I quickly make my way away from him.
Closing the door, I rest my back against the door and take a few deep breaths before I realize I’m standing in a dark room. So much for pretending I needed to use the bathroom. I flick the light switch on, and my eyes instantly focus on the pink toothbrush in the holder. Sitting there, alone, like an artifact in a museum. The shower curtain is half open. A woman’s razor sits next to a bottle of Pantene. Men’s shampoo to the side.
I walk out of the bathroom and look to the right. A bedroom. The bed made. A flowery bedspread with an espresso headboard. A tall hutch with a men’s watch box, receipts and change carelessly thrown on the top. A wide dresser with women’s jewelry hanging from a mini bust, makeup strewed about from a morning of getting ready. A laundry basket in the corner. Pinks, blues, blacks piled high. A navy dress hanging from a hanger on the closet door. Never worn. The tag still on it.
“We had dinner plans with friends. She waited three weeks to wear that dress,” Nate says from the doorway behind me.
“It’s a nice dress,” I offer, unsure of what the appropriate thing to say is.
“They were good friends.” He jerks his head toward the hallway, clearly not wanting me in here.
I walk into the living room.
Nate’s face is highlighted when he opens the refrigerator and quickly closes it. “I don’t have anything to offer you. Water?”
I nod, and he takes two glasses and fills them with tap water.
“When was the last time you were here?”
The place doesn’t look dirty. Neglected but not unkempt.
Nate places the glasses on the counter and thinks. “About a year? That’s when I started working at Henley’s. After the accident, I picked up some odd jobs here in the city, but I couldn’t keep anything. I needed to be with Ellie. That was the deal. I sit with her three days a week, and Ed takes the other four. Her friends were coming around, but life got in the way for them, and they stopped showing up. So, now, it’s just me and Ed.” He lightly shakes his head and walks the waters into the living room.
I down mine, just realizing how thirsty I am.
He takes my glass and puts it on the table. I have a familiar feeling with Nate. The one where he’s so close yet so far away. I want to touch him, but I can’t.
I raise a hand to my head and scratch my scalp, awakening me from my daydream. “I’ll crash here. Come get me when you wake up.” I look down at the brown leather sofa, eager to settle in.
Nate’s eyes dart down the hall as he places his hands in his pockets. “I, uh…I sleep out here.” He looks back at me. Those olive-green eyes defeated. “I didn’t think this through.”
“How long has it been since you slept in your bed, Nate?” I ask, knowing the answer.
“Four years,” he breathes.
I close my eyes at the realization that the man has been living in a time capsule. The last day of Ellie Teller’s life as a fully functioning woman is captured in a third-floor apartment on Bay Street.
“That’s fine. We’ll just sit here for a while.” I plop down on the sofa and rest my head against the back. It definitely has the feel of a well-worn couch. One that has been slept on a lot.
Nate takes a seat next to me. Closer than he needs to yet, as with everything Nate, way too far away. When his back hits the cushions, he groans, and it reminds me of heaven.
It’s eerily quiet. Not a clock is ticking, nor is there a sound coming from a neighboring apartment. It’s four in the morning, and the world is asleep.
Except for us.
In a darkened room in an apartment in San Francisco are two people shouting in silence. My lungs are killing me.
Nate’s breaths are loud, not from breathing. From thinking. My knee is hovering a little too close to his. I move it away and reposition myself on the couch. His right hand is resting on the seat. The heat from it is searing into my hip. And it’s inches away.
In the veil of night, I feel like I’m in a confessional, my sins needing to be atoned for.
“I feel like a fool.” My voice is raspier than I expected, the hurt breaking through.
Nate doesn’t answer. He just breathes.
So, I continue, “When you came to Russet Ranch, it wasn’t to see me, was it?”
“No.”
My heart falls. What a fool I am, thinking he was there to apologize for pushing me away that night at the pool table.
“I heard Ed opened up for tours. I had to see it for myself,” he says.
