Now And Always (Crown Creek)

by Theresa Leigh

  Sky cocked her head. “I get it. You were all there. There’s no excuse for how they treated me after Dad…” She coughed. “After Bill died. But you gotta give them credit. They’re trying.”

  “They did invite you over.” Sadie was always ready to find the positive.

  “Not just with me.” Sky licked her lips. “With the Chosen too.”

  A murmur of acknowledgement rose up from the group. My brother Finn was involved in helping members of the Chosen start new lives on the outside. But I’d kind of forgotten that the Knights were too.

  “The less I say about it, the better,” Sky went on. “They actually did ask me to not mention it.” She dimpled. “But they didn’t tell me not to say anything about how J.D. got all grumpy when I found his old love letters.”

  “Excuse me, what?” Ruby stifled a laugh. “To him or from him?”

  “I guess he’d been writing this girl a while, but they all came back at once, marked Return to Sender.”

  “Oh, damn. That’s actually kind of sad.”

  “Everyone went real quiet when I asked. Then J.D. shoved them under a stack of auto magazines and told me to mind my own business. He apologized later,” she added.

  “Like actual letters? Written by hand?” Ruby’s eyebrows were up around her hairline.

  Sky nodded. “He has surprisingly nice handwriting.”

  “Who were they to?”

  “Someone named Lauren.”

  Olivia gasped. We all looked at her in alarm. “You know who that is?” I demanded.

  She looked around at our dumbstruck faces impatiently. “Come on, you guys don’t remember Lo Barrett?”

  Everyone started talking over each other.

  “Her real name is Lauren?” Willa asked.

  Ruby clapped her hand over her mouth. “You mean Haley’s sister?”

  “Yes, I do…I think,” Sadie pondered.

  “Wait,” I interjected. “Who the hell is Lauren?” I refused to accept that there might be someone in this town I didn’t know.

  “Lo!” Olivia cried, exasperated. “Come on, guys, she was like Queen Rebel Bad Girl. Always smoking behind the auditorium stairs? You remember her, she was the one who gave herself a homemade tattoo.”

  “And it got all infected,” Willa added, shuddering.

  “This isn’t ringing any bells,” I confessed.

  “Well, you were in all honors classes,” Olivia pointed out. “Maybe that’s why you never really hung out with her.”

  “Maybe,” I hedged. I still couldn’t believe there had been someone in our class I didn’t know everything about. “Was she the one who got expelled for breaking into the school pool?”

  “No, that was Devon Sykes. He moved away right after that. I think his parents put him military school. No, Lo wasn’t actually like, bad or anything. She looked scary, all that black makeup and stuff but,” Olivia’s voice grew wistful, “I remember walking up to the front office my first day.” Olivia moved to Crown Creek her senior year of high school. “And she was there waiting to go into the principal’s office to get a detention or something.” She smiled. “She was actually the very first person at Crown Creek High to befriend me.”

  “No way,” Ruby gasped. “You had us, though!”

  “Not right away, you guys.” She grinned. “It took you all a second to realize how awesome I am.” She laughed and shook her head. “But Lo was quiet. And when she saw that you guys were including me more, she kind of…stepped back. Almost like she figured I’d be better off with you.” Her mouth twisted up in a frown. “And I let her. I feel kind of bad about that now.”

  Sky nodded. “I guess she and J.D. were like the Bonnie and Clyde of your school.”

  “Without the bank robberies and murder, yeah.” Olivia laughed. “But they were attached at the hip. I always wondered what went down with them. I couldn’t imagine them breaking up, but obviously they did.”

  “I guess she left without saying goodbye,” Sky added. We all gasped, and she nodded. “He’s been trying to find her ever since. He’d written her letters, a bunch of them, to the last place he knew where to find her. But they were all there on the table.”

  “Wow.” Olivia shook her head. “I hope she’s okay.”

  “Me too, actually,” Sky sighed. “J.D. seemed really upset that I saw them. I was kind of confused, but later on, Rocco’s girlfriend, Susanna, pulled me aside and explained that they’d all come back at once back in October.”

