Yanking out my phone once more, I start a text to London.
Holland: You’d be proud of me. I haven’t rescued him. He’s saving himself.
But I don’t hit send. Because it sounds like I’m trying to prove something. I don’t need to prove Andrew to anyone. I know, deep in my heart and mind, he’s healing.
And it’s not because of me. I’ve been by his side, but I’ve given him the space he needs. He’s making huge strides, but I’ve made the little ones I needed to make too. I haven’t taken on all his burdens. He’s bearing them, and watching his heart heal piece by piece makes me fall harder and faster for the man he is today.
I don’t want to miss another chance in the present. I’ll take what I can get—some of him now, if he’ll have me. I’ll risk another heartbreak because he’s worth it.
I open his contact on my phone.
Holland: Hey, handsome. Want to go to the karaoke bar tonight?
25
Andrew
Something is in the air tonight.
And it’s not only the Phil Collins song that I sing.
It’s the clothes Holland is wearing.
Usually, she likes jeans and short skirts. Tank tops and bright tees. She’s always been casual California girl.
Tonight though? She’s decked out in an emerald-green dress, with one of those swirly skirts that makes me want to take her out on a dance floor and twirl her around.
Except we’re not at a club.
And I suck at dancing.
But I’m incredibly adept at reading lyrics on a screen and staring at the most beautiful woman I’ve ever known. I do that when the Phil Collins song ends and again when Sam Smith begins, then it’s her turn again.
She shimmies her hips as she belts out a Katy Perry tune, crooning about fireworks as that little green dress swishes around her thighs.
Those soft thighs . . .
I know how they feel under my hands.
I know how they feel beneath my lips.
My skin sizzles as I picture kissing her legs.
When Holland finishes, someone else takes the mic, a couple of Japanese girls who tackle Arcade Fire and Adele.
A couple of hipsters wanders in, decked out in plaid pants and bowler hats. They join our patchwork crew, belting Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing,” then switching to a Bruno Mars number.
We don’t exchange names, but we become a temporary karaoke crew. We laugh and toast and hold our vodka tonic glasses high and say kampai for cheers then sing more songs.
At some point, it becomes guys versus girls, and I’m not entirely sure who’s keeping score or how, but someone is, and the women are winning.
Holland takes to the stage to blast out a fantastic “We Are Young” from Fun, and when it ends, they shout at her to “Do Ed!”
She thrusts her arms in the air. “The one and only Ed Sheeran,” she says, smiling so wide it reaches the sky, I swear.
I hoot and holler, because I’ve no problem rooting for the competition when the competition is her. But midway through “Photograph,” my cheers die down as she locks eyes with me. The moment slows, and everyone else fades to black.
Jesus Christ, I’m a lovesick fool, because when she pins me with her gaze, singing about how love can heal and how it can mend your soul, all I see, all I feel is her and me, falling back into each other again.
My heart thumps hard against my chest, wrestling to break free. It squeezes, then kicks wildly, and it’s not a new sensation when it comes to her, but it’s a different one. It’s deeper, more intense, and terribly insistent.
There isn’t enough space in this karaoke booth for both me and the way I feel for her. It’s too big, too strong.
When she finishes, she purses her lips and blows a kiss my way.
I can’t take it anymore. I’m not going to play the strong one anymore. I’m going to be the strong one. The strong one is going to speak his mind and tell the girl how he feels. No more holding back. I’ve done that long enough. I’m ready to let go and see where we fall.
I stand, ready to head over to her, grab her hand, and take her out of here when one of the guys thrusts the mic at me. “You go next.”
“Do Rick, do Rick,” the other guy shouts, and maybe they mean Rick Springsteen’s “Jesse’s Girl,” but when they punch up the number, I laugh since I’m dead wrong.
It’s a good thing you can’t mess up Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up.”
As I sing the simple tune, it feels more fitting than I imagined a song that’s become an internet prank would be.
It’s an anthem to how I feel for this woman. The one who took this journey with me across an ocean. To be my sidekick.
To be my safety net.
I didn’t need her to catch me, though, and I’m glad of that.
But I want her desperately. Inexorably. In a way that defies logic and reason but makes all the sense in the world—she gives so much more than I deserve, but she never keeps score.
The cheesy lyrics take on a whole new meaning as I sing to her and only her, letting her know I don’t want to give her up or let her go.
When the song ends, I toss the mic to one of the guys. He catches it deftly as I walk to Holland, extend my hand, and tug her up from the couch.
“Come back to me,” I whisper.
“I’m already there.”
26
Andrew
We don’t talk the entire cab ride home, our tightly locked fingers the only communication we need.
She knows.
I know.
I shove the door to my apartment closed.
My lips slant to hers, and I kiss her like the whole night hangs in the balance.
Her hands race up my chest, and we kiss, and we kiss, and we kiss.
I twine my hands in her hair, pulling her blonde waves away from her face. She tilts her head a bit, my cue to kiss her neck, then the hollow of her throat, then behind her ear in a way that makes her gasp. She says my name in a low and husky voice.
