This Point Forward

by Katrina Abbott

  A single tear shimmered on the lower lashes of his right eye before it fell, rolling down his cheek. I wiped it away with my thumb.

  “I’m so messed up,” he whispered.

  “Join the club. I’m like the most privileged girl in the world and I have separation anxiety. Dogs get that and tear up couches.”

  “Remind me to never leave you alone in my living room,” he said. “I like my couch.”

  I smiled at that. “Yeah, just a pair of basket cases. We’ll make quite the couple.”

  He cocked his head. “What do you mean?”

  “You need me to spell it out for you?” I said, pretending to be coy, but really my insides were vibrating with nerves.

  His eyebrow quirked. “Apparently, yes.”

  Feeling suddenly shy, I dropped my eyes down to his arms, mostly bare since he was wearing a t-shirt. It was the first time I’d gotten a good look at his tattoos. “Tell me about these,” I said, tracing a finger down his forearms.

  “First, I think you need to finish what you were going to say,” he said.

  I shook my head and looked up into his eyes again. “No. I need to know what these mean to you first. What’s important to you?”

  He looked down to where my fingers were on his left forearm. This was the biggest of his tattoos (that I could see) wrapping around his entire forearm, a mosaic of blues and greens. “That one, the mermaid, that’s for my mother. She collected mermaids. They were everywhere in our house.” I could hear the smile in his voice as he remembered his mother. “Everywhere she went, she’d bring home a mermaid souvenir. Dad would, too, if he went on a business trip.”

  “What did he do?” I asked.

  “Telecommunication sales rep. She was a nurse. Before...” he trailed off and swallowed before returning to the tattoos. “This one,” he pointed at his right forearm to the design I didn’t recognize. “This is the logo for the Buffalo Sabres, Dad’s favorite hockey team.”

  “Your favorite, too?”

  He shook his head and grinned. “No, I’ve always hated them. The Rangers are my team. We used to argue about it all the time.” But I could tell from his face that the arguments were good-natured ones. And what a testament to his father that he had his team logo tattooed on himself.

  “Where’s the one for your sister?” I asked, because if he’d honored his parents with ink, surely he had one for his sister.

  He pulled his right sleeve up over his shoulder, revealing a cartoon-like picture of a redheaded girl with pigtails that stuck straight out of her head on either side. I glanced up at him. “Pippi Longstocking?”

  He smiled, looking down at his arm. “She had the most brilliant red hair, which is why my parents called her Rowan; it means little red one. I used to read her Pippi Longstocking books all the time and she said that’s who she wanted to be when she grew up. She loved those stories.”

  “She loved her big brother.”

  He glanced up at me and nodded. “I loved her, too.”

  “Of course you did. Any other tattoos?”

  He nodded. I lifted my brows. “Well?”

  “One more.”

  I waited.

  He stood up and started undoing his jeans. Oh God. “Never mind,” I said, my face suddenly flooded with what surely had to be most of the blood in my body.

  He didn’t stop, but pulled down the side of his jeans (and what looked like black boxer shorts because how could I not look?) to reveal a red heart on his hip.

  I looked up at him, questioning.

  “That’s where they took the bone marrow from for Rowan’s transplant. She made me get it because she wanted me to always remember how much she appreciated me trying to save her.”

  You’re killing me, I didn’t say.

  He looked away and did up his pants. “It didn’t work, obviously.”

  “It still counts,” I croaked, my throat suddenly really dry. To give us both a moment, I went to the little fridge and took out two bottles of water, handing him one.

  He took a swig and said, “Now. About that other thing.”

  I drank half of the bottle and wiped my mouth on my shoulder. “What thing was that?” I said, back to coy.

  He cocked an eyebrow and smirked, so sexy, it felt like my bones were melting. “About us being a couple.” But then, as I looked at him, his smile dissolved and his face transformed into something else: conflicted.

  “What?” I asked. “What’s wrong?”

  He leaned his elbows on his knees, picking at the label on the water bottle, shaking his head. “I’m nowhere near good enough for you.”

  “What?”

  He looked at me. “Look at you. You’re good and beautiful and caring and if you’re here, you’re probably from a good family and really wealthy. I’m a cri....someone who’s been to prison, works manual labor and has no one.” His eyes dropped back down to the water bottle.

  “Uh, let’s get something straight,” I said in my best, Emmie doesn’t take any crap voice. “YOU are good and beautiful and caring. I’m guessing since you were acquitted, you don’t volunteer at the blood donor clinic because it’s court-ordered community service.”

  “No,” he said with a small shake of his head. “I started there after Rowan had her first transfusion.”

  “Right. So you care about people. You help at the youth center to give back, not because you have to.”

  “Marjorie was like a second mother to me after I got out of prison. I lived at my uncle’s place, but she was the one who helped me get myself on my feet. She helped me get the job at A1.”

  “And there’s that. Your ‘manual labor,’” I said, giving him a set of air quotes. “Do you enjoy it?”

  He nodded. “Yeah. I like working with my hands and the guys there are good to work with.”

