Happily Evan After (Fall For You Book 1)

by Michelle Irwin

  “Oh, Becca.” Cathy threw her arms around her. “I’m sorry. I know how much you liked him.”

  Becca didn’t have the energy to correct her friend and remind her once more that it was Drew she liked; Drew that she was in a relationship with. Evan was nothing more than the conduit for the spark that created that relationship.

  Even as Becca had the thought, she knew it was wrong. It occurred to her that all the times she’d looked to Evan to get a hit of the emotions that she’d been so certain emanated from him in a reflection of what she felt for Drew that what she was actually feeling was his love for her—and possibly what was in her own heart. She shut down the dangerous notion before it had time to take root and tangle its way through her heart. It was bad enough to know that her cupid had apparently been in love with the reflection of her aunt in her. To consider the fact that she might have had genuine feelings for him, ones that extended just a little further than the friendship she’d thought she felt, was a little too much to cope with.

  “Why don’t I go get us some coffee?” Cathy suggested.

  Becca just nodded.

  When Cathy returned, not too long after she’d disappeared into the kitchen, she had an armful of the gifts from Becca’s party—the ones that were still sitting unopened.

  “You know, people might think you’re ungrateful if you don’t even open the wrapping before you decide that you don’t like a gift.”

  The last thing Becca felt like doing was having any reminder of the previous night, but Cathy wouldn’t be deterred.

  “I wanna see what everyone got for you.”

  Becca could have sworn she saw Cathy rub her hands together in delight. Cathy left the room once more, returning this time with a bottle of wine and two glasses. Before Becca had decided whether or not to decline a drink, there was one in front of her.

  “Open this one first,” Cathy said, passing across a small package. “That’s from me and Gary.”

  Remembering some previous gifts, including a number of B.O.B.s of various shapes and sizes, Becca was almost afraid to open the parcel. At the very least, she was glad they were alone and not surrounded by the rest of her friends. In fact, that was a big part of the reason why she hadn’t opened the presents the previous evening while the party had been in full swing. She’d been friends with Cathy long enough to have a good sense of caution.

  “Is it dangerous?” Becca asked as she peeled back the wrapping.

  “Depends on what you mean by dangerous.” Cathy winked at her before grinning so wide Becca could swear she saw wisdom teeth.

  She actually sighed in relief when she pulled out a box of massage oils.

  “Since you’re all loved up with the good doctor now, Gary thought we needed to do something a bit more sensible.” Cathy actually pouted, making Becca smile. “I swear that man is getting soft in his old age. Well, not literally soft, if you know what I mean. He has no problems in that department at all. In fact—”

  “What’s next,” Becca said, cutting Cathy off. Usually she was able to tolerate Cathy’s innuendos and frank conversation, but the reminder of soft cocks made Becca think of Evan and his apparent problem which had never been a problem when he was around her.

  Should I have realized sooner? Everyone else seemed to. Becca had been so certain that the feelings everyone else saw were a reflection of what she felt for Drew manifested in Evan. But now that she knew the truth, she wondered whether she shouldn’t have been so blind. So certain.

  What would it have changed?

  He still would have loved her only for the reflection he saw of her great-aunt.

  Cathy passed her another gift and for a while they were back to drinking wine, making small talk and guessing what each gift could be.

  “Here’s Drew’s.” Cathy passed her a long, flat rectangular present.

  “I don’t remember him bringing anything.”

  “I think he ducked back out to the car to get it when you were talking to . . . Never mind.”

  Even though Cathy hadn’t said the name, it echoed through Becca’s mind anyway. Evan.

  She peeled back the wrapping of the gift and resisted the urge to sigh when she read the book cover.

  “Influential woman in history?” Cathy questioned.

  Becca shook her head. “Don’t ask.”

  “What’s up with you two?”