The time for slow and tender vanishes, and she doesn’t seem to mind. We kiss harder, deeper. She melts into my touch and angles her body closer and closer still.
I can’t get enough.
My mind blurs, and my skin crackles, and everything feels different now than it did the last few times we kissed—at the vending machines and at my house in Los Angeles.
Everything feels possible.
Everything feels right.
I break the kiss, my breath coming hard and fast. I can’t hold back anymore. I need her to know. I have to say it. “There’s no point pretending. I love you so much.”
“I didn’t think we were pretending.” She grabs my face, holds my cheeks. “I love you so much too.”
The night sky bursts open. All the stars shine on us. Somewhere, a new rock anthem is born, and it’s epic.
I drop my forehead to hers, inhaling the sweet smell of her. “I feel like I’m falling in love with you all over again, but I also never stopped loving you. Does that make any sense at all?”
She laughs lightly and drags her hands through my hair. “It makes all the sense in the world. I’m in love with you in a whole new way now.”
My lips curve up into a grin. “Yeah?”
“I don’t think you can be undone.”
I raise a brow in question.
She taps her chest. “You did something to me long ago, and you’re here. Permanently. All these feelings for you—they were latent for the last few years. But now they’re back, and they’re brand-new, and they’re not going anywhere.”
My heart soars to another galaxy. This is too much. Too perfect. And for tonight, I want only the perfection of this moment. I clasp her face. “I want you back. I need you back. Be with me.”
“I’m yours,” she says, with a vulnerable, desperate look in her eyes that matches everything I feel for her. This is letting someone in. This is opening your whole heart.
I scoop her up, carryin
g her to the futon in my bedroom.
I feel like I’ve had too much caffeine, or like it’s my birthday and all I want to do is open my presents. I tell myself to slow down, to not rip off her clothes, to take my time because we have time. But I don’t listen to those plans.
Frantic and frenzied, we undo zippers and tug at buttons, and soon I’m down to black boxer briefs and she’s in red panties with white polka dots.
My throat goes dry as I pull them off and gaze at her naked body once more. She’s the most beautiful sight. I run a hand along the back of her leg, thrilled to touch her like this. Her body moves against my palm, and she gasps, a soft, lingering sigh. It’s all so achingly familiar and so incredibly new at the same time.
She arches into my touch, and my pulse spikes.
I know her. I know what to give her.
She lets out the sexiest groan as I run my fingers down her bare legs. “You know I’m not stopping this time, right?”
“You better not.”
“Now that we’re in agreement . . .”
I start at her ankle, and she shivers under my touch. I look up at her, and she looks down at me, and we lock eyes for a moment. Then she whispers, “Don’t stop,” and I reacquaint myself with her knees and her thighs, her belly and her hips, and everything between.
I close my eyes as I kiss her where she wants me. She’s soft and wet and better than anything.
Her legs fall open, and she murmurs something I can’t make out. She’s already slipping into the zone, and that’s where my girl likes to be. Holland is the most giving person I’ve ever known, but in bed she’s greedy, and I couldn’t be happier that she wants pleasure, she wants touch, she wants to be adored.
I can do that. I can give that to her, and I do, going down on her like it’s been three years and I’m starving, because it fucking has and I fucking am. I’m so damn hungry for her, and she tastes like heaven on my tongue, my lips, my chin.
I want to be covered in her, and the way she responds, arching and writhing and chanting my name, tells me she wants all the same things—more and more.
She cries out in bliss, then moans and groans, and the wild noises nearly break my resolve to do it again, since I’m dying to be inside her. But I’m up to the task of giving her another orgasm before I lose myself in her warmth.
I take it slower, kissing the inside of her thighs, nipping her flesh till she’s reduced to a twisting, moaning, hot, wet mess that I love. Her hands curl around my head again, wrapping in my hair, and she pulls and tugs and shouts incoherent sounds that are the best serenade ever. It’s a perfect dirty karaoke encore as I bring her to the edge once more.
When her gasps slow, I crawl up her body, and she looks drunk on me, smiling like a happy fool, her eyes all hazy, her hair a mess.
Her blue eyes twinkle, and she rises, tugging at my waistband. “Get naked too,” she tells me and pushes off my boxers. She groans as she runs a hand along my length, and this—this is better than anything.
Coming back together.
“Hold on.”
I reach for a condom from the nightstand. “I was kind of hoping this would happen, so I wanted to be prepared.”
She arches a brow. “Kind of hoping?”
“More like fervently wishing and praying.” I wink.
“Ditto.”
I unwrap it and cover myself. She curls her hands over my shoulders, tugs me close, and whispers my name.
“Andrew.”
She doesn’t say “make love to me.” She doesn’t have to. She knows that’s all I’ve ever done to her. That when I fuck her it’s always with love.
It’s never been just sex between us. It never will be. When you’re inside the woman who makes the hole in your heart disappear, it can’t be only physical. It’s everything.
She parts her legs for me, and when I sink into her, my world turns neon. I’m high-definition and electric, lit up like this city at night.
