by Ella Fields
“No,” I said, getting out and closing the door. I opened the door to the back seat, pulling out my duffel. “It’s Aiden’s. Thanks for the ride.”
He flicked his hand in goodbye, driving off once I hit the sidewalk.
Heaving my bag up the steps, I ran over all the things I wanted to say until I reached his apartment. Steeling my spine, I dumped my purse and duffel to the ground and knocked.
Every word, every apology I’d formed evaporated when Aiden finally came to the door, opened it, then walked back inside his apartment.
I ditched my bags, following him. “What happened?”
“Care to elaborate?” he asked, stopping in the kitchen and ripping open a bottle of Jack Daniel’s. His detached demeanor and the cool calm in which he poured himself a shot and threw it down his throat grated.
“You just leaving me there like that. What the hell was that?”
“Oh,” he said, wincing as the whiskey probably burned on its way down. “Yeah, that was me walking away from something that just about destroyed me.”
Anger vanished, waves of guilt taking its place. “Your mom—”
“I didn’t know,” he said, pouring another shot, then capping the bottle. “I mean, I knew, but I didn’t know specifics. So yeah, I left. I needed to. But I came back.” He tossed the shot back, slamming the glass down before rounding the counter. His chest was bare, his golden skin pulling at my eyes, along with the dip of his hip bones, of which his team sweatpants rode low on.
I shifted my eyes, forcing them to his face. An indecipherable emotion passed over it, hardening the sharp angles and darkening the two-day-old stubble littering his rigid jaw. “You came back?”
“Mmm.” He strode closer, one slow step at a time. “I did. And you know what killed me more than finding out just how much me and your damaged guy have in common? Hmm?” I frowned, unsure, but he continued. “It was seeing you asleep together exactly where I’d found you, all tangled up as if you didn’t have somewhere else you should’ve been instead.” He stopped moving, eyes ablaze with fury, and his teeth gritting. “And you let it happen. As though what he’d told you and how it made him feel were all that mattered. Because who cares how I feel, right? Not when it was my unhinged mother who ruined his life.”
“Aiden, no,” I said, clearing my throat as razor blades tried to tear it. “No. I know it’s a lot, and it looked bad, but I fell asleep.” I laughed, disbelief and fear rattling the sound. “Does the fact I love you mean nothing?”
He leaned back against the counter, his tongue tracing his lips and one bare foot crossing over the other. “Does it mean anything to you? Or am I just some kind of bandage you’ve done your best to wrap around all the shit he’s put you through?”
“Wow,” I wheezed out, unable to believe what he was saying, and the callous, cold way in which he’d said it. “You know what? Fuck you.” I turned for the door.
“Oh, how quick you are to walk away,” he said when I’d reached the threshold. “I can’t help but think if I were him, you’d still be standing right in front of me, taking whatever I throw at you.”
Anger returned, intensifying and curling my fingers. “That’s not fair, and it’s not true.”
“Isn’t it?” I spun around, and he leveled me with both his biting question and hard stare. “I’ll tell you what’s not fair, Petal. Waiting and then all but begging for you to give me a chance.” His voice roughened, eyes glassing. “Waiting and all but praying that you’d fall for me even half as hard as I’ve fallen for you, and then…” His throat dipped. “Having to watch you hold and comfort the guy you loved first. The reason I couldn’t and why I don’t think I ever will be able to have all of you.”
“Aiden,” I pleaded, my tongue thick.
“No.” The blunt word sliced sharp and deep. “You don’t get to have us both. So who’s it going to be?”
“Me and Everett…” I shook my head, taking a step toward him. “We’re not anything.”
He drifted forward, a sinister curl to his lip as he loomed over me. “That’s the worst lie I’ve ever been told.” Lowering his head, he whispered words that had my eyes shutting over tears. “Just because he doesn’t see you every day, just because he’s not fucking you, doesn’t mean I don’t see that.”
