The nurse comes in and interrupts, telling me it’s time for my MRI. I know it’s important, but I don’t want to go. I don’t want…
“Hey, Beau,” Mati whispers back.
The words wash over me, like those stars, and I whirl back into that sleepy fog I’ve been stuck in.
Matisse
He didn’t sound like Beau.
I stuff another coral poppy into the flower arrangement I’m prepping. The shop is swamped with orders for spring weddings. I rip the bloom out because it doesn’t work well with rest, too wild for such a formal arrangement. I stuff in a couple of fiddleheads instead, stemming back the tears burning at the back of my throat.
His voice echoes around my chest. My name on his lips. It aches to be here when I really want to be in Vancouver with him.
Quinn calls me back while Beau is getting his post-op MRI and tells me that he’s been really confused, that he keeps asking the same questions and making her show him those stupid sketches I drew to pass the time. He spent an hour that morning waiting for me, convinced I had stepped out to get him a frappé.
I thank her for the updates, but keep the conversation short. I want to know that he’s okay, and he doesn’t sound okay right now. I’m not good with handling this, but I’m trying. He made it clear before the surgery that we couldn’t be together, and even though that’s not true for me, I have to respect that that’s what he wants. I love him enough to understand, I just wish he didn’t have to break my heart this way.
Later that night, after Aubrey and I return from the farmer’s market to make supper, Quinn texts me a video of Beau slowly walking down the hospital hallway with a nurse. A few patches of hair are missing on his head and he’s bruised from the clamps they used during surgery. His hair is really greasy and I can’t see the stitches beneath his bandages, but I know that he has a hole in his head until the bone fuses back together. It must feel like the one in my chest that won’t go away.
Both are going to take time to heal.
I’m organizing a new order for my wedding invites the next day when I get a call over Skype. I stiffen, scared to accept. I tell myself things are okay if he’s calling over Skype, that it’s better than getting a phone call from Quinn or his parents.
I accept, sucking in a breath as soon as he appears on screen. He’s pale, but those dark eyes are the same, even with the bruises around them. They still drill straight to my heart. I nervously pinch my bottom lip between my fingers, waiting for him to speak. When he doesn’t, we stay quiet for a few minutes, studying each other. There’s more to us than silence. I know that, but he has to figure it out, too.
He opens his mouth to speak. Strings of Latin words are all that I hear. In the background, Quinn gets impatient and reminds him that he has to speak to me in English.
“I can’t understand what you’re saying, Beau,” I say softly. His brows furrow, and he curses. I softly chuckle at the familiarity of that. “It’s okay. Take your time.”
He rubs his hand by his forehead and winces.
My phone is ringing, and I’m due at the floral shop soon. It doesn’t help that Aubrey is having a concert out in the living room while she’s cleaning the apartment.
“I’m not done yet,” he says finally. “With us.”
That, I understand. Doesn’t make it any easier to hear, though.
“I have to go to work, Beau. It’s good to hear your voice.” I’m about to close out of the conversation, when I look into the camera and meet his pinched gaze. “Take care of yourself, okay?”
I’m too scared for his response. I end the call and get ready for work.
Beau
I’m discharged after five days. Minus having my mom do almost everything for me, I’m getting better. At least that’s what the doctors say. I’m still confused as fuck and the medicine I’m on makes me tired. I sleep days into weeks, and after two weeks I finally get the staples out of my head.
I get even better news. The tumor they removed was benign. I don’t have cancer.
After another two weeks, as things are slowly returning to this new normal that’s my life, I start a new course of drugs to manage my MS relapses. At first it makes me feel like shit. It’s not supposed to make me sick, but it does. When you have a hole in your head, throwing up is pretty much the worse thing ever.
But that gets better, too. I get better. And for the first time in a really long time, I start feeling like Beau Grady again, not that false-positive I felt on the ice. Well, all except for the part of my life that’s still empty.
I haven’t talked to Mati for a while, but that hasn’t stopped me from sending her a video every day. I tell her what I did, the little successes. I tell her how she changed everything from the minute I spotted her coming out of the bathroom when I moved in. I’m supposed to be patient, but having to wait for your life to fall back together takes too long. I miss her like hell.
I never hear back.
May turns into early June and I convince Quinn to drive me down to Portland. We leave at six in the morning. I send Mati texts with the big road signs, the spaces and border that have separated us. My texts are met with silence, even when I send her the final picture: Portland’s White Stag sign.
“I think this is a mistake,” Quinn says, pulling up to the bungalow. No lights are on, the grass is a bit long, and the flowers Reagan keeps on the porch are in need of watering.
Maybe it is a mistake. I can’t really judge how I feel lately because, even though I’m healing, I’m not sure I’m entirely myself anymore. Something changed. Something became so brutally clear that having to spend thirteen hours in a car with my little sister is completely worth the trouble. Mati is worth every sort of trouble.
The house is quiet when I open the front door. Reagan is in New York for the summer, I haven’t heard much from Noah since I was released from the hospital, but I know Ethan still lives here. And I thought Mati did.