  “Okay, so,” I held up my hand to tick off my fingers. “You’re a good, charitable person who gives back. You are gainfully employed, enjoy your job and have what I understand is a very nice couch.” He grinned, but I continued. “You smell great, are smoking hot and have tattoos.”

  “Smoking hot?” he said, a little blush creeping up his cheeks.

  I snorted, like he didn’t know. “What are your feelings on Pride and Prejudice?”

  He frowned, which I guess made sense, since the question sort of came out of nowhere. “The book?”

  “The miniseries.”

  “Do I get to watch it with you?”

  “You must watch it with me.”

  He shrugged. “Then I’m fine with it.”

  “It’s over six hours.”

  He put his hands on my face, like he couldn’t wait one second longer to touch me. “Emmeline, I would watch paint dry for six hours if I got to be with you.”

  “You’d do that for me?”

  He touched my forehead with his, his blue eyes suddenly all I could see. “I’m cat-sitting to be on campus with you. I did a second workout, shredding every muscle in my body to hang out with you. I think I can sit through a six hour movie to be with you.”

  There was nothing else I could do then but kiss him.

  Anchors

  After we made out for a while, we realized cooling it for a bit was probably a good idea. Anyway, I was sleepy, so I changed into my pajamas and let him tuck me in and ease in behind me like the night before.

  Now that he’d told me everything, I felt so much lighter and knew, especially with him there, that I’d fall asleep quickly.

  But I guess he wasn’t done talking. “What are your parents going to think of me?”

  I rolled over so I could face him. “I don’t care.”

  I could barely see him in the dark, but still saw him cock his head. “How can you not care?”

  “For as long as I can remember, they’ve ditched me and left me behind all the time and for almost every holiday. They don’t think about me, so what should I care what they think of you? They sent me a video card for Christmas. You’re here with me. That says a lot more than
a stupid video card.” I hated that the hurt was evident in my voice.

  Danny folded me into his arms. “I am here. But you know after this week, I can’t be.”

  I nodded against his chest. “I’ll never sleep again.”

  He pulled back to look down at me. “Don’t say that.”

  “You make me feel safe and comfortable. Without you here, I’ll feel like I’m lost at sea. You’re like my anchor.”

  He looked at me for a long moment before he got up out of bed. For a minute, I panicked that I’d chased him away with my crazy, but realized he was just rooting around on my desk for something. “What are you doing?”

  Without saying anything, he turned on my desk lamp and then sat down on the bed beside me. He grabbed my right hand and turned it palm up. “Danny?”

  “Shhh,” he said, then put my orange Sharpie in his mouth to pull off the cap. While I watched, he drew an anchor on the inside of my wrist. He bent over and blew on it, his warm breath tickling my sensitive skin. Then he bent even lower and pressed his lips there, lingering as he heated up my flesh. “There,” he said as he finally drew away. “Now you have an anchor. Every night that I’m not here, look at it and know you’re not alone. I’m always with you.”

  “It will wear off,” I said stupidly, looking at the anchor as my heart wondered how it got so lucky as to be captured by this boy.

  “I’ll keep drawing it on. Maybe one day, you’ll make it permanent. That’s up to you.”

  He put the Sharpie on the desk and got back into bed with me. We arranged ourselves again until he was behind me, his arms holding me to him.

  “You never have to be alone, Emmeline. From this point forward. I promise I will always be with you.”

  Epilogue

  My phone rang and the second I saw it was Danny calling, I answered it. “How did it go?” I asked.

  “It was okay. They’ll do it with lasers and say it will only take a few treatments.”

  “I’m sorry I couldn’t go with you,” I said. But now that school had started up again, it was harder for us to see each other. The good old phone had become our main way of communicating. (Danny hated his computer and hadn’t come around to seeing the benefits of Skype just yet.)

  “It’s okay. They just looked at it and told me what to expect and made another appointment to start the treatment.”

  “You’re sure you want to do this, Danny? You’re not doing it just for me, or because you think my parents will judge, right?”

  “No, Emmie,” he said with a sigh. “I’ve told you. I’m doing this for me. I need to stop punishing myself every day. A really smart girl told me that once and she was right.”

  I smiled. “A really smart pretty girl,” I corrected.

  “My really smart beautiful girl,” he said. Because he is the best boyfriend ever.

  But then something occurred to me. “Wait, Danny?”

  “Yeah?”

  “You’re just having that one tattoo removed, right? You’re leaving the rest?” Because God, I loved his tattoos. Especially that little heart one.

  “Funny you mention that, because not only am I leaving all the rest, but I got a new one yesterday that I can’t wait to show you. You’re going to love it.”

  Like I said: Best.

  Boyfriend.

  Ever.

  Thank you for reading THIS POINT FORWARD.

  I hope you enjoyed it!

  Reviews help other readers find books they might enjoy, so I hope you’ll consider reviewing this book at your favorite retailer and Goodreads. I appreciate all reviews—positive and negative. This is the best way you can show your love to authors and help them keep writing stories.

