Recklessly Ever After

by Heather Van Fleet

  I sighed, wondering how I was going to make it through the rest of the evening without tossing my no-sex rule out the window.

  Though that rule had already been broken this morning on my kitchen counter.

  There again, that was oral sex, not sex sex, and I—

  Before I could finish my thoughts, he opened the doors, showing a three-season porch to die for.

  I gasped. “Oh my God.”

  He flicked on another couple of battery-powered lanterns to our left. “That a good oh my God or a bad one?”

  “Very good. Did you do this all yourself?”

  He nodded. “It’s why I was late for dinner the other night. I was just supposed to swing by and drop off some tools, but my new permit was actually up, and I… Shit, I just got carried away.”

  “You weren’t that late,” I reminded him as I stepped farther into the room. To my right sat a chocolate-brown leather sofa that looked well loved. In front of it was a coffee table made with the same ceramic tile that covered the floors. I wondered if the table was homemade.

  The walls to our left and right were lined with pine, while the wall in front of us was nothing but windows. The steepled ceiling held a long fan that probably was not hooked up if he didn’t have electricity yet. In the corner of the room, I saw the makings of a wood-burning fireplace, unlit, unfinished, and detached from the wall. A chimney drew down from the ceiling, unattached as well.

  “This is extraordinary.” I looked back at him, watching as his cheeks turned pink. It was adorable. Gavin was adorable.

  I walked toward the window, pressing a palm to the glass. The dark backyard was alive with lightning bugs, and beyond a few trees, I could barely make out the river.

  “Sit,” he ordered from behind.

  “Bossy much?” I smiled and turned anyway, finding the blanket he’d been carrying over his shoulder spread out over the sofa.

  “Sorry. I don’t mean to be a dick. I just—”

  “Hey.” I grabbed his hand and gave it a squeeze. “I’m kidding.”

  The tension in his shoulders eased with my words. Then he nodded, exhaling, making me feel a little guilty for teasing him.

  Wordlessly, he began pulling things out of a picnic basket and placing them on top of the table. I took off my heels and settled them at the end of the couch before easing down on it.

  “I’ve got cold chicken, homemade bread, courtesy of Max, and some other stuff I picked up at the store today.” The last things he pulled out were strawberries and pickles.

  My eyes widened a little at the view. It was a pregnant woman’s dream.

  “This is amazing, Gavin.”

  “Hmm,” he mumbled his familiar response, sitting beside me to dish up our plates. It didn’t matter that the thought of cold chicken made my stomach want to turn in on itself. I’d eat this, and I’d eat it all—then I’d ask for seconds, because nobody had ever done something like this for me before. This was almost as romantic as the dishes.

  “Thank you for bringing me here,” I added.

  He shrugged. “I don’t really go out a lot. Hate being around crowds. So, this is how I roll when it comes to dating.”

  Dating.

  The simple thought of him bringing another woman here had my blood running hot with jealousy. I turned my face and pretended to focus on something outside. “But you go to O’Paddy’s. And you went to Jimney’s too.”

  “On occasion. But I usually have to be pretty fucked up to deal with it, or it has to be a weeknight.”

  I frowned. “Because of the noise.”

  “A little. But it’s mostly because of the crowds and tight spaces. I’ve always had issues with being around people.”

  “What about being a marine?” I turned, reaching for something to eat as my stomach growled again. “Didn’t that, you know, set you off even more?”

  I brought a drumstick to my mouth, taking a small bite. It was greasy, salty, and everything I’d loved pre-pregnancy.

  “In some ways. The death, destruction, war in general messes up a man.” He brought his bottle of water to his lips and took a sip, only to stare out the back wall of windows as I’d done. I loved how he’d passed on the wine too. “But other shit happened during my childhood that sent me over the edge before that.”

  I swallowed hard. “Like…?”

  “It’s not something worth sharing.” He looked to the floor.

  “How would you know what I want to hear and what I don’t, hmm?”

  “Wouldn’t that be too personal?” He glanced up at me again, a tiny grin on his lips.

