The Last

by Tawna Fenske

  “No, you’re mistakenly believing it’s not you,” she says. “That guy we saw at dinner a few weeks ago was a great guy. Smart and funny and passionate and alive and exactly the kind of guy Wyeth Airways needs.”

  Exactly the kind of guy Sarah deserves.

  If Dana’s words hit me like a slap, my own thoughts are more of a full-fisted slug to the stomach. I stand there sucking in shaky breaths like a kid on the playground who just got gut-punched beside the monkey bars. I can’t find my voice, which is just as well since Dana has more to say.

  “Here’s the thing, Ian,” she says. “You can be both. You can be stiff and rational and detached, but unless you’ve got the other side to balance you out, you’ll never be an effective leader.”

  Or an effective fiancé. An effective husband.

  I know I should care about this job, but I don’t. Not right now. All I care about is Sarah, and the hurt in her eyes when I walked away. I put that hurt there. Me. I did that to her, and I’m the biggest piece of shit in the world.

  God, I love her.

  The thought hits me between the eyes like a hatchet blade, but more painful.

  I love her? How the fuck did that happen?

  Dana Peschka is staring at me like my brain is leaking out of my ears, and maybe it is. Maybe I’ve finally lost it. Honestly, I don’t care. I’ve lost Sarah, and that’s the only fucking thing that matters right now.

  I grip my briefcase tighter and take a breath. “I know I blew this job,” I tell her. “And I’m sorry about that. I should probably stick around right now and fight for it. Convince you I’m passionate and human and emotionally up to the task of running this company. But there’s someone else I’d rather persuade.”

  “Sarah.” She doesn’t flinch, doesn’t smile, doesn’t waver from the knowing expression she’s worn from the moment I met her. I wonder if she sees the gaping hole in my chest where my heart used to be.

  I nod numbly, but my brain is already headed down the elevator and out onto the street to find Sarah. To convince her that I’m not dead inside, that I love her more than I ever thought possible.

  I was just too chickenshit to admit it.

  But I’m not now. “I have to go.”

  “Understood.” The faintest little ghost smile graces her features, or maybe I imagined it. “Take care of yourself.”

  “Thank you.” I slam my hand against the elevator button, surprised when the doors ding open like it was waiting there the whole time. I step inside and turn to see Dana still watching me.

  “A decision’s rarely final,” she calls. “Good luck, Ian.”

  I don’t know whether she’s talking about the job or my relationship.

  But right now, only one of those things matters.

  “I love her,” I say out loud, testing the words to see how they feel coming out of my mouth.

  They feel pretty damn good, so I say them again with more conviction.

  “I love Sarah Keating more than anything else in the world.”

  As the elevator doors close, I could swear I see Dana Peschka smile.

  It takes me a few hours to track down the name of the interior design firm owned by Lisa Michaels, and three tries to get the phone number for the posh Pearl District shop where she works.

  It could be because my hands are shaking.

  Lisa is quiet on the other end of the line as I explain what I need. When I finally stop speaking, she is polite enough to refrain from asking if I’ve sustained a head injury.

  “I’ll see you here in four hours,” she says without asking a single question. “You’d better be sure about those measurements.”

  “Thank you.” My throat feels tight, and I’m humbled beyond reason that this woman I’ve only met a few times is helping me without hesitation. “You have no idea what this means to me.”

  “Yes, I do,” she says. “You’re not the first guy to freak out when he thinks his heart’s in danger of getting stomped on. It’s what you do afterward that counts.”

  She hangs up before I get a chance to ask what she means, so it isn’t until I walk through the doors of her tidy little shop that I get a look at her face. I expect her to be protective or dubious or even angry, but I don’t expect her to be…smug?

  “Here,” she says, thrusting a fancy shopping bag at me. “Take a look and see if that’s what you had in mind. I had to try four different fabric shops to find those, and the dimensions were a little unusual.”

  I stare into the bag and feel a rush of gratitude so powerful it nearly knocks my feet out from under me. “It’s perfect,” I tell her.

