“Don’t you dare,” I say, watching him walk toward the carnations. “It’s sacrilegious!”
Teller lifts his hands in innocence, creeping closer to the plot. He reads the headstone. “Mrs. Schroeder won’t mind. Sharing is caring, babe.”
He looks from side-to-side for prying eyes, because who wants to be the human caught stealing flowers from a dead person, especially when he’s covered in tattoos and has a cigarette hanging on his ear? Delinquent. Heathen. Thug.
It’s despicable and outrageous, but my heart swells watching him grave rob. I don’t think there’s anything he wouldn’t do to make me happy, and it’s the thought that counts, not the crime he may or may not be committing.
Up to no good slips a single carnation from the bouquet and runs back, presenting it to me as if the goods aren’t stolen.
“We’re going to hell for this, you know.” I take the flower and place it upon my father’s headstone, admiring how beautiful stark red is against granite. The enormity of my grief suddenly throbs, pulsating from deep within consciousness where I store the worst of the worst.
BELOVED FATHER
He is beloved. He is my beloved. He is my beloved father, and I miss him today as much as I did the day he passed.
When I turn around, Teller’s waiting beside the Wagen, holding the door open. There’s one more part of this trip left to do before we can go home and officially start our lives together. So, with a goodbye for now to my dad, I stick my hands into my sweater pockets and start toward forever.
Stepping into my childhood home is like stepping into a time capsule. Everything’s blanketed in a layer of dust, the wallpaper yellowed in the corners, and there’s no light with the windows boarded up, but nothing, down to the framed school pictures hanging on the walls is different. My brother’s old work schedule is taped to the warm refrigerator, stacks of unopened mail sit beside an old cordless house phone, and a yellow sponge has fallen into the sink, dried-up and shrunken.
We could literally start right where we ended.
“Do we have electricity?” Teller asks. He flips a switch and a dim yellow-orange light flickers on, illuminating the living room.
“Yes,” I say, dropping my bag beside the old brown leather couch. “We’ve managed to keep the crucial utilities on. No cable or Wi-Fi, though.”
“But there is a VHS player.” He points to the old cassette tape. If I remember correctly, Armageddon should still be inside. It might even be rewound to the beginning.
There’s not much more to see in the three-bedroom, one-bath, eight hundred square foot home. Nothing seems to need repairs, no one broke in and is secretly living here, and everything is in the same exact place Emerson left it the last time he came to town with Nicolette.
“We don’t have to stay here tonight.” I lift a pillow from the couch and beat dust from it. “There are a few hotels in town that are nice. Or a bed and breakfast, if you’re up for that.”
“No.” Teller turns on a few more lights. “We’ll stay here.”
Now
“Let’s play a game.” I lift a slice of pepperoni pizza from the box we had delivered and take a bite. Cheese the temperature of molten fucking lava burns the roof of my mouth, but I play it cool, because I’ll be damned if mozzarella ruins this for us.
Ella wipes grease from her lips, crumbling the paper napkin in her hand. Her hair is tied in a knot on top of her head, and she’s washed the makeup from her face, but mascara lingers beneath her eyes. Not long after we arrived, I went outside to pry the board from the front window to air out the house and let light in. When I came back to wash my hands, I found her in the master bedroom, clutching her father’s clothes that are still hanging in the closet. Her tears have dried since then, but she’s heartbroken.
“Okay, which one?” she asks. Ella crosses her legs, sitting on the floor across from me with dinner between us. “We might have Scrabble in the closet.”
“Twenty questions. No rules. No passes.”
She arches an eyebrow and curves her lips into a half-smile. “All right, but don’t be dumb, Prick. I’m not in the mood for your antics tonight.”
“I’ll ask the first question.” A low-quality version of Armageddon plays on the television, scratched and warped during some scenes from age. I lower the volume and move the pizza box before scooting closer to skepticism. She’s beautiful like this, homegrown and vulnerable, unlike any version of her I experienced before. Remaining calm, ignoring the hammering inside my chest, I ask, “When did you know you were in love with me?”
