by A. M. Wilson
Janessa,
The first thing I want to say is thank you.
Thank you for showing me how to be a person deserving of love. Being with you shaped me into the man I am today, and I’m eternally grateful. Our lives were intertwined for only a short time, but you taught me so much about how to nourish a relationship to fully grow. It takes work. I know that now.
I also want to say I’m sorry for not finishing my last letter. At the time, the words wouldn’t come. The past and present held me captive until I felt ready to let go.
I’m ready now.
I have a new teacher, but you already know that. You knew long before I did that we’d be perfect for one another.
Your letter to Kiersten is framed on our mantle along with a photograph of you, snuggled between pictures of our son, Cedric. She put them up the day after I married her at the county courthouse with our closest friends and family as witnesses.
A month later, we put both our houses on the market and moved somewhere new together. A fresh start.
I hope wherever you are, you’re smiling. I hope the joy I feel in my heart reaches you too.
I’m a husband again and a soon-to-be father of two. And I’ve never been happier.
This chapter is closing. But you will always hold a small piece of my heart. My first love. My first wife. Having a new love doesn’t mean in replace of the old, it means in addition to. I know that now as well.
With love,
Nathan
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What Tears Us Down: A Single Dad Standalone Romance
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A feisty, curvaceous heroine on the run and a single dad meet in the most unlikely place.
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What Tears Us Down
What to Read Next
Curious how Law and Cami got together? Read their emotional journey in Where We Meet Again!
Rain pelts my yellow umbrella as I dash down the cracked sidewalk toward the only coffee shop in town. Of all the days for my car to break down, it has to be the day we experience torrential rain and I’m scheduled for an important meeting. Factor in the tiny town of Arrow Creek uses one taxi, zero Uber drivers, and one bus that departs at the ass crack of dawn, limits my options to calling in sick or walking.
“I’m grabbing a coffee on my way in.” Wind whips by and steals my best friend’s response.
Gray skies overhead reflect my mood as a storm of nerves churn inside me. The ambulance company in our county has employed me for nearly a decade, and this is the first meeting I’ve initiated with my boss to discuss implementing new technology.
Our current system is archaic, and patient care is important to me. Maintaining mislabeled or misplaced paperwork hinders the hard work we do. A new streamlined electronic system will keep things in order so we can better focus on our patients. The problem, however, is the board and my boss are a group of older gentlemen who firmly believe in the motto, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” To them, the system works just fine.
“You’ve still got another fifteen-minute walk. You don’t have time for coffee,” Kiersten groans through the phone glued to my ear.
“It’s because I have another fifteen-minute walk that I need coffee. I won’t have time to down a cup before the meeting. I can’t go into a room with those misogynistic assholes without coffee.”
“This is true.”
I hum a response and enter the warm café. The aroma of fresh coffee beans and sweet donuts perk me up. I drift into line behind a tall, dark-haired man and listen to Kiersten pry into my private life.
“So, are you going to tell me about your date last night?”
A sigh pops free. I hope I learn to stop revealing my failed dating life sooner than later, because this conversation gets old fast.
“Not much to tell.” I sandwich the phone between my ear and shoulder to dig my wallet from my purse. “We had a nice dinner at his place, and then I left.”
She’s silent for a beat. “Say again?”
“You heard me,” I mutter, not wanting to repeat myself. The line moves forward a step. I go with it and pray it hurries up.
“Please explain to me how you went to this guy’s house, had dinner there, and left. Let me rephrase that,” she shouts, stopping my retort. “You had dinner, in the place where his bed is, and you left. Without sex. What is the matter with you?”
I lower my voice to a whisper. “He was playing ‘Phil Collins’ In the Air Tonight’.”
“What?” Kiersten sputters.
An ache throbs in the center of my forehead. I squeeze the bridge of my nose with my free hand and advance in line. “That’s why I didn’t stay. You don’t walk into a room to get laid and have Phil Collins at the top of your sex playlist. Huge red flag.”
The broad back of the man in front of me straightens at my words, and I mentally slap myself for being so coarse in the middle of a public place.
“Maybe he’s just an 80s fan? That song used to be popular.”
“Not for sex,” I whisper and dart my eyes around the room to see if anyone else listens to this inappropriate recollection. Except for the man in front of me, I appear ignored.
“Maybe that’s the song they conceived you to.”
At the mention of my parents, my stomach sours. “This conversation is over.”
“Oh, come on. So, his taste in sex music sucks. Would Nickelback put you in the mood?ˮ
“No. Just no.”
“I didn’t realize you were so high maintenance, Cam.”
“I’m not.” Move people. I count the three people ahead of me. Pulling the phone from my ear, I check the time. 9:30.
“I still think this is just another excuse for you.”
