On the Way to You

by Kandi Steiner

  Emery shifted, his head rolling just a little to the side as he met my gaze. “Morning.”

  Another yawn took me under as I nodded toward my sleeping ball of fluff. “I need to take her out, she hasn’t been since before I left last night.”

  “Already done.”

  As if Kalo sensed me talking about her, she popped her head up, looking back at me as I reached for her. She licked my hand once, letting me rub behind her ear before she laid down again and I turned my attention back to Emery.

  “Thank you.”

  A lazy smirk curled on his lips, one arm reaching up and over my head until it rested on my pillow behind me.

  “Come here.”

  I scooted closer, head finding his chest as I wrapped one arm around his middle. He tucked me into him, pulling the comforter over us again before his hand rested on my waist.

  “I have to tell you something.”

  “Okay,” I whispered as confidently as I could, but the blood drained from my face. Those words set me on high alert as soon as they left his lips, my heart already beating overtime, brain shouting every anxious thought I’d ever had about us loud in my ears.

  This is where it ends.

  He thinks it was a mistake.

  You were awful, he’ll never touch you again.

  He doesn’t care about you.

  Emery didn’t speak right away, just held me there, his fingers brushing against my skin. I watched the breaths enter and leave his chest, waiting, letting his gentle touches soothe me as much as they could in that moment.

  “It’s hard for me to say this out loud, because other than my family and my therapist, no one really knows.”

  My heart jumped into my throat at the mention of his therapist. Marni. I knew her name when I shouldn’t have, and I swallowed down the guilt.

  “I battle with depression,” he finally said, and his chest deflated with the words. “God, I hate calling it that. I hate admitting this to you, because it sounds pathetic and weak, but I think it’s important.”

  “It doesn’t sound weak,” I said, my voice low, guilt still churning low in my gut. If I hadn’t pried into his private thoughts, this would be a big moment for him — this admission — and maybe an even bigger one for me. But I’d cheapened it.

  “It does to me, but I’m trying to embrace it more.” He paused a moment, his fingers moving to run gently through my hair. “I wanted to tell you, though, because sometimes I’m okay, and sometimes I’m not. And honestly, I don’t really have an answer for why some days differ from others. All I know is that there are days when I laugh and joke and drink and make the most of the hours I have, and then there are others where…”

  His voice trailed off, and I squeezed him a little tighter, encouraging him to finish.

  “Where even getting out of bed sounds like a task so impossible, I might die in the process.”

  My eyes were still on his chest, but I felt him swallow, and I let his words sit between us for a while before adding my own.

  “I’m glad you told me.”

  “I had to,” he said quickly. “Because I told you last night that I would try, Cooper, but you have to understand that sometimes trying for me isn’t going to be enough for you. Sometimes trying, for me, is just…” One hand waved in the air above us. “Existing.”

  I frowned, because I knew more than he thought about what that sentence meant, about his bad days. I’d even mentioned them last night, right before he put his hands on me. I told him to let me in on the bad days, days I wasn’t supposed to even know about. I wondered if I’d struck a chord with him then, by using the same language he did.

  And then I felt sick. Because if that was true, it meant I connected with him in what he thought was a genuine way, when really, I’d cheated.

  “Is that why you asked me what made me happy when we met?” I asked after a moment. It was something I hadn’t read yet, something I didn’t even know if he’d written about at all, so I took the opportunity to ask for his answer instead of finding it of my own accord. “Because it was a day where nothing made you feel that way?”

  He chuckled, and I latched onto that sound, to the promise behind it.

  “No, that’s just what I ask people. I feel like the first thing everyone asks when you meet is, ‘What do you do?’ I’ve always hated that, like a job defines us. So, I ask what makes people happy.” His shoulders lifted a little. “That tells me more about a person than what they do to make money.”

  I smiled at that, leaning up on my elbow again so I could see him. “So, you were okay the day we met?”

  His eyes were still on the ceiling, but he smiled. “Yeah. That was a good day.”

