Light Unshaken (Unveiled #2)

by Crystal Walton

  Maybe I needed a night under the stars with Riley more than I thought. “Sounds perfect.”

  “Uh-uh.” Jaycee squeezed her way between us. “You promised, Em.”

  Riley looked between the two of us. “Promised what?”

  “She promised to help me pick out bridesmaid dresses.” Jaycee twirled a strand of her auburn bob in a pin curl. “Well, we won’t actually go shopping until after winter break since spring styles won’t be out until then, but we’re gonna dream shop in magazines tonight. Get a head start on ideas.” She rolled onto the balls of her feet and fluttered her fingers together.

  Why stop at Starbucks? The prospect of wedding planning obviously passed for a sufficient adrenaline booster. “Save me,” I mouthed to Riley from behind her.

  “Wedding magazines. Bridesmaid dresses.” Riley rubbed his jaw with his knuckles, fighting the urge to laugh. “Sounds like fun.”

  “The best. But, sorry, that means Emma’s already taken tonight.” Her tiny barrette caught a sunray as she spun toward Trev.

  Riley’s grin tipped to the left. “Think I owe Jake a run anyway.”

  Traitor.

  “Good call, bro. Trust me.” Trevor hauled his shoeless fiancée over his shoulder before she could react and sprinted across the blazing pavement to his Outlander Sport.

  I glared at Riley as we followed. “Thanks for coming to my rescue.”

  “C’mon, it won’t be that bad. What’s enduring a few frilly magazines compared to sharing in your best friend’s excitement? It’ll be fun,” he said in a near-exact Trevor-tone.

  “Yeah, well, if I go missing, it’s because I’m mummified in a roll of tulle somewhere.”

  He nudged me toward Trevor’s car. “Way to be a trooper.”

  He always knew when to flash that darn smile I was so insanely in love with.

  I didn’t let go of his hand until the distance pulled him out of reach. Dopamine? Please. My feelings for Riley were more real than anything else in my life.

  So, why was Austin’s warning getting to me?

  Familiar shadows gnawed at my confidence the entire ride home and followed me into Jaycee’s and my apartment. I dropped into a kitchen chair, towed one leg up onto the cushion, and snagged an apple from the wire fruit bowl on the table.

  Riley and I’d been through a lot. Our love had roots. Depth. Yeah, electricity too. But shouldn’t attraction be as lasting as every other part of a relationship?

  “If you spin that apple one more time, the polish on that sucker is gonna make Mr. Clean jealous.” Jaycee brandished her best I-caught-you teacher-look at me from the couch.

  I tossed the fruit back in the bowl. “Sorry. Lost in thought.”

  “Mm hmm.” She slid down the microfiber slipcover onto the floor. “Luckily for you, I have the perfect remedy.” She set her Starbucks cup aside, dragged two backpacks from underneath the couch, and dumped at least twenty wedding magazines onto the carpet.

  I pinched my lips together. “Been stocking up, eh?”

  “Just a tad.” She pushed a quarter of the pile my way and draped a giant magazine with fuchsia headlines across her lap.

  “Jae, your wedding isn’t until June.” I glanced up from a glossy page to meet the stare of an exasperated, wide-eyed bride-to-be.

  “I’ve been dreaming about getting married since I was eight years old. I think ten months is close enough for me to start planning.” She fanned through the pages. “Look at how many options there are. It’s going to take that long just to narrow down the possibilities.”

  I didn’t mean to snort.

  Jaycee shook her head, clearly equating my noninterest in wedding planning with some kind of treason against the bonds of womanhood. “You’re telling me you haven’t dreamed about your wedding since you were a kid?”

  I flipped over another page plagued with gaudy dresses. “Not really. I mean, other than—”

  Riley’s signature ringtone blared from my pocket. Lifting the phone to my ear, I motioned to Jae to give me a sec. “Hey, babe.”

  “Em, you’re not going to believe this.”

  Between his speed talking and level of animation, I missed half of what he said other than something about his agent finally getting hold of him.

  I hopped up and moved over to the window. “Wait, wait, slow down. He said what?”

  Riley might as well have been standing on the other side of an open-ended tunnel. The entire room shook with the echo of the only part I’d heard. How could three single words change everything?

  chapter two

  Convergence

  I wanted to answer—tried to answer, but those three words crowded out every other sound.

  Nashville. Moving. Soon.

  This was what he’d been waiting for. What we’d been waiting for. An opportunity for him to share his talent with the world. A chance for his dreams to become reality. Dreams we were planning to share . . . together.

  Excitement and apprehension coiled into a knot and chafed against each other until the friction almost stripped them bare. I’d tried to prep for the possibility of spending time apart this year, but I’d expected that to mean a commute. A few weeks there, a few home. But moving?

  “W . . . when?”

  Riley’s pause throbbed from the other end of the line.

  “The twenty-fourth,” he said slowly.

  The carpet freed my feet. I whipped around the partition wall into the kitchen and slid straight into the refrigerator. Reaching for the calendar, I knocked off the magnetized penholder beside it. Dozens of pens crashed to the ground and rolled across the linoleum. Dates blurred together until my eyes stopped on the only one that mattered.

  How could the twenty-fourth be that soon? I braced a palm against the fridge.

  “Em, talk to me.”

  “Friday?”

  He let out a breath. “I know.”