  Becca guessed that Cathy figured two glasses of wine and a bit of chatter was enough of a salve to allow Becca’s worries to flow. Instead of resisting, Becca told Cathy of the arguments between her and Drew. All of them.

  Cathy’s mouth twisted as she considered Becca’s statement. “It sounds like he just wants you to be all you can be.”

  “Yeah, but this isn’t the army, Cath. I just—” she sighed as she struggled to find the right words “—I just don’t understand what’s wrong with wanting to focus on family and photography more than my career.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with that. There’s also nothing wrong with him wanting to see you achieve your full potential. You’re both right, really. Which means that you just need to work it out between the two of you. Assuming you want to work it out that is.”

  Becca narrowed her eyes, there was a lot implied in Cathy’s statement and she didn’t want to jump to conclusions about exactly what it might be without at least giving her friend the benefit of the doubt first. “What do you mean?”

  Cathy leaned forward, grabbing both of Becca’s hands in hers. “I just mean that maybe you’ve been looking for ways to get out of the relationship even before you knew how Evan felt.”

  “Are you saying I’ve been self-sabotaging?” Becca shook her head. “I don’t self-sabotage.”

  Cathy gave a small, chuckle which spoke of pity and compassion. “Oh, honey, you are the queen of self-sabotage.”

  “No, I’m not.” Although, the instant Evan had revealed the truth, she’d thrown him out. But that had been justified hadn’t it? Sure he’d been trying to say more, but it wasn’t like there was anything that he could say to change the fact that although he’d said he loved her it was only for her likeness to another. And sure she wasn’t the sort to just go along with Drew’s plan because he wanted them, but that wasn’t the same thing as self-sabotaging, was it? “Am I?”

  A knock on the door ended the conversation and Becca looked up to the clock over the kitchen door. “Crap, that’ll be Drew, where did the evening go?”

  “Time flies when you’re having fun.” Cathy grabbed the two wine glasses and the empty bottle, carrying them into the kitchen.

  Just as Becca answered the door, greeting Drew with a smile, Cathy swept back out from the kitchen and continued to the door. Drew stepped out of the way to let her pass.

  “I’ll talk to you later,” Cathy said.

  Holding the door in place while she waited for Cathy to leave and Drew to come in, Becca nodded.

  “Do you know how bad it looks calling in sick the day after you throw a party?” Drew asked. He hadn’t even moved from the doorstep.

  What’s he waiting for? A formal invitation? “Hello to you too,” she muttered under her breath.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I just had to deal with Dad grilling me about how much you’d had to drink last night. I told him you didn’t have much and that you’d been showing flu-like symptoms most of the day yesterday.”

  “You stood up for me?”

  Drew frowned in response to her question. “Of course I did. I care about you Becca, even when you make silly choices.”

  “Yeah, of course, sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

  “Must just be because you’re so sick.” He chuckled and she gave an unwilling smile.

  “That must be it. Did you want something to eat? I’m not sure what I’ve got, but I think there are some leftovers in the fridge.”

  “I brought something, I hope you don’t mind?” He held up a bag of Chinese that he’d held behind his back.

  “Mind?” She
reached for the bag. She hadn’t realized just how hungry she was until the smell of the spices carried to her from the simple paper bag and made her mouth water. The fact that it was a meal loaded with carbs and salt only made it better. “I’m starved.”

  “You sit back and relax, and I’ll get some plates.”

  She relaxed onto the sofa wondering whether maybe Cathy was right. Maybe the problems she’d had with Drew were mostly in her head. After all, he was sweet—if a little misguided in his present-giving and career-advice techniques.

  As she watched Drew walk into the kitchen, she tried to ignore the book on the coffee table as steadfastly as she tried to ignore the nagging sensation inside that something was missing—something like Evan. After Cathy’s revelation about her being a self-saboteur, she was willing to push some of those doubts aside for the moment. She made a split-second decision.

  Instead of following Drew’s request, Becca followed him into the kitchen and grabbed the spare key to her house that sat on top of the fridge.