  “And today?”

  Emery let out a long breath, finally meeting my gaze as his fingers pulled one of my curls taut before letting it bounce back into place. “Today’s a good day, too.”

  His warmth permeated my skin in that moment, and I felt him, all of him, from where his hand touched my waist to where his eyes searched my own.

  I didn’t know how long it would last — his smile, his mood, us — but I knew I had that day. And I’d take it.

  “Well, then,” I said, rolling until I straddled him, the sheet getting caught between us as I leaned forward and pressed my lips to his. “Let’s make the most of it, shall we?”

  Emery ordered us room service and we ate breakfast in bed before making our way downstairs to the casino to gamble. Well, Emery gambled — I just stood behind him and rubbed his shoulders while he told everyone at the tables that I was his lucky penny. A little before noon, we packed up the car, Kalo in tow, and we were back on the road with our next stop being Laguna Beach.

  It was a perfect day, temperature hanging somewhere in the mid seventies with not a single cloud in the sky. We drove with the top down and I chuckled at the fact that as soon as we’d found that fall weather I’d been dreaming of, we’d left it again. I wondered what it would feel like once we started driving the Pacific Coast Highway, once we reached the tip of California and crossed into the Pacific Northwest.

  “We should make it in time for the sunset,” I said, plugging our destination into my phone to check our estimated time of arrival. “Have you ever seen it on the west coast?”

  “I have,” Emery answered, flipping his visor down to unclip his sunglasses before sliding them over his eyes. “My family used to vacation in Santa Barbara when I was younger.”

  “You and your parents?”

  He nodded. “Yep. Three peas in a pod.”

  I smiled, unwrapping the dog treat the concierge had given me for Kalo on our way out of the casino. I handed it back to her, rubbing her head before turning back to Emery. “I’m an only child, too.”

  At that his expression flattened, and he shifted, his left hand taking the place of the right on the top of the steering wheel.

  “I actually had a brother.”

  My heart sank at the word. Had — past tense. I racked my brain for any mention of a brother in his journal, but came up empty.

  “He… he passed?”

  Emery sniffed. “Yeah. It was before I was born, though. My mom was about four months pregnant with me when it happened, so I don’t really have any kind of connection to him. They talk about him, my parents, but it just feels like they’re talking about some family friend I don’t know or something.”

  “How old was he?”

  “Almost five.”

  A jolt hit my heart again, and I pressed my fingertips into my chest, massaging the muscle.

  “That must have been really hard for you,” I said as we cleared the city, leaving the busy Vegas strip in our rearview. “Seeing pictures of him and hearing your parents talk about him, but not knowing him yourself.”

  Emery’s brows pulled inward, as if he’d never thought about it before. “It was, actually.”

  He said it not like a confession, but like a realization, like it was the first time he’d even considered it at all.

 
“They loved him, you know? And we would celebrate his birthday, and I’d listen to them tell stories about him, but I never knew him. I felt bad because I couldn’t cry or miss him, only the idea of him, of a brother.” Emery was quiet a moment, the sun directly over us casting shadows under his eyes. “Sometimes I feel like I disappoint my parents, like maybe they wish they had him here instead of me.”

  “I don’t think they wish that at all,” I said, reaching over for his hand. I entwined my fingers with his, feeling the warmth of his rough skin on mine. “But I understand why you would feel that sometimes. And if it makes you feel any better, I know without a shadow of a doubt that my parents wish I wasn’t here.”

  Emery was still frowning, his wheels turning, but he squeezed my hand in return. “That’s not true.”

  “It is,” I argued. “Trust me — they’ve told me, more than a few times, actually. It’s stupid, because they never wanted me, but they never wanted anyone else to have me either — not child protective services or my best friend’s family or anyone else. It’s like they did just enough to get by as what they considered decent parents, just enough to keep me in their household. But they resented me, they think I stole their life away.”

  “Right. Because you asked to be born,” Emery said, lips flat.

