by Rose, Emery
I smiled. “Great.” I wanted to be involved and I was glad I could offer. It made me feel a little bit better about myself.
“Bon voyage,” I said, hugging Ava goodbye as we all congregated by my apartment door.
“Ooh, using your fancy French on us,” she said.
I laughed. “Only the best for you guys.”
Connor pulled me into a hug. “Take care,” he said. “And I’m only a phone call away.”
I nodded and released him. “I know. Thanks. But don’t even think about me. Have a great time and send photos.”
They assured me they would. I turned to Killian and Eden, expecting them to leave right behind Ava and Connor. Instead, Eden declared that she needed to use the bathroom and Killian shut my apartment door. It felt planned and deliberate. Eden disappeared into my bedroom and Killian jerked his chin toward my balcony.
I stifled a groan. Not another speech. First Tate and now Killian?
I followed him outside and he closed the glass doors and leaned against the railing with his arms crossed. This pose looked all too familiar.
“What’s going on?” he said.
“You’ll have to be more specific.”
He ran his hand through his hair and let out a breath. “I stopped by to see you last night. Thought you might be…fuck it,” he said, sounding angry. “I was worried about you.”
He was waiting for an explanation. He’d been worried about me and wanted to know where I’d gone. I crossed my arms over my chest and gripped my upper lip between my teeth. Last night, I had vowed to come clean, to stop lying to everyone. This was my chance to do the right thing. All my life I’d been lied to, and when I found out the truth about my father and all the things my parents had kept from me, I had been angry and hurt and resentful. I had also felt like an idiot for not seeing things that were right in front of my face, so it was unfair to do the same thing to people I loved. The people who loved me and were there for me.
I took a deep breath. Why was it so much easier to tell lies than to tell the truth? “I lied to you.” Something flickered in his eyes. The muscle in his jaw ticked, but he remained silent, waiting for me to continue. “That money didn’t come from selling my designer items.”
“Where did it come from?”
“Street racing.”
I’d expected him to be angry or to lecture me. Instead, he rubbed the back of his neck and nodded, his voice calm and measured, maybe lulling me into a false sense of security before he lost his shit. “How long have you been doing it?”
“Since January. But last night I quit. I won’t be doing it again.” I didn’t give him the details, but if Deacon wasn’t involved, I would tell him everything. Maybe. Or maybe not. If he knew that Tyler had threatened me back in June, but I’d paid it no heed and had gone back last night, he’d be just as pissed as Deacon.
“I was a fighter,” he said, telling me something I already knew. “That was my thing. I thought that I could punch and kick my way out of all the shit in my life…” He looked down at his hands and flexed them. “I killed a man. It was an accident. But it doesn’t change the outcome. He was my friend. My mentor. He was a good man who had a wife with a baby on the way. He never even got the chance to see his baby and now that little boy has no father. Because of me.”
“Killian, that wasn’t your fault.”
“That’s not why I’m telling you this.”
I nodded and closed my mouth, waiting for him to go on.
“You can’t punch your way out of a shitty situation or drive fast enough to outrun it.”
“What can you do?”
“What you did took a lot of guts. You were brave to do that. And I’m not talking about street racing. That’s for dumb shits.”
I laughed because Deacon had said the same thing.
“But now you have to find a way to live with it. Which isn’t easy. And you have to find a way to fix the broken pieces inside you. I don’t know how you do that. Everyone has to find their own way. But I can tell you that street racing won’t fix a damn thing.”
I swallowed hard. He was right, but unfortunately, he couldn’t tell me how to do what needed to be done. There was no magic bullet. No easy fix.
“Anything else you want to share?” He raised his brows. Very little got past Killian. I had a weird feeling he knew more than he was letting on.
“I would but I can’t. Not yet anyway. Just…trust me…I’m not doing anything wrong or dangerous or illegal.”
He narrowed his eyes, trying to figure out if he should believe me.
“I promise. It’s just…I have to keep this to myself for a while.”
“And you gave up the street racing, right?”
“Right. Definitely. No more street racing.” It sucked that it had all gone so epically wrong. I had loved street racing. The vibe and the energy and the adrenaline rush. But I pushed those thoughts out of my head.
He nodded slowly. “Okay. But if you need me for anything, you call me.”
“I will.”
We returned to the living room where Eden was waiting for us, having sensed that we needed some sibling time.
As they were leaving, Killian asked, “Have you heard from Maggie?”
Maggie. I couldn’t blame him for not calling her mom. Once upon a time, he had called her that, but she didn’t deserve the title anymore. Not from him and Connor, anyway. And me? I wasn’t sure what she meant to me anymore. Her love had never been a guarantee. My parents didn’t know how to love unconditionally. I didn’t think they were capable of giving something without expecting something in return, and the price of their love had been so high. Unquestioning loyalty. Turning a blind eye. Keeping my mouth shut.
I shook my head. “I haven’t heard from her. And I don’t know how to reach her.” It went beyond not having her cell phone number, but I suspected Killian understood that.
He hugged me goodbye and I held on tight, like the motherless child I was, until I sensed it was making him uncomfortable and released him.
