Beautiful Fall

by Jordyn White

  Still gripping his forearms, I’m climbing so hard my body is curling inward, but still I’m looking up at him. He’s holding my gaze too, and I whimper over and over as I watch the approaching peak of ecstasy on his face mirror the one that’s seizing my body.

  The muscles in his forearms tighten, and I’m shattered by an orgasm that rushes through me as we come together. Our eyes close momentarily, our heads hitch slightly back and forth helplessly as the pleasure rolls over us like thunder, but we hang on to each other’s gaze. My knowing of him becomes deeper as I watch him.

  At last we release one another, and my head falls back and my eyes close. This is what my heart needed from him, and needed to give to him. As we’re coming down in trembling waves, he sinks into my arms again. I am astounded. He’s part of me now. In every sense of the word. Still joined together, arms wrapping around one another as we try to catch our breath, my heart is bound to him in a way I’ve never experienced before.

  My desire for a future with him sharpens.

  I just hope I’m not setting myself up for a fall.

  Chapter 36

  Brett

  It’s been a month since I brought these two halves of my life together, and it’s starting to feel like the new normal.

  Halloween is on a Thursday this year, and Lizzy said she’d come over after work to take Max trick or treating with me. That morning, before I drop Max off to preschool, she sends me a text:

  Tell Max I’ll have a little surprise for him when I come.

  Me: What is it?

  Lizzy: Nope. Surprise for you too. Nothing big though, so don’t play it up too much.

  I pick him up from daycare a bit early so we can get home and get dinner done and him into his costume in time. He keeps asking me what Lizzy’s surprise is, apparently thinking I really do know what it is and am holding out on him. As we’re coming in from the garage, I get a text from her:

  Running a bit behind. Okay if I’m about 20 min late?

  I frown and get a hot pinch in my chest. I already told Max we’d leave at six.

  Me: Okay.

  I wanted to say no, but I don’t know why she’s running late and I don’t want to be unreasonable. Nevertheless, I do feel an unreasonable irritation about it. This becomes outright anger when I tell Max we won’t leave until later and have to watch his little face fall.

  Fuck. I’ve seen his face do that a hundred million times when there’s something Jessica doesn’t come through with. I tense up instantly, my blood starting to run hot, but I hide it for his sake. I have lots of experience with that too. “She’ll be here. Don’t worry.”

  “She’s bringing Montana, right?”

  I hope so. She’d better. God, I don’t need Lizzy fucking letting him down too. He’s had enough of that. “I’m sure she will.” But I’m stewing about whether or not I’m right.

  By the time she shows up, fifteen minutes late, I’ve cooled down from boiling to simmering. Just barely. I let Max run out the door when we hear her pull up, to save me from a private greeting that she’ll probably want to involve kisses. I’m trying to calm down and let it go, but I can’t. I’m vaguely aware of the fact that I might be overreacting, but I’m too worked up to do anything about it.

  Max disappears around the corner to greet Lizzy—and Montana, I hope—but I hang back by the open door, arms folded.

  Max’s squeal of delight draws me forward, though. I go around the corner myself to see Lizzy pulling a little black gift bag out of the passenger seat, and Montana in a dog costume that makes him look like a prisoner. He’s wearing a black and white striped doggie body suit with a prisoner number on the back.

  Max—who’s in his police officer uniform—is jumping up and down excitedly. “He’s my prisoner!”

  “Wow,” I say, not meaning to sound so dispassionate. “Where’d you get that?”

  “Ordered it online.” She’s still smiling and digging something out of the bag, but gives me a questioning glance.

  I smile back, not wanting to get into it with her in front of Max. I’m not sure if I want to get into it with her at all. I don’t know what the hell I want, other than to get going. Finally.

  “Okay, Montana is part one of the surprise and this is part two.” She pulls out what looks like a popcorn ball, except it’s orange and decorated to look like a jack-o-lantern.

  “Oooh!” Max says, taking one.

  She looks at me. “I use marshmallows and melted white chocolate to bind them together. They’re crazy good.”

  “Can I eat it?” he asks Lizzy.

  She has sense enough to say, “Ask your dad.”

  He looks at me hopefully. “Can I?”

  “You can have it later. You’ll be getting enough sweets soon enough.” I ignore the slightly disappointed looks on both of their faces. “Take the bag inside and get your bucket. Let’s go.”

  She puts the ball back in the bag and hands it to him, giving me another questioning look. When he runs back toward the house, she comes up and gives me a kiss. “You okay?”

  “Yeah. Fine.” I’m trying to shake it. I really am. But I can’t for some reason. Not wanting to discuss it, I go back to the front door so I can lock it up after he comes out. He runs back outside, his empty plastic bucket swinging erratically from the plastic handle, and goes straight past me to Montana.

  I lock the bolt and take a deep breath. It’s fine. She’s here and Max is fine and we’re on our way.

  But it’s soon clear I’m not fine, which irritates me as much as anything else. Max is holding the leash—Lizzy’s been teaching Max how to make the dog heel by his side—and we head for the first house in my neighborhood.

  “Sorry I was late. On my way home I remembered I was out of butter at the house and needed it for the popcorn balls.”