  I chuckled. “Well, if they were here, they’d probably argue that I did.” Shrugging, I used my free hand to pull my hair over one shoulder. “But it’s fine. Lily’s family was all I ever needed. And Tammy, of course. I don’t think I would have made it without them.”

  “Lily,” Emery mused. “That’s your best friend, right? The one who gave you that ring,” he said, nodding to the silver infinity loop still housed on my middle finger.

  “Yeah. She’s crazy, and loud, and sarcastic. She’s also probably the only reason I never got bullied in high school. No one ever messed with Lily.”

  “Does she know you left?”

  I laughed. “Well, I shared my location with her in case you killed me, so yeah.”

  “You’re not supposed to tell me that. Now if I kill you, I know to take your phone before I hide the body.”

  “You wouldn’t kill me now,” I said confidently, leaning over the console to plant a kiss on his cheek. “Not now that I’ve hooked you with how adorable I am.”

  “It’d be like murdering a kitten.”

  “Exactly. You’re not that much of a monster, Emery Reed. Even if you think you are.”

  He eyed me from the driver seat with a smirk, lifting my hand entwined with his to his lips and kissing my fingers. Without another word, he turned up the volume on the radio, and we settled in for the four hour drive to the coast.

  We made it.

  The glowing edge of the sun had just barely touched the waterline when my bare foot hit the sand on Laguna Beach. I carried my sneakers on the tips of my fingers, walking straight past the Laguna Beach lifeguard stand with my eyes on the water. Emery followed a ways behind me along with Kalo, her tongue hanging out as she hopped around, flicking sand up with her paws in the process.

  I paused when my toes hit the water’s edge, a shiver running up my spine when the icy water grazed my skin. I’d pulled on a sweater before we got out of the car and I wrapped it around me tighter, thankful for the shield from the breeze rolling in off the water. With the sun fading, the temperature was dropping fast, but it could have been twenty below zero and I still wouldn’t have moved.

  It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.

  Whispy clouds stretched over the blue sky, their white puffs taking on pink and purple hues as the sun dipped farther away. Its orange glow spanned across the water, reaching all the way to the exact spot where Emery and I stood, its bright light softening more and more with every passing second. There were people all around us, some with their family, some on their own, some snapping pictures, some just sitting, watching. We were all strangers, but we shared that sunset together, that punctuation mark on yet another day, each of us hanging on to the sun’s whispered promise that it would return again tomorrow.

  “I’ve seen more in the past week than I’ve seen in my entire life,” I whispered to Emery, and he tucked me under his arm, pressing a kiss into my hair.

  “Is it what you expected?”

  “It’s more.” I shook my head. “It’s like I can’t open my eyes wide enough.”

  “I love the way you see life,” Emery said, his eyes on me instead of the sunset. “It’s like nothing has ever disappointed you, like you don’t have a reason to believe it ever would.”

  I glanced up at him, the hue of the sun illuminating the different shades of gold in his eyes. “I’ve been disappointed before,” I argued. “But that doesn’t mean I have to expect to be let down again. Every day is a new day, you know? A new chance.”

  Emery shook his head, knuckles hooking under my chin. “You’re something else.”

  “You already said that to me once,” I reminded him, my voice just a breath as my eyes fell to his lips. “I’m not sure if it’s a good thing or a bad thing.”

  He smirked. “Good.” And then, just as the last of the sun sank beyond the Pacific, he leaned down, pressing his lips to mine.

  A moment. Frozen in time. A boy and a girl. A beach and a kiss. I was beginning to measure my new beginning with those little snapshots of time, filing them away in a mental scrapbook for safe keeping.

  “Can I ask you something?” I said, pulling back after a while, a little breathless.

  “Whatever you want, Little Penny.”

  I smiled a little at the nickname, a blush creeping onto my cheeks before the question even left my mouth. “That night you left the concert with Emily… did you…” I swallowed, looking down at where my hands rested in the middle of his chest. “Did you sleep with her?”

