“Are you going to be okay?” I pat her hand, working my way to release her and maybe leave her with my family.
“Yes, as long as you’re with me.” Pria squeezes my hand the moment I’m about to release her, so I don’t. Those words melt my determination. I hold on tighter with that hand while pressing the diamond stud with the other. The promises weigh heavy on my back. My parents taught me to be loyal, and I’m hating myself for everything. Keeping Pria at arm’s length, and feeling guilty for not keeping my word to Norah. My head is close to exploding, overwhelmed by these ambiguous emotions. “I don’t want to face this alone.”
Ten years ago I made a different promise. No matter where I was, I’d always be with her, Pria. I’ll hold onto that one for today.
“I’m always with you. Always,” I murmur close to her ear.
As we approach the casket that waits to be lowered into the ground, I direct us to the line of chairs where Matthew and Maeve already sit.
As everyone congregates, the priest starts his speech. Pria and Mae talk in hushed tones.
“You okay, Twinkle?” I murmur, and she nods.
“That’s the exact same speech he said when Mom died two years ago.” She clears her tears. “Mae just told me to make sure we don’t use the same priest when she dies.”
Chris taps my arm, raises an eyebrow and I nod my head. My parents sit next to me, AJ and Mason on the other side, next to Matthew. The entire family has adopted the Walker girls. My guess is that everyone will be heartbroken when Pria leaves town to search for herself. A couple of days ago, I promised Mae that I wouldn’t let Pria stay. Not for her sister or for me. Pria has a plan and we will help her reach her dreams, her goals, or whatever it is that this trip means to her.
“Fred will forever be remembered by his daughters,” the priest continues. “Maeve and Cypriana, know that he’s with God and Glenda now. Both your parents will look over you.”
The priest tilts his head toward the table where the white carnations rest, and I help Pria stand. We both walk toward the table, grab a flower, and place it on top of the casket. Matthew and Mae repeat the process and so does the rest of the congregation. The priest says the last words and blesses the coffin. He turns around and leaves the premises, heading toward the sidewalk where the cars are parked. Pria stands and walks toward her father’s casket.
“Goodbye, Daddy. I’m going to miss you.” She kisses the tip of her fingers and touches it. “Thank you for loving me.”
Pria lifts her gaze and grants me her first smile. “Thank you for being with me.”
“Ready for the reception?” She nods, and we walk side-by-side holding hands. Pria seems to be walking with purpose now, with her chin up, and the strength only she can gather.
Before we can jump into the car, a couple stop her and hug her. Then a few others join her, and in only seconds, she’s doing what Pria does best—entertaining an audience without a sign of grief. Her heart mourns, her mind cries, but she’s being strong for others, for Mae, and for herself. My admiration for her increases. Is that what first attracted me to her? It was that combined with her love for her family, and that innocent smile. Those mesmerizing eyes that sparkle with a different light as her emotions change. It only took minutes for her to capture my soul. Days to conquer my heart and… I think she still possesses them. A simple thought finally breaks through the debris and the darkness my past created. Maybe I never stopped loving Pria Walker. However, my heart shrinks as I’m reminded of the fact that she’s leaving. That I promised Mae I’d do everything in my power to make sure she completes her desired journey to see the world.
Lightening illuminates the dark room. His clear blue eyes stare in panic, his jaw set, and his disgusted, scrunched-up face fumigates the flocks of fluttery butterflies that concentrated inside me only seconds ago as his big hands seared my skin with their sizzling touch.
They say the most important details of your life play through your mind when you’re dying. I’m not dying, but images of the past two years and some months flash—and they have been important. My sister, Robbie, Mom, Dad, and him. This beautiful, complicated, loyal man who, along with his family, claimed part of my heart and filled it with love and care.
“What the fuck?” His raucous voice echoes through the empty room. “Why were you trying to do that? We have an agreement, a deal.”
“Because in my experience kissing is perfectly normal while you’re making love,” I don’t say out loud.
