Everly After

by Rebecca Paula

  He mumbles something, shifting his large backpack onto his other shoulder before ducking onto the train.

  Everly grabs my hand and tugs hard. When I spin around, she has the camera I gave her in hand and pushes up to her tiptoes, snapping a shot of us. It’s only a picture, but it makes Gare Du Nord shrink in around me. I take her bag and nudge her forward, trying to balance things between us. She’s good at throwing me off.

  Ollie’s seat is a few rows away from ours, thankfully, but he pulls me aside. Everly yanks her bag back, smiling at me over her shoulder like an imp, and then rushes down the aisle to find our seats.

  I’m watching her struggle to fit her bag on the overhead rack when Ollie elbows me in the stomach. “Do you know who she is?” he whispers harshly at me.

  I grab his bag and toss into the overhead none-too-carefully. “Yes,” I answer, meeting his fucking judgmental glare.

  But there’s that small bit inside me that’s screaming liar. Everly and I know nothing about each other. I think we both like it that way, but now we’re on a train heading to London together. Eventually, we’ll have to face that truth that we’re strangers.

  “Have you Googled her?”

  “You have, you asshole. I saw how you looked at her.”

  Ollie sinks down into his seat, throwing his hands on top of his head with a sigh. “She’s not what you need, Beckett. That bird’s a fucking mess.”

  “Now you’re going to be my mother?”

  “I’m being a friend, mate. All I’m saying is be careful.”

  I don’t remember why I asked him to come to London with us. It certainly wasn’t for his dating advice. He’s hungover as fuck, and he can try to pretend he’s been on the pull in Paris but I know better. Ollie can wag a finger at me all he wants, but he’s trying to forget Gemma. Wild parties and French girls won’t fix what’s broken there.

  I slap the back of his head, grinning when he winces. “Don’t worry your pretty little head.”

  If he objects, I don’t hear it because I waste no time getting back to Everly. She’s staring out the window as we pull out of the station, chewing on the sleeve of her striped shirt. I toss my bag overhead and settle down next to her, glancing over a few times without knowing what to say. My knee starts that nervous bouncing, so I run my hand over my jeans, tipping my head back to look over the seats in front of us. I focus on the bald man two rows up, how the light bends and swirls over his shiny dome like a gazing ball.

  Everly places her hand on top of mine, and I suck in a pained breath. I wish she’d stop surprising me today. Her nails are mint green now. Everly always has rainbows at her fingertips and bags of glitter in her Louis Vuitton.

  She leans against me, reaching up to ruffle my hair. “You’re not bald yet. No worries there.”

  It’s on the tip of my tongue when I look down at her.

  I’m broken.

  Instead, my stomach sinks as her eyes soften and her lips bend into the realest smile I’ve seen from her now that Paris is slowly disappearing behind us.

  I’m broken.

  Those sins we need to atone for weren’t abolished in that lake. I carry them around in my bones, and I can’t shake free from them. The nightmares, the screams, the blood. I can sit on a couch and talk about everything, but I’m not sure it’s going to be enough. That’s supposed to fix me and so far…

  “So we’re doing this?” Everly asks, nestling against my chest.

  My hand curls around her waist, hauling her beside me. She seemed relaxed earlier, but I hear the doubt in her voice, too, as if she recognizes the two of us are on a high-speed train, barreling toward London to have our hearts broken. Second-class tickets for another destructive life event.

  She stretches one of her long legs and drapes it over me. I draw circles over her knee, worshipping the person who invented denim cutoffs. I trace my fingers down her smooth calf, then slowly up to her thigh. She shivers beneath my touch.

  I guess we’ll have to hold each other together until we figure out what we’re doing.

  I frame her face in my hands, intending to speak. Until I met her, I was capable of speech. But now? I swallow down the doubt and Ollie’s useless warning and kiss Everly because I need to know this won’t be the end. I’m not sure why she’s here on this train with me, but she is and I’ll prove everyone wrong. I’ll prove myself wrong.

