“Hey, now! What about you, Wilder? Maybe she’s retaliating. Are you fucking anyone else?”
“You actually think I’d do that to her? Thanks a lot, asshole.”
He glances up to the mirror. “No, I really don’t think you would. I’m just checking. I think you’d tell me if you were cheating on Hadley. And if you didn’t, I’d know if you were cheating. I know you that much.” Total truth. He’d know. He figured out my secret before I told him.
“No. I’m not cheating on Becks.” I see him nod and I continue, “I then said some shit about…” I can’t believe I did that. I’m such a dick. I’m even too embarrassed to admit it to my best friend and I tell him everything.
“About…?”
“Us.”
“You and me?” he asks, confused.
“No, dipshit. Becks and me.”
“Oh! About? Sex?”
I close my eyes and take a deep breath. “Yeah.”
“Did people hear you?”
“Yeah.”
“What exactly did you say?”
I blow out a huff of air and ruffle my hand through my hair. “I asked her something about her having a slumber party and complained about our first time together.”
“Oh, fuck. You’re screwed. I mean, you’re unscrewed! Shit. She’s not going to play with your dick for a long time.”
“Or possibly ever again.”
“Your first time? You said you two were on fire then. What the fuck did you have to complain about?”
“The wait.”
“Oh. Wow. Well, I suppose that’s not that bad. She’ll get over it.”
“I think I then broadcasted to everyone that she doesn’t give me blow jobs.”
“Son of a motherfucker, Wilder! What the hell, man?”
“I’m a dick. I know.”
“You took the words right out of my mouth! Shit! I can’t believe I’m actually hearing that from you! This is like a weird role reversal thing going on here! You’re always the good boy! I’m the deviant!”
“How bizarre, officer.”
He laughs. “Kiss my ass.” We stop at a red light and he looks over his shoulder. “Well, if you two do break up, are you going to leave? I mean, we had talked about it that if it didn’t work out with you and Hadley, you would leave Richmond. Would you still do that?”
I think about his question and when the light turns green, I say, “Yeah. I couldn’t be around her in the same city if she is with someone else.”
“Well, the first thing we’re going to do if you split is I’m taking you out and getting you laid.”
I roll my eyes. “Like I’d let you do that.”
He confidently nods. “You would. Believe me.”
“I doubt that.”
“If you’re going to leave Richmond, let me know before you hightail it out of here. You know I’ll come with you.”
I lampoon him. “You’re married. You can’t just go.”
“If Shay doesn’t want to go, then, oh well. You and I will start fresh somewhere.”
“That’s crazy. That’s my point of marriage. You’re willing to throw yours away…again.”
He catches me in the mirror. “The first one was all me. I admit that. I was a fucking bastard for doing that to Nina. This time… I don’t know. We probably shouldn’t have gotten married in the first place. It’s not like that for everyone, Finn. Shit.”
I rub my forehead with my fingers. “Right. Then, you’ll probably get her pregnant soon and it’ll be all over after that.”
“No. She doesn’t want a baby, which is fine with me. What about you? Doesn’t Hadley want to have kids soon?”
I sigh and lean on my hand. “Yeah. She’s brought it up before. I know she does.”
He laughs. “What the fuck is she doing with you then? No marriage. No kids. You’re just the whole package, Wilder!”
“Shut the hell up, Tesco.”
“Do you think she’ll try to get pregnant?” Do I? I don’t know. I hope she wouldn’t do that to me.
“No. I don’t think she’d do that on purpose. If anything, I’ll be the one to fuck up.”
“Yeah really. Condoms suck.”
I mumble, “They do.” My head is already starting to pound.
“That other shit you use, I’m not even familiar with.”
“It’s not perfect, but it’s better than rubbers.”
“Why wouldn’t it be? You don’t have to do shit on your part.” True. I laugh. He asks, “You do know that you could still knock her up, though, right? I mean nothing’s foolproof.”