  “The rest of it is next to the door,” she says. “Let me know if you want a box.”

  I glance over at it, warmed by the realization of how much work she’s invested. The miracle she just helped me create. “Thank you. It’s exactly what I need.”

  “So is she.” Lisa watches me like she hasn’t decided yet whether I’m worth trusting. “You know that, don’t you? That she’s the best thing that’s ever happened to you?”

  I nod and clutch the bag so tightly my knuckles are white. “I know it now.” I swallow hard, surprised to discover the lump has started to dissolve. “I’m sorry it took me so long to figure it out.”

  “Is that the only thing you figured out?” She folds her arms over her chest, and I see she’s not going to let me out of here so easily.

  “I know that I love her,” I say. “But I need to be the one to tell her to her face. And I need to let her know I’ll spend the rest of my life proving that to her.”

  “Good.” Lisa nods firmly, looking stern but pleased. “I knew you’d come around. I had a good feeling about you, Ian.”

  I take a deep breath and set the bag on the floor at my feet. “Let’s hope Sarah does, too.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Sarah

  It’s well after ten p.m. by the time I make it back to my house that night. It’s been a long day of job training with several residents participating in the Workability Program that Simon created to provide career outlets for adults with developmental disabilities.

  It’s rewarding work, but exhausting.

  Or maybe that’s not it. I’ve been wiped out all week, and I suspect work has little to do with it.

  I trudge from the street up the path to my doorstep, imagining myself in a hot bath with a glass of wine. My mind adds Ian to the picture, positioning him behind me with my spine cradled against his chest and his hand cupped possessively over my breast.

  “Knock it off,” I snarl out loud to my brain, and the image goes away.

  If only it were that easy to switch off all my other achy thoughts. The ones where I remind myself what an idiot I am for falling in love with Ian Nolan. Or what an idiot he is for thinking we could ever forge a marriage out of legal forms and handshakes. Like that’s even possible.

  A bath. A bath by myself with a big glass of wine and my favorite lavender essential oil. That’s all I need.

  I shove my key in the door, then freeze.

  Is that music?

  It is music. And it’s coming from inside my house.

  I frown at the door, trying to place it. The notes are familiar and the beat—

  “It’s the fucking soundtrack from Music and Lyrics.”

  Just what I need. Something else to remind me of Ian.

  Fumbling with my key, I try to remember if I left my stereo running. It’s been ages since I listened to this, but my iPod must have found it on random search.

  It figures. Even my iPod is out to torture me.

  I finally get my key in the lock and turn it the right direction. As I push through the door, I’m greeted by a mouthwatering smell that hits me with an unexpected wave of nostalgia.

  “Picante Chicken Top Ramen.”

  The familiar voice is followed by Ian stepping out of my kitchen. He’s wearing bright red oven mitts and holding a steaming pot. The rest of him is clad in jeans and a white T-shirt.

  No
, wait.

  A white T-shirt with a cartoon print of a tuxedo shirt and jacket on the front. There’s even a jaunty little bowtie printed under the collar, and what in God’s name is happening here?

  As I stare with my jaw on the floor, Ian strides toward my dining room table.

  Make that the spot where my dining room table used to be.

  I stand there with my hand on the door and my jaw on the floor, wondering what on earth I’ve just walked into. “Where is my—what is all this—”

  “I did some redecorating.” Ian reaches past me to push the door closed like it’s the most normal thing in the world to enter a woman’s home and rearrange her furniture.

  And replace some of it with—oh my God, is that a beanbag chair?

  The brown lump sits where my dining room chairs used to be, big enough for two butts nestled close together. My knotty pine table is gone, too, replaced by an upside-down milk crate that holds two cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon.

  “Lisa helped me,” Ian supplies as he sets the pot of ramen on the milk crate before standing upright again and shoving his hands in his pockets. “We can take the covers off your pillows when we’re done, and I promise to put everything back where it was before, but—”

  “Chewbacca throw pillows,” I say, too dumbfounded to care that I’m stating the obvious as my gaze sweeps my living room and I realize what this is. “You’ve recreated your dorm room.”

