by J. Saman
“Why would you? There is no benefit to you or to him. If the world thinks this is happening between the two of you, it will only drive up sales.” She has a point. But I can’t help think about Jameson and what he must think of this. And the fact that he now knows I’m living in here in the city for an indeterminate amount of time. The dumbass bid on my house thinking I’d be in it when he came to collect on his prize. I secretly love that.
And I secretly hope he’s insanely jealous of these pictures. And not even in a malicious way. I want his interest. I want his obsession. I want him to come crawling on his hands and knees. I want him to give me a real reason to say yes other than because he asked and said it would never happen again.
“What do I tell my publicist?”
“Tell her whatever you want, but I’d make her keep her mouth shut about it. Everything we do and say matters. Is indelible. There is no eraser. No delete button. Especially with social media. You can go the whole, we’re just good friends, route. People won’t believe it, but at least you’re saying it.”
“Yeah. I think I have to. I can’t just let it ride silently.” I sigh, twisting my bottom lip between my thumb and pointer finger. “Tomorrow is going to be hell. You know that, right? The studio is going to be swarmed with the ’razzi.”
“No such thing as bad publicity.”
“And why aren’t you a publicist again?”
“Because Max sucks the life blood from my body and I have no time for anything other than laundry, changing diapers, nursing and occasionally sleeping, and if I’m really lucky, sex with my husband. And because I’m totally lazy.”
I laugh at that. “Sounds like it. Clearly, taking care of an infant is for the inherently lazy.” My phone makes that beeping noise that indicates another call coming in and as I pull it away from my ear to check who it is, I groan. “I gotta go, Mel. It’s my doorman. Kiss the little bloodsucker for me. Love you.”
“Love you, too.”
I hit the button to switch over to the other call. “Hello?”
“Sorry to bother you, Miss Rose,” the doorman says, a nervous edge to his voice. “I had to step out to help a resident get a taxi and when I returned to my post, there was a package waiting for you.”
“You didn’t see who delivered it?”
“No ma’am. I’m sorry. Would you like me to bring it up?”
“Uh, sure.” I shrug to myself.
“Be right up.”
I set my phone down on the coffee table and head over to my front door, not-so-patiently waiting for my mystery package. I have no idea what it could be. I know I’m not expecting anything and it’s Sunday, so I doubt it was delivered by UPS or the mailman or anything. A few minutes later, there’s a knock at my door and I open it up—a little too anxiously probably—to find the doorman holding a large white box with a pink bow tied around it.
“Oh,” I say, because this is not what I was expecting. I expected one of those brown boxes covered in tape and stickers like you get from Amazon. This is most definitely not one of those. This is not a package. It’s a present. “Thank you, Parker.”
“My pleasure,” he says, handing me the light box.
I shut the door and immediately drop down to the floor so I can open it up. I pull off the pretty ribbon with gusto and when I lift the lid off, I gasp. It’s just a bunch of random things, but it’s not. On top is a chewed-up pen that’s resting on one of my old sleeping t-shirts. I pull it out, setting the gnarled pen on the floor and bringing the t-shirt up to my nose. Jameson. It smells like Jameson and not me.
And this pen. Now that I look at it, it’s not just any old pen that Jameson chewed into nothing. It’s a pen from the tattoo shop we went to when I got my tattoo.
Tears burn the backs of my eyes, a lump forming in my throat that I force back down with a hard swallow. Under the t-shirt is other things. All things he must have saved from our time together. Concert ticket stubs, handwritten notes we used to pass back and forth to each other in class because we were caught texting too many times, presents I had bought for him, a tube of my old flavored lip gloss and pictures. Dozens and dozens of pictures.
