Too Late

by C. Hoover

  She forces a smile, but it’s hard for her because this is so fucking intense. Being reunited with her like this, feeling her hands on me and the way her legs wrap around me, wanting me deeper inside her. It’s the most intense feeling I’ve ever had. It almost makes the entire last few months all worth it.

  This is heaven. This is God’s apology.

  “I forgive you,” I whisper, and I’m not sure if I’m forgiving Sloan or if I’m forgiving God. Maybe I’m forgiving both of them, because this is worth all the forgiveness in the world. She feels so fucking good right now, I might even consider forgiving Luke.

  Okay, that’s not true. I’ll never forgive that piece of shit. But I’ll worry about him later. Right now I’m preoccupied with the love of my life, remembering every curve of her body, every curve inside her body.

  I try to make it last, to make love to her like she deserves, but I’ve missed being inside her so much, I can’t even hold back the second time around. I press my face against her neck and wait for her moans. She always moans when I release inside her.

  As soon as that precious sound glides up her throat, I fucking lose it.

  “Fuck,” I say, thrusting hard into her once. Twice. “I fucking love you, Sloan. I fucking love you, baby, fucking hell.”

  It’s the best thirty seconds of my life.

  She’s still holding on to me when I’m finished. She’s shaking. I love that I make her whole body tremble with mine. I love it. I love her.

  “Don’t leave me again, Sloan,” I say quietly. I roll onto my side and I pull her against me. I can’t even describe this. I thought I loved her before, but it doesn’t compare to this moment, to the intensity rushing through my veins. My heart beats for her. She’s why my heart still beats at all, and I’m not sure I realized it to the extent I realize it now. “Don’t ever fucking leave me again. If you break your promise again I don’t know if I can be as forgiving.”

  Maybe this feels so different because I love more than just Sloan now. I love what’s growing inside her. The feeling I got while I was inside of her was more than I knew I was capable of feeling, and I don’t think I realized until this moment that it’s because there’s more of her to love. There’s her and then there’s the tiny little piece of heaven that we created together, growing inside her body. And fuck Luke. Luke wouldn’t be capable of creating life that’s due on Christmas fucking Day.

  I know I created this baby with her because I wouldn’t feel this way if it were Luke’s baby. This feeling is God, letting me know that a part of me is inside of Sloan, and that I need to do what I can to protect both of them from Luke.

  I press my cheek to Sloan’s stomach. I lay my palm flat against her skin and I squeeze my eyes shut, but the tears still come. I can’t believe I’m fucking crying right now. What the fuck? Does realizing you’re a dad instantly turn men into pussies?

  I squeeze her tight and I kiss my baby. I kiss her over and over. Her stomach is so beautiful, and I know the life we created together will be beautiful, just like Sloan. She runs her hand through my hair, and the next words she whispers to me will never leave my soul. Ever.

  “You’re gonna be a Daddy, Asa.”

  I laugh and I keep fucking crying, and then I’m on top of her again, kissing her. I can’t get enough of her. “You’re so beautiful, baby. You’re so beautiful. If I knew how fucking beautiful being pregnant would make you, I would have tampered with your birth control way sooner than I did.”

  I feel her freeze for a second and it makes me laugh. I pull back and look down on her, but she gives me a half-hearted smile. “What?” she says. Her voice cracks a little. It’s so fucking cute.

  I laugh and kiss her again. “You can’t be mad at me, Sloan.” I put a hand on her stomach again and look down on her. “I did it for us. So you wouldn’t leave me.” For some reason, she’s still crying. But so am I. I laugh again, wiping away some of her tears. “And now look at us. We’ve been through fucking hell, but look at us. We’re having a baby.” I lower myself on top of her again. I kiss her. Slow, deep, promising. When I pull back, I leave my lips pressed lightly against hers. “You won’t leave me again, Sloan. Not with my baby inside of you. Right?”

  She immediately shakes her head. “I won’t, Asa. I promise. I love you. I’ll never leave you.”