Tears flooded and cascaded over my flushed face as I planted my hands on his hard chest and pushed him back. “How… h-how dare…” Unable to talk, I gave up and raced out of there.
His silence echoed louder than the slam of his door.
Ten days passed by with a speed akin to Mr. Ross’s slow, unsteady gait.
After not hearing from Aiden the following week, I admitted defeat, dried my tears, and decided to call him. He didn’t answer. Nor did he the twenty times I’d called and sent various texts since I’d failed to see him around campus.
I’d just left his place, knocking half a dozen times to no avail, when I realized I’d left my phone at work in my haste to get to his apartment and check on him.
Cursing myself out, I raced down the stairs and began the trek back through town. The whole not having a car thing was really starting to become a problem, no matter how small the town was.
On the sidewalk, I pulled to a stop so fast my breath skidded out of me.
Everett was leaning against the window of Petal Power, hand and face pressed to the glass as he peered inside.
“What are you doing?”
With a start, he turned, eyes almost as wide as his smile, and walked over. “Looking for you.”
I traced every inch of his face, noting the clarity in his bright eyes, the healthier complexion, and the clean sheen to his newly trimmed hair. It still kissed his shoulders in dark blond waves, but it looked soft to the touch. My fingers tingled with the urge to check, but I backed up. “Why?”
A rough chuckle made those greens gleam, and he tucked his hands inside the pockets of his jeans. “Thought that’d be obvious.”
“Nothing is obvious with you,” I said. Guilt manifested at his pinched reaction, but this shit with Aiden was eating at me like a parasite, and although I didn’t blame Everett, he was the reason my heart was pattering too fast in search for what it needed since arriving home after Christmas.
“I deserve that and more, and well…” Blowing out a breath, he swayed closer, letting his gaze wander over our surroundings, a gentle smile softening his lips. “I live here now.”
The world turned a flat shade of gray, its vibrancy leaking from the buildings, flowers, and cars around us. It all fell, splattered onto the concrete with my stalled heart. My stomach filled with a swarm of jittery bees, even as it sank.
“No,” I whispered, hardly a sound.
Everett’s brows met. “Yeah, I leased a crummy apartment above the bar we played at last year. Cheap rent in exchange for playing a few nights a week. I’ve got interviews lined up with some places too.”
I shook my head, my hand quaking as I pushed it into my hair and tugged, barely feeling the sting.
It was there. This was real. “But…” I stopped, then swallowed. “The band?”
“I left,” he said with more calm than I ever could’ve imagined him saying those words. “They were probably sick of my drunk ass constantly fucking up anyway.” He laughed, but it lacked humor and conviction. He took my hand, voice quiet. “It’s time to quit running, Clover.”
I pulled back. “So you decide to do that here?”
He tipped a broad shoulder, gaze hesitant but sincere. “You’re my home. Being with you and sharing that with you over Christmas… Well, it was many things. The main one, the most important one, being that it reminded me of that, yet again.” His lashes lowered, then rose with his lips. “And if you’re my home, where else would I go?”
I was tempted to pinch myself. Perhaps even punch myself. This had to be a dream, but I could smell him. Was it possible to smell people in your dreams? I couldn’t remember.
“I’m with Aiden,” I croaked out, not even k
nowing if that was true but wanting it to be.
Everett stared down at me, my words chasing that unfamiliar softness away and replacing it with the usual granite. “I know.”
“I love him.” I started walking backward, pointing an accusing finger at him. “You fucked me up, and then I met him, and I love him, Everett.”
A green eye narrowed. “Who are you trying to convince, Clover?” The words weren’t malicious, but his steps were filled with intent as I turned down the street, and he followed me.
My pace picked up as I rounded street corner after street corner, feeling him there behind me. When we reached the sidewalk leading to my place, I stopped and whirled on him. “Oh, my God, stop. Just go, please. I’m happy you’ve decided to better yourself, but that can’t be with me. I’m happy now,” I said, my voice cracking.
He kept walking until the toes of his boots nipped at my own, his hand reaching for my hair and tucking it behind my ear as his eyes studied mine. “Then why don’t you look happy? Sound happy?”
