Something in the Way: A Forbidden Love Saga: The Complete Collection

by Hawkins, Jessica

  I didn’t know what to say but the only thing that made any sense to me. “You’re what I want.”

  “But I can’t be what you need. Still, after everything I just said, knowing all the ways it could go wrong, knowing the man it would turn me into to love you and to ruin you . . .” He ran his hand over his face, as if forcing the words out. “If you ask me to choose you, I will—even if it could ultimately destroy me.”

  I remembered the night we’d almost gotten caught in the truck, how childish I’d felt for how I’d acted. He’d asked me not to do it, but I had. He’d been led away in handcuffs, he’d stunted his future, because I’d wanted something and hadn’t considered the consequences.

  “You don’t care how hard it’s been for me,” he’d said earlier.

  Of course I cared. The only thing I wanted more than my happiness was his. A lump formed in my throat as everything I’d known to be true shifted. These past two years, I thought I’d been brave. Strong. Loved. I’d only been selfish to think Manning wanted me to fight for him, when instead, pushing him only hurt him.

  I turned my head and tried in vain to hide the endless stream of tears streaking down my cheeks. My sister stood by the fire, arms curled around her waist, watching us. Tonight, he’d be walking back to her. I covered my face, my world crumbling.

  Manning let me stand there and cry into my palms. He didn’t comfort me, and I finally understood how it would be unfair of me to ask him to. Through my fingers and the blur of my tears, I noticed my missing anklet. The bracelet I’d made for Manning had fallen off, probably with the licks of the ocean. It was done. We were done. Only my pain persisted.

  Manning had once told me you couldn’t move the stars. I’d thought that meant our love was predestined, written in the night sky, sure as death. Behind my lids, I pictured the two stars and realized for the first time the permanent distance between them. And I accepted that there was, and always had been, a third star.

  You can’t move the stars.

  I had tried, and I had failed.

  24

  Lake

  Gripping a bouquet of peach and cream garden roses, I peeked around the hotel’s archway. Friends and family quietly filtered onto a perfectly manicured lawn, murmuring as they took their seats for the ceremony.

  The sun began to set over the Pacific Ocean, fiery orange dipping into cool blue. This morning’s cloud cover had given way to an unblemished sky. With everything happening around us, it should’ve been easy to avoid looking at Manning, but that always had been, and always would be, impossible for me. My gaze lifted above the crowd and down the petal-scattered aisle. Manning stood under the sheer curtains of a gazebo on the edge of a cliff, his back to me as he spoke to the best man. The first time I saw Manning on that construction site, he’d been larger than life. Today, he was so much more. He commanded attention without trying. His shoulders stretched a bespoke suit, and his hands sat loosely in his pockets as if it were any other day.

  He turned his head, giving me the pleasure of his profile. Strong jaw, full mouth, thick, black, recently trimmed hair. Even with the scar on his lip and the new, slight curve of his nose, he looked refined, the sum of all my dreams come to life.

  Henry spoke to Manning with the air of a father figure, his hand on Manning’s shoulder. Manning just listened and rubbed his sinfully smooth jaw as he stared at the ground. Henry paused, as if waiting for an answer or acknowledgement, and his smile faded. He looked to the back of the decorated lawn, through the arches hiding the bridal party. He looked at me. Maybe Manning wasn’t as calm as I thought. Maybe he was having second thoughts.

  I, on the other hand, had only one thought.

  Mine.

  The air buzzed, charged with murmured excitement, even in the vastness surrounding us. Water and sky swallowed the horizon. If I’d ever imagined this moment, Tiffany about to walk down the aisle, I would’ve thought it’d be pure chaos. Knowing how she thought the world revolved around her, and this being the biggest event of her life to date, it would seem inevitable.

  That was why her calmness unnerved me. Sarah fixed the train of Tiffany’s strapless dress on the grass while Mom hugged her tightly, rubbing her bare shoulders. Surely, as the Maid of Honor, there was something I should’ve been doing, too, but I couldn’t bring myself to move. Nobody was yelling or crying or putting out fires. All I heard was blood rushing through my ears.

