Inside Out

by Lauren Dane

  He took a deep breath and began to talk. “How do you get past the fear? Do you feel it?”

  Brody nodded. “Hell yes. My god, when we didn’t know if those fuckers would be successful at taking Rennie from Elise? I wanted to howl. I wanted to tear shit up. I wanted to fly to New York, find them, and beat them bloody. I knew Elise would fall apart if that happened, and I knew what my life would be like without that kid too. I knew what it would be to see this woman I adore lose that child. And I wondered if I would be enough if that were the case. Enough to keep her living with a purpose. And then I got sort of pissed about it, because why shouldn’t I be first? Why wouldn’t I be enough? Was I enough? Was I good enough? What if she looked at me really closely, what if she saw that I was so not worthy, and she left?”

  Cope didn’t know why, but hearing that made him feel better, even just a little bit. Maybe it was knowing he wasn’t alone.

  “During all that stuff, Raven was doing her thing. Being a bitch, but needing to be loved, and I’d been her friend forever and she was one of my people. But damn it, she was trying to mess with my girls, and I had to choose.”

  Brody stood and began to pace. “That’s when I sort of knew I was fucked.” He barked a laugh. “Because I did, and I would again. And because I did it knowing Elise would be first for me always, even if I messed up and she walked away. Rennie and Elise are mine. Mine in a way that comforts me, fills me up, thrills me and scares the ever living crap out of me. Jesus, these two ladies mean everything, and what if I mess it up? What would I do without them?”

  “What if Erin dies on the delivery table? It would be my fault because I wanted a baby with her so bad. Ben and I wanted a family with Erin, wanted a child to fill the house with laughter. But we have laughter now. So in my greed, what if I’ve made the worst mistake in my life, and I lose them both?” Todd leaned back. “Christ, I want a cigarette.”

  “So is that what’s making things complicated? You broke up with her because you’re afraid she’ll walk away?” Brody asked.

  “We didn’t break up. But this fear, seeing my brother who is the strongest guy I know reduced to tears because of how much he loves Erin, that hit me. I’m not that strong. Maybe it’s a sign she and I aren’t meant to be, if I can’t take that last step. I told her this morning, essentially that I was freaked out and unsure. She told me to figure it out. Told me a lot more than that actually, but the gist is: Don’t call me again until you’ve got your shit together because I’m worth it. And she’s right. She is.”

  “So you’re going to let a woman like Ella go because why? I’m not getting it. I mean, I get the fear part. That’s what broke Erin and me up the first time. And we know how that turned out. Ten years of being unhappy and uncomfortable because I was meant to be with the one woman who challenged me on every level, even as she got me. Accepted all of me, the darkness, the broken stuff, the uneven edges. Do you know what that’s worth, Andy? Fitting with someone in a way no one else will?

  “I’ve seen you two together. Even before you finally manned up and asked her out. But since then you two fit. She’s amazing. Beautiful. Strong. She works hard, and she looks at you and sees you. I’ve met the chicks you were with before. Not a single one saw the whole of you. Even I forget about it sometimes because you wear the smiling Cope façade so much.”

  “She told me she wanted all of me. Cope, Andy and Andrew. I suppose part of me has used Cope to hide behind. It’s easier that way. She challenges me to be more. I have never been challenged this way. What if I fail? What if I give it my all and it still doesn’t work and she walks away and I’m alone?”

  “That’s the rub isn’t it? I mean, here we’ve got this awesome thing. This woman who we’d give anything for, but the thing we have to give is, well everything. You have to figure out if she’s worth the work. Because I can’t lie and tell you it’s easy to be with someone. Even someone you adore. Marriage is hard work. There’s a balance there where things run on their own without much effort, but you have to do maintenance or it will break down. You have to expose yourself, ask someone else for their blood, sweat and tears and give your own. It leaves you laid bare and inside out, Andrew. And that’s what makes it so good. That’s love, man. That’s love and part of what makes it so awesome is the level of real, true intimacy, and the risk you take by opening yourself up that way to someone who has the power to gut you.”

  Brody sat across from them. “That’s it really, in a nutshell. So I guess the question here, Andrew Copeland, is do you have the balls? Because love is a go big or go home sort of thing. You can’t sort of love someone. You can’t caveat love. You do it, you make the effort and you live without a net sometimes. Thrilling and terrifying and I wouldn’t have it any other way. “

  Todd sat forward, clasping his hands between his knees. “I think the question is, can you live without her? Watch her fall in love with someone else? See her bring him to our events and stuff? She, Erin and Elise are tight, so the reality is, that’s what will happen. You’ll see some other dude get what you could have had. If the fear of some random thing happening in the future is bigger than the reality of her being with another guy, walk away now when it’ll merely sort of kill you to do it. But you can’t have this doubt between you. Man up. Love her the way she deserves it, or let another man do it.”

  That was the question.

  He stood. “I gotta go. I’ll talk to you later today to check back in. I’ll have my cell if you need me. Thanks.” He looked to both men who were friends who’d become his brothers as much as Ben was. “I mean it. I needed to get it all out there, and you helped me do that.”