“No shit. Thanks for the sex ed. update.” He rolls his eyes at me in the rearview.
We’re quiet for a minute before he says, “Finn, don’t leave Richmond without me.” I look at him incredulously through the mirror. He reminds me, “We have a pact. We’re partners, man.”
I dubiously laugh. “No way. You’re just my sidekick.”
“Sidekick, my ass! You’re my mascot, dickhead,” Ricky demands as he approaches the gates of my complex. I laugh.
After Ricky talks to the guard, explaining about my car coming soon without me and he lets us through, he says, “Did you tell her why you want her to move in with you?”
“Yeah. I told her because I miss her and I’m lonely without her.”
Contesting me, he says, “Not that reason.”
I glance up at him in the mirror. “No.”
He sighs. “You need to talk to her, Finn.”
I rub my knees anxiously and sit back. “There is no way in fucking hell I’m going to tell her.”
“Come on, man! You’re both going insane and you’re both driving me there with you! You two want the same fucking things, but on your own terms. You’re idiots!”
I growl, “No.”
“Don’t keep it a secret anymore.”
“I shouldn’t have even told you.”
“I guessed it, but you tell me everything anyway. You know you love me.”
I look up at the mirror. “Like a hemorrhoid.”
He pulls in front of my apartment and says something into his radio. “Finn, tell Hadley already. Fuck.”
My secret?
I want to marry Hadley Bliss Beckett.
My Becks.
More than anything in my life.
I want us to vow and commit our souls to each other for eternity. I want her to have my last name and be Hadley Bliss Wilder—my Becks Wilder—so much it’s permanently engraved on my heart, my soul and in my mind. I long so much to be Hadley’s husband and for her to be my wife. I dream about it.
However, I can’t do it.
I won’t do it, even though it kills me not to. Marriage can be a blessing, but it’s beyond rare. I’ve only seen it with my dad’s parents who were married for 54 years. Mostly, I’ve seen the institution of marriage turn out to be a curse. I do believe in the spiritual aspect of marriage. That’s the part I want with Becks, but I don’t know what dooms marriages in general and I refuse to wreck our love.
The first day I started calling her Becks was the day we spent kicking around a soccer ball.
It’s also the day that I realized that I want to marry her.
We were at a park, a little over a month into dating, after she got her cast off. I tried teaching her how to head the ball and to do different kicks. I guess I also showed off a bit by popping it on my knee and then having her try it. She had the ball all over the place, and not in a good way, so as a joke, I called her Becks, which is David Beckham’s nickname. It also was funny because of her last name, Beckett. I loved it. She had laughed and called me a smartass, which only fueled my teasing.
As we kicked around the ball and chased it together, both of us falling to the ground laughing, which soon turned to kissing, I felt something happen. I hadn’t just fallen to the ground with Hadley. I also had truly, irrevocably, whole-heartedly; committedly fell in love with her. I didn’t lie to Becks when I told her at the kite festival that I fell for her
when she asked me if I was afraid of heights; that’s only when the ball had started rolling. It was just a different echelon on my path to falling in love with Becks. The elevator going to the first floor in a short building, I guess you could say, and each floor after that being more significant.
I never thought I’d ever want to get married. But that day as I watched her fumbling and giggling over the soccer ball and making out with her in the grass, I knew that after only such a short time of dating, she was the one I wanted to pledge my forever to. I remember panicking when the feeling flooded through me. I told her I had to go to my car to make a phone call for work regarding a story, but I really needed a few minutes to myself. Not only had I fallen even more in love with her, I wanted her to be mine for all time. We hadn’t even had sex yet, which when we did, it took me up to another level of falling even more deeply in love with her.
I watched her from my car kicking the ball around, my heart throbbing because of my feelings about marriage. I couldn’t, and still can’t, understand how I would want to marry her, but at the same time, not want to. It’s a constant war being fought between my mind and heart. And that aching feeling has only increased a million percent, making me especially irritable whenever the subject of marriage arises.