  I knew he was only teasing, but his comment hit too close to home. The truth I needed to tell sooner rather than later was sitting there on the tip of my tongue. Yet getting it out was like pulling teeth.

  “How about we do a comparison?” I asked.

  Setting his chicken down on the paper plate, he leaned back against the couch, pulling me with him, an arm around my shoulder. The move was so natural that I didn’t even think twice. “What do you mean?”

  “Meaning, I tell you something crappy that happened to me, and you try to one-up me with something even crappier.”

  “This sounds like fucking torture.” He groaned.

  I laid my head on his shoulder, wondering if the time would ever be right to tell him the truth. “Maybe.”

  Warm breath cascaded over the top of my head as he set his chin on top. Strands of hair scattered across my forehead with each of his exhales. Honestly, I didn’t think he’d follow through with it. Digging deep would mean exposing himself to vulnerability, something I tended to avoid myself. But he was the father of my child, and soon he’d know. I just… I needed to know the man who’d be my second half. Even if he could never be mine.

  “How about I go first?” I traced my finger over the V in his shirt. The gesture wasn’t meant to be sexual, but a small shiver ricocheted throughout his body, regardless. Whether he was aware of it or not didn’t matter; it soothed me to know I made him as uneasy as he always did me. Not in the uncomfortable sense, but in the sense that every second longer we were together, new feelings and sensations were beginning to ignite.

  “Go for it.”

  “Okay. Hmm.” I paused for dramatic effect. “When I was eleven, my mother called me an unappreciative bitch because I told her I didn’t feel like eating the dinner she cooked.”

  Gavin’s arm tightened around my shoulder, but he didn’t respond. I was thankful for it; otherwise, I might not have been able to finish.

  “I’d told her my stomach hurt, but she said I was faking.” Among other unmentionable words… “I was up all night, crying in pain. It wasn’t until I started throwing up blood that she decided maybe she should take me to the hospital after all.” I scoffed, pulling my thumbnail to my mouth. Around it, I mumbled, “Turns out I had appendicitis.”

  “Jesus,” he whispered, kissing the top of my head, only to rub the back of his hand down my cheek.

  “Jesus obviously had nothing to do with me.” I laughed and shook my head, hating the bitterness in my voice.

  “I’m sorry, McKenna. You deserved better.”

  I shut my eyes at his simple words. People had apologized to me countless of times, but coming from Gavin? It felt different.

  “Your turn.” I poked him in the stomach, lifting my leg over his.

  A beat passed before he spoke. When he did, the sound of his voice was hoarse. “Wanna know the real reason I can’t stand small, tight spaces?”

  My throat closed off. Suddenly, the idea of this game scared me for reasons that had nothing to do with me. “You don’t have to tell me. We can talk about something else. This is kind of depressing, actually.”

  “I do want to tell you… That’s the thing.” He blew out a shuddering breath, a humorless chuckle leaving his mouth. “You’re the
first person I’ve ever wanted to tell.”

  I nodded slowly, taking in his admission. I didn’t deserve his secrets, but selfishly, I wanted to know them all. “Okay. Then tell me.”

  He paused before letting his hand fall to his lap. “When I was nine years old, about a week after my parents died, I came to live with my uncle. It was the middle of winter and…”

  I reached over and grabbed the ends of his fingers, no second thoughts as I settled them over my heart. They shook, but the rest of his body relaxed as though the movement soothed him.

  “The guy… Christ, Kenna. He used to lock me in a tiny storage shed at night.”

  I squeezed his hand in reassurance. “Take your time.”

  He dropped his head back against the couch and shut his eyes as I lifted my chin to look up at him. I watched as his Adam’s apple bobbed, wishing I could reach inside him and wrap myself around his heart just to protect it.

  “For nine to ten hours a night, I would be forced to stay inside that thing because he said he couldn’t stand all my crying. I didn’t know this dude. I’d just lost my fucking parents, yet he was pissed at me, saying I ruined his fucking buzz with all my bawling.”