  “Call if you need anything from us too, right?” Brody stood as well. “I’m going to call Elise and Rennie and then go in to hug my sister. Love, Andrew, love makes everything in the world seem doable.”

  He drove back to his place. Maybe working on the last part of the wainscoting in the formal dining room would help quiet his thoughts.

  And there it was, in his mailbox. The envelope was manila, nothing fancy, her writing, the same beautiful script she’d used before, this time with forest green ink. It was not stamped, so she’d come by and tucked it into the box herself sometime between yesterday afternoon when he’d checked last and that morning.

  He went into the house and sat in her chair, opening it up.

  Inside was a photograph and a letter.

  Andrew,

  This is my great-grandfather and great-grandmother. When I look at them, I wonder what it would be like to be with you through our youth, into middle age and the waning days of our life together. I see a house filled with noisy Copland children, with grandbabies, dogs, the children and grandchildren of our friends. Our nieces and nephews. A happy life filled with vacations on the coast, with road trips and stolen kisses after we’ve put all the toys together, all ready for the morning when the kids wake up in the predawn hours and proclaim it Christmas.

  You told me you loved me. I’ve always felt this from you, and I’ve carried it around inside and not really known it. It was just something I associated with you without being able to identify, really. This is what love means for me. Family. Fidelity. Faith in one another. And love.

  I love you, and I want to spend every day until I am no longer breathing with you. I want to bear your children and open my eyes each day to see you there with me, beside me.

  The writing changed, and more was added with a different pen.

  I wrote the part above before Erin’s pregnancy problems. I debated sending this to you. It’s a big deal, and I haven’t said any of this to you before. I may scare you off, or you may not feel the depth of love I do, and I’m running with something you hadn’t intended.

  I heard hesitation in your voice tonight when we spoke, and it scared me. It scared me because I realized I’d simply accepted your presence in my heart and in my life, accepted that you were mine.

  I love you, and I want you to be happy. I hope that you want to be happy
with me. All you need to do is give me the word and I’m yours.

  Forever and always,

  Ella

  He put the envelope down and looked at the picture. He saw Ella in her great-grandmother’s face. Though the picture was black and white and a bit yellowed with age, the spark between the couple leapt from the paper.

  27

  Ella sat back with a sigh. She’d scrubbed her bathroom floor with vicious intent. That grout would sparkle, damn it. She’d placed her obligatory and, as it happened, rather pleasant call to her parents. Had paid her bills online and tried to pretend the hours hadn’t passed.

  But they had, and he was not there. He had not called or come to her, and damn it, maybe he wouldn’t. She pushed to to her feet and cleaned up. All on autopilot. She needed to get out and not wallow. She had to put her faith in him to figure out that she was worth the effort. They’d survive the fear. God knew she had her own.

  Just a few days before, they’d been out and had run into not just one woman he used to sleep with, but two! Until that day, she’d met a few others in passing and had found herself wanting in some way. None of them were like her. They were all petite and tended toward blonde. Fake tans usually, lots of makeup. He had a type, clearly. And she was not it.

  It made her insecure. Who wouldn’t be?

  But that day when they’d bumped into those two women, he barely saw them. He’d been friendly enough, not rude, but his attention had never really left Ella. She’d been his focus, and those women, pretty though they were, had not been her.

  It had been a lightbulb moment and the time she’d let go of her own fear. Suddenly, she realized that she was his type in a way those others would never be. He’d chosen carbon copies of the same woman over and over, but they’d never gone anywhere. He’d never shown them his house, never shown them how to use a band saw.

  She laughed at that, but the man was passionate about his tools, and it had been a big moment for her when he’d let her use it the first time without standing over her every moment.

  As she walked toward the door to grab her coat and bag, she noticed the pale, cream-colored envelope someone had slid under her door.

  She looked through the peephole and then carefully opened the door, but no one was there.

  One glance at the front of the envelope, and she knew who it was from. She braced herself for the worst as she opened it up and pulled out the letter inside.

  She unfolded the smooth, thick paper and smiled. The handwriting was typical of him, of his voice. Bold. Masculine. His words unfurled across the page as if he never doubted a thing he thought. She knew differently by then, of course, that Andrew Copeland was far more than what he appeared on the surface. But his letters had become essential. Part of the rhythm and play of their relationship, like foreplay. And this one could make or break that.

  Dearest Ella,

  Imagine my surprise when I opened my mailbox and found your letter and the picture. I looked at it and read your letter. Then I read it a dozen more times, railing against myself for not seeing the obvious.

  I found this snippet in a journal I keep. A snippet I’d written intending to send you at some later date in a letter. But then I figured today was precisely the day I needed you to read it, because it’s the truth.

  As you slept, the rain fell outside and warm, I lay with you, naked, against your heart and body and you were mine. You are mine, and I don’t think I know all the words to tell you just what that means. Only that when you breathe, I do, when you smile just for me everything inside me stills and knows it’s found the key.

  He’d sketched her on the paper, a quick pencil sketch of her shoulders and the top of her back, of the way her hair had swept forward over her face.

