Keeping Her

by Alexis Noelle

  I know that Dan broke us up the first time, but if I wasn’t such a damn idiot, his plan would have never worked. He knew how much of a hot head I was and that seeing what I did would send me spinning. I played right into his hands and hurt Jules and myself in the process.

  I grab my keys and get into the car needing to go to the hospital and see what’s going on with Ryan. I can’t believe my asshole father shot him. My father. When I saw him step into the light holding the gun to Jules’ head, I thought I was dreaming. Never in my life did I even consider the fact that he might have made it out of that fire. I have so many unanswered questions for him. Did he get out before the firemen came? Did he try to save my mother or even bother to look for me? I hate him.

  If he wasn’t already dead that would be my first fucking stop. He targeted Jules because of me and when his hands were on her I swear I wanted to rip them off. I pull into the hospital lot praying that Ryan is going to be okay. He wanted to call for back up and I refused. Knowing what Jules was doing with the Andre family, there was no way I wanted to show up there with the cops.

  When I walk into the waiting room, I see Hunter, Jake, and Mason. Mason is wearing a scrub top the hospital must have given him since he used his shirt on Ryan. “How is he?”

  “He’s still in surgery. We don’t know anything yet and they really don’t want to talk to us. His parents are on the way.” Jake looks over at me. “What happened with Jules? I thought she would be here with you.”

  I take a deep breath. “She left me when I told her what I told you guys on the way over. She basically said that she can’t trust me when all I’ve done is lie to her. Which I guess she is right, but I love that girl so damn much.”

  He nods his head. “So what are you gonna do about it?”

  “What do you mean?”

  He stands up and walks over to me. “I mean we all put our asses on the line for her today. Ryan got fucking shot and you two are just gonna decide to call it quits now?”

  “Jake, I’m not deciding anything, and even if I wasn’t with Jules I would have still gone after her today.”

  He walks away from me without another word and while he is pissing me off I understand where he is coming from. All of the guys voiced their concerns when we were on our way to Jules. I didn’t listen to anyone though, all I could think of was getting to her. She blinds me from seeing anything but her. She always has.

  “I don’t know if she is gonna be able to move past all the shit I laid on her today.”

  “Yea, well Ryan isn’t here to baby your ass if that’s what you’re looking for.” Mason mumbles from one of the chairs. “You got two options, brother. You can sit here like a bitch and whine about what happened or you can fucking try to do something about it. If you pick the first option just go somewhere else so none of us have to listen to you.” Mason never sugar coats anything and he’s usually right.

  I turn to Jake. “Call me as soon as you hear anything.”

  I get in the car and track down Lacey’s address knowing that’s where they are. When I am standing in front of the door to the apartment, I knock hoping and praying that I can get Jules to talk to me. The door open and Lacey is standing in front of me.

  “Now is not the time.” She starts to close the door but I catch it.

  “Please just let me talk to her.”

  She looks at me takes and step outside and closes the door. “First of all, she just passed out, cried herself to sleep is more like it. You need to give her time, Brian. She isn’t ready to see you.”

  “How long? I need to be able to talk to her. To explain to her that everything I did was for her.”

  “Listen, I get that.” Lacey has never been my biggest fan so this definitely comes as a shock. “But forcing yourself down her throat is not going to get you what you want. Nothing you say right now will get through to her.

  I nod my head. “Will you keep me posted on how she is?”

  “Sure.” I start to walk away and head back to my car. “Brian?” I turn around to see Lacey walking toward me. She gives me a hug and I have no idea why. “Thank you for saving her, for protecting her from him.”

  “I love her. Always have, always will.”

  Chapter Twenty Six

  Julia

  I sit on Lacey’s couch feeling like a zombie. It’s been a week since I last saw Brian. He has been calling and texting me almost every hour on the hour. He must have tracked down Lacey’s address because he has shown up here for the last three days.

  I just don’t know what to say to him. I’ve been trying to talk to Lacey about everything and sort my head out, but it isn’t working. I will never be able to thank him enough for saving me that day but also from Dan. The problem is that he was okay with never telling me, with building our relationship on lies and deceit. He killed a man and framed another then seemed to go on with his life like nothing happened. I don’t hold anything he did when he was younger against him. I know how bad things were for him in that house and he was just a scared kid that night that finally saw a way out.

  I don’t know that I can trust him though. That I can jump once again with him, for a third time. The day I found out everything I was a mess. I cried the entire night. All I could feel was pain, and loss. Just like eight years ago.

  I went to see Ryan a couple days ago. The entire time I was praying that Brian wouldn’t show up. Ryan was in surgery for six hours but they were able to remove the bullet and luckily it missed his heart and lungs. I felt horrible knowing that I was the reason he was hurt. That if it hadn’t been for me, nothing would have ever happened to him.

  There’s a knock at the door but I don’t move to answer it. Lacey is at work and if I’m being honest I already know who it is, Brian. “Open the door, Jules!” I sigh laying down on the couch and waiting out his visit. He bangs a few more times before the silence is back. I hug the pillow against my chest imagining for a minute that it’s him. That things aren’t so royally fucked up and that none of that shit ever happened.