“I’m going to wait in the car,” Quinn says. I wave her off, struck by the sight of Mati’s room completely cleared out. All that’s left is her multicolored carpet, patches of toothpaste filling the holes in her walls from pictures, and a little dirt on the windowsill from the small garden she kept above her desk.
I stride into my room, circling the space a few times until the ache gets to be too much. There’s still a splatter of yellow on the wall from our paint fight.
I scratch the back of my head, shivering from the oversensitive nerves on my scalp. I pull the beanie back down and walk into the kitchen, ready to grab a beer from the fridge and… I don’t know. Figure out why the hell I thought this would be a good idea?
I can’t fly out to Maine to see her. Not yet, anyway. And judging by her silence, maybe I shouldn’t bother. Maybe it really is done. Timing’s a bitch that way, I guess. Loving someone but not being able to be together sucks.
I take a draining sip of the IPA before I notice a foot sticking in the air outside the kitchen window, then a second foot. Two bare feet with electric-blue nails, attached to two very long legs that kick out into the air from the lawn in a stretch.
I inch outside, watching Mati glow under the dim twilight. Her hair is longer, and even though she’s wearing another brightly colored skirt, she looks different somehow. She stretches again, scrunching her feet so the blades of overgrown grass slip between her toes.
Mati glances up, her smile dropping. “Saw you were coming.” She tucks her legs against her chest, not moving from her spot on the lawn. Her eyes stay pinned to my mouth, her voice quiet when she says, “I’m glad you’re here.”
I edge closer, somehow stopping myself from throwing myself at her. I drop to my knees, unable to look away. I want to say a million things, but the only words that come out of my mouth are, “I love you.”
She nods, her lips drawn in a tight line before she glances over my shoulder, unable to meet my eyes.
“I messed us up. I get that.” I cup my hand over her cheek. At least she doesn’t pull away. “I’m her
e to make that up to you. I can’t be away from you any longer.”
Mati looks up with her green eyes—forests. She’s everything that’s wild and good in the world. She’s everything that’s good in my world. I’m crazy for her.
“You’re the one who left, Beau. I never gave up on you. Or us.”
“I know,” I say. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
She pushes up onto her knees, and I think maybe this is it, maybe we really are finished. But she surprises me, like she usually does, and pulls the beanie up over my shaggy hairline. Her fingers don’t touch the scar, but I still shiver at the idea of it. Mati leans in and gently kisses my forehead. I feel myself break into a million tiny parts, like those stars, broken and bursting with enough light to shine through the dark.
“I love you,” I whisper again. My arms wrap around her and hers around me. I slant my mouth over hers, kissing her slow, deeply. Her lips taste like coming home. Her lips are home.
We’ve both learned that taking a chance can be worth the fear of the fall. I never fell for Mati; I crashed into that oblivion and drowned in it.
She’s galaxies to me—endless.
EPILOGUE
One month later
Beau
The weathered dock is hard against my back as I lie in the sun. I dip my fingers into the water below me and smile up into the sky.
It feels amazing to be outside again, lost to these mountains. What’s better? Absolute. Fucking. Silence. I can finally think out here for the first time in months.
“You’re going to get a weird sunburn if you don’t take off your Ray-Bans,” Mati whispers next to me, slipping her hand into mine.
Okay, not absolute silence. It never is when she’s around.
I roll my head slowly to the side and lift my hand from the lake, spraying her with beads of cold water.
We both laugh as she swings her leg up over my waist and wrestles off my sunglasses. She puts them on top of her head and smears a dab of sunscreen on my nose.
“Ugh, stop.”
Mati sticks out her tongue.
“I’m not above kissing you if you won’t stop being a pain in my ass.”
She smears another dab onto my forehead. “In that case…”
I bite back my smile and draw her to my mouth, and we kiss in the sun, enjoying something I thought I’d never have again.
We’ve been camping around Blackcomb Peak for a week. I’m not allowed to go hiking or anything, but we’ve taken short walks and gone swimming. Mostly, we’re just together, and that’s enough. If I had my way, we’d stay out here forever, but classes are starting soon and I’m determined to graduate this semester so I can begin my master’s in counseling next spring.
Mati tries to wrestle away while I wipe a smear of sunscreen over her cheek. Her tiny diamond nose stud sparks in the sun. It’s new, and I think it’s sexy as hell. She got it the day she officially opened an online store for her wedding invites and went into business for herself.
“What else is on the list?” she asks suddenly, pinning my hand in hers against the dock. The sun floods down around her. All I can see is that smile of hers and those bright green eyes.
We’ve been writing the world’s longest bucket list together since that day I drove down to Portland. I like having things to look forward to. I like having her dream them up with me even more.
Mati, my hurricane. If there isn’t a path, she’ll make one.
“I want to learn how to surf.” I want to brace my body against the ocean and, just once, win. “I want to take you rock climbing.” I want to climb high and watch the sunrise, with only you. “I want to go cage diving with the massive sharks off Hawaii.” I want to look death in the face and laugh at it, knowing my odds this time.