  Our kiss deepens, and she practically crawls into my lap before a throat clears above us. I guess PDA isn’t appreciated on the Eurostar. I offer a halfhearted apology, but my attention is on Everly climbing over to her seat, quietly laughing as she reaches for her purse. She takes out her ticket, quickly swiping at her swollen lips, then hands it over to the attendant.

  She’s back in my lap as soon as he moves on. I take out my phone and snap a picture of us. Everly peeks out from behind her glasses, blowing kisses and ruffling up my hair. I’m just looking at her, too preoccupied to bother posing.

  I lean closer and whisper, “You taste like dessert.” I like the way she blushes. “I want to kiss you again. Drink you up.” She rests against my shoulder, and I lick the shell of her ear. I can’t help it. “Until you knock me over I’m so drunk on you.”

  Everly twists in my arms so our foreheads are pressed together. “I hope that’s not all,” she whispers back.

  “No, that’s not all, pet.”

  I reach into my pocket for earbuds and plug them into my phone. I hand one to Everly, and then the two of us settle back around each other and listen to music the rest of the way to London, our hearts intact for now.

  Everly

  “Are you sure you don’t mind? You can come. I can tell—”

  I wave Beckett off and slip on my sunny yellow flats. “No, go ahead. It’s for work, and I don’t want to interfere.”

  The private room we booked at a hostel is small and steamy and smells like his spicy soap after his shower. I wanted to join him, but I’m not sure what we’re doing exactly. For once, I don’t want to jump straight into bed with a guy. I mean, I do. Badly. It’s just that I want this to be different with him, too, even if I don’t know why.

  “You wouldn’t be interfering,” he says with a lazy grin.

  He’s leaning against the wall, scrolling through his phone, wearing a white button-down with his sleeves rolled up to his elbows. It’s hard to figure out who he is when he does this. Some days he dresses up all business-like; other days he’s wearing holey sweatshirts and worn jeans and Chucks. It’s like how he speaks French so flawlessly but is British through and through. Or how he seems so comfortable traveling the world but can suddenly be afraid of his own shadow.

  I wonder who Beckett Reid is because, without ever discovering the answers, I keep kissing him. I keep finding myself opening up and showing him who I really am, even though I’m trying not to do that. It’s hard with him. With the way he looks at me as though he understands. How, when we’re close or his lips are on mine, for those few precious minutes, the world’s a better place and I’m just a girl kissing a boy. I’m not Everly Monteith. I’m not running from mistakes. I’m that girl I dream about, the one who’s happy in the sun.

  I’m staring down at my hands when he comes up beside me. “What are you thinking about?”

  I laugh. I’m being an idiot. What am I thinking about?

  “You’ve got this look on your face like I’ve kicked a puppy.”

  I wring my hands together before I meet his curious stare. I lean closer, bumping my shoulder against his. “No, no puppy kicking. Just thinking.”

  “Are you mad I’m leaving? I won’t be long.”

  It makes me angry that he asks questions like this. No one ever wants to know what I want. If I were here with Hudson…

  I stop there. I’d never be here with Hudson because I don’t want him like I want Beckett. I’m better now, I think. I won’t fall back into who I was with Hudson.

  “No,” I say. “I’m going to go for a walk. Won’t miss you at all.” I grab the
pen in my purse and write the hostel’s address on my forearm.

  Beckett points, his usual “what are you doing now?” look evident in his arched brow.

  “In case I get lost.”

  “Are you planning on getting lost?”

  Does anyone? I shrug him off.

  “So you won’t miss me?” He turns me to face him, his hands running up my bare legs until he grips my waist and lifts me so I straddle him. “Not at all?”

  I kiss him first, tugging his lower lip between my teeth. His hands travel up my body, cupping my breasts.

  “No.”

  “Not even a smidge?” His fingers trace the line of my dress, half on fabric, half on my skin, altogether burning. I close my eyes and imagine he’s one of the sketch artists at Place du Tertre near the Sacré-Cœur, drawing my body one stroke at a time.