Her smile widens, and she lies back, leaning her weight on one elbow. Ella extends her legs and crosses her ankles, looking at me from under her dark eyelashes.
“It wasn’t long after we met—a few weeks at the most. Our schedule hadn’t left us with a lot of time to spend together during the week, and you’re a control freak, so you moved your schedule around to TA of my science class. You’d come over to help me study. We were lying on my bed, and I tried to pretend that I was looking at my computer, but I was staring at you, learning your face. I memorized the shape of your nose, the lines that show in your forehead when you concentrate too hard, and the way your lips curve. Then I noticed your freckles, and I counted them.”
“I don’t have freckles,” I say, vaguely remembering her memory. We had tons of study sessions, and this one doesn’t stand out.
Ella’s cheeks blush, burning the prettiest pink against her dark eye and hair color. “Yes, you do. They’re soft, sprinkled across your cheekbones.”
Now my face burns. “Don’t embarrass me, Smella.”
“In the middle of my count, you looked up from the study sheet to quiz me on the material we went over that afternoon. I wasn’t paying attention, and I knew you caught me staring, so I blurted a random answer that had nothing to do with what we were studying.” She laughs out loud, turning to hide her face. “I was mortified, and it showed, but you were cool. You didn’t make me feel stupid when I totally expected you to, because up to that point, we teased each other about everything. It was just how our friendship was, and that was a prime opportunity to humiliate me.”
She presses her lips together, but bashful’s unable to keep them from bending into a grin. Ella covers her face in the palms of her hands and groans playfully, before she continues. “That’s when I loved you. The way you saved me from myself changed everything. I knew you were special. I knew you were different than the motherfucker you portrayed yourself to be, and I loved you.”
“I remember that now,” I say in a low voice. It’s all I can do to keep myself from fucking her on the floor of her father’s house.
Her smile shifts from shy to knowing. “You have thirty-two freckles on the right side of your face, and I love those, too.”
Scrubbing my hands down my cheeks, I chuckle. “You’re killing me, girl.”
Ella sits straight with her shoulders back and her chin up, resembling her normal self. She puts space between us, as if she can see the fever-like tension threatening to end our game early, and hugs her knees to her chest. “Same question.”
“When did I know I was in love with you?”
“Yeah.”
Licking my lips, I scratch the back of my neck and say, “My dad had been up my ass all morning, bitching about UCLA and how my decision to start another year at a school he didn’t approve was disappointing. The only reason I showed up was to drop my classes, but I stopped to have a smoke.”
Ella lifts her chin from her arms and meets my eyes. I don’t know if she realizes where this is going, but my heartbeat’s in my throat, making it hard to breathe.
“So, there I was, minding my own fucking business, ready to wreck my entire future because my dad’s a dick, when this girl with the most beautiful brown eyes invaded my personal space, hit my cigarette, and considered death a mercy. And I loved her. At first sight.”
“Do you mean that, Teller?” she asks quietly.
“I’d never lie to y
ou, Smella,” I reply. A pang of guilt constricts my stomach, but it’s overcome by nervousness. “I loved you first.”
We take a moment to absorb our confessions, because assuming and hearing the actual words from her mouth feels nothing alike. The truth gives validation to the seven years it took to get where we are now, and the struggle was real, but it wasn’t for nothing.
“What do you want from me, Ella? From us?” I ask my second question.
“I want forever,” she says boldly, surely, decisively. “I want emotional security, and I want to know you’ll never leave me like everyone else.”
I’m working on that part.
“What about you, Tell?” insecurity asks.
My answer is immediate. “Contentment.”
She pulls her bottom lip between her teeth, stewing on my response before asking, “Are you content with me?”
“That’s two questions, babe.”
“For my sanity, can you please answer it?”