“Because you’ll no doubt mess everything up for me.” I went to back up, but his arm looped around my waist.
His words were heated and resolute. “I’m not here to mess shit up for you. I swear. I’m here because I fucking love you. I’ve loved you for years, and there’s nowhere else I want to be.” He shook his head, and shocked, feeling as if lightning had struck my veins, my resistance collapsed, and I turned to mush in his embrace. His forehead lowered to mine. “Not anymore. I’ve tried to be anywhere and everywhere else, and it didn’t fucking work, Clover.”
Stunned, I didn’t move until he kissed me, soft and gentle and full of the kind of promise that, once upon a time, I’d be desperate enough to believe.
But once upon a times were for dreams, and he was only capable of nightmares.
I shoved him off me, my voice a seething rasp. “Go to hell, Everett.”
He grinned, undeterred, even as he retreated a step. “Been there all my life. So I guess I’ll just make myself comfortable until you might want my company again.” He winked, then passed a familiar black Audi before disappearing.
With my heart slamming against my rib cage, I forced my eyes to the apartment, then raced up the path.
All the air I’d been struggling to inhale since seeing Everett turned to ice, crusting my tongue and slicing into my throat when I saw Aiden.
Sitting atop the three steps outside my front door with his knees apart, he gazed down at a tiny velvet box between his hands.
After a minute that stretched into eternity, he sighed and snapped the box closed. “I’ve been drafted.” Hollow words for something of that caliber. “I was going to tell you over Christmas, but I thought I’d buy this first.” He chewed his bottom lip, still staring down at the box, then he enclosed it inside a fist. “Thought there was a good chance you’d want to come with me.”
“I will, yes,” I said without any thought at all and shifted forward. “Just let me…”
Rising from the steps, he refused to look at me as he passed, his cologne mingling with my fear as he stalked to his car. “I don’t think so, Petal.”
“Aiden, don’t. Stop.”
He didn’t; he climbed into his car, and the sound of the engine starting unglued my feet.
Blind with terror, I ran to it as he backed up and waited to turn out onto the street. I slapped the window, my fingers smearing and streaking, clawing at the glass. They fell when he pulled out and sped down the street.
A silent scream scraped past my lips, and I dropped to the sidewalk, unaware of my surroundings. Uncaring of the noises I might have been making as his departure opened cracks that sent salty rivers flooding my cheeks.
Arms came around me, lifting, and then I was inside. The door was kicked shut, and before I knew it, I was being carried into my room and placed on the bed. The scent of tobacco and clean linen enveloped me as a gentle hand pushed the wet hair from my face.
“Did you know he was there?” I blubbered out. “Don’t lie to me.”
Everett’s sigh stirred my hair. “I didn’t.”
The disbelief, the injustice, the regret—they wouldn’t stop squeezing every breath, every heartbeat. Even when the tears dried.
Everett’s chest vibrated against my back as he held me, and his abrasive humming eventually lulled me to sleep.
For weeks, I called his number, only to eventually be told it’d been disconnected.
What had changed in a month that he could cut me out like that? In a way so permanent, I could already feel the scar.
Nothing had changed for me. Not even having Everett here, who checked in on me every day, had changed the way I felt about Aiden.
But then again, not even Aiden could change the way I felt about Everett.
Love was a messy, drunk-ass son of a bitch.
I didn’t stop there. I checked his Facebook and caved after he’d been gone for seven weeks and sent him a message there. All that did was get me blocked, of which he made sure to do on Instagram too. But not before I saw him at some charity gala with a model named Latoya Adams draped over his arm in all her designer, uber-contoured glory.
It took me a while to even find out what team had picked him up. Google searches didn’t provide much until the season had started, and I now caught myself watching a game I’d never cared much for just to catch a glimpse of him.
My fingers deftly wrapped the twine around the bridal bouquet, and I studied it in the light, scrutinizing every petal, every leaf, each visible stem before setting it on the stand and fussing some more.
