Rend

by Roan Parrish

  “Hi, Mona.” I got shakily to my feet. Mona was a couple of inches shorter than me, but she hugged like someone twice her size.

  “Hi,” I said again, stupidly.

  “You’re so handsome in person,” she said, patting my cheek.

  I ducked my chin. “Uh, thanks. You too. Or. You’re. Hi.”

  “Have a heart, Rhys,” Rhys’s dad, Neil, said, and Rhys extracted me from the awkwardness by introducing him.

  “Hi,” I said, like a horrible echo, and shook Neil’s hand. I was very glad he didn’t seem to want to hug me.

  Rhys’s sister Morgan’s family had gone right to the hotel since it would be the kids’ bedtime soon, but just Rhys’s parents seemed to take up the whole backyard. I wasn’t sure how we were going to fit twenty-five more people here tomorrow.

  But Rhys got his parents settled with more beer, and Grin could talk to anyone, so I let them buzz around me and edged my chair closer to Rhys’s.

  Caleb and Theo arrived with takeout a little while later, and Mona gave Caleb hell for never calling her and embarrassed Theo by saying she loved his music. We ate and talked and it was…fine. It was perfectly fine. I told Mona and Neil about work, and they smiled like their son had married a real person, and it was all fine.

  When I brought the plates from dinner inside and put them in the sink, Mona startled me.

  “I heard the mac and cheese didn’t go so well,” she said. Her voice was warm and she smiled as she said it.

  “Uh, yeah, it was a disaster. Sorry.”

  She ignored my apology and simply said, “If you ever need anything, Matt, you can call me. Recipes or cooking lessons. Or someone to talk to. Anything. You don’t have to, but if you ever want to, I’m here.”

  It was such a simple offer, so sincerely given. And it reminded me so much of her son. I felt a rush of gratitude for her that almost knocked the wind out of me. Gratitude for raising such a caring, wonderful man. Gratitude for teaching him to love so hugely and so generously. Gratitude for welcoming me into his life even though I probably wasn’t what she’d dreamt of for him.

  “Thank you,” I mumbled, choked up. She squeezed my shoulder and nodded. I think she knew that I was saying thank you for a whole lot more than cooking lessons.

  “Fuuuuuck,” I said, when Rhys’s parents left for the hotel, leaving Rhys, Grin, Caleb, Theo, and me outside.

  Everyone started laughing.

  “Oh man,” said Grin, “I thought you were gonna actually piss yourself when Rhys’s momma hugged you. Lord.” He wiped away tears of laughter and leaned back when I tried to hit him.

  “Remember that time my mom called you a skank?” Rhys asked Caleb.

  “What?” I asked.

  “My mom had just learned to text, and we were out on tour, and I had texted her a picture of me and Caleb, and he was wearing this black T-shirt with white stripes down the front. So she texted him and was trying to call him a skunk but she typed skank and sent it before she noticed.”

  Caleb laughed. “God, I got this text that just said You’re a skank! and I went to Rhys all outraged, like ‘What the hell truth did you tell your mother about me?’ ”

  Rhys winked at me. “Yeah, so then I stole Caleb’s phone and texted back Words hurt, Mona! And then she saw what she wrote and…” Rhys dissolved into giggles.

  “She called me and apologized,” Caleb finished. “We were about to go play a show, and here’s Rhys’s mom like, ‘Caleb, sweetie, I am so sorry I called you a skank. I do not think you are a skank. I’m actually not completely clear on what makes someone a skank…?’ ”

  We all laughed. Caleb and Theo left soon after that, and Rhys walked them out.

  “Can’t believe that’s Theo Decker,” Grin said. “Man. What is your life.”

  “I know. The first time I met him it was like he must be a stunt double or something.”

  We sat in silence for a minute. Something had been nagging at me for months, and I’d almost texted Grin about it but chickened out every time.

  “Hey, man, um. When you— I mean— Uh.”

  “Speak, Matty.”

