by S. R. Grey
Hanging out like this makes me think of Crick. Shit, I wish I had some cigarettes to pass the time. But no, check that. Having none is for the best. I’m a non-smoker once again.
A few cars pass, but the town is small and not busy. I crouch down after awhile and doze off, and when I wake up I find it is freezing.
Just as I’m standing and zipping up the hoodie inside my coat, a car pulls up and parks in front of the deli.
“Fuck.”
My nerves have me all over the place.
And then…I see Jaynie. Everything stops—time, space, the world we live in. I forget to breathe even, as she steps from the car. Auburn hair, long and flowing, and pale skin I know is so soft.
I want to run across the street, grab Jaynie up in my arms, and kiss her. And I almost do. But then I see Bill Delmont. Or rather, I see the man I assume must be Bill. He slips from the driver’s side and proceeds to walk Jaynie the rest of the way to the deli.
The place is clearly closed, as established, and it’s kind of late to be opening now. So, I guess Jaynie lives upstairs in the room Mandy told us about.
I watch the two of them as they walk to the entrance, not knowing what my next move should be. Do I call out, get Jaynie’s attention?
Bill fumbles with the key and Jaynie laughs when he almost drops it.
I don’t know… Jaynie seems so comfortable with this guy. Shit. Maybe she has moved on with her life?
What if he hugs her next? What if he kisses her?
If I see Bill Delmont kissing my Jaynie—nice guy or not—I may fucking lose it.
I know then I just need to leave.
Hunching my shoulders, I slip around the side of the building, out of sight.
And then I take off at a run.
Jaynie
Before Bill leaves me at the deli door, he takes out his key and says, “See you tomorrow. You have opening shift, yeah?”
I nod. “Yeah.”
I then remind him I have my own key, but he insists on unlocking the deli door.
He almost drops his key, and we laugh. “It’s been too long of a day,” he says, sighing.
“It has been,” I reply. “But it was really great, seeing everyone again and meeting Josh, finally.”
Something in my heart tugs. The day was amazing, spending time with Mandy and the twins. But I can’t pretend that one very important person was missing—Flynn.
Dammit, where is he? There’s no reason for him to continue to stay away, not now. He quit his job, right? I sure hope Mandy is right about this one.
Bill turns to go, and I catch the briefest flash of a guy across the street. Something registers familiar about him.
I blink, and he’s gone.
My tired self takes a minute to process and review.
Definitely a guy.
Tall, with broad shoulders.
A guy bundled up in a worn tan coat and navy hoodie. Wait. Bundled in a worn tan coat… Oh my God, I know that coat. And I know that guy.
“It was Flynn,” I murmur.
“Jaynie, are you okay?” Bill eyes me curiously.
I look at him. “Uh…”
Maybe Bill made Flynn run. Maybe Flynn misunderstood our friendly interaction.
I assure Bill everything is fine and pretend I’m heading inside the deli. Bill goes to his car, and then drives away.
The second Bill is out of sight, I race across the street. It must be close to eleven by now. The moon is high in the sky, all round and bright, illuminating the night.
“Flynn,” I call out as I head around the corner to the side of the building.
No one is there. No Flynn, nothing.
Damn. If Flynn is running, there’s no way I can catch him.
Which way would he go, anyway? To the left and to the right is a straightaway, running in both directions. I look each way, but there’s no sign of Flynn on either side. That leaves one option—straight ahead, into the park.
Flynn must have run to the park. But he can’t get too far, the river will stop him. Unless Flynn plans to swim away, he has nowhere to go.
I race over to the park and begin to thread my way toward the riverbank. I walk along a narrow trail that’s surrounded by small trees and scraggly brush. The branches are bare, but wiry and tangled. They poke at me like bony fingers, making me glad I have on a heavy wool coat.
When I reach the trail’s end, I scan the banks of the river.
And then…
I see him, a shadow in the night. “Flynn,” I call out to the shimmery silhouette down by the water.
A brisk wind drowns out my voice, and Flynn doesn’t hear me or turn around. He remains still, his back facing me. He’s filled out a lot since I last saw him months ago. And that’s when it hits me—all the time that has passed, all the days and weeks and months without him. I’ve moved from depressed to functional, but there’s always been this hole, an absence only Flynn can fill.
Choking back a sob, I run to him. As I near the boy I loved and lost, he doesn’t hear my footfalls. Between the wind and the fast, choppy river current, I’m able to sneak right up on him.
When I’m a mere few feet away, I skid to a stop. “How fitting that we reunite by the water,” I say.
Flynn spins around, and all the weeks and months condense down to one day, and then one minute, and then now. There is only now as our eyes meet. There is no more past and no future.
Flynn smiles at me. “Hey, Jaynie.”
I smile back at him. “Hey, Flynn.”
We come together, a crushing of bodies. My hands find purchase in his hair. His hands go to my face. Our lips meet, and it hurts, this reuniting. But it also feels so, so good.
Tears fall.
I remember this love. And the gaping hole in my heart, the one that healed a tiny bit today when I was with the twins, stitches back up completely.
