Higher Ground

by Nan Lowe

  “You two were together for a long time.” She was his, and he was hers. She, at least, had reason to try—not that I would change a thing about Wade.

  “Yeah, and I took the coward’s way out. I broke up with her the day before I left for Atlanta.” He steps back, hangs his head, and toes the ground. “Gave her some line about long-distance relationships never working. I walked back to my house and slept like a baby that night.”

  “Wow.”

  “In my head, I knew it was a dick move. She was bawling and begging, promising we’d find a way. I was a kid, though, and I broke her heart without a backward glance. Teenage guys are selfish creatures. Try to remember that when you’re beating yourself up over something that happened in high school.”

  Instead of correcting him, I nod. This isn’t some simple case of teenage regret, but he has no way of knowing that.

  “Let’s stop for a beer and see if we can catch the end of the Hawks game,” he says, taking my hand and leading me toward the parking lot.

  “That sounds like fun. Nick and Wren are there tonight. Maybe we can spot them in the crowd.”

  His favorite sports bar is only a few blocks away from his folks’ house. The parking lot’s crowded but not full, and we’re able to get a table without waiting. Sure enough, there are a few minutes left in the fourth quarter, and the Hawks are up by eighteen points.

  Wade’s pinpointed Wren’s curly blonde hair before the beers are on the table in front of us. “Maybe we can catch a home game after the holidays,” he says.

  “I hope so.”

  After the way things had ended with Elijah, I’d sworn off jocks completely. I’d even made it through my entire undergrad without banging a single athlete, which was impressive considering the number of one-night stands I’d racked up.

  Atlanta was home for Wren, and I’d decided to tag along with her when it was time for us to leave Auburn. We were both accepted to Emory, so we decided to get an apartment and make the most out of graduate school. Her older brother, Stephen, invited us to a Hawks game with him and some buddies our second year there. Wade was one of those buddies. It hadn’t taken long for us to be labelled the “English nerds,” but I didn’t mind. He asked questions—real questions—like no one had for years.

  It lit some dormant fire, and it scared the hell out of me.

  He scared the hell out of me.

  I knew it from the moment I met him. Miss Verity had promised me years before that I had some bigger, better love out there waiting for me, much like Ronnie.

  But by the time I found him, I’d convinced myself it was all bullshit. I figured I’d weaved enough negative Karma to get bypassed all together. It took a Poe-quoting, awkward jock to bring me back to life, which was the last thing I’d been expecting.

  “You’re thinking,” he says, sparing me a glance and a smile during a commercial break.

  “I am.”

  “Uh-oh.”

  “You’re not what I expected.”

  That catches his attention. He turns to face me. “Is that why?”

  “Why what?”

  “Why you tried like hell to fight it?”

  In four years, he’s never asked. Not once. The beginning of a relationship is usually the easiest part for most people, if you believe books, TV, movies… Fiction. Then again, I’d seen it happen with so many friends. There’s an immediate spark, and then next comes hunger—for company, for information, for little moments of discovery.

  With me and Wade, it was more of a dance; one step forward, two steps back. We were friends for more than a year before anything happened. He was patient, though. Thank God.

  “I’d all but given up.”

  “I’ll never let that happen,” he says, lifting my hand to brush his lips over my knuckles.

  “It wasn’t like Miss Verity said I’d meet a tall, handsome stranger in Atlanta who would upend my whole life.” I stare at the stubble along his jaw. “Fate’s scary when it’s staring you in the face and asking you to jump.” He stares back and searches my eyes, and I can tell there’s something on the tip of his tongue. “What?”

  “Nothing.” He shakes his head, picks up his longneck, and kills it.

  “Am I?” I ask, avoiding his gaze by reaching for my own beer.

  “What I expected?” he asks. I nod, take a pull, and wait, still unable to face him. “I didn’t have Miss Verity to tell me I should’ve been looking, but nothing could’ve prepared me for you, Violet.” He reaches for my hand and squeezes until I look up at him. “What you told me back at the beach upsets me. I hate the way you felt about yourself. All those things, those parts of you that made you feel lacking, are the things I love about you.”