  “Did you leave to go to Florida because I kissed you?” I blurted.

  Grin froze and then glared at me.

  “What? No way, Grim! Of course not. Are you serious?”

  I nodded.

  “Hate to break it to you, bro. You’re cute and all but a kiss from you ain’t enough to make a man move a thousand miles, you feel me?”

  Rhys’s hands dropped onto my shoulders.

  “I beg to disagree,” he said and kissed me. Grin chuckled.

  Rhys sat down and I grilled Grin.

  “You sure?”

  “I had to get out of the city, man, you know that. My uncle’s friend had that job. Win-win. I didn’t…I didn’t know you even remembered that. Have you worried about it all these years?”

  “Course I remember. I thought I ruined our friendship for a minute. I jumped on you all—”

  “Nah, Matty, stop. You kissed me. I was surprised, but it wasn’t a thing. I for real didn’t know you took it so hard or I’da said something. It was just awkward, that’s it. All good. I promise.”

  Relief washed over me, and I felt like I let out a breath I’d been holding for years.

  * * *

  —

  I couldn’t sleep. Rhys was snoozing peacefully beside me, his strong shoulders and the cut of his jaw glowing in the moonlight. I pressed a kiss to his shoulder and slid out of bed, pulled on Rhys’s T-shirt and settled in the window seat, hugging my knees. The moon was just waning and it was a clear night. I could see our front step, and beyond that the road; beyond the road were the paths we took to the cemetery.

  I knew this place now, as well as I had known any of the neighborhoods where I’d lived in the city.

  This was home now in a way none of them had been.

  “Hey, you aren’t planning to split and leave me at the altar, are ya?” Rhys said sleepily.

  I shook my head. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to wake you.”

  “What’s up, babe?”

  “Just me. Can’t sleep.” I shrugged.

  Rhys reached out a hand to me, and I took it and slid back into bed. He stripped his T-shirt off me like it offended him not to feel my skin against his, and I sighed as he wrapped me in his arms.

  “You just nervous?”

  It was hard to shrug while wrapped in someone’s arms, but I managed it.

  “Tell me, love. Whatever it is. You know you’ll feel better.”

  He’d proven that to me over and over during the last few months.

  “What if I wanted to take your last name,” I said in a rush, and watched Rhys’s eyes widen.

  He sat up and I followed.

  “Matt, I…wow. Since we didn’t talk about names the first time around I guess I didn’t really think it was on the table.”

  “So you haven’t thought about it?”

  “Uh. I didn’t say that. I won’t lie, the idea of you taking my name is…” He shook his head but I saw that glint in his eyes. The look that said mine, and said it with teeth.

  “I thought you might like it,” I said, suddenly shy.

  “Baby, I want everything with you. Sharing a last name so people know we’re a family? I’d love it. But what brought this on? You’ve never mentioned it before.”

  Truth, truth, truth, truth.

  I traced the hem of the sheet slowly, eyes fixed on shadow and fabric.

  I’d waited for my mother on that stoop in Washington Heights. I’d waited for her at every single foster home I’d ever been at, sending my new addresses to my aunt by mail for years, though she never responded. I’d waited for her at St. Jerome’s, in the vague, scornful way you wait for something while saying it will never happen, d
eflating the balloon of hope but still holding tightly to the string.

  In a way, I’d always been waiting for her. First I’d waited for her to come back. Then I’d waited for her to fade from my memory.

  Argento was the string tied to the balloon of her. And I was ready to cut it.

  I knew now that the pain of her would never fully leave me. But that didn’t mean I needed to sit still and wait for anything. I was tired of waiting. I wanted to live.

  “I don’t need it anymore,” I said. “She’s never coming to find me. And that’s okay now, cuz I found you instead.”

  My voice was just breath, but Rhys heard me, I knew he did.

  His voice was thick with emotion when he said, “We found each other.”

  We sat in silence for a minute, and I felt like I was floating above the bed, watching us hold hands in the darkness.