She scribbles my answers down in the tattered notebook beside us, the same one that’s filled with her sketches. A soft curve tilts one side of her mouth up before she looks back to me and narrows her eyes. “I’ll support your cage-diving dreams.” Her voice is low, certain. “But there’s not a chance in hell I’ll go in the water with you.” A giggle bursts from her lips before she swoops down and kisses the tip of my nose.
I know she’ll change her mind as soon as she’s on the boat. Mati doesn’t back down from anything. “Your turn.”
She tosses the sunscreen onto the dock, looking over my shoulders to the mountains behind us. “I want to go whitewater rafting. I want to adopt a dog.” Her voice grows soft, warm. “I want the moon.”
Our eyes connect, and everything falls quiet again. I lean forward with her in my lap, my forehead resting against hers. “You’re in luck. I have a lasso.”
“Do you?” she whispers.
“Move in with me, Mati.” I pepper soft kisses over her eyelids, her nose, her lips. “You and me. We’ll get a place of our own in Portland this year. Something with space for your studio, a yard for a dog…”
“Beau Grady,” she says against my lips. “You’re going to make me swoon.” She kisses me, her answer hidden in the way her lips move against mine. She knocks me over, buries me dead. I know with everything I am that I’m going to marry this girl someday.
I’m hers completely when she whispers “yes” to our next adventure as roommates.
The End
-NOTE TO MY READERS-
I want to thank you, yes you, my lovely reader! I hope you enjoyed Between Everything and Us. I appreciate the time you took to read my debut and would love to hear what you think. Please consider leaving a review — whether on Goodreads or wherever you prefer. Reviews help other readers discover new books and help us authors, too!
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You can connect with me on Twitter @beckapaula or on Facebook. And you can visit my website to learn more about my New Adult and historical romances.
If you enjoyed Between Everything and Us, keep reading for a sneak peek of the second book in the Sutton College series, Anything More Than Now, available Summer 2015.
ANYTHING MORE THAN NOW
Reagan Landry is months away from college graduation, but instead of excitement, she's frozen by the fear of letting go — of her ex-boyfriend, of the comfortable life she created for herself in Portland, of the years-long search for her older sister who abandoned her as a homeless teen. When she’s finally forced to decide what's next, Reagan is met with another complication — her ex’s best friend, Noah Burke, who seems determined that she embraces what could be instead of what has been.
Drunkenly hooking up with his best friend’s ex, Reagan, is a mistake, but being secretly in love with her is so much worse when things seem one-sided. A disenchanted frat boy about to fail out of college, Noah has been living out someone else’s dream after a horrible accident five years earlier. Just when he thinks he's lost any chance he has with Reagan, she surprises him by agreeing to spend the summer together at his family's ranch in Montana.
And suddenly what started out as a complication between them becomes serious...until the past starts ripping apart their future.
Coming Summer 2015. You can add ANYTHING MORE THAN NOW to Goodreads here.
And now, a sneak peek…
I try focusing my eyes, distracted by his mouth close to mine. Closer than it should be. “Am I a man?” I ask.
Glue threatens to drip into my eyes as the paper edges to the top of my brows. I itch at the post-it, before Noah swats my hand away. I hate his stupid, self-satisfied grin.
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” he teases.
“That’s the point of the game, dipshit.”
His unfocused eyes shine bright. Shit. I’m wrong again. I suck at this game.
“You’re a lady, Rea. Drink up or strip.”
How I got involved in a strip version of Head's Up with Noah Burke is beyond me. The demolished twelve-pack, I can explain. The stripping followed an hour later. Fuck if I know what time it is. The dig
ital display on the clock beside my bed is a big blur.
I arch my brow, weaving a bit to the left, rising to his challenge. I take hold of the hem of my tank and rip it off over my head. I chuck it at his face, now completely topless on my bed at three in the morning, licking my wounds after seeing my ex-boyfriend take his new girlfriend out on a date. Their first actually. It’s news to me that my roommates are together.
Well, that’s not the truth. I’ve had feeling since I offered Beau a room in the apartment last September. He was never as caught up in me as he is in Matisse Evans.
“You could at least pretend you’re paying attention,” he says.
I glare at Noah. Bad decisions are brewing. I swear the beer is making the idea of kissing him enjoyable. Getting back at Beau by sleeping with his best friend—terrible, horrible idea.
“Ask a question, Burke. And stop staring at my boobs.”
“I’m just surprised they’re normal-looking. I was half-expecting scales.”
“Fuck you.” I stay still, daring him to keep looking.
He has the eyes the color of whiskey—rich and gold. When they’re narrowed in on me, I have a hard time remembering why I didn’t get naked sooner, why he’s only a sock and boxer shorts away from being completely naked himself.
“Yes, please.” Noah’s voice is husky.
Bad decisions happen every day. My life has been defined by them.
I swallow, peeking over his shoulder to my wall of books. “What’s your question, Noah?”
“Sleep with me.”
I underestimate his ability to move quickly. He flips me to my back, levering over my body before the shock of his words register.
“That wasn’t a question,” I say, breathless.
Slipping into trouble quickly has never felt so good. Especially when he ducks his head down and licks a searing line from my neck to my left breast, then toys with my nipple between his teeth.
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