by Staci Hart
Seth spun around and hit the ground, lying there moaning for a second.
I looked up just as Patrick stepped into me, cupping my face in his hand, searching it with his dark eyes. “Are you all right? Did he hurt you?”
“N-no. I’m all right.” My eyes moved back to the floor where Seth looked over his shoulder at us.
“It’s okay. You’re safe. I won’t let him hurt you, Rose.”
And when I looked up at him, looked into his eyes, I knew. He wouldn’t let anyone hurt me, not even himself.
Seth tried to get up, but faltered. “Fuck you guys.”
Patrick turned around, shielding me from Seth. “What do you want to do with him?” he asked me, though he stared down at Seth still, waiting. “Call the cops? Let him go?”
“I … I don’t know.”
“I can call them to pick him up, if you want.”
Seth’s eyes flashed. “You can’t do that. I could lose my job.”
Patrick’s face was hard and still as stone. “Maybe you should have thought about that before you came here tonight.”
“I won’t come back. I shouldn’t have come here. I was just …” He looked down at his hands splayed on the ground, bracing him. The fight had slipped out of him, leaving him empty, a shell of a man on the floor in the back of a bar. He didn’t look up as he spoke, seemingly to himself. “I don’t know how many times I have to hit the bottom before I learn. Maybe I’ll never learn.”
Patrick still didn’t move. “You’re the only one who can make that choice, but I don’t want anything to do with it.” He looked back to me. “What do you want to do, Rose?”
I glanced at Seth, knowing that if he went to jail for this, it would be the end of him. Even if he didn’t, it might be the end. But I couldn’t be the reason. “I don’t want to press charges or call the cops, as long as he doesn’t come back.”
“Go. Stay gone. If you come back I swear to God, I’ll …” His voice trembled, fists clenched by his side. “Just don’t come back.”
Seth nodded, looking ten years older than he had only a few hours before. He hauled himself up and walked toward the door, turning just before he passed through. “I’m sorry.”
“So am I,” he said.
And we watched him walk away.
The minute he was out of sight, Patrick turned again and pulled me into him. The adrenaline had waned, leaving me shaking, thankful for his arms around me.
“I’m sorry, Rose. I’m so sorry,” he whispered into my hair.
“You can’t apologize for Seth.”
“I’m not.”
I pulled back to look up at him, his face full of apologies and forgiveness.
He touched my cheek. “I know I said we’d only keep hurting each other, and I may not be wrong. But my mistake was letting you walk away without fighting for you. I won’t let you slip away again, Rose, even if hanging onto you means I bleed from the thorns.”
“Patrick …” I whispered.
“I love you, Rose.”
A tear slipped down my cheek. “I love you. Even when it hurts.”
His eyes closed, brows knit with emotion as his nose brushed mine. “Don’t leave me.”
“I won’t. Not again. ”
And then, he kissed me.
His familiar lips, the sweet softness that demanded and gave all at once — it was a kiss that erased what had happened before. It was the kiss of my dreams, except this wasn’t a dream. I could feel his warm fingers against my cheek, feel his solid chest under my palms, his heart beating against my skin.
It was real.
No more walking away. No more fighting him, fighting us. I saw the path behind us, saw the path that lay before us, and I knew we would survive, as long as we never gave up.
He kissed me until I was breathless, and when he pulled away, I lowered my head to his chest. He wrapped me in his arms, and we stood for a long moment, just being.
Patrick moved first, shifting to look down at me. “What now?”
“Now, we move forward. Together.”
And he smiled, one of the rare ones. “Together.”
33
ANYTHING
Patrick
I SAT AT THE BAR, sipping my whiskey, still shaken, as we waited for Sheila and Brent to come down. Rose poured herself her second shot and slammed it, wincing as she set the glass on the bar top with a clink and got back to cleaning up. Keeping her hands busy made her feel better, she said, and I couldn’t argue with that.
It was a half an hour before they got there, haphazardly dressed with worry all over their faces. They embraced her for a moment before the questions flew — Was she all right? Should they call the police? Who was he? Will he come back? Rose answered them calmly before they ordered her home and to take as much time off as she’d like, thanking me over and over again, telling me how glad they were that I’d shown up when I did.
They weren’t the only ones.
I pulled her into my side as we walked home, wrapped my arm around her shoulder to keep her close, as if I could protect her from the world. I watched every person as they passed, suspicious.
We climbed the steps to her apartment, stepped inside in the dark. Ellie was gone, the apartment empty other than Valentino. We found him perched on the back of the couch when she turned on the light, though he jumped down, purring as he wound his way through our legs.
Rose turned to me, buried herself in my chest. I cradled her in my arms.
“What do you need, Rosie? What can I give you?”
She sighed. “This is a good start.”
“Anything,” I whispered, chest aching. I closed my eyes.
“I already have all that I need.”
I squeezed her tighter, smoothed her hair, kissed her temple. Her eyes when she looked up at me were bright, clear, though they disappeared behind dark lashes as she kissed my lips sweetly, deeply. She took my hand and led me to the bathroom.