“You said that whatever I needed. Tonight I only need a kiss.” His tall frame straightens, and his long legs take a couple of steps backward.
After the past week, I became certain we had something. Jacob stayed with me almost all the time since the moment I received the call from the senior center. As we arrived from the reception, he told me that he wanted to make it better, to make me forget about today. An illusion. He only wanted sex. He didn’t want me. He still doesn’t want me.
I should kick him out. There’s no point in me holding on to him any longer. As a matter of fact, this relationship feels wrong.
“That doesn’t give you the right to just kiss me,” Jacob protests. That soothing voice he used during the funeral is gone. “We have limits. Kissing goes beyond what I can offer.”
Our lips barely touched. I reserve those words. Because in fact, I don’t remember them making contact. He pushed me before I could feel them.
The blue flames in his eyes burn my insides, but not in a hot and bothered way. That heat that reduces me to liquid fire that only burns when he orders it.
“I can’t anymore, Jacob.” I straighten my spine. “Not with your conditions. Sex between you and me is over.”
He focuses his gaze on me. “That’s all I can ever offer,” he answers in a guttural voice. A voice I haven’t heard from him since we first met. “You needed the comfort and I thought—”
The flashes from the storm outside illuminate the diamond stud he wears. The one he touches each time he’s losing control. The same I tried to touch once and he lost his temper. The sound of the thunder resonates through the windows, making me jolt. I’m reminded that he’s out of reach. These past days, I settled for the illusion of us, another week of fantasy. But I’m not seventeen anymore. There’s a huge storm brewing outside, similar to the one taking over my system.
“It’d be best if you leave.” I walk through the dark living room and open the main door. “Take your shit and don’t come back.”
“Pria?” I don’t understand why he says my name as if begging me not to take him off of life support or something. Nor do I get why his eyes suddenly carry confusion.
“It’s ANA,” I repeat loudly as my body vibrates with anger. “Get the hell out, now.”
He takes off his suit jacket, his tie, and marches toward where I stand.
“You’re not kicking me out. Let’s talk.” His slumped shoulders and boyish features make a small part of me want to listen to him. “We’re friends, best friends.”
I stare at my feet, then lift my head and speak. “If we were friends, you’d explain to me why is it that every time we’re together you regret even speaking to me.”
He takes my hand, pulling me outside the house. “Not here.” We leave the house, lock it, and climb into his car.
He brings me to the third floor of his penthouse; the glass room. Our big confessions always happened under the stars. Tonight doesn’t seem to be any exception. I’m here to find out why I can’t kiss him, why he carries so much guilt and grief.
“That Monday when you left after our week, Matthew was in a car accident.” I catch my breath, because that’s not at all what I expected him to say. “It coincided with a visit from my parents. They found out about my week playing hooky.”
“Pops has OCD. Dad, who loves his husband dearly, cleaned the apartment while we sorted out Matthew’s accident and…well, not
one scrap of paper survived his cleaning rampage.” Jacob drops his gaze.
He had already told me that—about Jacob accidentally losing my number. I can’t fathom how that one event has anything to do with the jerk he became.
“I had no idea how to reach you, Twinkle, I…I had fallen for you so hard and I wanted to find you. Two weeks later, I took my father’s motorcycle and went out to look for you.” I cross my arms and listen to him. His slumped shoulders and haunted eyes create a knot in my stomach. His clear blue eyes are filled with such hurt, my heart rips. “I didn’t see the car coming,” his quiet voice continues, his gaze shifting downward. “I lost control of the bike. My helmet saved my life, but it didn’t do much for the driver and the passenger of the other car. I killed them. I broke my legs, an arm, and dislocated my testicles. The trauma was sorted out very early and both testicles are still intact. The doctor said I was fortunate to survive with both balls intact since they diagnosed it and surgically corrected it immediately. My dick, as you know, functions well. Unfortunately, the testicular torsion lead to infertility. My punishment for causing the deaths of two people is that I’ll never be able to have a family of my own. Gabrielle is never going to happen.”
