in the ruins.”

  She was right, and I smiled at the clarity of it all. Jamie had always been a natural urge for me, but I’d labeled him as the bad kind — as something I should be ashamed of or something that had the power to ruin me. But the truth couldn’t be further from that.

  “He’s not an addiction,” I whispered. “He’s an inclination.”

  Jenna smiled, tilting the bottle of whiskey back toward me. “So, what now?”

  The next morning, while Jenna was still fast asleep in my bed, I sat down at my laptop, and I started writing.

  I started writing my love letter to Whiskey.

  I started writing the book you’re reading now.

  The honest, hard to read and even harder to write account of my eleven-year addiction to Whiskey.

  I know I’ve put you, as a reader, through a lot. Maybe through too much. I wouldn’t blame you if you hated me right now, because the truth is there are more than a few times in my life where I made the wrong decision. I am flawed, and though I know it was hard to read, I’m not sorry for telling the truth. I’m not ashamed of my path. In a way, I think it’s about figuring out who we are through the mistakes we make.

  I know who I am. And I know who I need.

  So, Whiskey, if you’re reading this, I hope now you understand. We’ve always blamed timing, but the timing has always been right — we just never listened.

  Up until this point, I’ve never fought hard enough. But if you give me the chance, I’ll fight every single day of our lives together. I’ll go to battle for you, and I’ll win the war in the end.

  You asked me for one day, but one day never came. You asked me to choose you, and I never did. You asked me to be with you, and I never was.

  But now, it’s our time.

  One day is here, and I choose you. I’ve never been anyone else’s but yours, and I never want that to change.

  Now, you just have to choose me, too.

  I’m sorry that up until now, I saw you as something I should quit instead of something I should fight for.

  My heart is, always has been, and always will be yours.

  By the time I finish this, by the time you maybe, hopefully read it, you’ll be on the cusp of your thirtieth birthday. I don’t know where you are, I don’t know who you’re with, but I hope you remember. I hope you remember our drives. I hope you remember our days on the water, our nights in the sand, our wasted time and the minutes we cherished. More than anything, I hope you remember the pact you made to a wide-eyed girl eleven years ago.

  I’ve hurt you. You’ve hurt me. I don’t deserve you, and you’ve always deserved me. You don’t have to forgive me, you don’t have to leave the past behind, but I’m asking you to, anyway.

  This is my love letter to you… everything I have is in these pages. Now the pen is in your hand.

  Come find me, Whiskey.

  I’ll be waiting.

  Epilogue

  Last Drop

  The surf is going to be perfect today.

  It’s just barely past eight in the morning, and I’m sitting in my favorite spot in the entire world — Jamie’s passenger seat. Our boards are strapped in on top of the Jeep, two half-empty iced-coffees sitting between us, and the wind whips our hair around as we cruise down to the beach.

  It always burns a little, sitting in this seat, thinking of what could have been. I’ve tried to let those thoughts go over the years, but it’s not as easy as it seems.

  It’s not easy not to think about the years that passed that I could have been his, or about the nights we both spent alone that we could have spent together. It hurts to think about, and yet I can’t not think about it all. I think sometimes life is about embracing what hurts, because pain is one of the most vivid emotions we can feel. Pain reminds us that we are alive, and I’ll always appreciate that stinging reminder.

  Jamie’s hair is longer, just the way I like it, and he wears an easy grin as we drive. Barrel-aged Whiskey looks even better in the bright morning light, the amber notes in his eyes shining. He’s talking about the surf report and where to eat lunch, but a ray of sun hits the wedding band on his left hand as he shifts positions on the steering wheel, and suddenly my mind is far away.

  He did finally get married, just a few months after his thirtieth birthday.

  I swallow, chest aching a bit as I think about the lucky woman who will get to live out the rest of her life as his wife. She and I don’t really get along, but I’m sure that’s no surprise to you.

  She doesn’t deserve
Jamie, though I guess no one ever will in my eyes. Honestly, I think his wife is selfish. I think she’s a little lost, a little broken, and a little too fond of making mistakes. Sometimes it hurts when I see them together, but I don’t let myself focus on the bad, because the truth is she makes him happy. It may not make sense to me, but it doesn’t have to — because he loves her.

  And that’s enough for me.

  I kick my sandals off, propping my feet on the warm dashboard in Jamie’s Jeep just as a familiar melody comes over the speakers. The Piano Guys always take me back to the first time I sat beside Jamie, and it must do the same for him because he stops talking, hand reaching for my thigh. He gives it a gentle squeeze and every cell in my body buzzes to life at the touch.

  I lay my head back against the seat and tilt my head to look up at him — my Jamie, my Whiskey. He’s looking at me in the way he always has, the way I hope he always will, and I wonder if he’ll ever be able to touch me without me feeling that same familiar, aching burn.

  But that’s the thing about whiskey, isn’t it?

  It’s strong, to the very last drop.

  I face the windshield again just as we park, the waves rolling in ahead of us, sunshine blazing hot on our shoulders. I inhale the salty breeze, letting go of the breath slowly, breathing in the moment. Sometimes I feel like we have to rush, but then I remember that time isn’t our enemy the way I always thought. Turns out, time is our friend — the friend we never listened to, but we’re learning how to more and more every day. The friend who might have always known a little more about us than we did.

  You see, I may not always like his wife, and she may be far from perfect…..

  But I’m so happy she’s me.

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