“We’re so tragic,” I said, laughing a little as I hugged Eden.
“Like all the best fairy tales,” she said. “I have a good feeling though. Your happily ever after is waiting for you, just around the corner.”
Like I said, Eden was an incurable optimist.
* * *
One hour after Killian and Eden left, Deacon called me.
“Hey,” I said, trying to keep my voice even and my heart from leaping out of my throat. “Are you okay?”
“I’m okay. How about you?” His voice was cool and detached. It made me sad and angry.
“I’m fine,” I answered coolly.
He exhaled loudly. “I wanted to come over last night, but it was too late or too early, depending how you look at it and I knew you needed to work today.”
He sounded more like himself, like someone who cared.
“You still could have. I wouldn’t have minded.”
“I can’t come over tonight either. I need to do some damage control.”
“Is it about the race?”
“Something else.”
I tried to swallow my disappointment. I wanted to see him so badly, but he sounded tired and I didn’t want to add to his troubles any more than I already had.
“Have you made any plans for tomorrow?” he asked.
“No. Why?”
“You feel like taking a drive?”
“Is that a trick question?”
He chuckled softly. “No. I just wanted to see if you’d be up for meeting me.”
Anywhere. Anytime. Anyplace. “I’d be up for it.”
“Good. I’ll message you the address.”
“Deacon?”
“Yeah?”
I chewed on my bottom lip. Two nights ago, I had felt so close to him, like I could tell him anything. Yet now I was questioning every word out of my mouth and wondering how he’d interpret it. “I have the day off on Monday too.”
“Then I guess y
ou’d better pack a bag.”
I smiled. There was no hesitation in his voice, no pause to think it over before he uttered the words. He wanted to see me, and he wanted to spend time with me. “You won’t have to leave before the sun rises on Monday morning?”
“Nope. I’ll be all yours.”
All mine.
I wanted to hang on the phone and just listen to his voice or the sound of his breathing, but he said goodbye and cut the call, so I packed a bag, excited about the prospect of spending two days with Deacon.
17
Keira
I pulled into the gravel driveway behind Deacon’s Escalade and peered through my windshield at the log cabin. My lips curved into a smile. It was an actual log cabin, two stories with a dark green roof, set back from the road and surrounded by woods. Adirondack chairs sat on the front porch and cheerful orange and yellow flowers spilled from the window boxes. Grabbing my duffel bag from the passenger seat, I stepped out of my car. The first thing I noticed was how quiet it was up here. The house was in a town called Bearsville, in the Catskills, only two hours’ drive from the city, but it felt so remote and worlds away from city life. The next thing I noticed was the silver Honda parked in front of Deacon’s SUV.
The front screen door opened, the hinges squeaking in protest, and closed behind Deacon as he walked toward me, his hands in the front pockets of his running shorts. For some reason, that seemed worth noting.
He stopped in front of me, his hands still stuffed in his damn pockets. “You made it.”
“Yeah, here I am.” I stared at the bruises on his face. In the light of day, they looked so much worse. A deep purple-blue marring his suntanned skin. His lips were dry and cracked, with dried blood from his split lip. I lifted my eyes to his. He gave me a little smile but made no move to kiss me hello.
I unzipped my duffel and dug through my toiletries bag, coming out with a Kiehl’s minty lip balm and held it out to him. “For your lips. They look dry.”
He held out his finger and I squeezed some onto it then screwed the cap back on and tucked it in my pocket while he dabbed the lip balm on his lips. Clearly, he wasn’t used to applying lip balm, but I didn’t say anything.
He raked a hand through his hair and looked over his shoulder. “I thought we’d have the place to ourselves. But my parents came up for the weekend. They’re leaving this evening.”
My eyes darted to the Honda. “Your parents are here?”
“They’re nice. You’ll like them,” he assured me. “They’re looking forward to meeting you.”
“Um…” This whole bullshit conversation and the weird vibe and the fact that his parents were here was awkward. What had he told them about me?
“Let’s go for a walk.”
A walk. Oh God. Nothing good ever came of taking a walk. I looked at my car, tempted to get back into it and drive away. But Deacon took my bag from my shoulder and locked it in his SUV. Then he led me to a trail, a dirt path that cut through the woods behind the house.
“Was this your grandfather’s cabin?” I knew that his grandfather had died two years ago from a heart attack and that he and Deacon had been close.
“Yeah. My parents were thinking of selling it or renting it out, but they can’t bring themselves to do it. They’d like to retire here eventually.”
“Smells like Christmastime.” I took a deep breath of pine and earth and menthol-fresh air. It was cooler up here than it had been in the city, especially in the woods under a canopy of trees, the sunlight filtered through the tree branches.
“This was my favorite place when I was a kid. I used to spend hours in these woods.”
“What did you used to do?” I smiled at the thought of Deacon as a kid. I bet he was adorable with mischief in his eyes and a boyish grin.
“Make forts. Climb trees. Work on my knife skills.”
I laughed.
We walked in silence for a while and I tried to gather my thoughts and come up with a decent apology. “I’m sorry I dragged you into my mess. I never meant to get you involved.”