“One might think that bouquet is for you with the way you keep clucking over it like a mother hen.” Gloria dumped a box of ribbon on the counter with a light thump, then smacked my hand away from the flowers.
I scowled but got to work on the ones for the bridesmaids. “I’d want it perfect if it were me.”
It could’ve been me, a catty voice echoed. It was almost me. I snuffed it and sipped from my mug of warm tea.
“Oh look, Mr. Rugged is here again,” Sabrina mused, dusting the shelves by the front windows.
Gloria shot me a look that I studiously ignored.
Sabrina and Gloria took Aiden’s absence almost as hard as I had, and to say they’d warmed to Everett instantly would be a blatant lie. But they were cordial, and I could tell that the way he’d been coming by, doting in his own quiet way, was wearing them down.
They weren’t the only ones.
I’d half expected him to bail after mere days of watching me mope around. Heartbroken or not, I was no longer a sure bet where he was concerned, and he knew it.
Yet he was still here.
Everett pushed open the door, causing the wind chimes to sing, and the smile that hitched his lips higher into those cheeks of his had me smiling back. It was strange to see this man show up with that same smile every day when he did nothing but leave, break, and ruin me. Part of me still waited, still poised in preparation for the moment he disappeared again.
“Clover.” He nodded. Retrieving something from the pocket of his denim jacket, he then slid it over the worn countertop.
Placing my tea down, I grinned when I saw the tickets to Breakfast at Tiffany’s. The cinema in town played old films one night a week in the springtime. We’d already been to see Casablanca and Gone with the Wind.
“Not a date,” I’d told him the first time.
“It’s whatever you need it to be, Clover.”
Those words came back to me as I surveyed the tickets, my teeth denting my lip. “I’m not sure you’ll like this one.”
“That’s what you said last time. We won’t know until I see for myself, right?”
“Right.” I smiled.
His eyes, clear and bright, smiled at mine.
“How’s old Barney doing?” Sabrina asked, making her presence known.
Everett blinked, then nodded. “His leg’s still acting up, but he’s having no trouble barking orders from his chair in the corner of t
he store.”
Sabrina snorted. “I’ll bet. You tell him that one of those planter boxes we bought last month has already cracked. He needs to go back to the old supplier.”
“Or we’ll go through them ourselves.” Gloria quirked a brow, then waggled her fingers before vanishing into the back room.
Everett tapped his fingers on the counter. “I’ll pass it on tomorrow morning.” He worked at the hardware store in town five days a week.
Sabrina rounded the counter, staring up into his face for a heartbeat and then patting his cheek. “You’re looking good, boy.”
Everett’s eyes narrowed, but he maneuvered that roguish smile into place and thanked her.
Then he turned to me, leaning over the counter on his elbows, and my eyes traced the facial hair that peppered his jaw. Those emerald eyes penetrated, long strands of hair licking his cheek when he tilted his head.
I let him stare, busy staring myself, then laid my hand over his. “I’m okay.” I smiled when he didn’t let up, laughing low. “I’ll see you at seven.”
“Oh, yeah.” Digging into his pocket, he retrieved a cheap looking smartphone and set it on the counter. “Got a phone.”
Shock held me still, but only for a few seconds before I picked it up to put my number in.
“It’s already there. Learned it by heart years ago.”
I dragged a finger over the glass screen. “Well, I suppose when you leave again, I’ll at least be able to call you.”
His brows lowered and his forehead creased. He pocketed the phone and slowly backed toward the door. “Not going anywhere, Clover. You’ll see.”
“You hated it.” I laughed as everyone in the theater stood and made their way to the exit.
Everett stretched his arms over his head, then let out a loud yawn. “I didn’t hate it.”
“You were bored.”
He bobbed his head side to side, then pinched the air. “Maybe a little.”
I grabbed his hand, pulling him up. He didn’t budge, and instead, he pulled me toward him until I lost my balance and fell into his lap.