  Beckett slips his hand beneath the deep neckline of my navy dress and skirts his fingers over the Chantilly lace of my bra. We haven’t eaten breakfast, and I have a feeling I’m his with the way he touches me, kisses me. He sips me and takes me in, and I am so completely lost. I’ve never felt this way before—overwhelmed. I’ve never been with someone who wanted to take their time to explore me, to make me feel good instead of chasing after what feels good for them.

  I guess I’ve only ever been with selfish pricks. Or it never mattered to me. I don’t think I cared much until now—now that I know what I should want.

  I sigh into his mouth, trying to speed up our kiss and push it back into something familiar for me, but he slows down. When I protest, he breaks away completely. I miss his lips on mine as soon as it ends.

  I swallow back my regret and try to wiggle out of his lap. “There’s no chance of me missing you unless you leave.”

  “That’s funny. I miss you already.” He tips my chin up so I meet his gaze and winks.

  I laugh, sliding farther away on the bed’s comforter. Beckett reaches out and hauls me back, the two of us bent so we don’t knock our heads on the bunk above. He kisses my nose, my cheeks, my lips. It starts off sweet but quickly tumbles into something hot and desperate. Exactly what I want.

  And as if he catches himself, he stops and clears his throat. “I’ll give you a chance to miss me then.” He picks me up and moves me off his lap, then grabs his phone off the dresser and heads out the door.

  I’m left stunned in the middle of the bed, my hair all mussed, my dress pushed up around my knees, my lips swollen. When my phone chimes with a text, I crawl off and search for it, finding it on the floor beside the nightstand.

  Miss me yet?

  I laugh. You can’t leave me like that, I text back.

  Like what?

  I can’t stop grinning down at my phone. My hand shakes as I type. You can’t stop a kiss like that and just leave.

  The door’s card reader buzzes and Beckett storms back into our room. Before I can protest, he scoops me off the bed and picks up where we left off. My legs wrap around his waist, my arms hook around his neck as he cages me against the wall. It happens so quickly I can’t make sense of what’s up or down. Our kiss deepens until my chest burns for want of air. I pull at his shirt, wanting to touch him, ready to lose myself in him because he’s just that good at kissing me and making me forget.

  But my mind catches up and I remember there’s a reason I was getting dressed to leave. There’s a reason why he’s not wearing a T-shirt I can pull up over his head. He has to be somewhere.

  I stop our kiss, blowing out a nervous breath.

  His eyes meet mine, and they’re still full with hunger, raw and primal. It makes my heart trip.

  “You have a meeting,” I say.

  He ducks his head next to my shoulder and kisses my neck. “Give me a minute. I need…”

  I look up at the ceiling and do the same—gather myself. It feels like we’re always this way, always so close to something that will change us. We’re pushing through to discover the unknown, but I really want to know what it is we’re searching for. It’d be easier than running into this mess blindly.

  “You’re worth being late for,” he whispers into my ear. When I look back down, he kisses the tip of my nose. “But I have to go for real this time.”

  I nod. “For real.” I won’t lie—I’m still hoping he’ll change his mind and throw me back onto the bed and have his way with me, but Beckett’s not like that. He’s careful with me.

  “Then stop missing me and go.”

  “Going. Right.” He kisses me again, and the two of us laugh as he battles to keep kissing me and I try to wiggle out of his hold. Finally, he slips me down the front of his body, the scent of lemons and clove wrapping around me until my feet are firmly on the floor.

  “Bye, pet. For real.”

  He winks, then shuts the door, and I’m left standing in our hostel room wondering what the hell just happened between us.

  Again.

  Beckett

  “How are you doing?” Hugh asks from the opposite seat.

  I twist my pint between my palms—left then right, left then right. “Fine,” I say at last.

  My mind’s not focused on the ugly mug opposite me. I’m still seeing Everly’s face when I burst back into the room. She looked as if she never expected me to come back. Jesus, the look in her eyes—the way she lit up when I kissed her—is enough to push a sane man to drink.

  Which is probably why I am.

  “You sure?”

  I snap my head up to meet his beady eyes full of judgment. “I’m already seeing a shrink in Paris. I don’t need another.”