  “Becca, what’s up?” Drew asked when he realized she hadn’t listened to him.

  “I just wanted to say thank you, for sticking up for me, and for bringing me food. I l—” she was going to say love, but it felt awkward on her tongue. “I like you a lot and I want you to have a key so you can come and go as you please.”

  His face screwed up a little in surprise. “I’m not going to move in; we’ve only been dating a month.”

  “I know, and I’m not asking that. I’m just saying that maybe you don’t need to rush straight out after a date. Maybe you can stay a little while until I’m asleep and then let yourself out. Or you can drop by at any time.”

  He smiled. “Thank you, Becca.”

  After they’d eaten dinner, they sat at the kitchen table in somewhat companionable silence. Becca couldn’t help remembering the evenings where she’d sat in a similar position with Evan. Only Evan had nudged and prompted gently to get her to talk about her day—or about anything really. At the time, it was easy to believe he cared about her. Only now she knew that was partly a lie. He cared about who he thought she might have been in a past life.

  When Drew stood and offered her a hand up, she followed him into the bedroom knowing that by ignoring all the issues that kept circling her mind she was either doing the best thing she could—or making the worst mistake of her life.

  Evan had experienced the gamut of human emotions, from rage to love, from heartbreak to joy, and everything in between. Never before had he ever experienced anything as terrifying or horrid as the coldness that echoed from Becca as she threw him out of her house. It was like a spinning, howling vortex of nothing. He wanted to stay and defend himself, to justify his actions, but he couldn't hurt her like that. As soon as the word “go” had left her mouth, he’d decided that if she wanted him gone, he'd leave.

  He just didn't know where.

  Or how.

  His best attempt to escape her anger—no, not anger. Anger was an emotion at least and she was upset with him to levels so far beyond mere human emotions; Whatever it was, it had seen him end up in her front yard. He tried desperately to concentrate on any of his past matches, anyone at all whom he could get a fix on, but they seemed to swirl through his head and heart in a blur. His vision spun as if he were strapped into a tilt-a-whirl, trying to focus on their faces as he whizzed by while they all stood motionless on the sidelines.

  He tried to connect to Karen, and ended up in Becca's kitchen. Going back one further, he tried Mark, and ended up in Becca's bedroom. He gave up, focusing instead on getting out of the house before Becca found him and assumed he was deliberately trying to hurt her.

  He didn't want to hurt her, but he couldn't seem to escape her either.

  With his unique escape ability failing him, but needing to get as far from Becca as he could to avoid ending up back at her side, he resorted to the old fashioned way of travelling—hitchhiking and a greyhound bus—to head back toward his old haunts in Hoboken.

  As he travelled, he tried desperately to connect with anyone other than Becca—going forward to a future match or back to a past one, he didn't care—but there was nothing other than the gaping abyss which had sucked all happiness out of him.

  It reminded him of the hole in his chest that guilt had eaten away at him until he'd seen no other choice but to end it all. Only that wasn't an option any longer, a cupid couldn't die. They could only exist or . . . not. And he didn’t know how to bring about the not.

  When he arrived at his old haunt, he found his way to Karen’s place—the old fashioned, one foot in front of the other way—and cloaked himself. Lingering on her doorstep, he wondered what he needed to do to connect to her energy rather than Becca’s. He needed something to give him strength; he was barely able to hold himself upright and had been mistaken for a hobo on no less than three occasions during his journey.

  He’d never had to work to forge a connection to an assignment before. The bond was always just there, simmering beneath the surface after the first time he’d concentrated on their name and started the link. Now, nothing he did seemed to help. Even standing yards away from Karen, his connection remained firmly with Becca miles and miles away. It was almost as if there was an elastic band binding him to her side that had been pulled so taut that it was ready to snap back if he stopped resisting it for even a second.