  “We need to talk.” I hear Brian’s voice from behind me and I jump.

  “What are you doing in here? How did you get in here?” I stand up keeping the couch between us and not wanting to give him a chance to close the distance.

  “I picked the lock, which I wouldn’t have had to do if you weren’t acting like such a damn brat.”

  Is he serious? A brat? “I am not acting like a brat. I just don’t want to see you. I thought you might have caught onto that by now.”

  “I caught onto the fact that you won’t even let me explain myself or talk to you. Which whether you want to hear it or not is pretty fucking bratty.” He takes a step toward me but I take the same step back and we being to circle the couch. “Will you just fucking stop for a minute?”

  That’s just it. I can’t give him a minute. Brian has this way of making me forget why I’m mad at him and distracting me. I don’t want to be distracted. “Just say what you need to say.”

  “I’m sorry.” I look up at him and he’s sitting down on the couch now. “I never wanted to hurt you, Jules. Everything I did, everything I have always done is to protect you. You are my whole fucking life—the only thing I think about day in and day out. You’re the only person who knows every inch of me. The only one I have ever let in and allowed myself to love. I know I’m far from perfect and I’m gonna fuck up a lot, but I want to be a better man for you. I want to be the kind of man that you deserve and the kind of man that you can love. I’m sorry I lied to you and I swear to God if you give me another chance I will never do it again. You are everything to me.”

  A tear rolls down my cheek as I walk over to him. He is staring at the floor and completely still.

  “Please don’t let this be the end. Don’t throw away everything that we could be. I know it might take time for you to get over everything and I told you before that I’m willing to wait. I just need to know that there is something to wait for. That at some point in the future you will be a
ble to move past everything with me. That’s all I want. You.”

  I don’t know how to respond to him. Everything is in shambles around me. Nothing makes sense. Nothing seems right, except when I’m near him. This week I have constantly felt unsure, unbalanced, and just unlike myself. When he is here though it’s like everything evens out. Like there is nothing that I can’t deal with as long as he is with me. “I’m not in any way ready to be with you again. Maybe later on down the road, but not now. There is just too much that we need to move past. Too much that is still unsaid and unaddressed.”

  He looks over at me and the sadness in his eyes makes me want to cave. To tell him everything he wants to hear, but I can’t because that wouldn’t be fair to either of us. He nods as he seems to take in what I just told him. “As long as there’s hope that’s all I needed to hear.”

  He stands up and leaves without another word, without a goodbye. Lacey walks in the door a few minutes later and I’m still in the same place on the couch trying to work through what just happened with Brian.

  “So, you finally let him in?”

  I look over at her realizing she must have seen him leaving. “Yea. I don’t know what to do, Lace. I still love him with every inch of my heart, but is love enough? I just don’t know if I can move past all the other stuff that has happened. Everything I found out, everything he hid from me, the things he has done.”

  “To answer your question, love is only enough when it is strong. That isn’t something I can tell you, only you know how strong and resilient your feelings are. As for the other stuff I don’t know what to say. When you look at his intentions, they were obviously good he just wanted to protect you. I don’t even want to think about how that night would have ended if Brian hadn’t been there. You might not be here, Julia.” She sits down next to me. “None of us saw Dan for what he was and I know that is haunting you. You’re thinking that maybe there is a part of Brian that you can’t see, in my opinion there isn’t. He may not have told you what happened, and he should have, but I couldn’t ever imagine that man hurting you in any way. It’s easy for anyone around the two of you to see how much you love each other.”

  “I’m scared.” I let my admission set in. “I’m scared that he is still hiding things from me, that I’ll always feel like this. I’m scared that he has such a huge power over me that, no matter what, I can’t resist him when he is around. I’m scared to commit myself to someone again after everything that happened with Dan. I’m scared that even after everything, even after trying to distance myself from him, that all I want to do is be in his arms.”

  “Maybe you need to listen to your heart, girl. When he first came back I would have never said those words to you, but I think that you guys belong together. Just watching the two of you when he first came back into town, anyone could see your connection even though you were constantly fighting. Some things in life are just undeniable and no matter how much you fight them, it’s meant to be.”

  I stand up and grab the keys to my car. “I’m going to go see him.”

  Lacey stands up, walks over, and gives me a hug. “Good luck.”

  The drive to Brian’s is short and I am completely overcome with nervousness the entire time. When I pull into the driveway, I can’t bring myself to open the door. Taking a deep breath, I try to calm the emotions raging through me and get out of the car. I knock on the door and when he answers I can tell I was the last person he expected to see.

  Now that I’m here, standing in front of him, I have no idea what to say. Instead, I decide maybe it’s better to say nothing at all. I walk into the house and once he closes the door I wrap my arms around his waist. I just need to be close to him right now. To feel the comfort that only he has ever been able to really provide me. After a few seconds, his arms wrap around me and I get the feeling I had been searching for all week.

  Peace.