As we move, my mind goes hazy, my skin grows hot. Pleasure rushes up and down my spine, racing through every cell in my body.
I want to say something. I want to tell her something, anything—words of love, words of sex. But the power of language has been drained from me, and I’m one giant electrical line, humming, buzzing.
I brace myself on my palms, swiveling my hips, and her eyes lock with mine. An obliterating wave of lust crashes into me as her lips part. She throws her head back and cries out my name again.
I’m so fucking happy I can give her this. It hardly seems equal when she’s given me so much more. It probably never will be even, but here in the bedroom, she can take all she wants. I’ll gladly give her all the pleasure I can, and I do as she comes again.
It’s beautiful and epic the way her orgasm moves through her, and it rattles mine loose—a burst of pure ecstasy that blots out the world.
Right now, she’s my world. It’s the real world times a thousand. It’s thunder and lightning and stars.
When I come down from that high, I roll off her, toss the condom in the trash, and bring her into my arms.
Her cheeks are flushed, and she has a happy, woozy look on her face that I want to keep putting there, every night and every day.
“Hi,” she whispers.
“Hi.”
“I missed that so much I’m not sure how I survived the last three years.”
I swallow hard and then decide it’s now or never. I prop myself up on my elbow. “Whatever it takes, I want to be with you.”
She smiles and traces my jaw with her finger. “I want that too. But what does that mean? Because I’m staying here, and at some point, you’re going back. What happens then?”
I laugh and shrug. “I don’t know. But I don’t want a fucking ocean between us.”
She nods sagely. “Oceans can be problematic. Can we find a way to remove it? Tug Los Angeles closer to Tokyo?”
I laugh and pull her close, kissing her forehead. “Shut up. I mean it.”
She presses her hands to my chest, pulling back. “I mean it too.”
“You want me to move the ocean for you?”
“I mean, I don’t want an ocean to come between us.” She winces. “But I also have to pee. Can you hold the thought?”
I salute her as she gets out of bed and heads to the bathroom. A minute later, I hear her flush then wash her hands. When the water stops, she opens the door and tilts her head, looking down the hallway at me.
She’s naked and curious. But concerned too. “Why are Ian’s painkillers open and on the counter in your bathroom?”
27
Holland
I’m fast at counting pills. The label says twenty, and three are missing.
While it’s possible Ian took three, there’s that little matter of the reason Andrew traveled to this city in the first place.
Unopened meds. Unused meds. He showed me the original letter from Kana. It listed all the meds, including Percocet next to the word unopened.
There has to be an explanation.
I look straight at Andrew, waiting for his answer. Tension spreads across my shoulders, but the tightness originates in my heart.
His jaw goes slack, and the admission is in his eyes. He squeezes them shut. “I took some.” His voice is ash.
It’s only three pills. It’s not a big deal. Three pills does not an addiction make.
Heck, three pills are what someone swallows over a few days when he has a bad back and it acts up unexpectedly.
But Andrew doesn’t have a bad back.
He doesn’t have headaches.
He didn’t have surgery, and he doesn’t suffer from recurring pain.
He’s healthy as a proverbial horse. He has no need for opioids.
“When did you take them?” I try to keep my tone as calm as possible. I don’t want to accuse him of anything. I want to know why he’s been turning to this drug, even a few times.
“The first night. I was jet-lagged and . . .” His sentence falls off a cliff.
“You took them to get to sleep?” That’s not ideal, but if he struggled with insomnia at the start of the trip, I can understand wanting something as a lullaby for the brain.
He rakes a hand through his hair. His voice is clogged with emotion as he answers, “No. It was the time I saw your pictures.”
I inhale sharply, wishing that wasn’t the reason. “And you needed the drugs to make it through the night?”
“It was only two,” he says defensively.
“What about the third?”
He sighs heavily. “I took it the next morning.”
I wince, absorbing this information and dreading asking the next question. “Why did you need them?”
He drags a hand down his face. “It was easier. It was just fucking easier than letting my mind entertain such awful thoughts. But that was practically two weeks ago, and I haven’t so much as thought about taking another since.”
“That’s good. That’s great.”
“You’re acting like I’m an addict.”
I raise my hands and shake my head. “I didn’t say that. I simply asked what was going on. Because I care. Because I love you. I’m glad it was only three.”
I move into the bedroom and sit next to him. We’re both still naked, and maybe this is fitting. Maybe naked is how we’re supposed to bare the most vulnerable parts of ourselves to each other. “I can live with that. I understand it was hard seeing those photos, and your mind leapt to places it shouldn’t have, and you were tempted. You needed help.” I take a deep breath. “As long as that’s all it was, and it’s behind you, then you don’t have to explain any more.”
I take his hand and squeeze it.
He doesn’t squeeze back.
He drops his head in his hands and sighs heavily. “I took more in LA.”
My heart craters. “You did?”
“I did. I took a bunch.”
“When? What led you to it?” Nerves thread through my questions.
“Right after I hit the car, and also before I saw you at lunch on the pier, and a few other times.”
Unbreak My Heart Page 13