  I nod. Max is fussing with the plastic handcuffs hanging from his belt. They’re his favorite part of the costume.

  “I bought all the other ingredients yesterday, but forgot about that,” Lizzy continues, like she’s nervous and trying to fill up the gaps. “I had to stop at the store to get some.”

  “It’s all right,” I lie. Why didn’t you just skip the whole thing, then? I want to ask instead.

  We stop in front of the first house and she takes the leash from Max so he can go up to the door. We hang back on the sidewalk.

  “They’re kind of a Rivers family tradition,” she says lightly, but I can tell she’s feeling me out, trying to get a read on me. “You can’t have Halloween without popcorn balls.”

  I frown. For some reason her cheerfulness about the damn balls are only making things worse. Maybe I should’ve talked to her before we left... but Max had already been waiting long enough. This thought just makes me mad all over again.

  She gives me a troubled look, but Max comes back, grinning and holding up his bucket. “I got three pieces!”

  “Yes, you did,” Lizzy says, leaning over to peek in.

  I look in as well. “Good job, buddy.”

  Max takes the leash and we walk to the next house in silence. Once Lizzy’s taken the dog back and Max is out of earshot, she calls me out on it. “Okay, what’s wrong?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Brett, come on. You’ve been acting weird since I got here. Did something happen today?”

  “Yeah, something happened. I had to tell my son you’d be late for trick or treating.”

  Her eyes fly wide and I look away, really hating how that sounded and how out of control I feel.

  “I’m sorry. That’s why I texted you—”

  “You know, I would’ve rather you forget the popcorn balls and be here when you said you were going to be here.”

  Neither one of us says anything more because Max comes back, holding up his bucket to show us his booty. We both peek in dutifully and she hands back the leash. We’d been holding hands, but we’re not now. I’m not sure when we stopped.

  We walk to the next house in silence, Montana’s black and whit
e stripped tail swinging in front of us.

  As Max goes to the next door, Lizzy turns to me. “I’m very sorry that I upset you. I did ask you if it was okay.”

  I realize she may be right, but say anyway, “Well, what was I going to say? No?”

  “Yes. If it was going to upset you this much, yes, I wish you would’ve just said something then.”

  I frown and look away, knowing she’s right. Max is back, and we walk past a few houses with porch lights off. He’s distracted, examining all the candy in his bucket and has forgotten about Montana, so Lizzy still has the leash and the dog’s walking on the other side.

  As we walk, I slowly start to cool down. I know I’ve been acting unreasonably, but the whole thing... well, it hurts. As my irritation fades, that’s what I’m left with. I’m hurt. Inexplicably hurt over what, I tell myself, was a small thing.

  It’s not until Max is coming back from the next house that I realize why. He’s bounding down the driveway, a big grin on his face.

  “Did you get anything good?” Lizzy asks.

  He gives a happy nod and trots ahead of us, little fist holding tight to the handle of his bucket. I take Lizzy’s hand, squeezing tightly myself. I see her look at me out of the corner of my eye, but I’m trying to get my emotions under control so I can explain things to her.

  It takes a few more houses. She just holds my hand, letting me work it out in silence. When I’m ready, and as soon as Max is out of earshot, I turn to her. “I’m sorry.”

  “Me too.”

  “I don’t... know that you did anything wrong. You did ask and it’s not like you have a pattern of not following through.” She gets a dawning expression on her face. “It’s okay,” I say quickly, squeezing her hand and glancing over her shoulder to check Max’s status so I can say what I need to say before he comes back. “I’ve just seen that letdown look on his face so many times with his mother.”

  “Oh God, I’m sorry. I wasn’t even thinking about that. I didn’t think it would be a big deal.”

  “It wasn’t,” I say firmly, taking her face in my hands. “It was my baggage. That’s all. I’m sorry for the way I behaved.”

  Her expression softens and I kiss her, needing our hearts to stitch back together before we go any further.

  “Why are you guys always kissing?” Max asks.

  We pull apart, sharing a brief smile of understanding and forgiveness before turning to Max. “Because we like each other,” I say. “Did you get any candy for me?”

  He pulls his bucket close to his chest, shakes his head, and hurries ahead of us. Lizzy laughs and briefly squeezes my waist, dropping her head on my shoulder. I kiss her soft hair and we follow my boy, arm in arm.

  Chapter 37

  Lizzy

  The next day at work, the thing with Brett lingers with me. He later told me he was surprised how strongly the situation triggered him, and I was too. It makes me wonder what other baggage he might have, and if we need to talk more about this. Especially since Jessica is potentially going to be back on the scene in a bigger way.

  She gets out of rehab today, and Brett agreed to let her have Max for a few hours tomorrow afternoon. Since they’ll just be at the park, he was okay with it being unsupervised. He’d like Max to be able to see his mom more, but wants to take things slow in case she relapses. I don’t blame him.

  But the thing that worries me is she later asked if she could talk to him first, instead of him just dropping Max off. She didn’t say what she wanted to talk about, and Brett doesn’t know what it could be since they’ve talked plenty during their visits.