  I scan the rest of the space, cataloging the changes. Red chili pepper lights frame my window, and my sofa has been shoved to the opposite wall and adorned with a bedspread that looks like a slice of pepperoni pizza.

  I have no idea what to say or how to respond when Ian grabs a vase of daisies off my end table and sets them on the side table next to me.

  “These are for you,” he says. “I wanted to pick them myself, but the security guard at the college said—” He stops and shakes his head, endearingly nervous. “Never mind. They came from a florist. I’m sorry.”

  I’m not sure whether he’s apologizing for the flowers or for rearranging my house. Neither of those things upsets me in the least, so I suspect it’s not that at all.

  I study him for confirmation. He takes a step closer, green eyes shimmering as he reaches for my hands. “Sarah, I want a do-over,” he says. “A second chance to make things right with you.”

  It takes me several breaths to find the ability to speak. My senses are flooded with the smell of Picante Chicken Top Ramen and the hum of my favorite soundtrack and the realization that Ian Nolan is standing in my living room asking for another shot.

  I swallow hard and gaze into those familiar green eyes. “You think redecorating my house and cooking noodles is going to make everything okay?”

  He shakes his head, a determined expression on his face. “Not even close,” he says. “I just wanted to render you speechless long enough to deliver my apology.”

  Mission accomplished. I don’t say this out loud, but he must sense it anyway. Good Lord, he’s even tacked up a poster of dogs playing poker. How did he find all this?

  “I used sticky strips so there won’t be holes in your walls,” he says, shaking me from my thoughts with this very Ian-like bit of information. “The only thing permanent is the way I feel for you.” He grimaces and shakes his head. “Fuck, that sounded cheesy.”

  A stupid wave of tears rushes to my eyes, but I blink hard so he won’t see. “It didn’t. Keep going.”

  “Okay.” He takes a deep breath. “I’m out of practice and self-conscious as hell, but I’m trying, Sarah. I’m trying to be the kind of guy you deserve.”

  “What kind of guy is that?” My words come out a soft croak, but he’s prepared.

  “A guy who knows how to express his feelings,” he says. “A guy who can admit that he has feelings and who doesn’t run away from them like a scared dickhead.”

  “You’re not a scared dickhead.” I don’t know why I’m defending him. He did run away when things got scary. “You’re a guy who’s been through a lot.”

  “That’s no excuse,” he says. “Letting myself experience love might have been what hurt me all those years ago, but not experiencing it is what’s holding me back. What almost caused me to lose the most important person in my whole life. Sarah, I love you. I love you more than anything and I almost goddamn missed that.”

  “You—what?”

  “I love you,” he says, squeezing my hands so tightly I flinch. “Sorry,” he says, lacing his fingers more gently through mine. “It’s like I’m learning to be a fucking human again. This might take practice. And patience.”

  I manage a weak smile. “Patience I’ve got.”

  He takes a shaky breath, and the tenderness in his eyes floods my chest with feeling. “I know I got caught up in facts and figures and started thinking of marriage as a logic-based proposition,” he says. “But I didn’t understand that none of that is worth a damn without love and passion and romance.”

  Here come the tears again, and I’m having trouble fighting them back. “You can’t just turn it off and on like a spigot, Ian,” I tell him. “You can’t decide to feel love one minute and to shut it off the next. It doesn’t work that way.”

  “I know that now,” he says. “I was afraid to feel grief and fear and loss, but I didn’t realize that cutting those things out meant I missed the other stuff, too. Joy and happiness and love—all the things I got to feel with you.”

  “God, Ian—”

  “Falling for you—losing you—that’s what it took for me to realize nothing else in my life means jack shit if you’re not with me,” he continues. “You make me a better person, Sarah. The kind of guy who feels things. You’re the sweet to my sour. The chili pepper lights in my darkness. The sriracha in my ramen.” He winches and shakes his head. “This isn’t supposed to be coming out so cheesy.”

