Forever Starts Now

by London, Stefanie

  Monroe’s heart sank. This was precisely the opposite of the sentiment she was hoping to achieve tonight—because forever was exactly what she wanted. After three years of living only in the present, because she hated the past and feared the future had made for a very stagnant, lackluster existence.

  “But it’s my responsibility to—”

  “Is it your business?” Ethan turned to her.

  “Well, no.”

  “Then it’s not your responsibility. It’s not your job to save something that isn’t yours in the first place…unless you’re thinking of buying your boss out?”

  Monroe frowned. She hadn’t thought of that, actually. Mr. Sullivan would likely sell to her and probably even put some kind of payment plan in place. Hell, if she asked her sisters to chip in the three of them could buy it and Monroe could keep on running it like she was now.

  It was actually a possibility. A very attainable possibility.

  But if she thought about owning the diner and making that her future…a resounding no echoed through her body. It wasn’t what she wanted. It wasn’t the future she saw for herself—waiting tables and trying to manage the endlessly changing staff and having other people in the kitchen.

  “I can see by the look on your face that it’s not what you want, Monroe.” Ethan reached for her hand. “So if you wouldn’t buy him out—assuming you had the means to—then why are you so worried about making sure your boss doesn’t sell?”

  Because she hated change. Change had caused her nothing but pain in the past—the change of her marital status, the change in her family. And yet, the security of keeping everything the same had done nothing but form a protective bubble of nothingness around her, holding her in place like her feet were stuck in concrete blocks.

  “I worry about people’s jobs,” she admitted. “But…I guess I wasn’t ready for things to change.”

  “Hmm.” Ethan nodded. “How old is your boss?”

  “He’ll be eighty-one very soon.”

  “Maybe he’s done running a business,” Ethan said gently. “Maybe he’s hung onto it longer than he wanted because he’s also worried about people’s jobs.”

  Guilt struck her in the chest. This wasn’t the first time Mr. Sullivan had talked about selling, and every time Monroe convinced him to keep the business. It was out of selfishness, in part. Out of fear. But Ethan was right. The man deserved to spend the rest of his time on this earth just relaxing and enjoying himself. And if she didn’t want to buy him out then what right was it of hers to push him to keep things the same?

  “You’re right.” She nodded. Monroe made a note to drop by Mr. Sullivan’s house tomorrow and sit him down for a chat—she would support him in whatever he wanted to do and stop putting her own demons first. “And I could help Big Frank and Darlene find new jobs. They’re both great workers and good people.”

  “And what about you?” he asked.

  “Me? I’m just wondering how you managed to turn this whole conversation around to me without me even noticing until right now.” She raised an eyebrow. “That’s quite a talent.”

  “You’re more interesting than I am,” he teased with a smile.

  “That’s smooth, but complete bullshit.” She turned on the couch, propping her elbow up on the back of it so she could take in every part of Ethan. From the coiled energy in his stance to the crease between his eyes, to the way he fidgeted with a tiny hole in her couch. “Can we stop dancing around things, Ethan? We’re both grown-ass adults who’ve been in relationships before and yet I feel like we’re being cagier than a bunch of teenagers at a spin-the-bottle party.”

  For a moment he let out a genuine laugh and all the tension momentarily disappeared from his face. “You know what, that sounds really good to me.”

  Silence settled over the apartment and Monroe briefly thought about her poor pasta getting gloopier by the minute. But that wasn’t important. This was important. Talking honestly about her feelings for this man who’d stumbled into her life and not knowing if those feelings were reciprocated.

  Not knowing if forever was on the table.

  Forever is on the table. Forever for you, because your life has to go on.

  That’s when Monroe knew that forever wasn’t only about love with another person, it was about self-love and she hadn’t loved herself in a very long time. But looking back over the time she’d spent with Ethan, he’d helped her find that again. She’d started baking again, regained her love of dressing up, stopped fearing the future quite so much and found herself dreaming again. Planning. Wishing.

  That was his influence.

  “I like you a lot, Ethan. You…” She ran her tongue along her bottom lip as she gathered herself. “Before you came into my diner I was in a really miserable place. I was floating through life without any ambition or hope or purpose other than to get through the day. You helped me turn that around.”

  “You turned it around, Monroe.” He reached out and tucked her hair behind her ears, the back of his finger grazing her skin in the most tender way. “You have that power inside you. I didn’t do anything.”

  “Yes, you did. I was so closed off to the world and to people that I never let anybody get close to me anymore. I stopped making new friends, I hadn’t been intimate with anyone…hell, I hadn’t even been intimate with myself. Because there was no spark in me, no joy.” It hurt even thinking about how she had been just a month ago. “I honestly believed that I was going to live the same day over and over and over until I died. I never thought I would find love or passion again.”

  “And you did.”

  “Because of you.” She placed her hand over his, pressing his palm to her cheek. “You helped me see that I was cutting myself off from so many things. Your search for your father, that focus and drive you had, it inspired me.”