  An alarm bell went off in my brain. “Wait, in October?” I blurted. Everyone looked at me like I’d grown three heads, but I shook my head, leaning forward. “When in October?”

  “No idea,” Sky confessed. “But he was pretty messed up about it when it happened.”

  Messed up enough to head out to the pool hall and get drunk with his brothers?

  Messed up enough to sleep with me?

  Olivia sighed. “That’s really sad, then. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but poor J.D.”

  We all fell silent. Sky took a big swig of wine, then clapped her hands together. “Wow! I sure do know how to set a mood!” she laughed. “Who wants to open some presents?”

  Instantly, the mood lifted. The next ten minutes were a chaos of squeals and laughter. I squealed and laughed right along with them, but inside, the dread was mounting. Because every gift opened brought them one step closer to opening mine.

  I took a deep breath. “My turn!” I trilled, launching myself from the couch.

  As I handed out the gifts, Ruby eyed me worriedly. She’d helped me get them together last-minute, hooking me up with one of her knitting club friends who also owned a T-shirt press. I was grateful she hadn’t said anything about my great idea for announcing my pregnancy to the rest of our friends. She didn’t need to say much, however. Her arched eyebrows spoke volumes.

  I was starting to agree with her eyebrows. Maybe I should have made this more private, more intimate.

  Too late.

  Sadie was the first to shake her T-shirt free from the tissue paper. “World’s Best Aunt,” she read with a confused tilt of her head.

  “Hey, me too,” said Willa, laughing. “How can we both be the World’s Best at something? It cheapens the whole concept of— Oh.” She caught herself and gave me a wide-eyed look.

  Olivia just stared at her shirt. “Claire?”

  I swallowed hard. “Go on,” I urged Sky and Ruby. “You guys will be actual aunts, so….”

  “Finn and I aren’t….” Sky trailed off as she pulled her shirt out of the box, apparently deciding now was not the time to debate the semantics of whether she and Finn were actually officially engaged yet. She’d proposed to him, but he’d sworn it didn’t count until he proposed back.

  “Claire.” Willa’s voice was gentle but firm. She was going to make one hell of a mother someday.

  Unlike me.

  “So, surprise?” I ventured.

  I scanned my friends’ faces. Willa’s brow was creased in concern. Sadie still stared at her T-shirt as if she couldn’t decipher the words. Olivia was red-faced and wouldn’t meet my eyes.

  “Oh! You’re pregnant!” Sadie suddenly burst out. “Well, now I understand why you aren’t drinking.”

  “That’s what you’re focusing on?” Ruby marveled.

  “What kind of vitamins are you taking?” Willa had already leaped up and lunged for her phone. “Are you getting enough folic acid?”

  “Yes, Mom,” I sighed. “I’ve been taking prenatal vitamins since I knew for sure. They taste terrible and make me burp for the rest of the day, but I’m taking them.”

  Willa nodded and then frowned at her phone. I knew she was desperately scrolling for some other aspect of pregnancy I might have overlooked so she could fly in and take care of it for me.

  “Uteruses are so weird, you know?” Sadie laced her fingers under her thigh and pulled her legs into a lotus pose. “Like, you’re growing an entire human being in there right now.” She poked my stomach. �
��Isn’t it so amazing?”

  “I’m starting to think so,” I said with another sigh. “Took me a while to get there, truthfully.”

  Willa and Ruby both made sympathetic noises. Olivia looked around and then shook her head. “Okay, so I guess I’m going to be the asshole and ask this but, um, are you doing this by yourself?”

  I pressed my lips together. The unspoken “who is the father?” hung in the air, but I batted it away. “Well, no. I have my family. And of course, the whole idea behind the shirts was to rope you all into it as well."

  “Still.” Olivia stared down at her glass, still red-faced. Whether it was embarrassment or anger, I couldn’t’t tell. “You’re really brave for doing it all alone.”

  Now it was my turn to look away from her. Because, in reality, I hadn’t been when Ethan was helping me.

  But now he wasn't. And I missed him so much that sometimes it was hard to breathe.

