by K. S. Thomas
“Look, I can’t help that I haven’t been here all this time, but I’m here now and I fully intend to pick up where I left off. I love her. I’ve always loved her. She’s mine to take care of, so thank you for filling in, but I’m here now.”
I don’t really know what I expect him to do next. Bow out, I guess. That’s not what he does though. He gets to his feet, yanks the towel from my grip and stares daggers at me with a set of eyes I’m suddenly damn sure have had years of practice in intimidation and getting their fucking way.
“You want to take care of her? That’s great. She deserves that. But maybe, just maybe, the first thing she sees when she comes to shouldn’t be the face that made her check out to begin with.” He lowers himself back down to tend to her. “I’m not stupid, Reed. Or blind. And unlike you, my memory is perfectly intact. I know who you were to her. Who you’ll always be. I’m not here to compete with that. So, take a fucking step back, relax, and give me a minute.”
Cooper
I can hear Gun’s voice. He’s here. With me. I was dreaming. I know I was. I don’t even want to open my eyes to see the proof. Me in my bed. Gun sitting beside me, on the phone dealing with some business deal and waiting for me to wake up. That’s what I’ll find. No Reed. Just a regular morning after a crazyass dream.
“I know you’re awake again, Coop,” Gun whispers. “Your eyelids are twitching and you’re frowning.”
I am frowning. Why is he always paying attention to the details? Especially when I never notice them. Or notice them too late. Why is my face wet?
“Gun?” I start to sit up as soon as my eyes are open. I’m not in bed. It wasn’t a dream.
His hands are quick to apply pressure to my shoulders, forcing me back into my sofa’s exuberant amount of pillows. It was a harmless collection when it started. Now I’m pretty sure I could win the war of wars in terms of pillow fights, if the world ever had one of those.
“Slow your roll there, Speedy. You just spent a solid five minutes in coma ville. No need to jump up if you’re just gonna pass out again.” He smiles. If you can call it that. Gun’s usual stinginess when it comes to facial expressions of joy is clearly back to normal. Not that I can blame him. Not much here to smile about.
“Gun?” I ask again, this time more urgently. I don’t have to form actual words. He knows what I want to know. What I need to know.
His head drops so his expression is out of sight, but it doesn’t hide his audible sigh.
“He’s here. Reed. He remembers you.”
I gasp. Like a total drama queen, I gasp, just barely catching myself before I clutch my chest too. It’s bad enough I fainted at the sight of him, I can’t go around gasping and clutching as well. “I blacked out.” Talk about stating the obvious. I’m stalling. I’m nervous. Scratch that. I’m fucking terrified. My long lost soulmate and my best friend (who I just happen to be sleeping with) both in the same room. It’s enough to make anyone want to slip into unconsciousness.
“Yeah. You blacked out.” He lifts his brows just high enough to meet my gaze again. He’s worried. I haven’t had an episode like this in a long time.
“I’m fine now.” I’m not fine now. But I need him to think I am. He deserves to think I am. Gun has worried about me more than any one human being should ever have to worry about another one.
He doesn’t smile this time. Not even a little.
“Come on. Slowly.” He moves his hand along my arm and under my elbow to steady me while I get back to my feet.
There he is. Reed. The same beautiful and painfully perfect boy I remember him being. Well, maybe not quite the boy anymore. His shoulders are broader and his face has filled out some, but it’s maintained its exceptionally chiseled jawline, which is now covered in a hot as hell two-day scruff. His hair is still short and neat, but styled differently from before. He’s doing that faux hawk thing so many guys are sporting these days, but for some inexplicable reason it looks like it was uniquely fit for his head of hair. And those eyes. Reed’s baby blue eyes still look like oceans pooling together around some tropical island. Crystal clear and deliciously inviting. I remember thinking being seen by those eyes for the rest of my life would be all the attention I’d ever need. If I was invisible to the rest of the world, I wouldn’t care, as long as those eyes were watching me.