I dump the box upside down, running my fingers along the contents as I splay them out on the hardwood in front of me, my tears falling freely now. I pick up a random picture and the strangled sob I was desperate to tamper down escapes with a vengeance. It’s a selfie I took of us when we were snuggled up in bed one night, our smiling faces pressed together. The next one is a candid of me walking across the quad at school, my eyes fixed on the horizon beyond. I didn’t even know he took this picture. More selfies of us. More candids. Posed pictures. Kissing pictures. Hugging pictures. Christmas pictures. Day trips and a million other moments we shared. Our entire relationship. So much love and happiness together.
He had them all printed out.
He saved all of them.
I pour through each one before I come to a picture all the way at the bottom that I don’t recognize. It’s a man’s forearm and on it is a new tattoo, red and angry. A rose. It’s a goddamn tattoo of a rose and above it is my name in beautiful script. He tattooed me on his body. Not just the rose but my actual name. His words from the day I got my tattoo back when we were in college echo through my head. I doubt I’ll ever get one. Your song feels different because it’s timeless and was written for you by your father. Nothing in my life feels like forever and the things that could aren’t worth making permanent.
He tattooed me on his arm. He made me permanent.
The photo slips through my fingers, cascading down to the others still scattered on the floor. My hands come up to my face and I let go. I cry. And I can’t tell if this cry is heartbreak or forgiveness or healing, or some miserable combination of all three. Heartbreak is a wound that never fully heals, even with the passage of time. But maybe I don’t need it to heal. Maybe that’s not what this is about. Maybe it’s about letting yourself love again, even in the wake of that heartbreak, because the ride is worth the fall.
My phone pings a text from the coffee table where I left it. Reluctantly, I pull myself up and off the floor, wiping away at my tears, only to have them start again when I read the message from Jameson.
Take a chance on me. Let go, Lee. I promise I’ll catch you. I’ll never let you hit the ground again.
Let go and you’ll find your answers. It’s what my father had said to me in the car after I left Jameson at the beach?
Before I can text back or even form a coherent thought in my brain, another text comes in.
I’m downstairs at the back entrance. Black town car. Please come to me.
I do. This time I don’t hesitate. Because Jameson kept our entire relationship and he just gave it to me in a box with a pretty bow. Because he had me permanently inked on his body. Because he still loves me, and I still love him, and at the end of the day, that’s what life is all about. Loving and being loved. It’s too short for anything else.
I grab my purse, stuff my keys and phone into it, check the mirror quickly to make sure I don’t have mascara all over my face, and then I’m out the door. Vibrating impatiently in the elevator as it descends. The doors open and instead of looking left toward Central Park West, I head right that will lead me out at 74th street. I try not to run. I really do, but it feels nearly impossible. The moment I hit the street, looking left then right, I spot the car. It’s double parked, because this is New York and street parking is impossible.
The window rolls down and there he is, smiling at me with that barely-there dimple and those perfect white teeth and those blue eyes that I love so much. His hair looks windswept and perfect. He gets out of the car and walks toward me, tall and gorgeous in a black sweater and jeans. My heart. Oh God, my heart is beating so fast I’m tempted to place my hand over my chest to try and slow it down. I smile, doing my best to stop my giddy laughter from bubbling at my lips.
His arms wrap around my body and before I know it, I’m tucked into his chest as he burie
s his face in my neck, inhaling deeply like he hasn’t seen me in decades and not hours. He pulls back, cups my face with both hands and stares into my eyes the way he did last night. “I choose you. Above everything and everyone. I’ll choose you over and over again. Every minute. Every second. With every piece of me, I’ll choose you. And you’ll never even have to think about it. It won’t be a question in your mind because our love is like that. I choose you because I’ve made the other choice before and can speak from experience when I say that it’s not a mistake I would ever make again. For the rest of my life, it’s only you, Lee. There is nothing else.”
Tears leak from my eyes, one after another. His lips capture them, taking them in and kissing them away.