  In a few minutes, it would all be over. Everything. The last couple years of my life erased with a simple “I do.” There were bows tied to aisle chairs and petals on the ground. Somebody had spent the time to do that—peel flowers just so Tiffany could walk on them.

  Gary shook Manning’s hand, and Manning smiled so widely, it knocked the wind out of me. It wasn’t just breathtaking—it was genuine.

  The violinists began to play, and the bridal party took their places. My dad kissed Tiffany on the cheek before whispering in her ear. Her eyes lit up as he pulled her into a hug. Mom held a tissue to one corner of her eye and then the other. They were happy. I wasn’t. I could still change that . . . if I decided their happiness was worth my own.

  I didn’t know the right answer. All I knew was my love for Manning. He watched my mom, then Gary head down the aisle, followed by the bridesmaids. I just watched him at the head of it all, hoping for a spared glance in my direction. And suddenly, it was my turn to go, to walk down the aisle to him, but not the way I’d dreamed about.

  “Lake,” Dad said from behind me after too long had passed. “Go.”

  I looked back at him and at Tiffany, their arms looped together, and remembered the night months ago on the beach when I’d told Manning I could walk away from them for him. He’d said something about my dad in the heat of the moment that hadn’t registered for me until weeks later.

  “Why the hell do you think he’s so happy about this wedding?”

  I’d turned it over and over in my brain until the pieces had finally come together. Dad had hurried this wedding along because he knew that wherever Manning went, I’d follow. Even if it meant leaving my family behind. Even if it meant dropping out of USC. The one way, the only way, I’d never be allowed to love Manning was as Tiffany’s husband. The betrayal cut deep, but I’d kept the hurt inside and a smile on my face to make it through all of this.

  I took a step, and my heel sank into the grass. I wiggled it out and brought my foot back. “I can’t do it,” I whispered.

  “That’s what the stones are for.” Tiffany gently pushed me forward. “Use the path. Go ahead.”

  As if it was easy. As if I wasn’t walking toward the most horrific thing I could imagine. I couldn’t do it. Tears flooded my eyes as the spikes of my heels dug into soft ground. The guests, turned in their seats, started to murmur. All eyes except Manning’s were on me, and the music played on, beautiful, haunting. Despite my protests, my hair had been swept off my bare shoulders, putting my heartbreak on display for everyone to watch like a movie.

  I started down the aisle. At rehearsal, I’d been reminded over and over to keep the pace of the music. Time slowed with me, an eerie tranquility coming over me the way I imagined it felt giving in to drowning. Corbin smiled at me, his arm over the back of his mom’s chair. Val sat by him, stoic, and I knew her heart beat as hard as mine.

  I turned forward again, silently urging Manning to raise his head and look at me. We’d communicated so much that way, glances here and there, our own language. Walking toward him like a bride made my hands sweat around my bouquet. I scraped my thumbnail down a stem, wishing for the prick of a thorn to distract from the pain in my chest. Manning must’ve been sweating, too, because he wiped his brow, then his hairline, but even as I approached the front and took my spot, he still hadn’t looked. Maybe because he knew what he’d see if he did . . . my delicate birdy heart, ripped right down the middle by a great bear.

  Through all this, I’d never doubted that he belonged to me. Never wondered if he loved me. He didn’t have to say it for
me to know it was true. For over two months, I’d done as I was told, smiling through the pain, making plans to start USC next week. But in that moment, overwhelmed by Manning’s beauty, by the pain I knew he felt, too, I couldn’t remember why I’d stepped back.

  Because I was staring at Manning, I didn’t even hear the Bridal March begin, didn’t see Tiffany come out, but suddenly she was there, passing me her bouquet, moving in front of Manning, her back to me.