  “Oh, Gavin.” I snuggled closer, tucking an arm through his. My lips began to tremble, and several tears escaped my eyes.

  “It was too much for him, you know?”

  There was absolutely no excuse for what the man did. He was certifiable. And had I known where he was, I would’ve gotten in the car and driven to his house and…and… God, I would’ve killed him. And I didn’t even know the whole story yet. But I’d keep that inside for now, wait for Gavin to finish. He obviously wanted to get this out, and I would be the ears he needed, no matter how badly my emotions raged.

  “He said I was a sissy, that he never wanted me in the first place. Told me every fucking night before locking me out there that he’d hoped I’d freeze to death, so he didn’t have to deal with me anymore.”

  My tears grew thick. Ugly and angry for the boy who’d deserved the world. “Why did he keep you?” I managed.

  “Money. Life insurance. I don’t fucking know…”

  I bit my lip to curb the noises in my throat.

  “Every morning, for three months, he’d wake up and find me alive. I’d cover myself in anything I could find just to keep warm. Used garbage bags, boxes, shop towels, shit like that.” He laughed, but the sound was ominous. “I used to hide inside an old gardening wagon. Then I’d cover my hands in the worn-out gloves, waking up every hour just to switch them to my feet, or back to my hands. I never showered. I never got clean clothes…”

  “Gavin.” I muffled my cries in his shirtsleeve, hating how I couldn’t be strong for him. But even as I cried, he kept going, letting it out like a nest of bees escaping from a hive.

  “During the day, he’d let me come in. Feed me even. He always fucking apologized. Promised not to do it again. And then he’d go to work. But after work, it would all just…start over. A fucking endless loop.”

  I sniffled, wiping my face on my bare shoulder. “Did you ever try to run away?”

  A nod. “Once. Around the last week of the third month. Just so happened that he was sick that day and came home from work early.” Gavin snorted under his breath, laying his cheek on my head. “He was so pissed that he stopped letting me inside the house during the day. Then at night, he’d shine this huge fucking spotlight into the shed and blare heavy metal music at me. Called it my punishment.”

  Unable to take another second, I sat up and straddled his lap. I snuggled as close as I could against his chest, wrapping both arms around his waist. With my ear against his chest, I could just make out his racing heart.

  One of his hands came up around me to stroke my spine as he finished. “The music was so loud one night that someone a mile up the road heard it and called the police. My uncle was passed out drunk inside, and when the cops came to turn off the music, they found me.”

  Minutes passed, but neither of us bothered to move—other than the occasional stroke of Gavin’s hand down my spine. We were wrapped in each other, emotionally spent. Physically worn. Beaten, yeah, but not broken. Never in my life had I had such an urge to kill and comfort at the same time.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “To you. To your uncle…”

  His warm breath blew against my forehead as he sighed. “Guy went to jail. I went into the system.” He shrugged. “That wasn’t even the worst part of my life growing up. I mean, it was shitty. Pretty much scarred me. But the thing that sits with me the most is the fact that I saw my foster brother put a gun to his head and kill himself.”

  “No,” I cried, pressing my forehead against his. He squeezed his eyes, yet hugged me even closer, as if the thought of letting me go was painful.

  And truthfully, I couldn’t stand the thought of him doing it either.

  “It was my last foster home. I lived with the Andersons from the time I was fourteen until I graduated from high school. The ones I told you about the other night.”

  I nodded.

  “They were an older couple. Could never have kids of their own.”

  “Were they good to you?”

  “Yeah.” He smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Mr. Anderson and my foster brother introduced me to Little League. I caught right on, and by the time I was fifteen, I was playing varsity.”

  At the thought of Gavin playing ball, of being happy with something as a teenager, I couldn’t help but smile through my remaining tears. Even knowing how this story ended, I liked the thought of him finding one thing in life that made him happy, even if it hadn’t lasted long. “Anyway, I got really close to Adam. My foster brother. But…he was a cutter. Always ripping up his skin. Said it helped him feel better.”