“Russet Ranch was your ranch. The one you lost. Ed was the man who took you in.” Yes, a fool is who I am.
“We were at the ranch, the day of her stroke,” he speaks into the darkness. “It was harvest season. Ed and I were in the vineyard all day. Ellie didn’t want to come up. She loved living in the city. I wanted to be at the vineyard. Drove an hour and a half each way every day to be there. It was a fight we always had, but the ranch had become a part of me.
“When I got home that night, she was on the floor in the bedroom. I called an ambulance, and they did what they could. When Ed got there, he blamed me for not being with her. For always leaving her alone. If someone had been with her, she would’ve had a chance at a normal life.”
The story is a revelation. That is why Ed closed the doors, leased the land, and shut out the world. He didn’t just blame Nate. He blamed himself.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Nate’s chin rises in the air as he studies the shadows on the ceiling being cast from a passing car. “I enjoyed just being Nate. Not Ellie’s husband. I know how that sounds, like I resent my life, resent Ellie. I don’t. And I do. Being her caregiver has become the one thing that defines me.”
“You’re right. It sounds awful.”
Awful he’d think this way. Awful he feels this way. Awful he lives this way.
“My friends haven’t been the same since it happened. Her friends are too afraid of reality. I lost the only family I ever knew. Eventually, I just stopped picking up the phone. I punished myself. I’ve been punishing myself. And then I met you.”
Nate’s head turns toward me, but I keep my eyes trained on the slowly changing numbers on the oven clock.
“Every time you walked through that door, a little piece of me came back. I tried to stay away. God knows I tried, but I couldn’t.”
I can’t deny that these words make my heart stop. I close my eyes and take a shivering breath.
“You had so many opportunities to tell me you were married, about Ellie, about Ed. I was lied to time and again. It’s embarrassing.”
“I wanted to tell you. I was going to tell you. I just wanted one more day, one more moment. I didn’t want you to look at me differently.”
What kind of person does he take me for? My head swerves to him. “How did you think I’d look at you?”
“Like this.” His voice is shaky, and the olive-green eyes I’ve come to love are looking at me with sorrow. They’re pleading with me for forgiveness. His face is cast in a halo of light, accentuating the curve of his mouth and the scruff that lines his sculpted jaw. He hasn’t shaved in a few days, and he certainly hasn’t had a haircut in weeks. His hair is messy and has a slight curl to it, dipping low on his forehead. He is a mess, and he is the most beautiful man I have ever seen.
Nate’s hand finds mine, gently lying on top of mine, the feeling so intimate. More so than any other act in the world.
When I weave my fingers through his, he lets out a breath and lowers his forehead, so ours are touching. His eyes close, as if he’s trying to memorize the moment, savor it for eternity to come. “Will I ever see you again?”
I close my eyes and answer honestly, “No.”
His breath hitches, and when I open my eyes, I see a tear fall down his cheek.
“Can I hold you? While you sleep? When you open your eyes, I’ll take you home, and I promise you’ll never see me again.”
It’s a bad idea. Being in his arms will absolut
ely ruin me.
“Okay.” I mentally berate myself for letting my heart answer before my brain had a chance to catch up.
My body must crave him just as much because I allow Nate to pull me down onto the couch. With his back to the cushions, lying on his side, he pulls me in against him, so we’re chest-to-chest. My knee folds and lies in between his legs, his right leg draped over mine. My head finds the crook of his neck as his arms hold me tight. My right hand is bent against my body, the palm flat against his heart. My left arm is around his waist, feeling the taut muscles beneath his shirt.
I lean down and inhale the smell of cotton, spice, and whiskey, making my own memory. I’m savoring every pixel of this mental image. The way his heart is beating rapidly beneath my hand. The way my leg feels surrounded by his strong thighs. The way his Adam’s apple bobs against my forehead. And how his back muscles flinch ever so lightly every time I slowly move my fingers.
He pulls me in tighter, and I mold myself further into him. When he inhales, I exhale, and when he lets out a low grown, I take it all in, like it’s my last breath.
