1001 Dark Nights: Bundle Nine

by Carrie Ann Ryan

  I freeze, terrified he’s going to see me hiding behind the curtains and terrified that he won’t.

  God, I don’t want him to leave without me.

  I don’t want to spend the night alone in my childhood bedroom, haunted by the ghost of the girl I was back when I believed that the people I loved would never hurt me—at least, not on purpose. At least, not on purpose and then come back for seconds, blackmailing me into being the maid of honor at this nightmare wedding when I proved that I could take the “you’re sleeping with my boyfriend” punch without hitting the mat.

  I want to go back to the cottage with Bash and pretend we belong there. Pretend he’s mine and I’m his and he’s never going to run from me again.

  Please, see me, I silently beg. See me and come back and make me stop pushing you away.

  Don’t go. Please don’t go.

  But after a moment, Bash tilts his head down, casting his eyes in shadow, and starts toward the car. He walks faster than he did before as if he can’t wait to get away from this house and all the crazy inside of it. The crazy fading movie star, the crazy douchebag ex-boyfriend, and the crazy client/assistant/friend he made the mistake of letting get too close.

  I press my lips together, fighting the tears filling my eyes, blurring the taillights of the rental car as Bash drives away.

  Too close. I knew better than to get too close. He always runs when he starts to feel something real. Every single time.

  But I couldn’t help myself. I couldn’t help falling in love with him.

  Looking back, I realize I’ve been falling in love with him a little bit every day for years. It wasn’t watching him kiss my horrible, awful, very bad tattoo or the way he looked at me after we made love yesterday that started this; it was what sealed the deal. Sealed my fate. Sealed the slow, painful death of our friendship because there’s no way I can go back to the way things used to be now that I know what it’s like to make love to him.

  To wake up next to him. To share meals and conversations and silly jokes and watch him get his fingernails painted because he knows it’s making two little girls I love happy.

  Today almost killed me—pretending I wasn’t hurting, that I didn’t miss him already. Fighting the urge to grab his big, stupid, beautiful shoulders and shake him until he realizes that when you find something like this you should run toward it, not away.

  But shaking him wouldn’t do any good and it wouldn’t be fair.

  I knew this was the way Bash conducted business. I knew it going in. I’ve read the “It’s not you, it’s me,” e-mails in his LetsGoLove account, the ones where he bid a gentle, kind goodbye to any woman who got within spitting distance of his heart. I’ve been the buddy he texts while he’s walking away from another shot at something more, the hand he holds until he’s out of firing range.

  But I won’t let things go that far with us. Not now.

  For the first time in years, I’m free. When I ran into Phillip on my way to the bathroom tonight, I felt nothing at all. No hatred, no shame, no longing or regret, just a mild irritation that I was forced to chat with him for a few minutes while my bladder was uncomfortably full. The ugly spell he used to be able to cast over me has lost its power. I’m finally out of the dark shadow of one man who didn’t want me and there’s no way in hell I’m going to crawl into another.

  Not even for a man as wonderful as Bash.

  I’m finished with people who think I’m a stepping stone on the path to something better or a little mouse so desperate for love that she’ll chase after it on her hands and knees. I’m not chasing or cowering or settling for being someone’s second best ever again.

  Bash might not love me the way I love him, but he gave me enough of a taste of what it feels like to have it all that I refuse to settle for less.

  I don’t want good enough or almost wonderful. I want love and happiness and safety and passion and a home in someone’s arms. I want to feel like the most beautiful woman in the world because one man loves me so much he’s gone blind to my flaws. And I want to make him feel the same way.

  If Bash would let me, I know I could love him like that. Like a king, like the center of a world built for two.

  I would love him until he’s not afraid of close, until he knows that he can trust me with every bossy, sweet, silly, scared, passionate, perfectly damaged part of him. Until he realizes that the parts of himself he tries to hide are the parts that make me love him the most, the parts that make one strong, seemingly flawless man my perfect match. I see him, the real him, beneath the glossy, seductive Magnificent Bastard persona.