  Epilogue

  Two months later

  Julia

  I follow my GPS to the address Brian texted me and end up in a residential neighborhood. I guess I assumed that it was a restaurant or something and that I was meeting him for lunch. He messaged me earlier and said that he wanted to meet me to celebrate last night.

  After two months of this awkward, back and forth, half relationship, half friendship I told him I was ready. It’s been hard for me to get past everything. The fact that he killed Dan, no matter what his intentions were, still gets to me. I think it’s more the fact that he killed someone. I’m sure in the time that he and the guys served that there were numerous casualties but this isn’t war, and murder isn’t really something that is easily accepted.

  I have been spending more time with him and the guys lately. Luckily, Ryan made a full recovery. I asked him once if he told his chief about what really happened that day and he just kind of brushed me off and changed the subject. I haven’t had any contact with those people since that day, and I hope it stays like that for the rest of my life.

  I’ve been having nightmares of that day, of Brian’s dad shooting him instead of Ryan, of losing him. I haven’t told Brian about them because I knew he would insist on me staying with him. I have been sleeping at Lacey’s house because I didn’t want to jump into things too quick with Brian. As hard as it’s been I’ve been determined to take things slow. He fought me at first but after realizing it was that or nothing he came around.

  Brian’s biggest supporter came from an unexpected source: Lacey. She is half of the reason that I took the leap that I did with Brian. Every night that I came home doubting him, doubting us, she was there. She has helped me work past my relationship with Dan, or what I thought was a relationship. In all reality it was just a huge web of lies.

  My parents and I haven’t spoken in over a month. I told them in no uncertain terms that if they couldn’t deal with me being involved with Brian, I didn’t want to be involved with them. I needed to eliminate the negativity from my life and they are a huge source of it. They blamed him for me taking the money from my trust, which I never really explained what it was for. They just automatically assumed that I gave it to him because he is some sort of con artist, when really the golden boy they loved was.

  As for my trust, I donated what was left of it to charity. I never wanted that money and if it hadn’t been for Dan’s debt I would have never touched it. After Dan died, I really neglected the bakery and have been working overtime to try and catch up on everything I had been pushing to the side those couple months. My first task was to check the books to make sure Dan didn’t scam me there as well, thankfully he didn’t. I finally have things back on track there and Brian comes in everyday around lunchtime to visit me.

  Brian couldn’t let go of the fact that someone had to have known his dad was alive and never told him. He called his aunt and in the few words she gave him she said that they told her. She figured since his dad never came for him that it made no difference to tell him that he was actually still alive.

  I pull up to a two story brick house with a white porch that seems to wrap around the back of the house. I check the text with the address on the house and get out of the car once I realize I’m in the right place. I raise my hand to knock on the door when I see a note.

  Come in

  I open the door stepping into the house and looking around to see another note hanging from the doorway.

  Follow the trail…

  On the floor is a line of white roses. They lead into the living room and I see another note on the floor. My heart speeds up realizing the game that Brian has set up. Each note a clue.

  I can see us watching TV in here, you yelling at me for hanging a picture crooked, and sitting by the fire to get warm on cold nights.

  I smile at the note and notice another trail of roses. I follow them turning the corner and walking into a massive kitchen. On the counter I spy another piece of paper and practically run to it.

  This is where I’ll be making you breakfast in bed to show you how special you are to me. And w
here you will be fixing all of the screw ups I make when I try to cook.

  I smile thinking about yesterday morning when I woke up at Lacey’s and Brian was there cooking breakfast for me. There are more roses on the floor leading out to the backyard. There is a stone patio surrounded by a wall that’s about two feet tall. I pick up the note sitting on the ledge.

  This is where we will have friends over for barbecues and hopefully in a few years birthday parties.

  Birthday parties? Is he hinting at kids? I take a deep breath and follow the next trail which leads back into the house to what looks like it would be the dining room.

  This is where I will sit down with you each night and ask you about your day. I want to know every single part of you that I don’t already.

  I can’t believe he set all of this up. I rarely see this side of Brian and it is only showing me that I made the right decision last night. I follow the petals up the stairs and see that they disappear behind a door. There is a note taped to the door.

  When I open the door there are hundreds of candles lit all along the floor and Brian is standing in the middle of the room. He has on a black button up shirt, dress pants and is holding a single white rose. I walk up to him wrapping my arms around him. After a minute he pushes me away and gets down on one knee. No.

  “Julia Fisher, I have loved you since the day that I first saw you. I didn’t know why, or how it was possible, but I did. You are the only person who has ever made me feel like I was good enough. I know that we have had our problems, but no matter what, every time we have found each other again. That to me is a sign that we are meant to be. When I am not with you, a piece of me is missing and I don’t feel complete until you’re near me again. I lived six years of my life feeling lost and alone without you and I don’t want to spend another day like that. I know this is fast and that you probably think I’m crazy but I want you to be mine forever. I promise to cherish you every minute that I am lucky enough to have you. I will make you feel loved every day. I bought this house for us but that’s all it is right now. It needs love to become a home. I love you and will spend forever making you happy if you will have me.”