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  The Rosewoods Series

  TAKING THE REINS

  MASQUERADE

  PLAYING THE PART

  READING BETWEEN THE LINES

  I’LL NEVER FORGET (Short Story)

  THIS POINT FORWARD

  RISKING IT ALL (Short Story)

  MAKING RIPPLES

  ACTING OUT

  HITTING THE TARGET (August 2015)

  Find me online at http://katrinaabbott.com, follow me on Twitter @abbottkatrina and come check out my Pinterest board to see some of the inspirations behind the characters (girls and guys!) and the costumes for MASQUERADE.

  xoxo

  Katrina Abbott

  Out Now!

  MAKING RIPPLES

  Book 6

  of

  The Rosewoods

  Read on for a sneak peek!

  Cabin Fever

  Cabin fever is a real thing. I know this because my dork of a brother Rob has watched every single episode of Mythbusters and they did a show about it a few years back. I never could have known at the time that I would use the knowledge gleaned from the episode to convince my father to get me and my mom back to civilization. But whatever—I did what I needed to do, because I was going nuts.

  And my mother hadn’t been faring much better, either. In fact, our secluded little ‘holiday’ in Switzerland was nowhere near as romantic as you might think. The days without modern conveniences—ones that I had previously thought of as necessities—were dragging very long, causing our nerves to wear extremely thin. I had caught up on all my schoolwork (because I had nothing better to do) had done a million sudokus and had even started getting my mom to teach me to knit when her hands got tired of working on her own projects all day. Yes, I was that desperate.

  The second we’d walked into the cottage and I’d realized just what my Dad meant by completely off the grid, I regretted not grabbing Jared’s manuscript before I’d left Rosewood. There was no telling when I’d even be able to get it back to him, so I guess it was for the best. For him, at least.

  I’d tried to start a journal, but it quickly got pretty boring since I wasn’t about to write anything my mother might read, so that got abandoned early on.

  Mom and I passed a good bit of time by needling at each other. I’d usually gotten along pretty well with her, but days on end with no TV or internet along with her snoring, incessant questions about things I didn’t want to talk about and hand-wringing over whether we’d get out before Christmas, and I’d pretty much had it. Don’t get me wrong, I was no peach to live with either; I knew that. But we were not made to live at such close quarters without activities or escape and it was amazing we hadn’t killed each other.

  The one upside to all this was that I had a new appreciation for those early settlers who lived in their sod huts and had nothing but each other and hard work to fill their days. Actually, at this point, hard work didn’t sound so bad.

  So when Dad finally radioed us to say the immediate threat was over and that his team had infiltrated and shut down the terrorist cell that had been behind the threat I’d received on my cell back at school, we packed up our things faster than you can yodel Swiss Alps. Dad wanted us to stay put for a while, but even Mom was willing to take the risk, so within a few hours, we were on our way to Geneva where we got on a train to London.

  Returning to London was half the battle. The other half was getting my parents to let me go back to the States and Rosewood. Okay, maybe getting back to London was five percent of the battle, because I knew I had the fight of a lifetime still ahead.

  But I had to get back. The quiet in that cottage had given me nothing but opportunities to think about what my life had been like at Rosewood and although things had gotten a bit crazy at times, I realized now I loved it and was desperate to go back to my friends. And, of course, Dave.

  Dave. The guy who would have returned from his Thanksgiving weekend at home with his family to find me gone. And even worse, Emmie probably had to be the one to tell him I’d left. I felt horrible about leaving my friends the way I did, but I didn’t have any choice, and I guess deep down, I’d always known having to bolt with no notice or explanation could be a possibility.
That didn’t make me feel any better about it, though.

  As Mom slept in the seat beside me on the train, I looked out the window at the landscape passing by, but thought about what had become my world half a planet away. My world where I’d had a boyfriend and better friends than I’d ever had before.

  I wiped away a tear as I thought about my dad and how freaked out he’d been when I’d first returned after receiving that threat. He wasn’t going to give in easily. The good news was I had over seven hours on the train to figure out my strategy.

  ~ ♥ ~

  “No. You’re not going back there.”

  So much for the just ask strategy.

  “But, Dad...”

  My father slammed his palm down on the table, making the cutlery and the dishes hop and clatter. Mom squeaked as she startled in her chair. “It’s enough, young lady,” Dad said through clenched teeth. “You made your case, and I said no. Repeatedly. It’s too much of a security risk to have you out of the country.”

  “But I’m no safer here,” I said, reaching out my arms to indicate our new London flat. “ISIS is just as much a threat here in London as it is in the States. Probably even more here.”

  He gave me an incredulous look. “You think I don’t know that? It’s my job to know exactly how much danger civilians are in. To calculate the potential death tolls in myriad situations, especially in populated cities like this one and it’s why you went to that school in the first place. But things have changed and I just can’t take the risk of having you so far away. Do you have any idea how much pressure we’re under?” He blew out a long breath and scrubbed his reddened face with his hands, pushing his glasses up on his head to rub at his eyes. Which was the sign that meant I had just pushed as much as I could. One more nudge and he would blow his stack and there would be no reasoning with him.