  And I love him.

  But I love myself, too. I love myself too much to chain my heart to a man who runs when things get heavy. After years of hiding from the world and my feelings and myself, I don’t want to run. I want to live. Fully. Authentically. No holding back.

  Which is why I have to tell Bash goodbye.

  I should have told him it was over before we came to the party tonight, told him the friends with benefits situation is finished and that I’m handing in my notice, but I wasn’t sure I would be able to hold it together. It’s better to wait until we’re back in the city, away from Mom and Phillip. And my sisters, who I know will be disappointed that “Uncle Bash” won’t be coming for another visit.

  Then I’ll tell Bash that I’ll stick with him until I train an assistant who will meet or exceed all of his expectations, thank him for all that he’s done for me—for the job, the friendship, the intervention, and those moments when he showed me what it must feel like to be completely, beautifully loved—and move on with my life. I’m not sure what “my life” is going to look like post-Phillip, post-Bash, post The Years of Shame, but it will be mine and it will be real.

  And maybe someday, when I meet the right man, it will have love in it.

  Enough love to make up for how hard it’s going to be to tell Bash goodbye.

  With a final sigh, I turn away from the window, crawl into my twin bed, and close my eyes, willing myself to sleep and not to dream of things I’ll never have.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  Dear Penny,

  I’m writing you this letter because you’re not here to talk, and e-mail and texts just won’t cut it for something like this.

  I haven’t written a real letter in years, but when I got back to the cottage and saw the stationery sitting on the desk in the bedroom, it seemed like the smart thing to do.

  To write down all the things I’m thinking and feeling before they drive me crazy.

  So here I go, writing down what I’m thinking right now, when I think of you, my friend.

  My very good, very sweet, very beautiful friend…

  I work on the letter for hours, writing like a man possessed, pouring out the story of the pissing contest with Phillip and how I realized that I loved her. Loved her more than Rachael, more than any of the girls I practiced loving in my early twenties when I was still too full of shit to love anyone but myself.

  More than I’ve loved anyone in my entire life.

  I write down all the things I would normally be too much of a guy—or too chicken shit—to say out loud. I confess that I’m scared, that I’m not sure I know how to do love the way I want to be able to do it for her, but that I promise to work at it like I’ve never worked at anything. I promise to try to be Prince Charming, to slay her dragons and be there to swoop her up onto my white horse and ride into the sunset on days when she needs swooping or sunsets or just feels like going for a ride.

  And I put some dirty stuff in there, too, because that’s all part of what I feel for Penny.

  I tell her that I’m a slave to her body, that I’m going to dream about having her tonight, that I’m headed to bed jonesing for the taste of her pussy in my mouth, and fully expect to wake up hard and miserable because she’s not next to me, warm and sweet and ready for me to fuck her into a few good-morning orgasms.

  After five pages, my hand begins to cramp, but I push on, get
ting it all down while it’s pressing up inside me, like lightning in a bottle, demanding to be free.

  By the time I finally finish, it’s almost midnight and the wind from earlier in the day is gone. There’s no creaking from the trees out back or rushing outside the windows. The night birds in this part of the world are good at keeping quiet—the better to sneak up on the things that need to be killed and eaten—and the morning birds are still asleep.

  As I flop into bed and turn out the lamp, the cottage is deathly still.

  I lay in the dark for what seems like forever, staring up at the shadows on the ceiling, feeling like the last living person at the ends of the earth.

  I feel alone. Powerfully, incredibly alone.

  There are people I could call—Aidan, who never goes to sleep before two, and my mother the night owl—but I know no conversation with a friend or family member could ease this ache. This is the kind of loneliness that comes from being separated from the one you love. I haven’t felt it since Rachael.

  That should scare me, I guess, but it doesn’t. It makes me even more determined not to fuck this up. First thing tomorrow, I’m going over there and telling Penny everything I wrote down.