  “No one should be inspired by this.” His expression went cold. “I have a horrible feeling it’s going to be a fruitless exercise in the end and that I came here searching for something, only to go home empty-handed.”

  Go home…

  “What if…” She steeled herself. “What if you didn’t go home? What if you made a new home here with me?”

  For a moment Ethan was deathly still. He looked like a stone monument, hard and impenetrable and reverent. But Monroe could hear the whirr in his brain, and the cooling of the air around him. He was withdrawing.

  “That’s not what we agreed to.” He shook his head. “This was supposed to be an arrangement to help us both out and I think we achieved that.”

  “It’s not an arrangement to me anymore.” Monroe was proud of how her voice didn’t shake, of how she didn’t stumble over her words—because she was speaking her truth. “It may have started out that way, but I have real feelings for you, Ethan. I…”

  Say it. You are not that woman who’s afraid anymore.

  “I love you.”

  “How can you love me?” He pushed up off the couch and raked a hand through his hair, the movement agitated and jerky. “I don’t even know who I am, so how the hell can you know me enough to love me?”

  “What?” Monroe pushed up, her dress falling around her legs. “Do you want to replay that question back so you can hear how ridiculous that sounds? I know plenty about you. I know that you’ve got a brilliant sense of humor, that you’re good with people and that you’re not a stranger to hard work. I know you’ve got baggage just like I do, but that you’re strong enough to work through it.”

  “You don’t know that because I don’t know that.”

  Tears pricked the backs of Monroe’s eyes—she hated hearing him speak like this, like he didn’t see what he had to offer the world. Like he didn’t understand that he was valuable in spite of his perceived shortcomings.

  This must be how he felt talking to you.

  “Yes, you do.” Monroe went to him, grabbing both
his hands and looking right up into his eyes. “I know you’re worried about what you might find out and that the end to this exercise might not be exactly what you wanted. But family is…family is what you make it. Blood relatives don’t always treat you the way they should and friends are sometimes the missing piece of that puzzle. I consider Big Frank and Darlene and Mr. Sullivan part of my family, and I’ve lost people that share my blood. That’s sad, but just because we don’t have the family we think we should have, doesn’t mean we don’t have a family at all.”

  “And you think you don’t have power in you,” he replied softly. “You could have changed all on your own.”

  “Maybe I could have, but I wouldn’t have.” She shook her head. “Sometimes it takes the right person to shine a light on us so we can see who we’ve become.”

  He searched her eyes. “And what if I find out my father was a horrible person?”

  “Ethan…whatever happens with your dad, it doesn’t change who you are inside.”

  “All this time I thought I wanted to know no matter what, but now that I think I’m on the verge of actually finding out I’m…I’m fucking terrified.”

  Monroe pulled Ethan to her, wrapping her arms around his waist and burying her face against his chest. She forced herself to hold back her tears, because no matter what he decided, Monroe was going to be there for him. She wasn’t going to walk away like his ex did, simply because his actions didn’t align with her desires. She wasn’t going to hurt him like Brendan did to her when she wouldn’t comply with his wishes.

  She was going to be the kind of person they both deserved.

  They stood like that for a moment, her arms holding him tight and his hand absently stroking her hair. When she looked up, he was staring into space. She was losing him, and it hurt like hell.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Ethan had always been a guy in control of his emotions and he’d always been a guy with a plan. Two things he believed had held him in good stead. But in this very moment, he was neither of those things.

  Holding Monroe was like clutching a buoy in the middle of the ocean during a storm—he had something to hold onto, but it was slipping through his fingers and there was no point pretending that the inevitable moment where he lost his grip altogether and was flung into the waves wasn’t hurtling toward him.

  “It’s only information,” Monroe said softly. “Whether you know who he was or if you never find out…it makes no difference to the person you are.”

  “But I’m untethered,” he said, his voice cracked with pain. “I have an adoptive father who always treated me like I was odd, a half brother I don’t get along with, two dead biological parents and…nothing else.”

  “That’s not true. Nobody is defined by their relationship to others. Trust me, I made that mistake for way too long.” She squeezed him as if it might strengthen her statement. “And maybe this is a chance for you to build what you’ve always wanted. Start fresh, choose the people to be your family based on the kind of people you want in your life. You have that control.”

  “I left everything behind to come here. Everything. And for what? To be forced to start over because I put all my money on black, hoping it would pay off?”

  He stepped out of her grip, the dark swirling thoughts consuming him. Why had he walked away from his life for this? He’d walked away from every relationship he had to chase a dead man.

  But you found Monroe.

  Against all the odds and everything he wanted, he found the one woman who spoke to him on a level no one else ever had. Because if this was anyone else standing before him, he wouldn’t even be having this conversation now. He wouldn’t be letting someone see him in pain. He would have simply walked right back out that door and hidden himself away like he’d been doing for the past twelve months.

  And what does staying here achieve? She said she loves you and you’re just going to hurt her.