  Have I been wrong not to worry more about those visits? He says it’s just been to keep an eye on her and stay in the loop. He’s even met with Jessica’s doctors a few times regarding her care. He wants to know if she really is stable, specifically so he can make decisions about visitation.

  I understand it. I do.

  But I get a feeling of dread every time I think about this meeting she wants to have with him at the park. I keep trying to talk myself out of it, because I don’t have anything specific I can point to to say what’s wrong. But it concerns me enough that I call Corrine up right in the middle of my workday so I can talk to her about it.

  “I understand this is Max’s mother,” I say, leaning back in my office chair, facing away from my desk and staring out the window at the front grounds. “She’s always going to be in the picture. But I have this weird feeling about it. Am I crazy?”

  Corrine sighs. “Is he treating you any differently?”

  “No. Well, there was the Halloween thing.” I describe the incident to her, trying to give her an accurate picture and not coloring my telling with my current worries. “Things did seem back to normal once we talked about it.”

  “Okay. Has there been anything else?”

  “Not really. Like I said, I can’t really pinpoint it. But I just keep getting this feeling that maybe, I don’t know, she might want to get back together with him.” I rub my fingers on my forehead, closing my eyes and going on without hardly taking a breath. “What if he wants to get back together with her? It’s not like they got divorced because they had this horrible relationship. It was this weird thing that happened. And you know, when we were first getting together, I asked him if he still loved her. He said the woman he loved didn’t exist anymore. But what if she’s coming back? He fell in love with her before. What if he falls in love with her again?”

  “Okay. Hang on.”

  I drop my hand from my forehead and look back out the window. I’m not really seeing anything.

  “Have you talked to him about any of this?”

  “No. I don’t want to be that jealous person that complains when he isn’t even doing anything wrong. He’s allowed to interact with her. It’s Max’s mother.”

  “And his ex-wife.”

  “Right.” I sigh. “Corrine, you should’ve heard him talking to her the night she went into rehab. He still cares about her.”

  There’s silence on the other line for a moment. “He says he loves you, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you believe him?”

  I think about all the moments we’ve had, when his love for me felt so strong. “Yes. It’s not like I’ve never been wrong about a guy before, but yes. I believe him.”

  “Then you have two choices. You can either tell him how you feel, and try to get some reassurance, or you can let this go and move on. What you’re not allowed to do, is continue obsessing about it without talking to him.”

  I groan, then think about it. “I’ve already tried not obsessing about it,” I say quietly.

  “Then you need to talk to him.”

  “Yeah.”

  By the time we end the call, I’ve resolved to let Brett know how I feel. Corinne is right. I can’t keep wondering what he’s thinking.

  Soon enough though, I have something else to worry about.

  I’m on the second floor walking the east wing conference rooms to inspect the set up for a big convention that’s starting in the morning, when the issue of Mason Reeves comes back to the surface. As I walk past the purple-draped registration tables in the pre-function area, I get a text from Rayce: Did you see the email from George Hollister?

  I swipe down my notifications, which does, in fact, include an email from George. I read it, halting in front of a wheeled-rack full of stacked conference chairs, waiting to be rolled into the Redwood Room for set up. My blood is pumping thickly. I read the email again.

  A couple of employees come to take the rack inside. I step out of their way.

  Me: Just saw it. What does that mean?

  Rayce: I don’t know, but I’m pissed he didn’t tell us in person.

  I had the same thought, but there’s a bigger issue at hand. Why would Mason Reeves turn down his inheritance?

  After work, I take an alternate route home, one that takes me by the property Mason Reeves was supposed to inherit, but doesn’t want. My brothers an
d I didn’t talk much about the issue, mainly because Rayce and Connor were starting to go at one another about it, so I put the whole conversation to a halt. “There’s nothing to be done,” I’d said, “so let’s just drop it.”

  But I’m a hypocrite, because I can’t.

  I don’t want to talk to them about it, because Rayce is just going to be pissed that Dad may have had an affair and Connor’s just going to be pissed that anyone’s suggesting it. I’m past the did he or didn’t he question, and have moved on to something else. Something that I’m not sure they’ll be on board with.

  I pull in front of the small, private residence on Vine Street, and it only confirms our worst fears. The inheritance of Mason Reeves is unique in several ways, it turns out. Not only was he the only non-relative, supposedly, to inherit property, but aside from Mom and Dad’s private residence, this is the only property in their entire estate that clearly was not an investment.

  It’s not a unit of condos. Not a collection of townhouses. Not an office park. It is not at all like anything my parents would buy for the sake of investing. They stuck with properties that generated cash flow, and the 1200-square foot single-family home in front of me would not fit that bill.

  No. This was someone’s home. The question is, why did my father own it to start with and why did he bequeath it to Mason Reeves?

  I call Jeff, the realtor who sold us the Cottages, and am relieved when he picks up the phone. With a calm voice, and a pounding heart, I ask if he can find out when my father purchased this property, and who the seller was.

  I wait on the line while he goes to the database. There’s a lock box on the front door, but I don’t get out of the car to look in the windows of what’s clearly a vacant property. I sit in my car, and watch the branches of the tree in the front yard dip in the wind, and wait.