I inhale a deep breath, filling my lungs with stale air, unsure how to answer. My hesitation isn’t with Gabriella; it’s all me.
“I’m happy with you, baby, but I’m fucking terrified of us. I can’t shake the feeling that we’re going to fuck up so bad one of these days and this will be gone. I won’t survive it. Not after I’ve had you. Not after all this time. There’s nothing that can keep me away from you, but I’m not confident enough in myself to believe this is the life you deserve. I’ve never been good enough for anyone, so why would I start now?”
Closing the distance between us, Ella stands on her knees and cradles my face between her hands. “How could you believe something so ridiculous, Teller?”
“It’s not your turn to ask a question,” I reply, welcoming the way her touch sears my soul. She sits on the back of her legs and waits. Brushing my thumb across her red-stained blush, I ask, “If you could do anything different in our relationship, what would it be?”
Creasing her eyebrows, she says, “Nothing.”
“Stop,” I demand. “Answer the fucking question. We’re almost done.”
“If I had to change something in our relationship, I would have told you I loved you every single day. Instead of pounding my fists into you when we fought, I would have hit you with those words instead. You’re delusional, and it’s my fault. I was a terrible friend, and I’m a worse girlfriend if you can still doubt how much I care.”
Is love supposed to feel like this? Is it supposed to hurt?
Ella pulls her hair down, shaking it free between her fingers. She sighs and asks, “What about you? What would you change?”
Smiling at her tactics, I point out, “You’re asking the same questions.”
“They are good questions. Answer it.”
“I would never have allowed Joe to happen,” I answer honestly, bitterly. “He’s my biggest regret. That was my fault.”
Meanwhile, a fuzzy Bruce Willis sacrifices his life so his daughter can be with a young Ben Affleck, saving the entire fucking world in the process. He manually detonates a nuclear bomb inside a meteor the size of Texas, which happens to be heading straight for Earth. It explodes across the thirty-two-inch television screen in dull shades of blues and greens, sending a supposed-to-be-neon fireball and Bruce’s ashes across the universe. Everyone on the space shuttle propelling home is sad, but they won’t ever have to pay taxes again, and they’re heroes, and they’re not dead, so they’re not too broken up about it.
The daughter, played by Liv Tyler, is over the death of her father by the time Ben travels through the atmosphere.
They’ll keep Bruce in their memories.
He was a decent man.
The moral of the story: Joe was Bruce Willis, but not as noble, and despite pulling the short straw, I get to keep the girl.
If that makes me Ben Affleck, then so fucking be it.
“Are we done playing?” Ella asks. She yawns and stretches her arms over her head. “We should go to bed.”
“Marry me?” I ask.
My brown-eyed girl snaps her head in my direction, suddenly wide-awake. “Shut up!”
“That’s my next question. You have to answer. No Rules. No passes.”
Reaching into my pocket, I present the two-carat, three stone diamond ring I bought in Las Vegas when she thought I was golfing with Husher. On a whim. On a gut feeling. Never more sure of anything in my entire life.
Covering her mouth with her trembling hands, tears fall from Ella’s eyes. She stands, only to sit on the edge of the couch.
“This isn’t how I saw this happening, baby. Husher was looking for an engagement ring for Maby when I spotted this one, and I knew it belonged to you. I wanted to make this memorable, but we’ve waited long enough. I can’t risk something else coming between us again, and I’m tired of everything being so fucking hard.”
“You’re insane. Do you know that?” She shakes her head unbelievably, looking between the ring and me.
Down on one knee, with my chest cut wide open and my heart exposed, I say, “Marry me, Gabriella.”
An excited sob escapes her lips, and she nods, “Yes, of course, yes!”
Ella jumps into my arms and we fall back, kissing between yeses. She only breaks away to let me slip the ring onto her slender finger, where it’ll stay forever.
“Thank you,” I say, admiring contentment.