  I have no idea how it happens for a third time, but hearing those words makes me hard again. I’m already on top of her and I barely have to move to slip inside her. I squeeze my eyes shut. I kiss the tears off her cheeks. And I move inside her, slowly, over and over, needing to make up for all the nights we’ve been apart. I can feel the sweat sliding down my forehead. I can feel my heart as it increases its pounding against the walls of my chest. My whole body is exhausted because our third time together goes on for so long, I start to grow weak. But I could make love to her like this forever. And I will.

  For fucking ever.

  There was a moment.

  It was a split second, almost too quick to notice. It was right when Asa pulled back and looked down on me, begging me to kiss him back. It was a moment of desperation. And I took advantage of it.

  I know if I fight him right now, I can’t win. Fighting back is what every part of my soul is screaming for me to do. It’s been screaming for me to fight, to defend myself, for the entire time Asa has been inside this apartment. I’m not even sure if he’s been here for a whole hour yet, but it feels like an eternity. I can feel my soul, clawing at my insides, begging to be set free from this pathetic shell of a body it’s been stuck in since the day I was born.

  But this is the moment my soul and I need to finally become one. This is the moment my body needs to align with the rest of me, to calm the nerves, to protect the baby growing inside of it, to preserve our lives for as long as it possibly can. And the only way that can happen is if I give this body to Asa.

  That’s all I’m doing. It’s just a body. My soul is still strong. It’s fighting the only way it knows how. But my body needs to give in... just long enough to save me.

  I tell him what he needs to hear. I touch him like he needs to be touched. I make the noises I’ve trained myself to make for him. I speak the lies to him that I’ve trained myself to speak.

  I’ve been pretending to love him for two years. What’s one more day?

  Finally, after he finishes...again...I feel it. A sense of peace. A quiet calm, letting me know that my soul and my body and my mind and my perseverance have all come together in understanding. We are going to fight Asa with the only weapon stronger than he is. We’re going to fight him with love.

  He falls to my side again and pulls me so that I’m facing him. I smile and cup his cheek with my hand. “What now?” I ask him, gently stroking his face with fingers I’ve somehow convinced to stop trembling. “How do we get out of this mess, Asa? I can’t lose you again.”

  He grabs my hand and kisses it. “We get dressed and walk out the front door, Sloan. Simple as that. And then we go somewhere...anywhere. We get far away from here.”

  I nod, taking in all that he just said.

  Asa is dumb as shit, but somehow, he’s also one of the smartest people I’ve ever met. I’ve always had to try to stay a step ahead of him. This is no different. Every move he makes from here on out is a test. I dissect his words and flip them over in my head.

  He knows we can’t go out the front door. He knows about the surveillance. That’s why he came through the window.

  I shake my head. “Asa, you can’t walk out the front door,” I say, forcing myself to sound worried for him. “Luke has me under surveillance. If whoever is out there sees me with you, they’ll call Luke.”

  Asa grins.

  It was a test.

  He leans forward and kisses me on the forehead. “We’ll go out the window, then.”

  “I need to pack first.” I start to get up, but he pulls me back down.

  “I’ll pack for you,” he says. “Don’t get off the fucking bed.”

  He s
tands up and looks around the room. I can see the veins in his neck bulging as he notices all of Luke’s things. I try to distract him from his own anger.

  “There’s a bag in the top of the closet.” I point toward the closet and I see his eyes as they scan the distance from the bed to the living room. He walks toward the closet and slams the bedroom door shut as he passes. His way of letting me know that I better not even try to run.

  I take in my physical posture on the bed and realize that it looks like I’m poised to jump at any second. I’m not being convincing enough.

  I lie back on my pillow and try to look relaxed. He walks out of the closet and scans me, smirking. He likes that I didn’t try to run. He’s letting down his own guard.

  “So fucking beautiful, love,” he says, tossing the bag onto the bed. “What do you want me to pack?” He looks around the room. His eyes fall to the dresser—at the picture of me and Luke. I printed it out a week ago and framed it. I can see the roll in Asa’s throat. “Excuse me for a second,” he says, walking toward the bedroom door.