  Or maybe I’ll give her the letter, let her read it all in blue ballpoint pen.

  The thought makes my throat close up a little, but if I’m going to trust anyone with my emo, midnight feeling-ravings, it’s going to be Penny.

  I close my eyes, willing sleep to come so the night will pass faster and I’ll be that much closer to getting back to her. But my brain keeps racing around in circles. Finally, it gets around to racing through a very detailed recollection of when Penny sucked my cock in the shower and I pull the crazy train in for a stop.

  Slipping my hand beneath the waistband of my pajama pants, I visualize the way her breasts framed my cock as she knelt on the floor of the tub.

  I see her pink lips parting as she takes my swollen head into her mouth, the way her eyes roll up to meet mine, sending an electric shock through my entire body. Her technique is stellar—she may have taken a sabbatical from sex, but she clearly knows what she’s doing—but it isn’t how deep she takes me or the perfect suction that makes it so hard not to come.

  It’s how close I feel to her, how much she clearly wants to please me, the way she moans in pleasure as I cradle her head in my hands and thrust between her pretty lips.

  I’m not just fucking her mouth, I’m fucking her, my friend, my girl, this woman who makes me laugh and think and feel things. Feel so much. I feel so much that my imagination cuts into the memory, changing the course of past events.

  This time, I don’t come in her mouth or watch her swallow, her throat working with a raw sensuality that slays me. This time, I pull out and reach for her, drawing her up my body, hitching her legs around my waist so I can slide inside her.

  And then I take her with all the passion and lust and feelings, too. I thrust in and out of her sweet, tight heat, murmuring things I haven’t said to any woman—in bed or out of it. I tell her that I love her and that I need her and that she’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me. I tell her that I’m never going to let her go or let her down and when she comes I swear I can feel her pleasure like it’s my own.

  I keep my eyes closed tight, holding on to dream Penny as I come in my own hand, pretending that I’m with her.

  And finally, finally, I’m able to sleep. To sleep and to slip almost seamlessly into a dream where Penny is resting in my arms.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  I arrive at the Pickett mansion just after eight o’clock the next morning, my palms sweating and my mouth filled with the sweet and sour taste of hope laced with fear, to learn that Penny has already left for the spa with her mother and sisters.

  Apparently the mother-daughter spa day has been planned for weeks.

  At least according to Nanny Helms, who barely opens the door wide enough to stick her face through the gap and deliver the bad news before slamming it closed again.

  “But what about last night?” I ask, raising my voice to be heard through the thick wood. “How is she feeling? Is she okay?”

  “She’s fine,” Helms calls from inside. “Come back at four o’clock and bring her dress for the rehearsal dinner and her overnight bag. I’m sure she’ll want her own makeup and hair things.”

  “Why can’t she come to the cottage to get dressed?” I demand, the ugly fear that Penny is trying to avoid me creeping back in on spider feet. “Ms. Helms? Hello? Ms. Helms?”

  I wait, but there’s no answer from the other side of the door and when I try the handle, I discover it’s been locked.

  I’ve been locked out. Like a vacuum cleaner salesman or a Jehovah’s Witness or some creepy pizza delivery guy no one wants inside the house.

  “Well, fuck me very much,” I mutter beneath my breath as I spin away from the door, a scowl clawing at my forehead. I stride toward the car, typing in a text to Penny as I go.

  Why didn’t you tell me about the spa day?

  I just got to your mom’s place to check on you and you aren’t here. Is something wrong? Are you okay?

  I almost type—Are we okay?—but think better of it.

  That’s not something I want to get into via text, especially if Francis and Eddie are on Penny’s phone scrolling through her emoticon selection the way they were several times yesterday.

  Standing by the rental car in a patch of shade—the sun rose in a cloudless blue sky this morning and it’s starting to feel like summer—I wait for a response that doesn’t come. It doesn’t come and doesn’t come and doesn’t come, and by noon, I’m pacing around the cottage, gnashing my teeth, fighting the urge to send Penny another half dozen texts of varying degrees of concerned, confused, and pissed the fuck off.