  “Friends and family,” the priest said, “we’re gathered here today to witness the union of Tiffany and Manning, and to celebrate their love by joining them in marriage.”

  My heartbeat thundered in my ears. The priest smiled and said things I couldn’t register, things Manning and Tiffany repeated. People laughed. Not Manning. He just stared at Tiffany.

  If he’d only glance over, I knew what I’d see in his eyes, because I’d seen it before, in the few raw but powerful moments we’d had the last couple years. I’d see the depth of love that kept him away, the heat that kept him close.

  Henry passed Manning the rings. Things were moving too fast. He wouldn’t, couldn’t, put that ring on her finger without sparing me even a glance, I knew it in my gut. On the inside, I screamed for him, convinced he would hear me. He focused on Tiffany so hard as he slid on her ring, he didn’t even blink.

  Maybe he didn’t think love was enough, but it was. I knew it was. If he wasn’t going to stop this, I would. For him. I loved him enough to do this on my own. Maybe he’d be mad for a while. Maybe he’d even try to stay away. But eventually, when things had settled, he’d understand why I couldn’t let him make this mistake.

  I knew what I had to do, and it had to be now.

  “Marriage changes you,” the priest said. “It betters you. It heals you. It will define you as a couple and deepen your love for one another.”

  Now. Now. Now.

  Everyone on the lawn watched, rapt. Mom, Dad, grandparents, toddlers, cousins. Corbin winked at me. Val chewed her thumbnail. Gary and Henry, maybe the only two men who’d ever given Manning a fair chance, stood tall and looked on proudly. I would hurt them, too. Everyone.

  “Should anyone in attendance know of any reason why this couple should not be lawfully married, speak now . . . or forever hold your peace.”

  Two years ago, I dove into a lake at midnight hoping Manning would follow. The world had gone instantly black, deafeningly still, until I’d heard the woozy echo of Manning calling me back. I’d stayed submerged a little too long, punishing him for denying me, wanting him to worry. The silence of this moment was the same. Dizzying. Disorienting. Sluggish but calm. Everything shrunk down to the man in front of me.

  Tiffany’s veil lifted with a breeze. Beads of sweat had formed on Manning’s hairline. He squeezed his eyes shut briefly. Could I do it for him? Ruin a wedding, a marriage before it began, a life? My own sister?

  He’d asked me not to. He’d asked me to let this go.

  Sarah, behind me, rubbed my back, and I realized it was because I shook with silent sobs. Scalding tears flooded my eyes, warming my cheeks.

  Manning finally looked at me, his face pale, his ever-dark brows drawn so tightly that his forehead wrinkled. In his honeyed brown eyes, I saw all the agony the last two years had caused him. Our hot, construction-site afternoons, our cool, starry nights, and all the days he’d lost because of me. He swallowed, maybe holding back his own tears.

  My love for him spanned the ocean, the sky over our heads, an infinite universe of stars. I could do this to Tiffany, but I couldn’t do it to him. I sealed my words inside along with a great love that somehow fit inside me.

  Maybe one day, Manning and I would challenge fate, defy gravity, and move the stars ourselves.

  But today was not that day.

  Lake

  It was a hot summer day when I met him on the construction site next to my parents' house. If I'd known then what I do now, would I have kept on walking? Manning was older, darker, experienced—and I'd trusted him when he said the story would only ever be about us. I'd held those words close and challenged fate, but I had lost.

  A part of me is still that sixteen-year-old girl squinting up at Manning, but no matter how far I fall or high I soar, I'll always be a bird without her bear.

  Manning

  When I close my eyes, I can no longer see her. The decisions I made were to push Lake in the right direction—away from me. But now that she's gone, would I have made those same choices?

  I'd walked away like I was supposed to. I'd kept my distance. I'd bent over backward to keep Lake pure, but she's no longer that girl, and I don't know if I can stay away anymore. I only know I don't want to. She's still everything I want and nothing I should ever have, but if anyone can move the stars, it's her great bear in the sky.