  I laugh. I can’t help it. I know it’s wrong to laugh at a guy who’s pouring his heart out to me, but this is all so surreal. The makeshift dorm bed, the noodles cooling on the milk crate table. I survey it all, then look at Ian again.

  “What would you have said to me that night?” I ask. “That night all those years ago when you planned to finally ask me out.”

  “I would have told you that I loved you,” he says. “But I wouldn’t have meant it.”

  “What?” I stare at him, not sure how to take that.

  “I didn’t understand love then,” he says. “Love is daisies and mushy cards, sure, but it’s so much more than that. It’s trusting another person to hold your heart in their hands without breaking it. It’s camping trips and dance parties and fun times, but it’s also the sad stuff. It’s the knowledge that sharing the heartache makes it easier to bear. It’s knowing someone else has your back no matter what. In good times and bad times and—”

  “—in sickness and health?” I raise an eyebrow at him. “This is sounding like marriage vows.”

  “That’s what I want, Sarah.” His hand trembles around mine, or maybe that’s me. “I don’t want a marriage on paper. I don’t want legal contracts and handshake agreements. I want it all. I want the whole messy, heartbreaking, heartwarming ball of goop. And I want it with you.”

  Fuck it. Now I’m crying.

  I start to dash the tears from my face with the back of my hand, but Ian whips out a blue plaid handkerchief.

  “What, you didn’t have Lisa make you replicas of those hideous paisley handkerchiefs you had in college?” I tease as I wipe the tears from my face.

  He grins and squeezes my hands. “I’m okay with a fresh start on some things,” he says. “The way I love you now is better than the way I loved you then, so my handkerchiefs can improve, too.”

  “That is quite possibly the weirdest way anyone has ever professed love,” I say. “But I love you, too, Ian. So much.”

  A grin spreads across his face and he drops my hands to pull me into his arms. The hug is fierce and so exuberant he nearly squeezes the breath out of me. “I love you,
” he says into my hair. “I love you, Sarah.”

  The words themselves are nice, but it’s the emotion behind them that chokes me up again. It’s like someone pulled the cork out of Ian’s champagne bottle, and all this beautiful, fizzy emotion has come bubbling out.

  I love it.

  And I love him, in case that wasn’t obvious.

  I wriggle free from the hug so I can look up at him. His green eyes glitter with emotion, and it’s like we’re finally on the same page after all these years.

  “I’m ready, you’re ready,” I tell him, and I hope he understands I don’t mean dinner. “Let’s do this.”

  He smiles and brushes the hair off my forehead. “Where should we start?”

  I glance at the ramen on the milk crate and smile. “Dinner. More kissing. Marriage. Maybe a cat. Not necessarily in that order.”

  “Sign me up for all of it,” he says, and lowers his mouth to mine.

  Epilogue

  Ian

  “Dearly beloved, we’re gathered here today to join this man and this woman together in holy matrimony.”

  My mother winks at me, and I hold my breath, along with both of Sarah’s hands. My heart is full enough to burst, and I’m not sure I can make it through this ceremony without jumping on a chair and beating my chest like a fucking madman.

  I’m marrying the best woman in the whole damn world.

  Smiling like she just read my thoughts, Sarah winks at me, then turns back to my mom.

  “Those might be the traditional opening lines for a wedding,” my mother continues. “But everything else about Ian and Sarah’s story is completely unique. Just like they are.”

  Yep, that’s right. My mother is marrying us. It sounds like the start of a bad joke, but it’s actually the coolest idea ever. My mother—the most romantic person I know—getting licensed as an officiant to bind me together with the woman of my dreams.

  That woman smiles at me now with flowers in her hair and a look that says she’s as giddy as I am to be here. The weather is perfect here at the Central Oregon reindeer ranch where we decided to hold our ceremony. Sunlight glints off the snowcapped mountains on the horizon, and the breeze is warm and perfumed with sage and juniper. I know the scenery is beautiful, but I don’t care.