Calling her Becks is so sacred to me. In a strange way, it’s like a wedding ring that I gave to her, and it reminds me how I covertly feel about Hadley Bliss Beckett, as if I really need a reminder, but it reiterates to me how my love for her evolved on that day.
That’s why I’m so desperate to have her live with me. I want to at least, in some way, have the feeling of marriage without the actual legality scourge of it, if that’s what breaks marriages up. I don’t know what exactly does. I can’t tell Becks that I want to marry her, either. She’ll try even harder to talk me into doing it, and it’s such a weakness for me. Every time she brings it up, it loosens a bolt, chips away at my brick wall, adds another chink in my armor, tears at my heart…
I know she wants me to marry her soon. If I could vow my love to her without actually marrying her, I’d do it. I try to do that when we make love. I want her to feel how much I love her. I tell her, but she doesn’t seem to take my word for it. I show her with my body, yet she doesn’t seem to get it. I want her to understand that I am committed to her for life. She wants that fucking piece of paper that seems to be more valid in her eyes than what my heart is confessing to her. Other than marrying Becks, what can I do to convince her that I’m all hers? I’m so frustrated with our entire situation; neither one of us wants to budge, even though we want the same exact thing.
She just doesn’t know that.
Becks is my everything. She’s my happily-ever-after without the white wedding. If only we could somehow reach an agreement. However, there’s no way we can have that if we can’t even live together and see each other only once or twice a week.
I want a marriage with Becks, but I despise the destruction something about that institution brings. And the mystery to me is that I have no idea what part of it is the cause of the devastation.
I’m a living and breathing contradiction. Irony in a suit and tie, or at times, in a safety harness.
Aside from the inexplicable marriage curse, I also don’t want the rest of the bullshit that accompanies getting married. The wedding, for one. As much as I am a public person or the center of attention, I wouldn’t want such a personal, private and profound experience to be witnessed by everyone to have ever fucking graced my life. Then, the damnable license, tedious parties, and pictures taken with 10,000 people you don’t know. Fuck. My career is intrusive enough.
Consequently, when Becks told me in the club in front of Rod that she wouldn’t move in with me, it was like she threw the theoretical engagement ring back at me, spit in my face and kicked me in the balls.
If I ever did propose to her, I couldn’t take it past that. I wouldn’t marry her. If she wants the ring, I’ll give her one, but I can’t promise any more than that. Giving her an engagement ring would be hard for me because that ring would be a glaring reminder of what we can’t have; a promise that I can’t keep.
So there. I finally fucking admitted my greatest desire. But, I’ll never admit it to Becks. The only other person that knows is Ricky and that’s how it’s going to stay.
It’s something I’ve painfully lived with for the past three years since meeting my soulmate in the emergency room.
CHAPTER 17
“How she doing?”
“Not good. She wouldn’t talk about anything this morning.”
“Where is she at now?”
“The bathroom. I think she wants to avoid us for a while longer.”
“She’s got to talk to someone about what happened last night, Morgan.”
“I know that, Rod, but I can’t force her to, or she might not talk about it at all.”
“Do you think she’s done with Wilder?”
“Hell no. She’ll never be done with him. He’s in her blood.”
“He loves her. You can definitely see that.”
“He doesn’t even know what love is. He’s an egotistical jerk who doesn’t take rejection easily. He’s not good for her. He wants to keep her in a birdcage with a blanket draped over it.”
“You should’ve heard the things he said to her. I’ve never wanted to punch someone so hard in my life. He embarrassed her like you wouldn’t believe.”
“Why? What did he say?”
“He was yelling on the dance floor really personal things about them. I can’t even repeat them. It made me sick.”
“Personal things? He was talking about their sex life?”
“Or lack of.”
“Oh, my God.”
“I tried to get her away from him, but he followed and shouted even more things. He accused Hadley and me of having an affair.”
“What? You two would never—”
“I know that. Apparently, he doesn’t trust her.”