“I love you,” he whispers against me, his lips still kissing me everywhere. My eyes. My cheeks. My forehead. My nose. My lips. “I’m absolutely crazy, insane, turned upside down in love with you. I know I’m the man and therefore by definition I’m supposed to be strong. But you make me so goddamn weak. You leave me raw and vulnerable. Barefoot and exposed. You tear down my defensives one by one. And I’m okay with that. I’ll gladly walk around the world and back like that if it means you’re there at the end waiting for me.”
His eyes catch mine and I see it. I see that raw vulnerability. That question. That love. I see it all over him. I feel it flowing from him. The amount of times he’s turned my talkative mouth mute is staggering. No more doubts. No more second guessing. Because for the last six years, I’ve loved this man. Even when he broke my heart. Even when he hurt me. Love doesn’t shut off in the face of pain. And even though I’ve fought him, fought this, there is no other place I want to be right now than here with him. Even if it’s scary. Even if it’s downright terrifying.
I don’t know if this is forgiveness or acceptance. But I’m not sure it matters anymore. All of my arguments that felt so important, so vital, are now rendered insignificant. Like a switch has been turned on. Like that present, those keepsakes, washed away the last of my doubt. Eliminated the last of my fears that were weighing me down. And now I feel…free. Light.
Maybe that’s stupid and maybe it’s not, but I can’t find the part of me that cares enough to stop.
“Love me back, Lyric,” he says at my silence, his voice frenzied, anxious. “Love me back forever. Please, baby. I’ll do whatever I have to do to prove to you that I’m not going anywhere. That we’re in this together. That you can trust me. I’ll never hurt you again. I swear to God, I won’t.”
My gaze drops to his left arm that’s annoyingly covered with black cashmere. Taking his arm in my hand, I tug up the fabric until I see the tattoo that is so much more beautiful in person. Especially since it is very healed. “When did you get this?” I ask, running my fingers reverently over the rose and my name. His forearm is soft and smooth and warm.
“Three and a half years ago.”
I look up at him, my fingers still touching, unable to stop their ministrations.
“After I flew out to see you in California only to find you with Ethan. I told myself that you were happy. That you deserved a happiness I was clearly incapable of giving you. But I also told myself that the guy whose arms you were in wasn’t your forever. That I was. That I was going to bide my time. That I’d get another chance. And until then, I wanted you with me.”
I lean up on the tip of my toes and I kiss him. I practically maul him in the middle of the street, not even caring who’s around us. My fingers thread into his hair and my body presses against his and I kiss him. I kiss him because I cannot speak. I have no words. It’s all too much. Too perfect.
“I love you,” I whisper into his mouth, and he swallows it down, altering the gravity of our kiss as his tongue sweeps against mine. It becomes a promise. A vow that he means everything he says. That he’s never going to hurt me again. That I can trust him.
“Come with me?” he asks, pulling his lips from mine, pressing our foreheads together.
“Where are we going?”
“To see my dad,” he laughs. “I have to. He’s being moved into rehab today. But I want to spend the day with you. I want to spend every day with you and I really couldn’t wait.”
I peer beyond him at the waiting town car. “Is there a partition in that thing?”
He nods, his eyes growing with fire.
“Can we put it up?”
Jameson growls, his mouth finding my neck, nipping and kissing and licking. “You want to get it on in the back of a town car? Have we become that cliché?”
“There is nothing cliché about it. But I don’t think I can wait all day to kiss you more, and it’s a long drive to Connecticut in Sunday traffic.”
He nods against me. “It can be. Let’s go.”
I giggle at his eagerness, letting him take my hand and lead me to the car. The driver is there, opening the door for us, and I slip inside the warm cab, a swarm of butterflies taking flight inside my chest. My stomach does crazy somersaults. Jameson slides in beside me, raising that partition and then drawing me onto his lap until I’m straddling him, looking into his darkening blue eyes that are filled with so much love my breath hitches.
His hand runs through my hair, brushing it back and off my shoulders. The car begins to move as we silently stare into each other. I never thought I’d get here again. Never thought I could.
“You’re so beautiful,” he says softly. “And now that you’re mine again, I’m never letting you go.”