Kiersten’s voice comes at me loud enough to hear above the whirr of blenders and grind of coffee beans, so I return the phone to my ear. “Leave it alone. I’m not seeing him again.”
“In fourteen years, you’ve gone out on approximately twelve dates, none of them ending in sex. Unless you’re hiring prostitutes from some internet website, that means you haven’t gotten some in fourteen years. Are you sure your vagina still works?”
My spine straightens in affront. “I’m getting coffee right now. In the middle of a coffee shop. In public,” I hiss.
“Maybe you should get yourself checked to be sure. By a hot doctor, perhaps?”
“Do you want me to grab you a drink or not?” The line creeps forward, making me customer number three.
“Mocha macchiato with a double shot.”
The conversation pivots to a normal topic.
“Oh! A Gerard Butler look-a-like OB-GYN. Can you imagine the size of his–ˮ?
“Kiersten!”
“What?” She feigns innocence, but I’m not stupid. “I was going to say hands, you perv.”
My eyes roll at the back of the stranger before me. “See you in fifteen.”
“That would make a good movie though. Gerard Butler, the hot, mercurial OB. By day, he feels up vaginas and by night he fuc–ˮ.
“Goodbye, Kiersten!” I censor her ridiculous fantasy. My cheeks flame hot, even though the rest of me is cold from my walk.
“Oh hey, what time is the party? And what should I get her? I suck at buying gifts.”
A topic I’ll happily discuss in the middle of a public place.
“This Saturday at noon. My place, as usual. What does any fourteen-year-old like? Makeup, books, music, clothes. Nothing dating related.” Dating advice from Kiersten is a disaster waiting to happen. My best friend is beautiful, kind, but uncensored. I don’t want to imagine the knowledge she’d impart on a fourteen-year-old. “I can’t believe how old she’s getting. I’m not ready for this age.”
“You’re a great mom. You can handle anything. Okay, see you soon, chick.” With that, she hangs up.
As I lower the phone from my ear, ready to indulge in a serious amount of coffee, an ominous vibe slithers around me. My skin prickles. I place my phone into my purse and glance up. Hairs raise on the back of my neck as a shiver races down my spine. The tall man in front of me turns to face the back of the line, angry eyes aimed at me.
All of a millisecond passes in breathless silence before I get my first look into the fourteen-years-older face of my childhood love, Lawrence Briggs.
Or as I’d always called him—Law.
Oh, God.
He’s as beautiful as I remember. Same dark, unruly hair and grayish-green eyes. Now that dark hair contains a few threads of gray near the temples and feathered creases outline his eyes.
He’s tall. So much taller than the last time I saw him. And built. Law was always strong, but more lean than buff. Now big, rounded biceps stretch the sleeves of his Henley.
My mental calculation of all his changes sever when he opens his mouth.
“Explains a lot,” he growls, not concealing the tone or volume of his voice.
Panic steals over me. I bob a glance around the room for assistance. Everyone conveniently rushes around or ignores my blatant plea for an intervention.
“I-I’m sorry?” Shivers strengthen into a full-on tremble.
“Fourteen years ago, you disappeared into the night without a trace. Nobody had a clue where you’d went. Hearing you now, it sounds like you got yourself a teenaged daughter. Explains a lot.”
My jaw drops. The inclination to deny, deny, deny, thrums through me, but playing dumb will get me nowhere. There’s not a chance in hell I wouldn’t recognize the man standing before me, just like he noticed me as soon as I stepped into line behind him. Hell, it wouldn’t surprise me if he clocked me the second I opened the door to this place.
My gaze falls to study my wet shoes. “You don’t know anything.”
“I never was a stupid kid,” he grinds out.
My heart stutters to a halt and my eyes snap to his. He knows. He’s figured out the truth after all this time.
Not needing my reply, he continues. “I’m sure as hell not a stupid man. I can do simple math. You wouldn’t have run away for the hell of it. Even if your entire life went to shit, you still had me.”
“I’ve got to go. I’m sorry.” Screw the coffee. If I stand here another second, I’m going to break down.
Even as my feet carry me to the door, my heart aches to pull me back toward him.
“Just tell me who!” His voice is the crack of a whip. The hurt in his tone is malevolent as it slithers into me, tucking itself into the ancient cracks in my soul.
My spine straightens almost painfully, the realization that he doesn’t know hits me like a semi-truck. “Who, what?” I whisper, too cowardly to face him again.
“Who knocked you up?” He growls this from beside me, right adjacent my ear. The closest I’ve been to Law in fourteen years. It hurts like a physical ache to have his body so near, but emotionally, he’s never been further away.
My head tips forward, too heavy to support with the weight of guilt engulfing me like the unforgiving sea “It doesn’t matter.”
“Matters to me. Matters whose dick was so important you’d throw everything we shared away. Dammit, you dropped out of school and left town without so much as a note in my mailbox where you went. Do you know what that did to me?”