“I love you, Crystal.” His arms hold on to me tighter, in fear that I’ll move away. “Don’t try to leave. Just listen to me. I can’t have you leave me tomorrow, thinking I used you or that what we had was a lie. I didn’t want to fall in love, but I couldn’t help it.”
My stomach drops. They’re the words every girl dreams of hearing. They’re so perfect yet so wrong. Even still, I can’t move. So, I don’t.
Nate lowers his mouth and places a soft kiss along my hairline. “You are funny and sexy and wild and sweet. The first time you came into the bar, I tried not to look at you because I just knew I was going to fall. I did. So hard. No one has ever made me laugh the way you do or understands me the way you do. The fact that you’re even here, tonight, is why I will never stop thinking about you for the rest of my life.”
Nate places a hand under my chin and raises it until I look up at him. His beautiful eyes are red-rimmed and filled with tears. “If I could, I’d take you to all the places you’ve never traveled, and when we came home, I’d re-create every meal you tasted there. I’d bring you to the symphony, and then we’d go dancing. I’d torture you with Giants games, but after the final pitch was called, I’d make it up to you by drawing you a bath and rubbing your feet while you told me about your day. I’d make love to you every day and not just with my body. I would make you feel loved in some way every chance I got. Because the best part of my day would be seeing you walk through the door. Crystal, I would never rewrite my past. But if I could change my future, it would be to have you in it.”
His voice is filled with more conviction than a man on death row. It’s wispy and breaking. The air in the room is no longer stuffy. It’s crackling and electric. The pure emotions we are sharing with the looks in our eyes and the way our fingers are holding on to each other are filling the city with an electricity greater than an earthquake.
I have waited my entire life to find my soul mate. To love and to be loved so deeply that it would never be replicated. I would take one night of this intensity than a lifetime of loneliness.
So, I am going to take it. At least until the sun comes up.
His heart is still racing, and my lips are quivering, only to be stilled when I lean forward and lay them over his. His body shakes when we connect, and his hands move down to my hips, pulling me in, as if they never want to let go.
When his mouth parts, our lips intertwine.
I kiss him for the first time. I kiss him for the last time. I kiss him forever.
My tears stop and are replaced with a burn. A need for Nate.
I kiss him harder, and he meets me with equal passion.
“I need to feel you.” I lift the hem of his shirt, and Nate hesitates for a moment before sitting up and allowing me to peel off his shirt.
When I toss the shirt over the side of the couch, I look back at Nate, and I freeze.
The sight I see makes me gasp.
Nate is lying inches in front of me, the skin of his chest glowing in the night, as I take in what he has done to himself.
Directly over his heart and inching up into his shoulder is a cascade of deep red roses tattooed into his skin for eternity. Billowing, blooming, and thriving, the deep burgundy color of the magic roses are draped over him like a tartan. The largest rose lies over where his heart beats.
The skin is still raw from the newness of the tattoo. I gently brush my fingers over it, and he flinches.
“Does it hurt?”
“Every day.” His voice is deep and low.
I remove my hand, but he takes my wrist and places my palm back against the skin.
“Love never dies.”
It’s like the tattoo on his wrist. A promise of forever to someone else.
I inch away from him. Again reminded of his undying love for a woman who is not me.
Nate pulls me back, and my chest slams against his as my eyes collide with his.
“This is for you.” He swallows hard and stares at me, pleading, wanting me to understand. “You are my red rose.”
He did this for me.
He had no idea we’d be together again, even for this last time, yet he engraved himself with me. Because in the faint line of the petal that rests just over his heart is my name in a beautiful cursive that flows into the movement of the design. On his skin for eternity.
I sit up and raise my shirt over my head. I snake my hand around my back and unclasp my bra, so it falls to the floor.
When our bodies collide, it’s as if the world finally makes sense. My hands touch his face, his chest, his back. His are on my neck, my arms, and my stomach.