When Flynn and I break from our kiss, he presses his forehead to mine. Breaths intermingle, wispy plumes, a testament to life in the dead, wintry air.
“You made it,” I whisper.
“I would’ve been along sooner, but, uh, I guess you could say something got in the way.”
“You mean someone,” I correct.
“Yeah, someone… Someone we’re free of now.”
I step back, but Flynn’s hands remain at my waist. It’s like he can’t let go of me now that he has me again.
“Flynn, I know Mrs. Lowry was holding that night over you. You don’t have to explain any of that.”
“Jaynie—”
I cut him off. “Seriously, Flynn, we can talk about it later.” The last thing I want is to have our reunion tainted with talk of that evil wench. “Can you tell me one thing, though?”
“Anything, babe. You can ask me anything.”
“Why’d you run off when you saw me out in front of the deli?”
“A misunderstanding.” His hands tighten possessively on either side of my waist. “I thought maybe you’d moved on.”
I lean in and brush my lips over his. “You know that’s silly, right?”
He nods. “I do now.”
I tell him what’s in my heart. “It’s always going to be you, Flynn O’Neill. Never anyone else. You came into my life for a reason. You healed me in the past, and you’re healing me right now. You believe me, right?”
He shrugs.
“My life’s been empty without you,” I whisper. “I’ve been lost.”
He lets out a choked laugh, or maybe it’s a sob. “You don’t even want to know what it’s been like for me, living without you.”
“Tell me,” I say.
“I’ve been merely existing, Jaynie. One day blending into the next. The color in my world was gone without you in it. You were always the brightness, Jaynie. You made my world alive.”
“I can make it alive again,” I promise.
“You already have.”
“So, you’re staying?”
He smiles. “Wherever you are, Jaynie, that’s wher
e my home will always be.”
I press my lips to his once more, salty and sweet. “Then let’s go home, Flynn.”
Flynn
Jaynie’s room above the deli is small, but it’s nice. Sure beats the abandoned warehouse basement I was living in for months.
What I told Jaynie down by the river was true. What I was doing in Forsaken wasn’t living.
But now it feels like my life has begun anew.
I kick off my boots and shrug out of my coat and hoodie so Jaynie can place them over the back of a chair. When she takes off her own coat, I immediately notice she’s no longer emaciated.
“You look good,” I tell her as I scan over curves showcased by a tight brown sweater and jeans.
She slips off her winter boots and places them by the door. “Thank you, Flynn,” she says shyly.
I walk over to her. Cupping her chin, I urge her to look up at me.
When she complies, I say, “I’ve missed you so much.”
Our eyes meet, lust and longing hanging in the air. But there is also hesitancy. This feels more real than down by the river. We’re in a cozy, warm room, with a bed nearby. There’s nothing to stop us from ripping off our clothes and ravaging one another.
Jaynie steps away. “Uh, this feels funny.”
I don’t lie. “It does.”
She sits down on the edge of the bed. “Maybe we should just talk for a while.”
I raise a brow. “Like, get re-acquainted.”
She blows out a breath. “It’s not that I don’t know you, Flynn. But I have no idea what your life’s been like the past few months. I feel like we shared so much all the time at Mrs. Lowry’s. And then everything just…ended.”
I step over to the bed. “I know, Jaynie.” Gesturing to a spot next to her, I ask, “Is it okay if I sit down?”
“Yes.” She shakes her head and laughs softly. “This is crazy. Just sit, Flynn.”
I do. And we begin to talk in earnest. I tell her about my job, where I lived, and about Crick.
“He sounds a little out there,” she says.
“He is kind of crazy, but in a good way.” Sighing, I add, “He was my only friend. The one person I allowed myself to get close to.”
“Do you think you’ll ever see him again?”
Shrugging, I say, “I don’t know. I have no plans to ever go back to Forsaken, I can tell you that much.”
“Maybe he could come here to visit?”
I scrub my hand down my face. “Yeah, I don’t know. Maybe, I guess. Though Crick is kind of a Forsaken-type of guy.”
“Huh.” She knows what I mean.
Jaynie scoots back on the bed and leans up against the pillows. She then indicates I should do the same.
As we both get more comfortable, she says quietly, “I don’t think I can ever go back to that town.”
“I agree. Too many bad memories.”
Jaynie leans her head on my shoulder and says, “Let’s not think about any of that right now.”
There’s so much to talk about, but I agree, for now, to talk about other things. The subject is changed, and Jaynie tells me of her visit to Mandy’s place in Morgantown. Apparently, the twins are living with Mandy and Josh, as of this morning.
“Wow, that’s amazing.” To say I’m elated would be an understatement. “I always knew if anyone could make it happen, it’d be Mandy.”
Jaynie touches her wooly-socked foot to mine. “Cody asked about you, Flynn.”
“He did?” A lump forms in my throat as I finally admit to myself how very much I’ve missed the twins, especially Cody.
It takes me a minute to pull myself together. Even then all I can get out is a ragged, “Cody…”
“He wants to see you,” Jaynie says.
“Shit, I’d drive up tomorrow, Jaynie, but there’s one little problem. No car.”