“Keira, I am involved. Maybe you don’t understand that. Maybe you don’t understand how much I care about you.” His frustration seeped into every syllable of every word. “You lied to me. Then you went off and did the one thing you promised me you wouldn’t do.”
Almost immediately, my defenses went up. “I know. I’m sorry, okay? But I never asked you to track me down. You should have stayed out of it. That was my deal. My mess. Not yours.”
He wrapped his hands around my upper arms and backed me against a tree, the rough bark digging into my back. “No. It’s not fucking okay. You could have been killed. Because of a stupid street race,” he shouted into my face. He stopped and took a breath, breathing through his nose, trying to calm down. His green eyes flashed with anger, but when he spoke again, his voice was lower and softer. “If anything had happened to you, do you know what that would have done to your brothers…to me?”
It was the soft tone and the pained look on his face that unraveled me.
His eyes searched my face, wanting to see that I felt his anger and hurt. I saw it. I saw his pain, but I didn’t want to see it, any more than I wanted to look at his bruises and cracked lips or his honest eyes.
When he said he’d fight to the death for me, I had believed him. I knew he would. But I had never wanted to test him on that.
Tears stung my eyes, but I forced them back. I didn’t want to cry. I didn’t want to fall apart. If I fell apart now, I’d never be able to pick up the pieces and put myself back together again. “If you’re trying to make me feel guiltier than I already do, congratulations. Mission accomplished.” He had me pinned to the tree with his body, his hands braced on either side of my head like he was planning to hold me hostage until I told him whatever it was he wanted to hear. “Is that why you invited me up here…so you could yell at me and make me feel worse than I already do? Just let me go, Deacon. This was a mistake. I shouldn’t have come here. This…us…it’s not…”
With a small humorless laugh, he shook his head. “Just like that? We have one disagreement and you’re giving up?”
“What do you want from me?”
“Everything. I want everything from you.”
“That wasn’t the deal. We weren’t even looking for a relationship—”
“That ship has sailed, babe. We are in a relationship. Stop fighting this.”
I shoved him away and power walked away from him, taking the dirt trail we’d just walked, back in the direction of the house.
“Keira.”
I sped up. I needed to get back to my car and leave. Put this whole mess behind me.
“For fuck’s sake, Keira. I don’t want to lose you. Don’t you get that? I want to keep you safe and protect you.” He was right behind me, pleading with me to understand. To fight for us the way he would fight for me. “I wanted to kill those guys. Beat them to a pulp until they couldn’t even walk out of that fucking parking lot.”
Tears blurred my vision. I was running blind. Running away from the man who had wanted to kill those guys for tampering with my car. Running away from something good in my life. Someone who cared about me and someone I knew, in my heart, that I loved. But if I stuck around long enough, he’d figure out that I’m so messed up that I’ll sabotage everything that is good.
My foot caught on a tree root and I stumbled, bracing myself for the impact of my knees and hands hitting the ground.
I never hit the ground.
He caught me before I fell. Turning me around, he pulled me against him and wrapped me up in his arms. Tears streamed down my face, my body wracked with sobs. He held me close and I cried all over his clean white T-shirt. I cried all the tears I’d never shed.
* * *
We were sitting in a round clearing in the woods, our backs resting against a fallen tree. An old stone fireplace sat in the middle, like it had once been inside a house, but now it stood alone. Deacon said he used to call it
the altar; the clearing was the cathedral. I tipped my head back and felt the sun on my face, heard the soft rustling of a warm summer’s breeze in the trees. Maybe this was where God lived. I didn’t even know if I believed in God. But I felt peaceful in a way I hadn’t felt in a long time. Maybe that’s what happens after you ugly cry all over your boyfriend’s T-shirt and instead of making you feel foolish for running away, he tries to hold all your broken pieces together. And when you’re done crying and there’s nothing left inside you except a cracked, hollowed out shell, he tells you it’s okay. That he’s got you.
“I have strong shoulders. Lay it all on me.”
That was what he said, and he meant it. Because he was good, and he was brave. He was strong enough to carry us both and even though he knew that I was a mess of a girl, damaged and maybe a little bit broken, he wanted me anyway. That’s love, I think. When you don’t try to fix someone or change them or turn them into some ideal of what you wish they were. You just love them, with all their faults and weaknesses and their bad decisions and their silly superstitions. Even when they lie to you or run away from you, you’re there to catch them when they fall.
I climbed onto the log behind him, my legs on either side of his shoulders and finger-combed his hair. He had good hair—thick and wavy, dark blond shot through with lighter strands, cut in long layers. He closed his eyes and let me play with his hair and massage his head. I gathered his hair in my hand and secured it with one of the elastics on my wrist.
“What have you done to my hair?” he asked.
“I gave you a man bun.”
He tipped his head back and looked up at me. “You’ll ruin my street cred.”
I lowered my head and kissed his forehead. “You look so pretty. But in a badass way.”
He laughed. I gently trailed my fingertips over his eyebrows. Down his straight nose. Over his cheekbones. The bruises on his face and his cracked lips. The stubble on his square jaw. I loved his face. The rugged beauty of it. The little laugh lines around his eyes. His full lips and straight, white teeth.