Someday, I’ll daydream and remember how his velvety skin felt along the pads of my fingertips and how the hard muscles that lay beneath twitched with every touch. I’ll remember the way his back dipped in at the tailbone and how his shoulder blades rolled out of his skin when I ran my hands up the sides of his torso. I’ll remember the scar he had on the underside of his jaw, only visible when my lips were kissing his neck.
And I’ll remember how he whispered, “I love you,” every time his lips touched my skin.
I take his mouth in mine again and run my hands into his hair, tugging lightly. My body is a ball of fire and nerves and need.
I need Nate.
“Make love to me. One last time,” I plead. “If I never love again, I need this memory to take me through the lonely nights. I know you have a past, but I need you to treat me like I am your future.”
I don’t have to ask twice. Nate’s mouth is back on mine, his hands and his body taking over me.
There is no urgency. Everything is done with patience. Savoring every moment because it is the last.
We undress one another with locked eyes. We caress each other with locked lips. I whimper when his hand loves me gently down to my core. He says my name into my lips when I run my thumb over the swollen head.
And, when he enters me, I nearly burst out of my skin at the intense feeling of him, bare, inside me.
“You feel so good,” he groans as he takes my head into his hand. His hips roll against mine, making my orgasm build, as he loves me from the inside out.
His mouth falls to mine, and when he looks back at me, those beautiful green eyes gazing straight into mine, I can’t hold it in any longer.
“I love you.”
I didn’t want to say it, but when his mouth widens into a smile and tears well in his eyes, I am so glad I did.
My body tightens as the pressure rises.
And when we find our release, we cry into each other’s mouths.
Naked, entwined, running my fingers over the roses, I watch as Nate falls asleep, holding me tight.
Our perfect moment together. Our last moment together.
chapter TWENTY-THREE
I don’t wait for Nate to wake up. His body deep in slumber, he doesn’t feel me slip out of his arms. If I stay, our good-bye wi
ll be that much harder.
Slipping my clothes on, I grab my purse and take one last look at him. He looks so peaceful. He’s not a superhero. He’s just Nate. Sleeping, peaceful Nate.
The sun has risen, and the room is cast in sunlight. Around the room are photos I was unable to see last night. Perhaps it’s because I didn’t want to see them last night. Now, in the glowing daylight, they’re sitting in spotlights of sunshine peeking through the window.
I walk to the wall and take them in. A photo of a young boy in a Giants cap and a woman with matching green eyes. Another of a young girl with black hair standing with a red-haired woman and a young-looking Ed Martin. A larger photo of Ellie in dance apparel sits on a table. She was very beautiful. Petite and lean. Her long dark hair is up in a bun, and her dark eyes are large and bright, full of life. There are photos of Nate and Ellie at a party, another of them on the beach, and a few of them with friends. In every picture, she doesn’t look to be smiling for the camera. She’s laughing.
I grab my coat off the hook and see one last picture. Nate and Ellie at a festival. They’re younger. Nate with a full head of hair, shaggy and falling in front of his eyes. He’s clutching a red Solo cup in one hand, and a beautiful young Ellie is in the other. She has on cutoff shorts, a tank top, and a flower wreath around her head. If I had to guess, it was taken the day they met. The day they fell in love.
An odd sensation passes through my veins. It’s not guilt, like I know I should be feeling.
Who knows what is right or wrong anymore?
What I do know is that I love Nate, and I needed this closure. I needed him one last time.
Taking one final look at Nate, I memorize his face. This is the last time I will ever see him.
I don’t call Naomi to pick me up. I’m not ready to return to Napa.
I hail a taxi and take myself as far away from Nathaniel Teller as I possibly can.
chapter TWENTY-FOUR
NATE
Henley’s Pub. On a Tuesday. Three o’clock.
Same place, same day, same time as the day Crystal walked into my life.
Except today there is no chance of her walking in. She hasn’t been back here in a month, and from the way I woke up, alone, naked, on the couch of my San Francisco apartment, I know she won’t be coming back.
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