The thundering sound from the outside makes the glass walls vibrate and my heart shatters because this guy is carrying the lives of two people on his back, and there’s not much I can say to help him with his self-punishment. Then there’s Gabrielle. He came up with a fake future the first time we met. His words come back to me.
“We’ll have a girl,” he said with that cocky-boyish grin. His eyes sparkled as he ambitioned this future with me. “With your twinkle eyes. We’ll name her Gabrielle.”
I swallow past the watermelon-sized knot in my throat. Only my parents and siblings know about the accident, and we never talk about it. Those dark months are not up for discussion. Not the suicide attempts, the night terrors, or the fixation I have to protect them, as I fear life will continue to take away from me for what I did.
“I met Norah a couple of years later, only a few weeks before my twentieth birthday. She had a son, Hunter. I suddenly had a family. But then she died and I lost both of them.” I skip every other detail, how I hurt Norah by not loving her enough, breaking all the promises I made to her and betraying her each time I speak to Pria, each time we make love and I write a new song. “The last time I spoke to her, I made a lot of promises. That I would fight to keep Hunter with me… that I’d only have sex with skanks I don’t care for. That while I fuck them, I’d never kiss any of them.” Pria flinches and I touch her hand. “That I wouldn’t talk to the girl who inspired the best songs I’ve ever written. I owe it to her, Pria.”
She squeezes her eyes shut. “You didn’t write any songs for her?” she asks in a shaky voice, her eyes barely glancing my way. I shake my head. “Who’s the girl that you wrote those songs for?” Her entire body slumps.
“You seriously have to ask, Twinkle? All of them were for you.”
Her head snaps, her eyes meet mine. “Then I’m confused about everything. Why not try to be something real?” Her strained voice clenches my stomach. Pria doesn’t get it, or maybe I did a shit job of explaining myself. “You still love her?”
I drop my head, refusing to answer that question. There’s so much I want to say but I can’t. Like confessing that it kills me to keep that promise alive when she’s around me because the taste of each part of her body is forever ingrained in my head ever since the first time we kissed. That I want to sample her mouth again. That I couldn’t love Norah the way she deserved because Pria had taken my heart and my soul with her. A glazed look of despair spreads over her face, but she composes herself within a couple of breaths.
“I wish I would have known all this. At some point, between ‘I want your ass’ and ‘be my booty call.’” Pria rests her head on top of her knees. “I never had a chance; neither to escape my attraction to you, nor escape the truth—that you’ll never love me again.”
“Twinkle.” The empty word replaces everything that I want to say, but instead I break the last promise for Pria.
I pull her body roughly against mine as I hear her cry. I break my promises, my rules, and everything to give her what she needs tonight—what we both need before she leaves me. My mouth swoops down to captures hers, losing myself in a longing-filled slow kiss. Blood pounds in my brain, a fast drum pattern takes over my heartbeat. My cock pulses against my zipper, trying to rip the pieces of metal to liberate itself.
“I don’t want to be just the one for the night.” She breaks the kiss while pushing my torso with her forearms. “I can’t, Jacob. Not anymore.” She sobs again.
“One last time, Twinkle. Please,” I beg her.
Muffling her response with a kiss, I scoop her from the floor and carry her to my room, shedding her clothes and admiring her perfect body. I move over her, claim her full lips as my fingers slide inside her opening. I kiss her without restraint, forgetting the past, ignoring what the future and life will bring. The fantasy, the one we made up in a whimsical moment, exists for tonight. The two of us living together, with a half-dozen children and two dogs.
Her moans of pleasure rip through the sadness as her insides clench my fingers. I’m on the brink of coming just by listening to her. The urge of being inside her pushes me off the bed. I strip my clothes off, then pull open the drawer of my nightstand and growl. Fuck! I’m out of condoms.
“I’m clean.” My resigned, exhausted voice mirrors my emotional state of mind. My last chance to be with her is ruined because I decided that if it wasn’t Pria, I wouldn’t fuck ever again. “Since my first time I’ve used protection. Would you allow me to not use one tonight?” A sobbing yes is all I need to thrust inside her. For one night we both pretend to be what we can never be.