  Finally, Rhys said, “What if it’s not about her anymore? Listen. Matt Argento is the man I fell in love with. Matt Argento is the man who helps people make their lives better. Matt Argento is the man who adopted Max from the shelter and gave him a home. Matt Argento is the man who has raised money for a program that will allow people to achieve their artistic and musical dreams. Matt Argento is the man I married. Matt Argento is the man I want to spend the rest of my life with. None of that has to do with your mom, babe. That’s all you.”

  I shook my head. I never knew what to say when Rhys talked like that.

  “I love the person you are. Your past is part of that. Your name is part of that. So, what if—” He tipped my chin up so I had to look at him. “What if we join our names together. We each keep our pasts; we both share our future. What do you think?”

  I stared at him, my heart so full I hardly had space to work out what he’d just said.

  “But…but you can’t change your name—you’re, like, almost famous,” I said.

  Rhys burst into laughter. “I think people will figure it out,” he said finally.

  Then his eyes turned intense, and he pulled me down on the bed so we were facing each other.

  “Really, what do you think? Nyland-Argento? Argento-Nyland? Do you want to?”

  I pictured mail arriving addressed to us. Pictured train tickets and credit cards and phone bills and junk mail. Every one a visual reminder of our connection. The hyphen holding us tightly together, telling everyone we had chosen each other, chosen to be a family.

  I nodded and buried my face in Rhys’s neck before he could see me start crying. I was having a tearful fucking week, and it made me feel vulnerable and on edge.

  “Yeah?”

  I nodded into Rhys’s neck and wrapped my arms around him. Rhys held me tight. “I can’t wait to have the same name as you,” he said, low and rumbly. “We can do it on Monday, okay? First thing.” I nodded again. “Hmm, so which sounds better, Max Nyland-Argento or Max Argento-Nyland—”

  I socked him in the shoulder, and he laughed. It was hard to punch someone while clinging to them for dear life, but I kinda managed it. And, okay, I cried for a little while, and Rhys hummed the new song he was working on and twined his fingers in my hair.

  “Rhys,” I said after a while. I felt like a damp towel, so full up with emotion I’d been dripping for days. “I never thought it was possible to love someone as much as I love you. Like how your brain can’t imagine a color you’ve never seen. I just…I didn’t have the ability to even think of it. And every time I felt more for you, and more, and more, it…it was like I had to break apart the universe and remake it as one where I could love you more.”

  Rhys’s hands tightened in my hair and on my back.

  “I know I did a lot of damage. When I was breaking it apart. I know I hurt you. I was clumsy with it. But I wouldn’t ever want to go back there. To that other world where I didn’t know how to love you. I wouldn’t want to live there. I…I know you don’t like when I say this, but…you saved me. Not—” I said quickly, knowing he’d object. “Not like a superhero or anything. You made me want something. For myself. You made me want you and once I started wanting things I didn’t want to stop. You don’t…”

  I took a shaky breath and wiped my tears on the pillow.

  “You don’t know what it was like. When I wanted nothing. When I thought I would never have anything. It was like…going through every day as a zombie or a ghost. Now I feel…so fucking alive. I never thought I’d have a home or a family, and you…”

  Rhys held me as I cried. There was something about even the feel of his body that communicated how much he loved me. How he never judged me for crying, or for when I couldn’t cry. How he’d happily keep me wrapped in his arms forever. It made me free.

  It didn’t hurt that he was crying too, tears wetting my hair.

  “I grew up with a great family,” he said slowly. “I knew what it felt like for people to have my back, to be proud of me, love me. I was really, really lucky because I never wondered what I wanted. I knew I wanted to have that. A family of my own, with someone who loved me that much.”

  Rhys stroked my hair back and then stroked my cheek. I turned to look at him. We were both a mess.