  I flinched, remembering a time in my life when I’d contemplated self-harm. I had nobody as a teen, and my parents were like dictators who rarely spoke to me, other than to punish or insult me. So, cutting myself seemed like it might be a way to gain some control in my life. In the end, I chose another route. One that stuck with me until adulthood. I picked the worst kind of men there were and pushed them in my parents’ faces any chance I got.

  Now, neither of them cared if I was dead or alive.

  But I didn’t tell Gavin that. This was his moment, not mine.

  “Anyway, the Andersons tried to get him help, but nothing worked.” He pressed his lips to the top of my head, releasing a shuddering breath as he continued. “A few weeks after he died, I had to go play at some tournament because the college scouts were there. Only I was so fucked in the head that I blew the game on purpose. And after that, I quit. Baseball wasn’t worth it without him to share it with, ya know?”

  “I’m so sorry,” I whispered against his chest, my fingers tightening in his shirt.

  “Don’t be sorry.” He dropped his lips against my forehead this time.

  Squeezing my eyes shut, I decided that I’d tell him about my own demons to help ease his a little. “My sob story isn’t quite as bad.” I stroked a hand over his chest, breathing deeply.

  “Anything bad that happened to you is too much.”

  I kissed his lips, just once in thanks, then laid my head on his shoulder, my lips close to his throat as I spoke. “When I was sixteen and living with my father, he left me home to go to some sort of illegal street fight. The neighbor guy, who’d always been friendly to us, snuck into our apartment that night and tried to hurt me.” My fingers gripped the neckline of Gavin’s shirt, my voice shaking. His arms tightened around me, and I could hear the low growl in his chest as I continued. “Luckily, the older lady across the hall heard me scream and called the police before anything happened.” I swallowed hard. “The worst part was, the cops held me at the station until four the next morning, when my father finally figured out
I was there and came to get me. He hadn’t known. And they had no way to get in touch with him.”

  “Where’s your father now?” Gavin asked, anger evident in the scratch of his voice.

  I shrugged. “Not sure. I lost touch with him after high school. I went to college, met Addie, and she’s been my only family since.” Sure, I had my stepbrother and stepsister, and we kept in touch as much as possible, but it was never the same.

  “Family has never been more than one or two people. Even when I lived with my mother, it never felt real. More…reality TV-ish, if that makes sense.”

  “Hmm.” Gavin lifted a hand, and instead of stroking my spine, he rubbed the back of my head. “I get it,” he said.

  “Guess what I’m saying is, I don’t know what it’s like to have a big, tight-knit group of people around me to love. Not like you do with Collin and Max. I’ve been alone for so long that it’s easier for me to live that way.”

  “I was the same way until I met them, believe me.” He chuckled. “Probably would’ve been fine with it too, until we got back from our last tour of duty and I met Chloe.”

  I held my breath, not wanting to ask the question. But what else could I do? I needed to know the answer now more than I needed air to breathe. “Do you think maybe you want to, I don’t know, have a family of your own someday?”

  A second passed, then two. I felt him hold his breath, heard the unsteady shudder as he let it go. And it wasn’t until he said the words that I relaxed for the first time since I’d found out I was pregnant.

  “Yeah. I think I do want that.”

  * * *

  Gavin

  We didn’t talk much after that. I was still ready to rage on the world over the fact that someone had tried to hurt her, and even more pissed at her parents for treating her the way they did. If I ever saw or met them, I’d let it be known that they’d messed with the wrong woman.

  With McKenna on my lap, straddled and quiet, I took the moment to think about the could-have-beens in my own life. I’d grown up under pretty shitty circumstances, yeah, but what would’ve happened if my parents hadn’t died? No doubt I wouldn’t be where I was now. Not just with Collin and Max and Chloe, but it might have meant a life without ever knowing and feeling things for the woman I was holding. Fate had a way of fucking with your head when it came to life, that’s for sure. But I knew things happened for a reason. And I swear my reason was McKenna.