“Yeah?” A raspy voice answers on the other line. “This better be good. I’m in the middle of my beauty sleep. What do you need, Jacobo?”
“Jacobo?”
“That’s Jacob in Spanish. Ben taught me that,” Mae laughs. “Now talk, why are you calling me in the middle of…nope, it’s five o’clock in the morning. Do you want my sister’s hand in marriage? Because if that’s the case, you need to send me a list of what’s in it for me?”
“No. Does Ben know…that you’re sick?” I couldn’t think of anyone better to discuss this with than Maeve Walker. During the funeral’s reception, we met a guy who claims to be her boyfriend. Matthew gave me the inside scoop. She met Ben back in college, and they’re talking about moving in together. However, she doesn’t want to mention anything to Pria yet. That’s pretty serious, but even more when living with Mae includes medications, therapies, nebulizers, and other shit that makes it obvious she has a very serious condition. But does he know that she could die today?
“Your question is does Ben know?” She chuckles after repeating it. “He’s aware, of course. What kind of bitch would I be if I didn’t disclose that? The better question is, why are you asking?”
I tell her parts of my story after my weekend with Pria, including about Norah.
“Hmm, that’s fucked up, and a huge cross for you to carry with you for all these years. Pria says that everyone deals with loss in different ways.” She takes a couple of shallow breaths. “Let me head to the kitchen for some water.”
The sound of movement, random beep sounds, and water running last for a couple of minutes before she comes back on the phone.
“I’m terrible at losing my loved ones.” Her breathing is more uniform. “But I guess it’s because all my life I’ve been preparing myself for my own death. Yes, I fight to stick around, following my mother’s advice, but I have a condition that can stop my breathing right now—or in another fifty years.
“We all have one guarantee. We’re going to die.” This woman isn’t answering my questions, only bringing me down. “Mom kept me inside our clean house so I’d live. But
I never lived. Please, don’t misunderstand what I’m about to say. I love Mom and I’m grateful for everything she sacrificed. Nonetheless, once she died, I learned something of value. What I do with the rest of my life is up to me, not to her, or to the promises she made me make on her dying bed. You didn’t kill anyone, Jacob. It was an accident. Promising a woman who lied to you that you’ll never love again was stupid…even more when you’ve always been in love with your college sweetheart. Nonetheless, you have to set my sister free. We agreed. She needs to go.”
“Thank you, but this doesn’t help me.” I push myself off the wall and walk toward the glass room.
“Then you didn’t hear a word of what I said, Jacob,” she utters with an exasperated voice. “No, you didn’t want to hear what I said. Think about it. We’re on for tomorrow, aren’t we?”
“Yes, I won’t break that promise, Maeve Walker.”
I hear her sigh of relief come through the line. “My sister was right from the beginning, you’re one of the good guys.”
Lot of good it’s done me. I have no fucking idea how to fix my life.
I grab my bike keys, my helmet, and my jacket from the closet, but before I open the door, my brother enters.
“Where are you going?”
“I have shit to do. Pria stayed for the night, so you might want to make yourself invisible until she leaves. Did you do what I asked for?”
“You’re never giving up that penance.” His jaw hardens. “I can’t understand you. Why did you get her back in your bed? No, wait. She’s the only girl you’ve ever had in your bed. Doesn’t that strike you as strange? I wouldn’t know, because I haven’t found anyone who I still want to see in my bed the next morning. But you have, twice—Pria. I’ll tell you again what we have both said for a while now—AJ and I—yes, you were an irresponsible kid. But it was an accident. You didn’t kill anyone. As far as the other issue…” He points at my crotch. “There’s adoption, and I offered my shit. It can make babies for both of us. Maybe I don’t like to share my toys, or shit that doesn’t matter. But I’ve always shared the important stuff with you. Why not that?”
Uncharted (Unexpected Book 3) Page 28