Instead of turning on the light, she opened the cabinet under the sink and pulled out a few candles that the girls seemed to stow there for baths, along with a lighter.
“I just want to wash all the bad off of me,” she said as she lit the first.
I smiled and nodded. “I’ll leave you to it.”
She lit the second. “No. Stay. Please?”
I nodded again, stepping past her to run the water.
When I turned around, she was pulling off her shirt, black hair against her creamy white skin. She unhooked her bra, undressing without care that I was there, without intent to seduce or lure. It was more intimate than that.
I undressed too, simply, quietly as the water rushed, echoing off the walls of the small room.
She reached under the sink again, coming back with something in her hand that looked like a scoop of ice cream. When she dropped it into the claw foot tub, it fizzed and bubbled, and I watched her step in after it gently.
Rose looked back over her shoulder and reached for my hand. I took it, her fingers warm and slender in mine, and we sat together —her body nestled between my legs, the tops of her knees peeking out of the water, her arms resting on my thighs. Her skin shone in the candlelight.
She sighed. The water was a soft, milky blue, and the scent of lavender and lemon hung in the humid air as she reached out a foot to turn the squeaking faucet until the water stopped.
We lay that way for a long while, long enough for me to close my eyes, head resting against the curling edge of the tub, letting a little bit of everything go with every slow breath. She sighed against me again. Neither of us seemed to want to speak, lost in our thoughts as they wound around each other.
Her hair hung over her shoulder, the tail floating in the water like a ghost, and I gathered it all in my hands, twisting it until it was a rope as she angled her long neck. I tied her hair in a knot that slipped loose once I let it go, and she rested her head in the crook of my neck, her fingers idly traced the mandala on my knee.
“Promise me something,” s
he said softly.
“Anything.”
“You have to talk to me. Even when you think you know better. Even when you think you’re doing the right thing by saying nothing.”
“Promise me the same.”
She took a breath. “I will. I do.”
“I will. I do.” The words were quiet, reverent.
“Promise me you won’t run away,” she said.
“I’ll never leave you, not unless you tell me to go. Never again. I know now. I know what I stand to lose, what I didn’t understand before. I’m not afraid of you, of us. I’m not afraid of anything except losing you.” I wrapped my arms around her shoulders, kissed her hair, willing her to understand, to know how much I meant it. How much she meant to me.
I could see part of her face when I kissed her hair — eyes pinned shut, chin trembling. A tear escaped, rolled over her cheekbone as she hung her hands on my forearms and squeezed.
“Shhh. Don’t cry. I love you, don’t cry,” I whispered, my lips near her ear, hand moving to her cheek.
She turned in my arms, tucking her head under my chin as her arms wound around my waist. Her breath was heavy, shuddering in through her nose, a sob racking through her chest as she tried to hold it in. And I held her while she cried, stroking her hair, waiting until she calmed.
“I’m sorry,” she said after a while.
“No. You don’t have to be sorry for anything, Rose. Nothing. Everything we’ve been through, these months … it’s my fault. It’s my fault, and I’m sorry, but you’ve already forgiven me for that. So I don’t want to think about it anymore. I don’t want to think about life without you. I just want to love you, and I want you to love me. I trust you, and I want you to trust me. And if you do, if you really do, then I believe we’ll always survive. We’ll always find a way through. Because there’s no one, Rose — not one person in the world who I could ever love like I love you.”
Her breath hitched, and she whispered the promise, “I will. I do.”
“Then we will. Always.”
It was a long time before we moved. I felt her breathing against me. My gaze rested on her hip, rising out of the water in a soft slope, like an island in the milky water, her ribs, the curve of her breast like the shore of a beach in an ocean. It wasn’t until the water had chilled that she turned and pressed her lips to my chest and reached for the plug. We stood and found towels, dried off in silence. She blew out the candles, and we found ourselves in the dark once again.
Rose took my hand and led me into her room, which looked as it always did — rumpled bed, dark other than the light next to her bed, small piles of black clothes like islands on the floor. She turned off the light as we slipped into her bed, towels discarded, legs still wet and sticking to the sheets as they searched for the other’s, winding together when found. She nestled into my chest, the warmth of her pressed against me.
My body was heavy, wishing for sleep, wanting to stay in the moment always. Rose, in my arms. Rose, mine. She was mine. I had always been hers.
I thought she was asleep, but she shifted, leaned back. I could see nothing but the deepest shades of blue, the glint of light on her eyes. My hand found her jaw, thumb grazed her lip, and she closed them against my skin, pressing a kiss to the pad. I angled her face, breathing in as I kissed her.
She came to me gently, gave herself to me softly. It had nothing to do with need, the way we touched. It was an exchange of hearts. It was a promise.
Her lips composed the sum of my world as my hand trailed down her chest, traced the soft curve of her breast, then down her ribs, over her hip, down her thigh as it hooked on mine. I gripped and pulled, bringing her body flush against me.