  Trying to get anything more from Karen was useless, even though she appeared blissfully happy sitting on the sofa with her new husband, he couldn’t feel it—any of it. Evan crept back outside and began to wander the streets. Even though he’d spent the better part of fifty years in the city, it no longer felt like home. The small, sometimes cramped, basement darkroom in a boxy house miles to the west held that title. Even as the thought crossed his mind, he felt the tug ready to pull him back to Becca’s side.

  He didn’t want that.

  No, it wasn’t that he didn’t want that.

  He actually wanted it, quite desperately. He just figured that Becca didn’t want him there. He could feel the very truth of that through his connection to her—and if she didn’t want him, he wasn’t going to force his company on her. It wouldn’t help anyone. After seeing the look of horror and disgust on her face as he’d revealed the truth, he didn’t want to do anything further to displease her. Even if that meant he’d never be able to see her again. The thought was agonizing, but he’d do whatever he had to in order to keep her happy. Not for any benefit it would give him through the connection, but because he genuinely wanted her to have happiness more than anything else.

  Even as the thought struck him, he threw himself at the mercy of those bodiless entities that seemed to govern his life, or afterlife as it was, and begged that they give him something: either grant him a new assignment or take him from the pain of having lost that which was most important to him.

  Honestly, he no longer cared if he ended up in Heaven or Hell, just so long as he didn’t have to see that look of disappointment and anger in Becca’s face ever again. He’d performed his final match, after all. Becca was with Drew, and they were happy—enough.

  Not that he wanted Becca to only be happy enough; he wanted her life to be everything she wanted it to be.

  After his desperate request, he waited a moment, and then a moment more. It was almost as if the world around him had taken an indrawn breath while it waited for the decision of his future to be weighed and issued. Just when Evan was certain that nothing was going to happen, something did. A new name popped up in his mind, and he was finally able to focus on something other than Becca’s heartbreak.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  The following week at work, Becca pretended everything was back to normal. She convinced herself that she didn’t miss her cupid—hadn’t wondered where he might have gone or whether she’d truly seen the last of him. That didn’t stop her from obsessively checking every empty chair nearby just in case he was sitting there, invisible and cloaked.

  She did
n’t want him to be. Not at all. Not even a little, itty bitty tiny bit, deep inside her heart. She hated him, after all.

  He’d lied to her and let her think that he just wanted to be friends. He didn’t deserve her thoughts to flicker in his direction, worrying that maybe the reason he hadn’t come back was because he’d been hurt. Or punished. Or worse.

  The cursor on the computer blinked at her as she completely forgot what she was supposed to be doing while she was so busy not thinking about Evan.

  Stupid, freaking cupid.

  She hadn’t been able to enjoy Drew’s presence and had actually been glad when his roster at work became busier. Of course, she’d helped Doctor Petersen set the roster, and had convinced Drew’s father that Drew was desperate for more time in surgery.

  She hadn’t even had sex with Drew for four days, which was something of a record for them. One that she wasn’t particularly happy about.

  By the eighth day after she’d thrown Evan out, she was sick of trying not to think about him constantly. Instead of heading home after work, she drove to the cemetery. She didn’t have her camera with her, so it wasn’t a photography session—she had a very specific destination in mind and wouldn’t be satisfied until she reached it.

  She strode toward her family plot, hoping that there would be something there that offered her some sort of clarity. It wasn’t that she hoped that Evan would have visited the grave—or that he might suddenly pop out of hiding if he realized her intended destination. Her visit had nothing to do with him. Nothing at all.

  Instead of Evan, she found nothing but the four headstones which had always sat there. This time, she paid a little more attention to her great-aunt Rose’s headstone, but there was still nothing. She felt no connection with the grave, which she’d thought she might have done if she was really Rose’s reincarnated soul. Even the dates inscribed on the stone bore no special significance in her mind.

  There was nothing to indicate that the grave was anything more than what it had always been—or that she was any different to who she’d always been.