  “So,” Ruby said, breaking into my thoughts with a grin. “Now I can finally show you the gift I got you. Obviously it's going to be late, but I brought a picture of the finished product." She reached into her ever-present knitting bag and pulled out a folded piece of paper. “I spent hours searching through patterns, I’ll have you know.”

  On the page was the cutest pair of baby booties I’d ever seen. “What are these?” My voice had somehow risen an octave.

  She grinned and pulled out her needles. A half-finished bootie hung from one, impossibly small and cloud soft. “I’m trying to live up to the shirt,” she said softly.

  I threw my arms around her. She yelped and then laughed as Sadie launched herself into both our laps. Willa and Olivia tumbled onto the cavernous couch with us like two oversized puppies, while Sky ran around taking pictures

  Buried under a pile of my friends, I let the tears that had been threatening finally fall free. I had so many people on my side now. My heart was full.

  But not to the brim. Even as I sniffled and joked about being Mother of the Year for years to come, a nagging thought tugged me away from the beautiful present and backwards in time. To that night, at Ethan’s house, and the moment I’d had everything I ever wanted. My friends thought it was hormones that had me suddenly sobbing. They had no idea that it was a broken heart.

  “I’m putting this on now,” Sadie declared after a spell. She pulled her “World’s Best Aunt” shirt over sweater.

  Then, to our surprise, she slapped a fuzzy hat on her head.

  “Where are you going?” Ruby asked.

  “Oh. I have to work tonight.”

  “What? But we’re all here at your house!”

  “I know.” She shrugged. “Have fun. Don’t break anything, okay?”

  “Wait!” I sputtered. “You have a job? I mean, another one?”

  She pulled on a hoodie and then zipped up her coat. “Sometimes!” she trilled. “Merry Christmas, girls!”

  And with that, she was out the door.

  Willa looked at me. Sky looked at Olivia. Olivia looked at the ceiling. “Well, Claire,” she cracked. “You’re not the only one who shocked me tonight.”

  “Benefit of being friends with Sadie is that nothing shocks me anymore,” Ruby sighed. “So let's recap. You’re pregnant, Sky has a new family and Sadie has a mysterious new job that has her running out on Christmas.” She sipped her wine and then dimpled. “Did I forget anything?”

  “I hope not, but you can never be sure with us, can you?” I cracked, then pulled Olivia’s present from my pile and gave it a shake. “This isn’t like a live snake or anything, right?”

  “Open it and find out!” she snorted. “Nothing is gonna top yours for shock value, but at least I can try!”

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Ethan

  “I feel like I'm in some kind of underground speakeasy,” Ryan said, looking around in wonder at the half-lit bar.

  “Hell, yeah. The password is escape." I tapped my fingers on the bar, then made eye contact with my cousin. “Thanks for opening up for us,” I said to Taylor, grateful for the quiet of his bar after the chaos of Christmas at my parents’. “I needed out.”

  “Wasn't like I had anything else going on,” Taylor grumbled.

  Really, I thought as I let my gaze swing pointedly from his over to Sadie. She was humming to herself as she polished each glass with an intensity she usually reserved for watching dust motes dance in a sunbeam. When I raised my eyebrow at Taylor questioningly, he pointedly turned away.

  “Sadie?” I asked.

  She looked up as if startled she wasn’t alone. “What's up, Ethan?”

  “Are you just helping out…or…?” I let my sentence drift off meaningfully.

  But she looked at me like a confused puppy. She wasn’t getting my unasked question, so I decided to drop it. Apparently I wasn’t as good at communicating with significant head tilts and pointed gestures as Claire was.

  She would get to the bottom of the mystery of Sadie and Taylor hanging out.

  I missed her.

  I really, really missed her.

  I took a long pull from my beer glass, as if to drown that thought before it rose all the way to the surface.

  I’d called Ryan and pressed on his obligation as my old roommate to badger him into going out tonight. I’d planned on telling him exactly what had been going on with Claire and me for the past few months. Misery loves company, right? And besides, seeing his muted reaction—because Ryan never got worked up about much of anything besides football—might help drain this whole sorry saga of its power. “So you guys fought?” I could imagine him saying with a slightly confused smirk. “What else is new?” And then I could laugh and agree with him as we drank another round and maybe, just maybe, I’d stop feeling like I was dying inside.