  Move the Stars is book three in the Something in the Way series.

  Part I

  1

  Lake

  1999

  By New York standards, there was nothing all that strange about my outfit. This city had no shortage of strange. It might’ve been the fashion capital of the world, but pairing Corbin’s extra-large gray sweats with a party clutch wasn’t worth a second glance. The taxi driver didn’t care about my sloppy bun or muddy sheepskin boots. He’d surely witnessed enough cab rides of shame to assume that at eleven in the morning, that was what this was.

  “You can let me out here,” I told him, pointing to a corner so he wouldn’t go around the block. I gathered my handbag and stilettos, then passed over the cash Corbin had insisted on giving me. As I exited, my boot caught under the seat, and I nearly stumbled face first into the snow. Apparently, along with a not-so-fresh-off-the-runway look, I was also sporting a hangover from last night’s holiday party.

  It was early December and fucking freezing, but at the same time, the city’s first snow of the season blanketed everything with pure white. Flurries had started the night before and hadn’t stopped yet, which was why Corbin had suggested I not do my usual walk home. Even though the snowflakes were light and airy, almost nothing, the sidewalks had become fluffy. I stomped through the slush toward my building, unconcerned that it wetted the edges of the UGG boots my mom had sent last Christmas.

  Strung lights adorned the East Village shops. Their windows displayed black and gold party dresses, velvet platforms so high they’d put the Spice Girls to shame, and vintage fur coats. I caught sight of my reflection and almost laughed at the gray-on-gray explosion of sweats and UGGs. I’d looped my hair on top of my head, and a few escaped pieces hung around my face. Mascara darkened my under-eyes, but I didn’t care. Not even a little. I looked like shit and held my chin high.

  Who did I have to impress anyway? Even if I were to encounter the future love of my life today, I wasn’t ready for him. I wouldn’t be for a while. I’d had over four years to mourn losing Manning, and it seemed I needed more, because I didn’t even feel close to ready for anyone else.

  The flakes fell a little heavier, like someone had shaken up a snow globe in my little corner. When I saw a very tall dark-haired man across the street, my heart squeezed in my chest. I was used to that, seeing Manning in the crowds of Union Square or leaning on orange traffic cones to peer into a manhole or paging through the Times on a park bench.

  Through the snowy haze, this man bore an uncanny resemblance to Manning—except for a tailored coat, dress shoes, and suit and tie. Definitely not Manning. Yet he stared at me the way Manning did. Tightened my stomach the way only Manning could. And as I got closer, it was Manning’s molten brown eyes that stopped me dead in my snow-soaked boots.

  I hadn’t seen him in over four years, but of course I’d know him anywhere. Impossible as it was, Manning stood across the street, watching me.

  People passed between us, but we might as well have been alone in the city. Everything else fell away. He looked both ways and stepped off the curb. The sleet would ruin his nice shoes. It was all I could think, such a little thing in such a big moment.
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  One of my strappy, black stilettos slid out of my hand. By the time I’d picked it up and brushed off the ice, he was there, standing in front of my apartment building—and me.

  His eyes traveled from the tangled mess on top of my head, down my oversized sweats, to my boots, and back up. It wasn’t my finest moment.

  “Lake,” he said.

  My name from his mouth took me back four years and four months. One word had the power to reverse all the work I’d done since the night I’d left California. The countless mornings I’d had to force myself out of bed when I’d wanted to cry myself back to sleep. All the times Val had dragged me out to meet people when I would’ve preferred to be alone with my pain. Four years’ worth of holidays I’d spent without my family. One word turned me from an independent college graduate, making her own way, to a stupidly naïve eighteen-year-old girl witnessing the love of her life’s wedding to another woman.

  I had to swallow before I could speak, my throat dry from shock and the wintry day. “What are you doing here?”

  He squinted over my head, toward the fifth floor, directly at my window. “Technically, I’m here for work.”

  “Work?” I glanced at his tie. “What work?”