  “I know,” I say. He falls asleep with his fingers at the base of my neck every night, buried in my hair. My tits aren’t nearly as perky as they were ten years ago, but he loves them often with his mouth and his hands.

  “If that guy fucked around on you, it was his fault, not yours.”

  “Oliver was never my boyfriend. He was free to do as he pleased.”

  The game ends before he can reply. All around us, people cheer, toast, and high five. A small portion of the crowd takes off, but Wade stays glued to his seat and orders another round of longnecks for us. It’s too loud to continue our conversation, but the silence is drowning me.

  “There.” I point across the room to a couple vacating a foosball table. “Let’s play a few rounds while things settle down.”

  Wade gets up first and reaches out a hand to help me from the booth. “Feel like losing tonight, huh?”

  “Keep dreaming.”

  Basketball’s his forte. Table soccer? He’s okay. Most of the time, I’m better. We had a foosball table in the common room of our dorm in Auburn. Wade can hold his own, though, and he never lets me win. I have to fight every time.

  I can tell from kickoff that tonight’s different. Pushing, pulling, and kicking with a vengeance, he scores goal after goal. I only manage to get one goal past him during the first game.

  He takes a deep breath after his win, and the second game is more relaxed. He smiles, orders two more beers when the server checks in with us, and I manage to score twice after she walks away.

  “How long were Ronnie and Bryan married?” he asks.

  It’s easy to forget Ronnie was already married to her second husband, Will, by the time I finally introduced Wade to my family. “Four years. Hayden was three when they split up. Bryan was transferred to San Diego when his time was up in Dallas. Ronnie went with him, but things turned sour not long after the move. It was amicable. He’s a better dad than he was a husband. If you make it to New Orleans, you might get to meet him. He’s stationed there now and has Hayden every other weekend. He’s coming to the reception.”

  “Is that going to be weird for Will?”

  I take a long pull from my beer, notice the tingling in my knees, and let the alcohol loosen my tongue. It’s ridiculous how quickly I can catch a buzz these days.

  “My sister and I don’t talk about relationships and stuff. I’m closer to Will than I am to her.” She’s too busy Googling healthy recipes, heading the PTA, and working full-time, so she doesn’t have a lot of extra time right now. “It’s going to be awkward as hell for all of them. Bryan and Will were stationed in Dallas together. Ronnie met Will at a cookout Bryan took the family to.”

  “Did she…?”

  “No. After the divorce, Ronnie moved home to Miss Verity’s. Mom and Dad drove to California to pick them up the same way they’d driven her to Texas years before. She had no idea Will had been transferred to New Orleans.”

  “So you’re telling me they knew each other in Dallas but nothing happened?”

  “Yes. He was her casual acquaintance in Texas. They ran into each other at a jazz festival not long after she moved back."

  “I can see how things could get weird.”

  “They all love Hayden, so they make it work.”

  “Does Will have
other kids?”

  “One. His son, Tyler, is a year older than Hayden. Zoey’s his only other child.” Ronnie’s youngest, Zoey, is the spitting image of a young Miss Verity and, like her great-grandmother, thinks Wade hung the moon. He has that effect on the Foster women.

  “Since I don’t see any of your family in him, I’m assuming Hayden looks like Bryan.”

  “He’s Bryan’s mini to a T.”

  He nods, watching as I continue to outmaneuver him. “I hope our kids look like you,” he says.

  My hands freeze. He shoots. He scores.

  I’m stuck in place long after he’s moved the last counter in his favor. When he says things like that, my heart goes double-time, while the rest of me shuts down entirely.

  “I hope they have your eyes,” he says, stepping around the table until he’s right in front of me. The pad of his thumb settles on my chin. “And this little cleft.” His lips brush over mine, a barely there whisper.

  “Your lips,” I say against his mouth before he kisses me. After, I add, “Your eyebrows. Mine are hideous.”