I not only want to believe him, I need to. If I’m going to take this leap of faith, jump back into the pit feet first and plow on full steam ahead, then I have to. There is no other alternative. And where the quiet voice in the back of my mind is still trying to remind me about the last four years, the much louder voice in the forefront of my mind is telling me that my heart is safe with him. That’s he’s going to protect it. Cherish it.
So, I do the only thing left to do. I let go. I fall blindly, kissing him with vigor. Reacquainting myself with his touch. His taste. His smell. With the sensation of his body against mine. His hand slides up the back of my blouse, pulling it up and over my head.
“So beautiful,” he says again, his eyes feasting on my breasts before he buries his face in my cleavage, both hands coming up to cup and squeeze me through my bra. “This isn’t how I pictured our first time back together. I never planned on making love to you in the back of a car on the way to see my father. I hoped I’d spend the day in tortured agony and then after I took you to a romantic dinner, I’d beg you to come back to my place.”
“Tortured agony, huh?”
He draws back with a grin. “Yup. The best sort.”
“What if I don’t want to wait?” I ask, tilting my head to the side, rolling my hips into his hard cock that’s straining against the rigid fabric of his jeans.
He groans, his head dropping back against the seat. “Then I guess I have no choice but to give you exactly what you want.”
“Good. Because all I want is you.”
A smile lights up his face. “All I want is you, too. Always.”
Our lips meet, and our clothes find their way to the floor of the car. When he slides inside of me and our bodies become one and our souls reunite in the back of a car driving from New York to Connecticut, I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that nothing has ever felt so right.
Chapter 29
Jameson
* * *
We get halfway to Connecticut only to have Dianne call me and tell us not to come. Evidently, the rehab my father has only been in for less than a day worked him to the point of exhaustion. “He’s sleeping and I don’t foresee him waking anytime soon,” she said. “Come tomorrow. He should be awake by then.” I wanted to roll my eyes at that. God, this woman has no give in her when it comes to me.
But all I said was, “Okay. If he wakes up, tell him Lyric and I will be there tomorrow.”
Lyric’s eyes widened when I said that and I realize what I intimated. I know she has a full day of record
ing tomorrow with the douchetard Harry. But then she calmed down and said, “I’ll be there.” That’s why I love this woman. And I do love her. Don’t for a second believe that I take her giving herself back over to me for granted. Because I don’t. I know what it means to have her trust replaced back in my hands. I covet it, dammit.
And really, it’s so much more than I ever expected.
Lucky bastard 101: Don’t fuck up. And this time, I don’t need her to tutor me to get an A.
We make it back into the city and drive by her apartment under the pretenses of having her shower and change for the romantic dinner I’m so desperate to take her to. But when we drive along Central Park West, the sidewalk in front of her building is lined with press.
“What the hell?” she whispers, clearly as bewildered as I am.
I slide my phone out of my pocket and punch in her name. Sure as shit, Harry Evans’s press agent referred to him and Lyric as ‘special friends.’
Awesome.
Looking over my shoulder, she spots the newest headline and does that heavy sigh thing she does when shit gets to be just a bit too much for her. “I don’t know, baby. But really, it’s not something we have to handle tonight. Come home with me. We’ll order take-out. Something yummy and meat-free, and we’ll sit in front of my fireplace and drink really good wine and I’ll go down on you for hours.”
She laughs at that last part, but I’m not joking. That actually sounds like the definition of my perfect night. “I want veggie tacos—”
“With cooked onions, the guacamole on the side and no sour cream. I know.”
She grins at me. And I feel that grin everywhere. “I know you do. You know me.”
I nod. “I know you.”
And then I kiss her because I can. I can kiss her whenever I want. And that might be the best thing of all.
“I have to come back here tomorrow morning to get ready for work.”
“I can have—” My phone blares out an annoyingly loud and persistent ring. Cane. “Hello?” I answer.