“I still can’t believe this is happening.” I say it more to myself than anyone else, but Reed and Gun are both here, so they both hear me.
“I know. Me either.” It’s the first I’ve heard his voice outside of saying my name. It’s deeper now. More grown up. Less carefree.
Gun is behind me. Even without turning around, I can feel him putting distance between us. I can’t look. He’s going to leave and I can’t stop him. Or maybe I should stop. But I can’t, because stopping him for my own selfish reasons would be wrong, and stopping him because I’ve made my choice, because I know it’s him...is impossible. I know nothing. Except that I’d really like to black out again.
Gun walks past me on his way to the door. He nods at Reed. “She better be conscious when I get back.” He’s joking. Sort of.
Then he’s gone without saying goodbye to me. Without even looking me in the eye. Maybe because he knows I can’t hide shit from him. Maybe, this once, even he’s afraid of what he might see.
The door slams and we’re alone. Reed. And I. Alone. Together. And he smiles. Really smiles. And the room fills with the warmth of his smile. And I remember what it means to be with him. And I’m terrified all over again.
I’ve fantasized about the moment Reed would come back for me a million times over the last seven years. Thing is, I never could quite figure out where Gun would fit even once. In the end, I always told myself fate knew what it was doing. There was a reason I’d never have to choose.
Except, as it turns out, Fate doesn’t have its shit together after all.
“Do you...want anything?” I start moving. The kitchen, that’s where I’m headed next. I feel so wound up, I don’t think I’ll be able to sit still for a while. He better want something. I need him to want something so I can do something. Something other than pass out from this anxiety.
“I’m good.”
Dammit.
“You sure?” I open the fridge. I can still smell the batch of Gun’s pancakes sitting two feet over from me, tucked away in my oven, but I can’t offer him those. It just feels...wrong. “I have leftover Chinese take-out if you’re hungry. Or I can make something.”
“You cook now?”
I let out a nervous laugh. “No.” The fridge door falls back into place and then I drop against it with my entire backside. “I’m sorry, I guess I’m a little freaked out.”
He moves toward me slowly, smiling that Reed smile I’ve missed so much. It’s beaming, showing off his bright white teeth, but even that’s nothing compared to the way it shines in his eyes. It’s magic.
His hand reaches for mine when he gets close enough.
“I’m actually kinda glad you’re freaked out, Cooper.”
“You are?”
He nods. “Yeah. Means it matters. Means, I still matter.”
I stare down at our hands. I remember the first time he held it. I was seventeen and oddly mesmerized by how perfectly they fit together. Like they were always meant to be this way. I’ve told myself it was stupid and naïve, just the sort of thing a seventeen-year-old would romanticize, but here I am, at twenty-five and it’s still true.
“Of course you matter.” The words come out so quietly I barely hear them myself. I felt my mouth move though. I know I said them.
He takes another step toward me, getting closer. “What about Gun? Is that who you’re with? Does he matter too?”
My eyelids want nothing more than to drop down and block him out, but I force them upward anyway and make myself meet his gaze. “Gun always matters.”
He frowns. He doesn’t remember. I don’t know why I thought he would. Maybe because he remembers me, and Gun, well he�
��s a part of me in so many ways. “More than me?” His thumb brushes softly over the back of my hand. He keeps moving it back and forth, waiting for me to answer.
“Different than you.” I bite my lip, stalling for time. I have no idea how to explain to him what I can’t begin to understand myself. “He’s been my best friend since I was nine. You’re my...”
His face loses some of its tension almost instantly, and curiosity gleams in his teal blue eyes.
“Your what?”
“My soulmate,” the words slip out in a heart aching whisper. “I’ve missed you.” The words spill from my lips simultaneously to the tears falling from my eyes. I’ve never been much for crying, but I suppose today all bets are off.
“I swear I’ve been trying to get to you,” he says under his breath, an honest desperation in his tone. I believe him. Whatever it was, keeping him from me, I know he’s been trying to find a way past it. To find me.