  “Where are you going?” I ask, sitting up on the bed. He opens the door and walks into the living room.

  “I left Jesus-on-a-stick near the window. I need Him.”

  What the fuck?

  He’s back before I can process what he said, and he’s holding something in his hand.

  “Is that a crucifix?”

  What in the hell?

  He smiles with his nod, and then he brings the crucifix up over his head with both hands, and then straight down again, right on top of the framed picture on the dresser. I flinch with the first blow, but he bashes the cross against the frame, over and over, until it’s in a dozen tiny pieces.

  I’m absolutely terrified. But I force myself to laugh. I don’t know how. Every part of me wants to scream out in terror right now, but I know that’s the last thing I need to do. I’m playing a part, and that character needs to laugh for Asa, because he needs to know that I have no feelings for that picture frame.

  He glances at me and enjoys the smile on my face. He grins from ear to ear, so I point at the nightstand. “There’s one over there, too.”

  His gaze falls on the other picture frame, and he glides across the room. He swings the crucifix like it’s a bat, knocking the picture off the nightstand and straight into the wall. Even knowing it was coming, I still flinch. I cringe at the amount of hatred he has for Luke.

  This entire time, I’ve been silently praying that Luke will miraculously come home early. But now I’m praying he doesn’t, because I’m not sure any man can withstand the person Asa is right now. He’s completely irrational. He’s void of compassion, of empathy. He’s delusional. He’s dangerous. And I’d rather get Asa out of this apartment and be forced to accompany him, than to have him here when Luke returns home.

  Asa looks around the room. When he doesn’t see anything else that makes him vengeful, he tosses the crucifix on the bed. “When does Luke get home?”

  He knows when Luke gets home.

  I could lie and say he’ll be home any minute, but if Asa somehow knew our address, then he more than likely already knows our every move. He knows Luke gets home at six every night.

  “Six,” I say to him.

  He nods. He pulls his phone out of his pocket and checks the time. “It’s gonna be a long wait,” he says. “What do you want to do for the next few hours?”

  Wait...what?

  “We’re waiting for him?”

  He drops down onto the bed next to me. “Of course we are, Sloan. I didn’t come all this way to take back my girl and not get revenge on the bastard who stole her from me.”

  He somehow says all this with a smile on his face.

  Once again, I swallow my fear. “We could eat lasagna. If I don’t take it out of the oven in the next two minutes, it’ll be inedible.”

  Asa leans over me and presses a kiss to my mouth, making a loud pop when he pulls back. “Fucking genius, babe.” He scoots off the bed and pulls me up. “I’m starving. You can put your clothes back on if you want.”

  He lets go of my hands and walks into the bathroom. He leaves the door open and he watches me the whole time he stands over the toilet. I put my clothes back on, trying to stop my hands from shaking too noticeably. He flushes the toilet and walks back into the bedroom, toward the living room. “I was just kidding earlier,” he says. “I don’t hate your lasagna. I feel really bad for saying that, I was just really upset with you.”

  I walk past him and stand on my tiptoes to kiss him on the cheek. “I know, baby. We all say things we don’t mean when we’re angry.”

  I walk into the kitchen. The lasagna has been in the oven way longer than I intended for it to be, but I don’t think it’s burnt yet. It just won’t make for very good pictures for the cookbook.

  I laugh as soon as I have that thought.

  Seriously? My life is in fucking danger and I’m thinking about a stupid cookbook?

  I walk into the kitchen, but Asa isn’t far behind me. I’m sure he’s on my heels because he’s not convinced I won’t go for a knife. He’s smart, because if he wasn’t a step behind me, I’d absolutely go for one. I grab the empty boxes of ingredients strewn across the counter and toss them toward the trash, but as soon as I do, I see there’s no trash bag lining the can.

  That’s because I took the trash out of the can.

  I look at the trash bag, tied at the top, sitting next to the empty trashcan.

  I look at the empty trashcan.

  My pulse begins to race and I do everything I can to hide it.

  I forgot the fucking trash!