“Oh, and I forgot.” She makes a face. “Not having a driver’s license could be a problem, too.”
“Actually, I got one of those.”
She peers over at me, brow furrowed. “How’d that happen?”
I shrug. “I had to drive machinery and trucks at the site, so I got the hang of it pretty quickly. Then, the foreman took me over to the driver’s license center one afternoon, had me take the test. He wanted me official so nothing could come back on him.”
“Oh.” She nods. “Well then, I bet we could borrow Bill’s car for an afternoon.”
“You think he’d really go for that?” I ask skeptically.
But Jaynie insists, “He’s a really good guy, Flynn. I’m sure he wouldn’t mind.”
“Good. Then I guess it’s a plan.”
Fuck, I can’t wait to see Cody…and Callie…and Mandy. I sit there and smile, like a fool, for a good solid minute. But then I remember there’s something else I need to address, something more practical.
“Hey,” I say to Jaynie. “Not to overwhelm the guy with requests the first day I meet him, but do you think Bill is still up for giving me a job?”
Playfully, she nudges me with an elbow and says, “I think so. But, don’t worry, even if he’s hesitant, I’ll put in a good word for you.”
She’s teasing, of course, but it gets us to laugh. We then spend the next few minutes joking around, like old times. We somehow end up in a tickle battle, or maybe I instigate one on purpose, just to remind Jaynie of the good times in our past. Oh, and it’s a sneaky way to get close to her.
And as fate would have it, just like that special day so long ago, up in our secret spot, the day I first kissed Jaynie, she once again ends up pinned under me.
“Okay, okay,” she cries out, tears rolling down her cheeks from laughing so hard. “I give up. You are, without question, the undisputed tickle champion.”
“Not that this was ever about tickling,” I say softly, my breaths coming faster and faster. “I was only looking for a way to get close to you.”
“Flynn.” She peers up at me, a tinge of sorrow in her green eyes. “You are close to me. You’re in my soul. God,” she sighs. “We’ve been through so much together.”
We haven’t talked at all about that night, or all that led up to it. I know she still feels the loss of our baby, even though it was only here with us for what felt like a minute. I think about what we lost from time to time, but I know it’s not the same as it is for her.
“Do you want to talk about it?” I whisper.
“No,” she says, shaking her head. “Not tonight. I think all I really want right now is for you to hold me.”
We both know she means more.
I roll off her. As I slip out of my jeans, flannel shirt, and thermal, Jaynie watches me. After a minute, she tugs her brown sweater over her head and snaps off her bra. When her jeans join the pile of clothes building on the floor, I hook my fingers under the hem of my boxers and look at her, questioning.
She nods as she slips off her own underwear.
We turn off the lights and slip under the covers, both of us bare. I do take a second to grab a condom out of my duffel bag. This is a new start. There’s no air of desperation hanging over us like there was in the past. We’re going to do things right this time.
Wrapping up in each other’s arms, it feels like old times. We begin right where we left off. All those nights in the third-floor bedroom, holding one another, hanging onto the anchors that kept us afloat. I supported Jaynie, while she kept me from drowning.
Tonight, however, we allow ourselves to drown, in each other. We become lost in our love, a love that is unquenchable. I lose myself in Jaynie for the first time in months. Our love was sidetracked for a while, but I will never again allow that to happen.
I make a silent promise to myself, and to her. It’s a promise to never again fail her, no matter what the cost. From here on out, today’s promises will never again become tomorrow’s lies.
No, today’s promises will always be kept.
Flynn and Jaynie learn to adjust to their new life in Lawrence, while Mandy and th
e twins do the same in Morgantown, when the story continues in Today’s Promises (Promises #2) ~ 2016
Read other books by S.R. Grey
S.R. Grey is an Amazon Top 100 and Barnes & Noble #1 Bestselling author. She is the author of the popular Judge Me Not series, the new Promises series, the Inevitability duology, A Harbour Falls Mystery trilogy, and the Laid Bare series of novellas. Ms. Grey’s works have appeared on multiple Amazon Bestseller lists, including Top 100 multiple times, as well as Barnes & Noble #1 in Bestselling Nook books.
Ms. Grey resides in Pennsylvania. When not writing, Ms. Grey can be found reading, traveling, running, or cheering for her hometown sports teams.
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Read the prologue of I Stand Before You, the award-winning first novel in S.R. Grey’s bestselling Judge Me Not series.
I Stand Before You
Prologue
Chase
I lean my head back against the headrest, crank the passenger window down the rest of the way. The June night air rustles through my hair, reminding me I desperately need a trim. I run my fingers through the strands, chasing the path of the breeze.
My grandmother likes to lecture that I shouldn’t have hair sticking out at odd angles, strands curling at the nape of my neck.
“You’re such a handsome young man, Chase,” Grandma Gartner said just this morning, tsking when I sat down for breakfast. “You look so much like your father did when he was your age. But, you know, he always kept his hair short and tidy.” And then there was a pause, a long, dramatic sigh. She set down a plate of eggs—over easy—in front of me. “My poor Jack. God rest his soul.” My grandmother crossed herself.