He rests his forehead against mine, touching the tip of my nose with his. “Now that I’ve found you, nothing is ever keeping me from you again, I promise.” His lips come in close, caressing my mouth gently before crushing into it with a sort of passion I thought was lost to me forever. And I get lost in it. In him. Reed is back. Reed. Is. Back.
The magnitude of those words sinking into my mind, into my every being, is almost enough to make me faint again. But just almost.
Chapter Five
Gun
7 Years Earlier
“Yo,” Ed’s gruff voice wakes me instantly. Or maybe it’s the way he keeps kicking me in the calf.
“What the fuck, man?” I grumble, half opening my eyes before shutting them again as soon as I see daylight.
He kicks me one more time, this time hard enough to make me jerk upright.
I just stare at him, trying to comprehend what his major malfunction is so early in the morning.
He nods at the floor beside my bed. “You got something there. Might wanna get rid of it before Mr. B makes his morning rounds to make sure we’re all up and going.”
I wrap my hand around the edge of the mattress and pull myself over the side. Shit. Cooper.
This is the third time this week alone I’ve woken up to find her curled up on the floor next to my bed. It’s not so much that I have a problem with her crashing here, but I fucking hate that sneaking into a group home for teenage boys who’ve been in and out of juvy and can’t be placed in families anymore, just to sleep on the hard floor without a pillow or blanket, is a better alternative to sleeping in her own bed. Or at least, the bed in her room at her current residence.
I reach down to grab her shoulder and squeeze it gently. “Coop. Wake up.” She stirs slightly, stretching her arms over her head just enough for me to see the sleeve of my stolen hoody move back, revealing a bruised wrist.
My every instinct is to bolt from the room and raise hell until I find the bastard who laid a hand on her, and pound him into the ground, but I can’t. Because she’d be furious with me. Not for hurting him, for getting into trouble on her account. She’d hate me for it. Besides, I can’t be stupid. Being stupid leads to being busted, and busted means she’s alone. And that I can’t allow.
So, I force air into my lungs at a steady rate until my heart races at a more manageable pace and I can hear something other than adrenaline rushing in my ears. Then, I slide down onto the ground beside her and wrap my arms around her tightly until she snuggles up against me and I know she’s waking up in a safe place. And she knows it, too.
“How many times do I have to tell you not to sleep on the floor, Cooper?” I whisper.
“It was late. I didn’t want to wake you,” she whispers back, still in a sleepy haze.
“I don’t care how late it is, next time – wake me.”
Ed clears his throat loudly from the corner of the room where he’s standing by the dressers, doing his best to pretend he can’t hear or see anything. I’ve only been here three weeks, but Ed seems like a solid enough dude. Hasn’t ratted me out once yet, and with Cooper sneaking in here every other night, he’s certainly had plenty of opportunities. He also doesn’t ask questions. Which I appreciate. Although, it’s probably time I start explaining things if this is going to continue.
“Footsteps,” he says tipping his head toward the door. “You better hurry.”
I get up to my knees and pull the covers back from my bed. “Under. Now.”
She knows the drill. One quick roll and she’s under the frame just in time for me to drop the comforter back into place, blocking her from view completely when Mr. B knocks on the door simultaneously to opening it and walking in.
“Oh good, you’re both up.” He smiles. He always smiles.
“Yes, sir.” Ed nods. He’s great at not being a rat. Not so hot at covering. Can’t hide his nerves. Or the need to stare at the ground when he’s attempting to hide them. But, Mr. B’s not exactly the type to walk in suspicious, so he just smiles at both of us some more.
“Marie’s making pancakes,” he announces with way more cheer than anyone here is comfortable with, “So make sure you hurry up and get downstairs so you can eat before the bus gets here.” Miss M’s his wife. They’re cool, both of ‘em as far as I can tell. Haven’t been here much longer than I have, and aren’t all that much older than me either. Still in their twenties, I think, maybe early thirties. Newlyweds. Miss M’s expecting from what the guys have said, but in all the flowy shit she wears it’s hard to tell if you’re looking at a baby belly or not, so no one’s officially talking about it.