  He holds his hands up, surrendering. The fucker. He knows better. “What’s so bad about taking a local post? Getting a local beat?”

  “Tom will probably request they stick me in some shitty bureau in the country.” I can think of a million other ways to spend my time besides sitting in some office, fielding calls about loose sheep in North Cumberland.

  “I think he’s concerned. You know what happened—”

  “I remember exactly what happened, Hugh. Thanks, though, for the lovely reminder.”

  “That’s not what I mean.”

  I take a long, draining sip of my pint and wait him out.

  “A lot happened to you in a short amount of time, and they’re worried—”

  “—that I’m a fuckup now because of some shitty stuff.”

  Shitty really doesn’t begin to describe what happened in Afghanistan, but I don’t expect someone covering the European banks to understand. Hugh Koenig deals with stock markets all day. I deal with the military and terrorist threats. I’ve had guns pressed to my head. I’ve been kidnapped and tortured, even though I’m a journalist. It doesn’t matter over there. I’m another target, another Western spy in their view.

  “No one thinks you’re a fuckup. You’re a brilliant reporter. Always have been.”

  Hugh’s another schoolmate of mine, but unlike Ollie, he doesn’t act like he’s twenty-six. He acts like he’s forty-five, with a posh townhouse, a new Jaguar, and a trophy wife with a pair of overpriced tits.

  I realize my nerves are getting the better of me. I fight back the urge to swipe that condescending look off his face.

  “I’ve seen a lot of shit in my time. That bloody mess is no different. I’m fine, Koenig.”

  He only started his beat last year, after three years slogging coffee orders and answering phones. I’ve been at this game much longer. It helps that I was willing to go wherever. Helps that I’m fluent in Arabic and knew the right people, too.

  “I heard about your aunt. I’m sorry.”

  I swear mortar shells start raining from the sky. I grip the table, waiting for an IED to erupt and blow up the small café in Chelsea. I must scare Hugh because he looks around, studies me, then flags down the waitress for the check.

  One breath at a time, right? That’s what I tell Everly. It works for her—maybe it can work for me, too. I grip my glass and chug down a few gulps of beer, but it’s hard swallowing past the lump
in my throat.

  The world begins to fade in around me—first, the soft sounds like Hugh’s fingers tapping the tabletop, and then the louder ones, like the car whizzing past blaring Tinie Tempah.

  I slowly uncurl my hands from the pint and settle them on the table, forcing myself to look at Hugh. I don’t want to pretend like I’m fine. I want to be fine. And I have been. More so lately. I think.

  It’s time and all that. Time is all I need to get myself sorted. I’m not willing to give up my job because my mind is in another place than my heart.

  “I know you were close to her.”

  Hugh’s voice is coaxing. I hate when people talk to me like this. It’s happened all my life. I’m the boy with the sad past. The boy whose father tossed him around and murdered his mother. How sad. Even after the story faded from the news, people still hedged around me like I’m some orphaned freak with two heads. The teasing at school was insufferable. My foster homes were shit. So, sure, I was close to my aunt. She was the last bit of family I had and the only reason I know what it’s like to be part of a loving home. She gave up Paris for me. She worked hard at the bed and breakfast so I could go to a good boarding school and have a chance at a future. Without that, I wouldn’t have the job I have now. Or had. Or whatever.

  “Yeah.” I stare into my empty glass and then at my full plate of food. I don’t feel much like eating now. “It happened fast, you know?”

  Hugh nods, and things grow too awkward. I hate talking about death. It’s such a big part of my life, what’s shaped me for better or worse, but it’s best reserved for nights when I have to sit down at my keyboard and write. And write. Until it all pours out of me into a shitty draft that’ll take years to untangle. Line by line. Word by word.

  I think it’ll be the same with me, too. Years to untangle the mess inside me.

  “Listen, I know you’re busy and I know there’s a reason why you called, so let’s skip to that bit.” I’m being an asshole again.

  Hugh shifts in his seat looking uncomfortable with my frankness. “Hell, you don’t waste time. I thought we could catch up. Have a pint or two.”