  Calm down, calm down, calm down. I grab an oven mitt and I pull the oven door open. I set the pan of lasagna down on top of the stove. Asa reaches over my shoulder and opens a cabinet to grab a couple of plates. He kisses the top of my head in the process. He grabs a spatula and cuts into the lasagna, refusing to bring a knife into the equation. The whole time he cuts at the lasagna, I’m staring at the empty trashcan.

  I didn’t take out the trash.

  I look at my phone again.

  “You aren’t listening,” Ryan says, bringing my attention back to him.

  “I’m listening.” I set my phone on the table, face up. I stare at it and pretend to be listening to Ryan, but he’s right. I’m not.

  “What the hell, Luke?” He snaps his fingers. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

  I shake my head. “Nothing, it’s just...” I don’t even want to say it out loud, because I’ll sound like an idiot. The measures Sloan and I have gone to just to feel safe are ridiculous, even by my standards. “It’s five after.”

  Ryan leans back in his seat and takes a sip of his drink. We’re at some pizza joint just a few miles from my apartment, discussing what we always discuss when we meet: Asa’s case. He goes to trial in a few short months and I’ll be damned if we don’t do everything we can to make this as cut and dry as possible. The longer he’s sentenced and the more he’s convicted of, the better off Sloan will be.

  “It’s five after what?” Ryan asks.

  “Twelve o’clock. Six after, now.” I look at my phone. It’s 12:06 and Sloan hasn’t taken out the trash yet.

  Ryan leans forward. “Please elaborate, because you’re really starting to piss me off with how not present you’ve been in our conversation.”

  “That guy who does daytime surveillance...Thomas...he always texts me right at noon to let me know Sloan took the trash out. She puts it outside the door every day at noon so I’ll know everything is okay.”

  I pick up the phone and begin texting Thomas.

  “Why don’t you just call and check up on her?” Ryan asks, as if that’s the most obvious answer.

  “This is extra protection. If something happens and someone is with her, they could force her to answer the phone and pretend everything is okay. We do other things aside from phone calls for added reassurance.”

  Ryan stares at me a moment after I hit sen
d on the text. I know he thinks I’m being overly paranoid right now, but surely he can’t blame me. Asa is fucking psychotic and unpredictable. I’m not sure anyone could ever be too safe when it comes to him.

  “That’s actually pretty genius,” Ryan says.

  “I know,” I say, getting ready to dial Sloan’s number. “It was her idea. And so far, she’s never missed a single day. She sets the trash out like clockwork.” I bring the phone to my ear and wait while it rings. She’s never not answered her phone.

  I wait.

  She doesn’t answer her phone. Right when it goes to voicemail, I get a text from the surveillance guy.

  Still waiting. Trash hasn’t been taken out yet.

  My fucking heart falls straight to the floor. Ryan sees it. He stands up at the same time I do. “I’ll call for backup,” he says, tossing money onto the table. I’m out the door before I can respond. I’m in my car. I’m cussing traffic and honking my horn and doing everything I can to get there.

  Four minutes.

  Four fucking excruciating minutes.

  That’s how long it’s going to take me to get there.

  I dial a number and hit send on my phone.

  “Yeah?” he says.

  “Is it out yet? Did she put the fucking trash out yet?” I’m trying to remain calm, but I can’t.

  “Not yet, man.”

  I beat my fist on the steering wheel. “Did anyone go through the front door today?” I’m yelling my words, no matter how hard I try to remain calm.

  “No. Not since you left this morning.”

  “Go around back!” I yell. “Check the windows!”

  He doesn’t say anything.

  “Now! Check the windows while I’m on the phone with you!”

  He clears his throat. “You hired me for surveillance. I don’t even have a gun, man. No way I’m going back there if it’s got you this worried.”

  I grip the phone tighter in my hand and scream at him. “Are you FUCKING KIDDING ME?”

  The line goes dead.

  “Fucking son of a bitch!”

  I slam on the gas and power through a red light. I’m two blocks away now. I’m almost through the intersection when it happens.