“We’ll be down in a few, thanks.” I do a cheesy salute as he closes the door behind him and disappears out in the hall again, where we can hear him move on to the next room, last one on this floor. There’s two more upstairs in the built out attic. I imagine he’s headed there next.
I yank the blankets back and hang upside down over the side of my bed to stare at her. She’s wide awake now. And grinning.
“I really like pancakes.”
I shake my head trying not to laugh. “I’ll see what I can do.”
Reed
Present Day
Now that I’m standing here, seeing her, really seeing her, and holding her, it’s not enough. I need more. Need to wrap myself around her until I can feel her warmth spread through me. Until I can physically feel that she’s real.
It’s as if she knows. Or maybe she’s feeling the exact same thing, because her arms are tangling up around my neck until she’s pressed to my chest tightly, her face never breaking away from our kiss and all of her molded to all of me. For the first time in as long as I can remember, I finally feel like myself again. Because myself is with her. It’s always been with her.
The euphoric feeling doesn’t last though. Just as I’m allowing myself to settle into the peace that comes from finding home at last, she begins to pull away.
“This is wrong,” she whispers, her fingers covering her lips in shame. Beautiful lips. Perfectly fit for mine. They should never be hidden. Never feel shame.
“Don’t say that. Don’t say it’s wrong when it’s the first thing that felt right since I woke up after that accident. The first thing that’s made any sense to me at all.”
She shakes her head, tears falling all over again. This time they’re different though. They’re from pain.
“You’re engaged to be married. You ran out on everyone the day before your wedding.”
Sam. I can explain Sam. I think. I haven’t allowed myself to think about her since I walked out. It’s too much. Trying to understand the past I can’t remember and making it work with the present I was forced to create from scratch as an adult without any foundation, it’s hard for me to accept, harder still to explain to someone else. “I got engaged before I knew, before I was sure you weren’t just a dream or some strange fantasy.”
“But you didn’t end it. You just...disappeared.”
I frown, I’m used to people knowing more than I do, so I didn’t catch on before. “How
do you know about Sam? Who told you?”
She swipes at her cheek with the back of her hand. The tough girl is coming out. I’ve seen her. I know her. She only shows herself when I screw up. I’m not sure how I know this, but I do. I’m not supposed to see the tough girl. She’s not supposed to need her armor with me.
“Your sister called me. She was in a panic looking for you. Thought you might be with me.”
“So...you already knew?”
Her lips press together in a thin white line. “She was just guessing. I didn’t believe her. I didn’t want to.”
I try to breach the gap she’s put between us, but she retreats as soon as I move toward her. “You didn’t want me to come?” I know she doesn’t mean that. As hard as it must be for her to hear that I was about to marry someone else, it has to count for something that I didn’t.
She turns away so I can’t look her in the eyes when she answers me. “I didn’t want to hope you would,” she says quietly. “I waited for you for so long...I couldn’t allow myself to wait for you again.”
I clench my fists at my sides and hope she doesn’t see. It’s not her fault I’m frustrated, none of this is. But I’m not sure it’s mine either. “I’m sorry, Coop. Nothing I could ever say to you will ever erase what happened. And, honestly, I can’t even imagine what that must have been like for you...me not remembering. But, it’s been hard for me, too. Why can’t we just accept that it was part of the journey, that we’re living our own sort of fairy tale, that true love always comes with a poison apple and endless sleep before the kiss and happy ever after? Can’t this be that? Can’t true love’s kiss save us after all we’ve been through? Won’t that make it all worth it?”
I’m not usually a sappy guy, and fairy tales have been mostly forced upon me by my sister in her attempts to relive our entire childhood during the past seven years, but when I look at Cooper, I find I want to be Prince Charming. I want to be that knight on his white horse. I want to save the day. And kiss her. God, mostly, I just want to kiss her and never stop.