Teary eyes look from the engagement ring to me, and she whispers, “I love you, Teller Reddy.”
I carry her to the room.
I kick the door shut.
I lay her on the bed.
Light pours in from the moon shining through cracks in the old boarded windows, catching the diamond on her ring finger. Branches rustle in the window outside, scratching the paint chipped house. Ancient bedsprings moan under our weight, and the oak headboard hits the wall. Warmth radiates from her touch, soaking bone deep. I hook my fingers under heat’s sweater, gently pulling it over her head, dropping it to the dusty wood floor.
I kiss her below her ear.
And her cheek.
I press my lips to her neck.
Her shoulder.
Her wrist.
I kiss her stomach.
Gray sweats slide down her legs easily, and the only thing she’s wearing is my ring.
I press my lips to the top of her foot.
To her knee.
On her hipbone.
I undress with haste and climb between her legs.
My hands slide up her thighs.
Her sides.
Over her breasts.
Up her neck.
And into her hair.
I find her left hand and let my fingers brush over the ring that symbolizes everything to come before lacing our fingers together and resting our joined hands beside her head.
My lips travel from her jaw to her ear, and I whisper, “Try to tell me this isn’t everything.”
I slide inside of her.
I’m slow, and we are quiet, allowing our bodies to say everything our lips can’t.
She curves away from the bed, and I thrust harder.
Lowering our hands to where we’re connected, Ella pushes the balls of her feet into the old mattress, and I moan into her neck. The sensation of her fingers on me as I stroke in and out hardens my cock and ignites a fire in my soul, and I’m blindsided. Love shifts to raw passion so overwhelming, I feel consumed in the flame and cry out.
She touches my face.
My tears fall to her heaving chest.
Her legs wrap around me.
I push in deep.
Her eyes close.
She whispers my name.
Her back arches.
I kiss her lips.
Her nails dig into my back.
I stroke fuller, harder.
Her skin burns me.
I can’t breathe.
She touches me.
She pushes harder.
She loves me.
She is mine.
Forever.
She tells me.
Our mouths meet as she pants my name.
My eyes close as I fill her.
All I can think about is her.
All I can feel is her.
All I can see is her.
All I want is her.
All I need is her.
All I am is her.
My Gabriella.
This is what happens when wrecked and damaged collide.
Before
I’m transparent under Theodore Reddy’s unsettling stare, as if he can see down to my bare bones. Shifting from hip to hip, I lace my fingers together behind my back to keep from biting my nails in front of him and wish I had changed into something nice before I headed over. College girl attire isn’t adequate in the presence of such eloquence.
“Thank you for stopping by, Ella, but this isn’t a good time,” Dr. Reddy says. He steps outside his massive entranceway and shuts the door quietly. His shoes shine in the late afternoon sunlight, and this man’s cologne smells so good, I almost drop the pretenses and grab him by the lapels of his blazer to bury my nose in his neck.
But that would be weird, and this isn’t the time for games.
“Please,” I urge. “There won’t be any trouble. I just want to talk to him.”
Time after time, I’ve listened and watched Teller rage and riot over the relationship he shares with his father. I’ve never experienced the person he describes—critical, passive-aggressive, firm—until now. He’s normally accepting and kind, and I’ve always been welcome in their home. Judging by Theodore’s rigid posture and tight expression, my invitation’s withdrawn.
“You do understand my son’s entire future was put on the line by his arrest?” he asks, unwavering. “Everything we’ve worked for could have been stripped away in the blink of an eye.”
Everything he’s worked for. But I don’t correct him.
“Luckily, the district attorney is my neighbor and sees the entire incident as a misunderstanding.”
Bending my neck to scope out the castle-like house to the right, I bite my bottom lip not to roll my eyes at how predictable this is. Of course, the district attorney lives next door. Next, he’ll tell me the mayor is across the street, and he plays croquet with the governor of California.
Closer Page 21