  He laughs, long and loud, and then kisses me harder and deeper than before. “Let’s go home.”

  We laugh our way across the room to our table, and then he helps me with my coat before donning his own jacket. Instead of unlocking the car, he leads me past it. “I’ll come back and get it in the morning.”

  The breeze tickles my cheeks, and despite the ornate Christmas decorations on every house we pass, the scrape of the leaves against the sidewalk screams autumn. I snuggle into his side and let his arm hug me closer as we walk.

  “Have you answered your phone, yet?” he asks.

  “No.”

  “How many missed calls?”

  I hesitate. “Over thirty.”

  “Van tried calling my phone while we were in the candy shop. You can’t avoid them until Tuesday. At least call your mom tomorrow. Give her your flight information, and let her know you’ll be there.”

  “She knows I’ll be there,” I grumble.

  He laughs, and the sound of it is contagious. We spend half a block trying to stop and another half a block staring at each other while trying to walk a straight path. It only causes more laughing.

  Wade pulls us to a stop right outside the front door of his parents’ house. His key sits in the lock, but he faces me and leans in to whisper. “We have to be quiet. I want to bury my face between your legs when I get you upstairs, and that won’t happen if we wake my mom.”

  I shift my thighs, but trying to rub out any kind of friction while standing is impossible. “Okay.” My pointer finger rests against my lips in a silent promise.

  We stop inside the door to take off our shoes. I almost think we’re busted for a second when I knock down a picture frame while leaning on a table to keep my balance and wrestle my footwear at the same time. We freeze and wait it out, listening for any hint that his parents are on to us, but there isn’t any.

  He waves an arm toward the stairs, and I go ahead of him, trying to stay focused. By the time we get to the top, his lips are attached to the back of my neck and his hand is down my pants. His other arm is holding me up, because my knees stopped functioning when his fingers started moving.

  True to his word, he pushes me back onto the bed, unbuttons my jeans, and peels them and my panties away. He drops to his knees and hooks his arms under me, dragging me until my ass touches the edge of the mattress. I have to close my eyes when he licks his lips and leans forward.

  Wade’s patient, willing to take his time to drive me crazy, and I have to cover my face with his pillow to avoid waking his parents. When he’s satisfied I’m pleased, he kisses his way up my belly, tugging my shirt as he goes. “It’s a shame how often I don’t get you fully naked.” I lift and wiggle out of the shirt, and he makes quick of work of my bra. “Like this,” he says, leaning down to kiss the skin that covers my heart. “I love you, Violet.”

  It took years for me to hear those words and really believe them. Years before they didn’t cause tears to gather in the corners of my eyes. Years for me to feel them in my blood and bones. Even to this day, I’ve never been able to say them first. Not ever. The sting of rejection is bold and leaves scars that take longer than any flesh wound to heal.

  “I love you, too.”

  I pull his shirt over his head before he works his belt and pants. It takes a few moments of awkward movements on both our parts, but when we’re finally skin to skin from head to toe, that moment before is worth it. Every inch of me is under some part of him—the hard, straining parts and the soft, loving parts. He knows how I like it and delivers with a swift thrust to join us.

  Then he’s moving—sweet until I come, rough until he does.

  It’s the best of both worlds and a little of everything I need.

  He kisses me softly before sending me off to the bathroom first to care of my needs. He waits outside for his turn and runs his fingers across my belly when I pass him on my way out.

  I pluck his t-shirt from the ground, put it on, and slide under the covers to wait for him. He doesn’t bother with clothing on his way back to bed.

  “I had fun tonight,” I tell him as he scoops me into his arms to hold me close.

  “I’m glad,” he says, letting his lips brush across my forehead.

  “Can I ask you something?”

  “Anything.” His eyes are already closed, and he’s close to sleep. Sex wears him out. It always has. Multiple beers aren’t helping.

  “Are you upset?”

  That wakes him up.

  “About what?” he asks.