  Forever Falls was not his home. Yet Melbourne wasn’t his home, either. And going back to the small town where he grew up in Australia…well that reminded him of lies and bad memories.

  He didn’t belong anywhere.

  “I thought finding him would magically fix things.” How naive he’d been. How pathetic. “Like it would help me to stop being angry at my mother for holding such a secret my whole life.”

  “You’re jumping the gun, aren’t you?” she said gently. “Get confirmation first and then spiral.”

  In spite of the sensation sucking him down into despair, he laughed. “I appreciate you not telling me to quit spiraling, just to delay it.”

  She shrugged and looked up at him with her warm, brown eyes. “Bottling it up is worse. Ask me how I know.”

  He looked at Monroe long and hard. In these few weeks they’d spent together, she’d blossomed. The woman he saw standing before him tonight was lightyears ahead of the woman who came by his table at the diner on that first day.

  She was a vision tonight. Her hair gleamed and her eyes sparkled and he recognized the dress she wore from an episode of Sugar Coated. He knew instinctively that her wearing something from that time in her life was a big deal, almost like she was finally acknowledging the part of her that had chased goals and dreamed big.

  And he loved every version of Monroe—dressed up and made up, sweats and T-shirt and no makeup, just woken up with messy hair, half-asleep and reaching for him in the dark. When she was excited, nervous, teasing, relaxed.

  He loved it all, because behind every look was the same thing: a heart of gold.

  He’d never met a person with raw goodness inside of them like her. Playing the corporate game back home, he’d met a lot of climbers. A lot of people who’d be ready to smile to your face so they could step over you the second you took your eyes off them. He’d been surrounded by people with an agenda of some kind his whole life.

  But Monroe had no agenda. Despite her not telling him about the failed divorce—which he genuinely had forgiven her for—she let him in wholly and completely.

  Her telling him that she loved him…

  That must have taken guts. More so for her to be standing here right now when he hadn’t said it back.

  You can’t love her. You don’t have room for that right now.

  “Monroe…” He lowered his head. “I appreciate everything you’re doing. The nice table, the dinner, the kind words, the…”

  He shook his head as he looked at her.

  “All of this.” He waved his hand in her direction.

  “All of what?”

  “Looking so good it’s hard for me to keep my wits straight.” He scrubbed a hand over his face. “You deserve someone who’s in it for the long haul. Someone worthy of all this.”

  “You don’t get to determine who’s worthy of me,” she replied steadily. “That’s my decision and my decision only.”

  “Then find that person, find them and cherish them.”

  “I already did.”

  The way she looked up at him, eyes brimming with hope and sincerity and not even the tiniest prickle…it was too much. He was going to bring her down at a time when she’d finally gotten her feet back on the ground. When she’d finally seen what she could do with her life.

  He would not allow his issues to affect her.

  “Not me, Monroe.” He shook his head, backing away from her. The hurt splashed across her face was like ice in his veins, but he knew that a little pain now was saving a whole lotta pain later.

  “Yes, you.” She came toward him, fierce and beautiful. “I don’t care if you’re not sure what’s happening next. I don’t care if you don’t have a conventional family. I don’t care that you’re still figuring things out. All of those things are fine by me.”

  “I’m not staying here.”

  The words shot out of him, more defense than anything else, but she looked like he’d slappe
d her. Her eyes sparkled but she blinked, not letting her posture drop or her determined look soften.

  “At least tell me if you feel something for me,” she said. “If you have to walk away, fine. But it won’t be without me laying all my cards on the table and I hope you’ll do the same. This isn’t fake, Ethan. Even if it ends now, it meant something.”

  It might be easier to lie, to walk away and keep that secret tucked close to his heart in the hopes that she’d get on with her life and forget all about him. But lies had brought him to this point. Lies had brought her here, too.

  And the only chance that he had to rebuild things was to stop that cycle.

  “You’re unlike anybody I have ever met before,” he said. “I wish I were here in another time, because whoever ends up with your heart should consider themselves the luckiest man alive.”

  Her bottom lip quivered for just a second, but she didn’t budge. Didn’t flinch. She held herself like the queen she was.

  “I hope you find what you’re looking for,” she said softly. “You do deserve to be happy.”

  He reached for his coat, emotion tearing him up inside. Every cell in his body screamed at him to stay, to be with her, to forget all about his past and start over right this bloody second.

  But there were loose ends that had to be tied up. Truth that had to be uncovered. And then Ethan needed to start figuring out how to put his life back together.

  Alone.

  …

  He walked into the inn ten minutes later, feeling like there was a black cloud inside him. For a moment, he thought about packing his bags right then and there and making the drive to the nearest airport to catch whatever flight had a spare seat just to get out of the country.

  Maybe pulling the ripcord on this whole crazy plan was the smartest thing he could do.

  There was nothing to be gained. Nothing to be achieved.

  “Lottie.” The name popped out of his lips the second he saw her sitting in her office, the door wide open like she’d been waiting for him.