  “What I didn’t know,” he went on. “What I couldn’t have ever imagined, was what it would feel like to love someone as much as I love you. I knew what I wanted, but I didn’t have a clue of what I could give. Some mornings I wake up and you’re still asleep and this…this love inside me for you feels like it’s screaming. I think, ‘You’re mine,’ and it feels like—” He shook his head. “I can’t even explain. It feels like you’re part of my own body. The idea of something hurting you makes me—I would rip apart anyone who tried to hurt you.”

  His eyes flashed but his fingers were so gentle on my face.

  “I never thought it could feel this way either, Matty. I knew what being loved felt like, but it feels like a whole new thing the way I love you.”

  Tears were streaking Rhys’s cheek, and I’d started crying again.

  “We’re a total wreck,” I said. He nodded and grabbed my hands, and we sat there crying. “Is this normal?”

  Rhys laughed. “I think it’s normal to be a little emotional the night before our wedding, yeah.”

  “But we’re already married!” I sobbed.

  I’d said it a thousand times. But we both knew that wasn’t the point. We both knew that this wedding meant something for the same reason Rhys had proposed again. We really hadn’t known what it meant to do it the first time. But now we did.

  The stakes were a hundred times higher when you knew what you had to gain. And what you stood to lose.

  Rhys chuckled and wiped away my tears. “We’re already married,” he agreed calmly, and tapped my ring with his own. “You know you’re gonna have to take that off for a little while tomorrow so I can put it back on you.”

  I grumbled, “I know. I don’t like it.”

  “Me neither. But we can take them off right before. Five minutes, then they’re back where they belong.”

  I nodded.

  “Hey,” I said. “Please don’t make me say all this soppy shit out loud in front of everyone tomorrow. I want…I don’t want to say a bunch of vows for them and cry. I’ll feel all weird, and then I’ll hate our wedding and I don’t wanna hate our wedding. I just…I want that to only be for us.”

  Rhys cupped my cheek and kissed me sweetly.

  “Baby, I have met you. I didn’t expect you to stand up in front of a bunch of people and spill your guts. We tell each other the truth; we make promises to each other. That’s all that matters.”

  “That’s all that matters,” I echoed, sagging against him in relief. His arms came around me as natural as breathing.

  “I love you, Matt Nyland-Argento. Or, Matt Argento-Nyland. How scandalous—I don’t even know my own husband’s name on the night before our wedding.”

&
nbsp; We smiled at each other. We couldn’t stop smiling.

  “I love you,” I said. And then I said it again, so easily, just because I could.

  Now, finally, I could.

  Tomorrow we would eat and drink with our guests. Tomorrow we would dance, and laugh, and smile, and say thank you for coming. Tomorrow we would exchange rings, and people would cheer.

  Now, we whispered our vows in the dark, for only us to hear. Now we held on to each other tightly as the dawn came.

  For everyone whose ghosts whisper in the night

  Acknowledgments

  Rend is a romance but it’s also a ghost story. In gothic novel style, Matt is haunted by a part of himself he has walled up and left for dead. But here, Matt saves himself (even if he believes it’s Rhys who saves him). Thanks to all of you who have listened to me talk about the gothic, lo these many years.

  A special thank-you to Anni and Jenny, for pushing me on the dynamics of this marriage, as well as for your invaluable feedback at all stages of the manuscript.

  To Shauna, Madeleine, Lexi, and the rest of the Loveswept team, for your enthusiasm and support—truly you’ve made this book the best version of itself.

  To Courtney, for your steadfast support.

  To my mom, for listening to me ramble endlessly about this book when it wasn’t working.

  To the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, where my sister and I lingered long after we were supposed to, finding the best places for Matt and Rhys to go.

  To everyone doing the crucial work of supporting youth by providing resources for transitioning out of foster care. If you’d like to support this work, you can donate to First Place for Youth, Foster Care to Success, among others. To find local resources, check your local organizations.

  To my amazing readers, who make it all possible.

  BY ROAN PARRISH

  The Middle of Somewhere Series

  In the Middle of Somewhere

  Out of Nowhere