  “Hillary getting married.”

  Wade moves himself up onto one arm and stares down at me. “No. Hillary’s a distant memory, a fading thought every now and then. You’re my future. You’re what I want. I thought you knew that.”

  “I do,” I say. “In my heart, I do. It’s my head that gets mixed up.”

  “Fuck,” he says. “I didn’t want to do this now.” He turns over and moves to leave the bed. “The timing sucks. I’ve had this plan…” The moonlight provides a stunning view of his ass from across the room as he ruffles through his bag. “But then Van called you, and now the Hillary shit…” He finds whatever it is he’s looking for and turns to give me my other favorite view of his body.

  “What are you talking about?” I ask, sitting up.

  “This.” He takes a seat next to me and holds up a ring between us. “You’re the only one I want, and I want you forever.”

  The tears come so fast that I can’t see the cut or size of the diamond, but those things don’t matter, so I nod. He leans forward to plant his lips on mine at the same moment he pushes cool metal over the knuckle of my ring finger.

  “So you’ll marry me?” he asks.

  “Of course I will.” I bring my hands up to touch his cheeks, blink to clear some of the tears, and kiss him over and over.

  “Every time I had a plan, our friends had some major life event come up. This isn’t about Van tying the knot or Hillary agreeing to. This is about you and me.”

  “How long have you had this?” I ask, finally raising my hand to inspect the oval cut stone set in platinum.

  “Four months,” he says. “In August, Ronnie called to tell you she was pregnant again. In October, Wren and Nick announced they were moving in together.”

  “Lisa and Samantha broke up in November,” I add, catching on to his train of thought.

  “See?” he says. “I didn’t want you to think I was doing it for any reason other than having you all to myself until I die. It’s not a contest with your brother or my ex. I just want you.”

  “You have me. It took me a while to come around, but you’ve always had me.”

  “It means everything that you’re finally opening up to me about your past. I’m beginning to understand why it was so hard for you to give me a chance.”

  “But you never asked,” I say. “Why?”

  He shrugs and slides under th
e covers next to me. “I wanted you to tell me on your own. I wanted you to trust me.”

  “I do. Sometimes, even now, it’s hard, but that’s because of me, not you.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Then

  By October, my strawberry-blonde locks had been cut chin length and dyed black. Everyone in my family but Van hated it.

  Oliver was fond of it, though. “Ne bouge pas.” His fingers settled on my bare knee, and he lifted his camera with the other hand. I was naked beneath the crisp, navy sheets on his bed.

  I followed his instructions and didn’t move except to smile. “Range l'appareil,” I said. I wanted him to put down the camera and touch me again.

  “Non.”

  He climbed onto the bed, stood, and clicked the shutter over and over from above me until I dissolved into giggles and turned over onto my stomach.

  It was a rare afternoon alone after a long week of school, friends, and parents. Much to Oliver’s relief, his dad had shipped out the afternoon before. I’d learned by then that he was happier when his dad was away. His mom spent less time at home when his father was gone, which seemed backward, but I kept my questions to myself.

  Oliver liked it better when they were both out of the way. His house was still the best place to relax after school, but we hadn’t been alone in the seven days his dad had been in New Orleans that month. The moment the last bell had rung, Oliver had taken my hand and practically dragged me back to his house with a warning over his shoulder for no one to follow.

  “I have a present for you,” he said, stepping off the bed and moving to his dresser. After rifling through the top drawer for a moment, he took something out and walked back over to me. “One for you, and one for Van.”

  He tossed two licenses onto the bed next to me. The first one I picked up had been issued in Arkansas to a guy named Nathan Pickens. The other one belonged to Felicia McGee from New Jersey.

  “What are these for?” I asked.

  “The bars celebrating Halloween tomorrow night.”

  I turned onto my side and pushed the IDs away. “They’re close, but no one’s going to believe we’re twenty-one.”

  “That’s why you’re going to wear makeup,” he said. “Sonny will take care of it. Trust me.”