“Are you sure that you aren’t sending some kind of vibe Wilder’s way? I mean, last night you were pretty upset about him being there. You also seem to becoming more and more defensive.”
“So were you, Morgue! He was also threatening to kick my ass! Of course I was defensive!”
“I mean defensive of Hadley.”
“She’s my friend. I’ll defend her. That’s what friends do.”
“I’m just saying that Finn is probably feeling threatened, so now he’s more territorial of her. He doesn’t want another male encroaching on his mate.”
“Why are you talking like we’re apes?”
“I think I fell asleep while Ivan was watching Animal Planet last night.”
I can’t hear this anymore.
I take a deep breath, straighten out my pink scoop neck top, toss my hair over my love bite, and round the doorway into the bright kitchen.
“Hadley!”
“Hadders, good morning.”
I hurriedly walk straight to the refrigerator to put my lunch bag away. “Morning,” I mumble from behind the door.
I hear Morgan’s heels clicking over to me against the polished sky blue floor. She peers over the top of the door as I take my time shifting my lunch around the shelf. “Are you okay?”
I stand and shut the door, evading looking her in the eye by glancing out the window instead. “I’m fine.” I turn to leave, but she puts her hand on my arm.
“Hadley, you can’t avoid us. We need to talk about what happened.”
I close my eyes. “I don’t want to.”
“We want to help you.”
I look over at her, confused. “How can you help me? I don’t even know what I’m going to do.” I absently stare at the black trash can and play with my ring. “I can’t talk about this yet. Maybe by lunchtime, okay? Just…let me have this morning to myself.” I hesitantly regard Rod who has his hands in his black pants pockets. I notice his tie and I abruptly giggle.
Rod looks back and forth between Morgan and me,
utterly perplexed. “What?”
“Snoopy?”
He lifts his tie and quickly glances down before looking up at me and replying sensitively, “He’s a classic!” I giggle some more and he cracks a smile.
“So is that smile,” he says. “I’ll talk to you later, Hadders.” He walks out of the kitchen as Morgan leans against me.
“You do know you have a big hickey on your neck, right?”
My hand automatically flies up to the left side of my neck. “Yes. I tried covering it up, but the makeup keeps coming off. I wish I had the stuff Finn uses for his.”
“For his? From you, right?”
I glower at her. “Yes, from me! Jeez!”
“Okay!” She ruefully puts her hands up. “He goes to work a lot with them?”
“Well, no. Sometimes, I guess. I don’t mean to make them so visible! I forget when I’m in the moment.”
“That’s enough. I don’t want to hear any more. I get it. He’s a hot bastard,” she begrudgingly admits as she props her back against the counter. “Just keep people from seeing the left side of your body until it fades.”
“That’ll work,” I reply sardonically.
“Christ, Hadley. You two were only together for about twenty minutes last night. How’d you get him from being furious at you to sucking on your neck? Did he fuck you, too?”
I shut the swinging kitchen door, trying not to gape in astonishment that she actually brushed along the fact that he indeed had tried to fuck me. “No, he didn’t, Morgan. We danced. He had been drinking, so when we started dancing, he just went for it. I couldn’t stop him.”
“That’s doubtful. Another case of couldn’t versus wouldn’t.”
“Maybe.”
She crosses her arms and regards me in bafflement. “I don’t know about you and Finn. What are you doing, Hadley? You two were so happy a week ago, but now…you both seem to be changing. I can’t put my finger on it. What’s going on?”
“I don’t know, Morgan. One minute, like at the race, he seems to want to show people we’re a couple by holding my hand or kissing me or at the festival when he introduced me as his girlfriend to two of his Finnatics. Then…he doesn’t. He couldn’t even introduce me to his coworker and his wife at the festival. I don’t get it. I have no idea what he truly wants. He says he doesn’t want to get married, but then he wants to live like we are. It’s like he’s a tornado circling around me, but there’s no way I can keep up with him. I’m only spinning myself into the ground.”
Chasing the Wild Sparks Page 25