  Emery was silent, his thumbs rubbing small circles where my sweater gathered at my hips. “No.”

  A breath of relief rushed out of me, and he chuckled a little. “I’m sorry I had to ask, I know you told me not to be jealous. It’s just… I also know what you said about casual sex, and we weren’t… well, we weren’t like this. So I know I don’t even have a right to ask. I just…”

  “It’s fine,” he assured me, cutting my rambling short. “She showed me her record collection and then I left her place and wandered around Houston alone, because that’s all I wanted to be that night. Alone. Then I grabbed breakfast for us when the sun started coming up and, well, you know the rest.”

  “Would you have slept with her?”

  Emery swallowed, the lump in his throat bobbing with the notion. “Before you, maybe. But not after.” Then he lifted my chin again, his lips finding mine. “Never after.”

  Those words, that kiss, it was the more than I could have asked for from Emery in that moment. It wasn’t a promise, but it was a confession, an openness I wasn’t accustomed to from him that I wanted more of. I could get drunk on it, that transparency, and I fisted my hands in his shirt, pulling him closer, savoring every drop.

  Kalo didn’t let us kiss for long before she tugged against the leash still in Emery’s hands, making him grin, his mouth still on mine. “I think she’s hungry.”

  “So am I.” My stomach growled with my confession, making Emery chuckle.

  “I saw some food trucks up there,” he said, nodding toward the area where we’d found a parking spot. “I think there’s some sort of festival going on.”

  “You had me at food truck.”

  It was a busy Friday night on the beach, considering it was the middle of November, with local vendors and street performers gathering crowds in different areas on the boardwalk and grassy area beyond it. Emery and I took Kalo back to the car for her dinner first, before grabbing two giant slices of pizza from one of the trucks and perusing the vendor tables. There was beautiful local art and pottery, homemade soaps and candles, jewelry of all kinds, and t-shirt designers galore.

  We wandered past each of them eating our pizza and enjoying the c
ool evening breeze before we stumbled on a man juggling sticks of fire near the volleyball courts. Kalo moved excitedly between our feet, trying to find the best view as Emery polished off his slice, but my eyes were drawn to a small table near the end of the boardwalk.

  The woman manning the table smiled when our eyes met, waving a hand softly to invite me over. She didn’t look much older than myself, her skin a creamy white, though it was barely visible through the dark ink that painted her from the neck down. Her hair was jet black and shaved on one side, eyes just as dark, and even from where we stood I could see her ears were gauged open with metal rings.

  “What do you say?” I asked, nudging Emery and nodding toward her. There was a cosmic sign hanging from the front of her table that read TAROT CARDS. “Want to see what the universe has in store for the last leg of our trip?”

  I peered up at him, and he was already rolling his eyes. “You’re joking.”

  “Nope. Come on, humor me.”

  He shook his head as I slid my hand into his, already dragging him away from the fire and toward her table. “You owe me for this.”

  “And what exactly do I owe you?”

  At that, a salacious grin spread low on his lips. “I’d tell you, but there are children around.”

  I laughed, smacking his arm before taking Kalo’s leash from his other hand. She hopped around in the sand the entire way up to the table, and once we’d reached it, I bent down to pet her fur and give her one of the treats I’d tucked in my pocket. Once she settled by my feet with it, the woman greeted us.

  “Thanks for stopping by my table, I was starting to nod off over here,” she said. It was then that I noticed the bull ring pierced through the middle of her nose, the bottom of it grazing her top lip when she smiled. “I’m Melina. What are your names?”

  “Aren’t you supposed to tell us that?” Emery piped.

  I elbowed him, narrowing my eyes before extending a hand for Melina. “I’m Cooper, and this is Emery.”

  “Nice to meet you,” she said, not seeming fazed in the slightest by Emery’s comment, though she did narrow her eyes at him before gesturing to the two small, cushioned stools in front of her table. “Take a seat.”