  This is what I see. This is what I feel. This is what I want to feel every day for the rest of my life, and you’re the only one who can make me this way. Let me love you, and I promise you all of me.

  I love you,

  Andrew, Cope and Andy

  PS—Look out front when you’re ready.

  She read it twice more and, holding it to her heart, she went to her windows and looked outside. He stood there, looking up at her windows as he leaned against his truck, and when he saw her, his face lit with a smile so beautiful it nearly felled her.

  Instead, she smiled back and waved.

  He motioned up and managed to put a question on it, so she nodded.

  And then she ran to the bathroom and tried to tame her hair, wished she had enough time for at least a bit of styling but opted for a quick, one-handed brush of her teeth while she buzzed him up.

  She opened the door with a yank, not pretending she wasn’t anxious.

  He came into her arms just the way he was supposed to, and it felt so right she just gave in and began to cry.

  “Shh. Ella, baby, please don’t cry. I’m sorry for making you upset. I’m sorry I hurt you. I just want to be with you, and if that means realizing that something worth having is also something I’d be devastated at losing, then so be it.”

  He kissed her eyelids.

  “I love you. When all this craziness with Erin and the baby and Brody and Elise’s wedding is past, will you marry me? We can plan it for the anniversary of our first official date, though I can tell you the first day I saw you, May fifth, we can get married then too. Or tomorrow, or in two years. Whatever. I just want you. Every day forever.”

  “You have me. And yes, I’ll marry you on the anniversary of that first date, though it makes me all smooshy inside to know you remembered the first day you met me. That was my third day at the café. I remember it too. I’d never seen anything like you before. You sort of scared me at first, still do I suppose, because I can’t understand how you could want me. But it doesn’t matter, because you do and I want you right back and those blonde skeezoids you were a boy skeezoid with can fuck right off.”

  He laughed as he angled her onto the bed, pulling her clothes off. “They’re not skeezoids; they’re just not you.” At her look, he rolled his eyes. “Okay so one or two might be, probably the ones you have bumped into.”

  “Andrew, you are aware that no one should be that shade of orange unless they’re an Oompa-Loompa, right?”

  She was still laughing when he thrust into her body, choking off the sound, filling her and bringing a soft sigh of homecoming.

  “I’m not wearing a condom,” he said softly in her ear. “We’d sort of discussed this as the next step, but I wanted to be sure before I move again. Because this feels so good I might just blow if I pull out and push back in even once.”

  “Yes. Yes it’s fine. More than fine, it’s fabulous and beautiful, and you feel so good if you don’t move soon, I’m going to pass out from frustration.”

  He nipped her neck and rolled them so she was on top. His favorite position and one she liked an awful lot too. “How can I resist all this masculine beauty spread out beneath me? How’d this happen, Andrew Copeland? How did I rate someone like you to love and to be loved by? Do you want to know what I think?”

  “As long as you tell me while you’re fucking me.” He sent her a hopeful smile, and it was her turn to laugh. She circled her hips, keeping him deep, loving how it felt and that she knew it tortured him with pleasure.

  “You make me feel like a siren. Did you know that?”

  He slid his hands up from her hips to cup her breasts. “Red, you are a siren. Now tell me, oh holy shit, yep, like that. That’s new, I like it.”

  She ground herself down onto him, moving her hips from side to side. “I like it too.”

  “There she is,” he said when she’d sort of growled the last.

  “I think that you’re my blue ribbon. Not only because you look so good, and let’s face it, Andrew Copeland, you look fine. Damn I have never seen a more beautiful man in my whole life. But you’re my blue ribbon because you’re good and kind, compassionate and you love me. Shelter me, protect me, trust me to protect myself and make my own choices. You a
re my blue ribbon for waiting and taking the hard way to get right here to this spot.”

  “Just when I think I can’t love you any more, you prove me wrong.”

  “I made an appointment for later today. Raven is doing a piercing for me.”

  He stilled, his cock still deep within her. She leaned forward, bracing her hands on his shoulders to get better balance.

  “Where?” he gasped out.

  She dropped a kiss on his lips, meaning for it to be quick, but then falling into him the way she’d been unable to avoid every time she touched him. He took over the pace, lazily nipping at her bottom lip, sucking her tongue into his mouth until she writhed against him.

  “My nipple,” she whispered into his mouth. “You said you’d like it. I sure hope you do, because it looks like it hurts getting it done.”

  “It does for a few seconds. But I’ll keep you feeling so much pleasure you won’t notice the pain. Also?” He slid a hand down between them and found her clit. “Slick and hard, ready for me.”

  She had already been on edge emotionally, had needed him so much it only took a few brief touches before climax hit, sending her fully upright, her back bending as the shock of it hit, radiating pleasure through every part of her. So much she saw bursts of light behind closed eyes.

  “Christ,” he hissed as he began to come, pressing up as he held her down, even as she writhed still from her own orgasm.

  Exhausted, she fell to the side in a heap of spent, jumping muscles, panting, not letting go of him for dear life.