  How dare she do this? How dare she freeze me out when all I want to do is tell her how much I love her?

  Maybe because she knows you better than you know yourself, jackass.

  Maybe she saw the writing on the wall and decided to run before you beat her to it.

  “Fuck that,” I growl, pointing an accusing finger at my reflection in the bathroom mirror. “That’s not how it’s going down. Not this time. No one’s running.”

  Keep telling yourself that, the voice in my head sneers, and by the time you pull your head out of your ass she’ll be so far gone you’ll never catch up.

  “I will catch up.” I spin away from the mirror, deciding it’s crazier to talk to myself while looking into my own eyes than while prowling around the cottage. “And when I do, I’m going to convince her to give this a shot,” I tell the couch. “I’ll tackle her to the sand and sit on her until she hears me out if I have to.”

  That’s one good thing about a wedding rehearsal on the beach. Lots of nice soft sand for tackling the woman you love to the ground and sitting on her.

  You’re losing it, Prince. And once it’s lost, all you are is a loser.

  Ignoring the voice of doom, I lace up my running shoes and head outside to pound pavement, deciding that’s a better use of my time than pounding my head against the wall. It’s only four more hours until I get to see Penny. No one ever went completely out of their goddamned mind in four hours.

  But by the time four o’clock rolls around and I arrive back at the house to have Nanny Helms confiscate the items I’ve brought for Penny and disappear upstairs after encouraging me to, “join the rest of the wedding party on the veranda,” it’s all I can do not to push past her and charge up the stairs.

  I’m about to make a break for it, in fact, when I see Francis and Eddie run past the landing in fluffy pink dresses with curlers in their hair and force myself to turn and walk to the back of the house. I emerge into the warm, late afternoon sun to see the cater waiters putting the finishing touches on the outdoor tables and the audio-visual team stretching a giant screen into place for the slideshow the girls helped put together for their mother. The patio is already buzzing with people, an excellent re
minder that life doesn’t happen in a vacuum.

  As much as I would like the world to consist of no one but Penny and me, at least for the next few hours, while I convince her she would be stupid not to fall in love with me, too, there are other pieces in play. Including two little girls who don’t need any more drama in their lives and a wedding party that needs to keep assuming that Penny and I are happily in love.

  No matter what happens between us, I’m not going to ruin this for Penny. She deserves this victory lap, the chance to leave all the ugliness behind and emerge from the Hamptons a fully-blossomed swan.

  “Swans don’t blossom, idiot,” I mutter as I collect a mojito from a passing waiter.

  “What’s that?” The words are flat and tight, nothing like the smugly lilting tone of when we first met at the train station or last night at the bachelor party, but I recognize Phillip’s voice immediately.

  I turn, forcing a smile. “Just wondering about the flowers. Flowers are my favorite part of a wedding. Except for the cake. Preferably with ice cream. Do you take your cake with ice cream? Or are you doing the sugar-free, gluten-free, joy-free thing along with your fiancée?”

  Phillip frowns, shooting me a look that makes it clear he thinks I’m crazy, fucking with him, or both, but I don’t bother explaining myself. I let my eyes rake over him, observing the transformation of the groom-to-be.

  For the first time, Phillip’s hair is looking less than perfect—flat on one side and fuzzy on the other—and the skin beneath his eyes is a sickly shade of yellow and blue. He looks like he’s hung over, or possibly still drunk from the night before, and when he smiles his lips are a shriveled scrap of stir-fried chicken tossed into the center of his face.

  He looks sour. Like he’s curdling from the inside out.

  If I weren’t feeling a little sour myself, I would take great pleasure in his apparent suffering. As it is, I can only manage mild gratification and a half-hearted wish that he throws up at some point during the evening’s festivities.