I dragged my hand around the back of her thigh and up until it found the warmth of her, until my finger was cradled in her. I trailed it up, then down — she stopped kissing me to sigh — then up again before slipping a finger inside, stretching the other so it grazed the sensitive spot. Every flex of my hand arched her back a more until her neck was long, stretched out in the darkness before me. I leaned in to lay a hot kiss on the skin offered to me.
“Patrick …” It was a whispered plea, a declaration, a prayer.
The moment I let her go, her hips swung into me, leg wrapped around my waist, and I met her with a long kiss. She rolled, pulling me with her, my hand on her hip as she spread her thighs, and I pressed against her, our lips only parting when I flexed, my forehead against hers, eyes closed as I filled her until her thighs trembled.
She was everywhere.
Her arms around my neck.
Her lips against mine.
Her legs around my waist.
My name riding her breath.
My heart beating her name.
My thoughts tumbled away from me with every thrust until it all fell away, and there was nothing except Rose.
34
THIS TIME
Rose
WHEN THE MORNING CAME AND my mind began to stretch into awareness, I thought at first it had all been a dream. Maybe it was the fall and the last nine months had been a nightmare. Maybe it was a few days ago, before the fight, a fight that never happened.
But, no, it was real. The steady rise and fall of his chest was real. His arms around me, heavy and warm. The smile that showed a sliver of his perfect teeth when he woke. It was all real, and somehow we’d survived. We found a way through when my pride stood in our way, when I fought and pushed and denied him everything.
Emotion rolled through me again as the night before crawled its way through my memory, and he turned on the light, casting light and shadow across the room, across our bodies —his dark with ink and mine smooth and white.
I lay on his chest, chin on my hands as he propped his head and smiled with the smile he only gave to me.
“How did we do it?” I asked in wonder.
He seemed to know what I meant without needing an explanation. “There were a lot of things, I think, but in the end, it was us. Just us.”
“All this time, we’ve just been in our own way.”
He smirked. “Well, mostly you.”
I chuckled. “Yes, mostly me.”
He touched my face. “I should have gone after you sooner.”
“I wouldn’t have budged.”
“Maybe. But I still should have.”
My smile softened. “Why didn’t you?”
“Because I wanted to respect how you felt, what you asked of me. Because I didn’t think I deserved to be happy.”
“How could you think that?” I asked, heart aching.
He shook his head and swallowed. “I don’t think I’d ever been happy before I moved here. Met you, West, everyone. I just didn’t see it lasting, you know? It was a gift I cherished every day that I had it, knowing it’d be gone, eventually.”
“Patrick …”
But he smiled and cupped my cheek. “It’s okay. I’m okay.”
I leaned into his hand.
His thumb shifted against my skin. “West said something that resonated. He said that I’ve fought for everything, fought my way through life, but I wasn’t fighting for you. I thought I was doing the right thing by doing what you asked, but I was wrong. Letting you go so easy denied everything I wanted.” He shook his head. “I don’t mean that I would have given up my respect for your wishes to get what I wanted, but I didn’t even try, Rose. I didn’t even try, not really, and I regret it. Because if I’d fought for you, we could have been here, where we are right now, a long time ago.”
I nodded as his hand slipped away from my face and to my arm, and I shifted to press a kiss into the soft skin of his chest. “But we’re here now. So, what should we do with our second chance?”
“Oh, well, that’s easy.”
I raised an eyebrow, amused. “Care to share?”
But before he answered, he sat, smiling, wrapping his arms around my back to hold me to him until I was cradled in his arms, looking up at his beautiful face, full of so much adoration and
love that I knew he’d make me happy forever, if I’d let him. And I would.
“This time,” he said, “we do it right.”
Epilogue
Rose
MUSIC PLAYED SOFTLY IN THE next room as I looked in the bathroom mirror, leaning in to slip my earring on. My palms were a little sweaty, and I smoothed my black dress down my thighs, stepping back to check myself out one last time.
I took a deep breath. This was it. I’d been working nonstop for the last three months to get to this moment — the opening of Wasted Words.
I’d arrived.
My lips curled into a smile, and I let the breath out, venting a bit of my nerves along with it.
I walked out of the bathroom with every intention of going into my room to grab my heels, but when I saw Patrick painting, I couldn’t help but stop and watch him.
We’d converted Lily’s old room into a studio just after he’d moved in, which was just after Ellie moved in with Max. If Ellie had been anyone but Ellie, I would have been worried, but not only was this exactly her modus operandi, but she and Max were good together. Happy. The two of them just made perfect sense, much like the rest of us.
Patrick sat on his stool in the center of the room where I found him so often. But rather than jeans and tee, which he usually wore, he was in suit pants and a white button-down, sleeves rolled up so he wouldn’t get paint on it, exposing the tattoos all over his forearms. The light was slipping away as dusk fell, painting the room in oranges and yellow, illuminating the white walls with fire. I watched his back as he painted, his shoulders, his head turned just at an angle, looking at the canvas like he could see something that wasn’t visible to me.
I leaned against the doorframe for a few minutes, the beauty of his movement captivating, the fluidity of every motion like that of a dancer. He turned to look back at me when I sighed contentedly.
Patrick smiled back and began cleaning the rest of his brushes. “How long have you been there?”