  “So what did you want to talk about?” Ryan asked, once Sadie had finished methodically polishing his glass, methodically pouring his beer, and methodically selecting a napkin to set underneath it before handing it to him.

  I checked to make sure she had drifted away before shifting on my stool.

  Ryan didn’t look up to me the way he looked up to Cooper. He never bothered to preface his observations with a “Now this might be me, but,” or “I could have my head up my ass, but,” the way he did when Cooper was around. When it was just the two of us, he adopted this air of slightly baffled amusement, which made sense, since he’d all but confessed one drunken night last summer to finding me completely baffling. “I don’t know what to do with you, Ethan,” he’d slurred at Liam’s going away party by the creek. “You feel too much.”

  At the time I’d grumbled that I had no idea what he was talking about. Now, I agreed with him. He was right, I felt too damn much. About Claire. About everything. “So,” I finally sighed. “I was wondering if you noticed anything weird going on?”

  I started tapping my fingers on the bar. Having Sadie this close made it hard to be blunt.

  And just like I’d thought it would be, my question was way too vague for an on-the-surface guy like Ryan. “Noticed anything going on? With what? You mean, like in town or something?”

  I sighed, glancing up at Sadie again and decided I didn't mind if this got back to Claire. Whatever I was about to say, I needed to own it.

  But at that moment, the front door swung open. “What the fuck?” Taylor growled. “Sign’s not on,” he called to the intruders, gesturing to the Open sign that I had never seen off before. “Private party, assholes.”

  I clenched my fingers around my beer and hunched my shoulders, refusing to look at the front door. As if not looking would make this untrue.

  The last thing I needed right now was to see the reason Claire and I had broken things off.

  But there he was. In the flesh and with all of his brothers.

  J.D.

  His eyes met mine. And I hated the understanding he was trying to force between us. No, I was not on his side, damn it.

  But the conspiratorial look on his face made it clear he didn't kno
w that.

  “We just need some beer,” Rocco spoke up. “We'll keep to ourselves.”

  Maddox blew out a sigh and looked to the ceiling. “Family,” he exhaled, puffing out his cheeks comically. “Am I right, guys?”

  I was pretty sure my mouth was hanging open in shock. I waited for Taylor to kick them all out, a feat he could probably manage in one trip given that he spent his spare time wrestling fifty-pound trout out of the water.

  Then I noticed my cousin glance at Sadie. When she gave him a small nod, he sighed and nodded back. “Fine,” he sighed. “Come on in.”

  “Hey there, Bailey,” J.D. called across the bar.

  I felt rather than saw Ryan stiffen. “Hey, J.D.,” I muttered, then turned and gave him a nod. “Rocky. Maddox. Oh, hey Lennon, I didn’t see you.”

  “Hey,” Lennon said to the floor, then looked up. “You’re Ryan Howell, right? How you doin'?”

  “What the fuck?” Ryan whispered under his breath. The Knights collected their drinks and headed over to a corner table at the far end of the bar.

  I had no idea how long I spent staring blankly at them. It wasn’t until Ryan elbowed me that I jolted out of my reverie. “Ethan,” Ryan hissed. “What the fuck is going on? What is this?”

  My neck burned.

  "Do you want to go?" Ryan whispered. "I know you hate those guys."

  "Nah. It's okay."

  Ryan looked confused, but he leaned back on his stool. "Your call, then." He took a long drink of his beer. "You said you wanted to talk about something."

  I opened my mouth, but the words lodged in my throat. The Knights had started playing a round of darts. I could sense this without turning to confirm, because my body was still hyper-aware of their every move. It felt disloyal as hell to tell Ryan about Claire and me with J.D. lurking in the background.

  "Never mind, I'm over it," I mumbled into my beer.

  Ryan shrugged and waved to Taylor for another round. "Good. Glad we figured that out," he laughed.

  Yeah, I'd figured it out, all right. I didn't realize it until now, but I'd figured it out that night at the pool hall, in those weird, surreal hours spent with the Knight brothers where I'd suddenly realized they weren't monsters but actual human beings.