Agony.
He tries to conceal it, but it burns through his words and his tone like a hot iron, branding us both. It scores itself onto my heart next to all the other marks from leaving him in the first place.
“Law, I-ˮ.
He leans in. “Lawrence,” he spits.
“L-Lawrence.” The tremble in my voice vibrates the surrounding air. His name feels foreign on my tongue, having not spoken it aloud in a decade and a half. “I’m sorry for what I did. But I have to go.”
As I push through the door, I long for him to chase after me. He just stands there, the love of my past, glaring at me as if he wishes I was dead.
I feel withered and decayed inside.
So much so, even the rain slapping against my scalp when I forget to open my umbrella does nothing to pull me out of my trance. I’m halfway down the next block before I realize I’m soaked from the rain and finally open the stupid thing.
Keep Reading
Also by A. M. Wilson
Where We Meet Again
Previously published as At the Risk of Forgetting
An unexpected pregnancy by a man wielding sweet words and empty promises forced Cami to flee from home.
At sixteen, she gathered her torn and tattered heart, determined to construct the best life for her daughter.
Years after settling down in Arrow Creek, West Virginia, her life flourishes in all areas but one—love. She’s convinced the sacrifice is necessary to keep her daughter happy and a roof over their heads.
Until she stumbles into her childhood best friend Lawrence ‘Law’ Briggs at the local coffee shop, and a painful confrontation ensues.
Their long-buried feelings for one another quickly resurface and challenge a carefully constructed reality. Her strength wavers as Law’s reappearance exposes half-truths, and memories flood through the barrier.
Her daughter is a gift she’d never regret, even if it meant she lost him forever. Dark secrets hold them apart. The deepest betrayal imaginable.
Years of hurt and suffering can’t disguise that Law’s love remains, and Cami’s is equal in measure. But is love enough to find a way forward through their murky past?
Pitch Dark
One girl disappeared. After fifteen years, her cold lifeless body was found on the damp forest floor. Not an inch of her was unmarked by the horrors she endured. Alone, malnourished, abused in horrific ways; this was how she died.
One girl was found walking the streets, covered in dirt and scars. She had no memory of who she was, where she came from, or what happened to her. Even though the marks on her body attested to years of heinous abuse, her strength shone through at every turn.
Revenge and justice were sworn.
Years of searching brought up nothing but dead ends. Detective Niko James was too late to save his childhood friend, but he vows not to let down another.
The clock is ticking and the trail is pitch dark.
*This book contains dark triggers.*
Indisputable
Eighteen year old Tatum Krause wants nothing more than to finish her senior year without any more drama. After the near overdose of her drug abusing mother the previous year, she moved out in the hopes of making something better for herself. However, the week before her final year, she ends up needing the help of a sexy stranger who’s about to flip her world on its axis.
Jacoby Ryan only wants one thing: to forget his past. The last two years have been filled with empty feelings and women in an attempt to stem the heartache and guilt. He’s ghosted blindly through the motions until late one night he finds a car stalled on the side of an empty highway, where he meets a beautiful girl with a haunted look in her eyes.
She has a secret, but so does he. Despite their magnetic pull, the two come to the shocking revelation their relationship isn’t so black and white. Is it possible to fight a bone-deep attraction when the entire universe is telling you it’s wrong?
Unleashing Sin
My name is Alex ‘Sin’ Sinclair, and they don’t call me Sin for nothin’.
After losing the person who meant everything to me, I lived up to the connotation. Saintly behavior wasn’t in my repertoire when I f*cked countless women. I made my home at the bottom of a bottle, and my only acquaintance was heroin.
I existed in my own personal hell while I vowed to end the lives responsible for ending her.
Then I found you.
Feeble, alone, needy. Everything I don’t want. A distraction from the task I set my sights on years prior. I tried to resist you, but something about you calls to me. I’m not good for you, but
the truth is, I think you’re exactly what I need.
I pushed. You pulled. I tried to protect you from my darkness. You fought to pull me into a different light.
We became distracted.
Redesigning Fate (Revive Series Book 1)
When my boyfriend threw me down a flight of stairs, I knew there was only one place left to go—far, far away. I packed up my car and left everything I’d known for the nearly twenty-two years I’ve been alive. One hundred and fifty miles of highway separated me from the life I grew up with and the one I needed to find.
The same day I was offered a job in my new city, I met Elias. He was an enigma. A mystery. One that I wanted to uncover. One I didn’t know if I could trust.
He pulled me in with adventure and the melodies of his guitar, but his secrets held me at a distance. He couldn’t tell me about what he did for a living, or why he took phone calls in a different room.
Then my ex returned. Travis wove a sordid tale of danger; that he was only there to keep me safe from Elias.
I never expected truth to be nestled in his lies.