  The room fell silent. Each staccato tick coming from the clock beat against my ribcage like some kind of internal countdown.

  An engine cranked in the background. “I’ll be over in five minutes.”

  He hung up, and my arm dropped to my side. I drifted to the nearest chair in the living room.

  Jaycee tossed the magazine off her lap. “What’s wrong? What’d he say?”

  Without facing her, I clasped the edge of the cushion on either side of my legs. “He’s leaving.”

  Old insecurities cropped up without warning or mercy. I choked them back, hating that they were robbing me of how happy I was for him.

  A knock on the door came much sooner than it should have. I didn’t want to know how many traffic laws Riley had broken in order to get to my apartment that fast.

  Jaycee let him in. One step inside, he met my eyes from across the room. Worry stormed the look of excitement he had every right to have. Guilt pierced my gut and bent me in half in my chair.

  He knelt in front of me, searched my face. “I’m sorry. I should’ve told you in person.”

  His unwarranted apology doubled the pain in my side.

  He rubbed my thigh. “Nothing’s set yet. I can stay—”

  “Absolutely not.” A flare ignited inside me and shot me to my feet. “I’m not going to let you forfeit your dream.” Not for me. I started for the door.

  “It’s only a secondary dream,” he said, as though reiterating a fact I shouldn’t have to question.

  I froze with my hand on the doorknob. His response siphoned the air from the room. Not a single shade of uncertainty tainted his voice. No hint of hesitancy. All I’d have to do was ask, and he would stay. The words fought the frail barrier keeping them buried in my throat.

  After seeing Trey’s wife hold on to regret for thirty years, I wasn’t about to let Riley marry me wondering, what if?

  I balled my sleeves in my fingers and waited to look up until hard lines of resolution regained their hold. If he could be calm and resolute, then so could I.

  “You’re not sacrificing this opportunity. It’s too
important. You have to go.” I opened the door. “Besides, I’m coming with you.”

  Jaycee’s comment to Riley trailed into the stairwell, “Should’ve seen that one coming.”

  The door swung open again. “Em, wait. You can’t just drop everything and move to Nashville with me. You have to finish your internship. Your senior year.”

  I stopped a few steps up from the foyer, hand clenched around the rail. “Secondary dreams, Riley. Works both ways.” If Trey’s wife had seen it that way, maybe they’d still be together. “I’m not going to bail on you.”

  “Bail on me?” A muffled laugh echoed louder than his flip-flops as he jogged down the stairs.

  My arms constricted across my shirt. “What’s so funny?”

  “You’re very cute when you’re being completely irrational.” His smile never played fair.

  I nudged him backward. He caught my hand and kept it on his chest. “Being apart doesn’t mean we stop standing by each other.”

  My palm drifted down his T-shirt to my side. “I just want to be in this together.”

  He curled his arms around my waist. “We are.”

  For the longest moment, he kept me close without saying anything at all. And in the confinement of that quiet stairwell, I fought to hold on to the things I’d learned to trust.

  Someone slipped in from outside. A breeze snuck into the stairwell and blew an unsolicited reminder of Austin’s warning over me.

  I clutched Riley’s belt. “Do you think we’re in love?”

  He leaned back. His expression alone eliminated the need for a response.

  Of course we were in love. Even Austin couldn’t argue that. I slid my ring along my finger. “I mean the kind of love that’s resilient enough to take any fire life throws at us.”

  Austin’s heady vernacular sounded as absurd coming out of my own mouth as it had from his. “You know what? Never mind. It’s nothing.” Why was I even going there?

  Riley’s hand cupped the back of my neck. “Em, look at me. I love you. Going to Nashville isn’t going to change that.”

  The depth in his gaze consumed my doubt. I pulled him to me, knotted my fingers through his hair, and kissed him with the only kind of fire I wanted between us.

  No air. No space. Just us.

  He responded, pressing in. The keys clipped to his belt loop clinked against the cement wall behind us. His hands trailed down my sides to my waist. I shifted slightly, ready for him to switch places and take the lead, but he lifted me back instead.

  “Emma,” he said, voice raspy. “How strong do you think I am?”

  Far stronger than I was, apparently.

  Exhaling, he pushed off the wall and hustled down the last few steps. At the foot of the stairs, he stopped with his back toward me and rubbed his neck. “I’m trying to do what’s best for us. I want to do things right. All of it. For you. Your dad.”

  And I was trying to hold on to something I was afraid to lose.

  Two girls came in and breezed past us on their way up the stairs. I slipped outside before the door closed again.

  Under the glow of the streetlight, I drank in the night’s cool air. It wasn’t only about desire. It was about fear. Fear that too easily sank its claws into my faith. I had to stop giving it a hold.

  Riley reached my side.

  I couldn’t look up. “I’m sorry. It’s not as easy for me.”

  “Easy? Are you kidding?” He lassoed me close. “I never stop dreaming of when I won’t have to tear myself away from you at the end of the night when I’m dying to stay.” He raised both hands to shield the curtains of hair falling into my face. “I’m committed to sharing my life with you, Em. Every part. Even the waiting.”

  The scent of his skin mingled with his promise. His response couldn’t have been a clearer depiction of the kind of love I wanted to give him in return. Patient, unselfish, strong enough to bear all things. Why couldn’t I find the same resolve?

  My lashes swept toward him, silently asking for another draw from his reservoir of grace.

  He kissed the crown of my head. “C’mon, let’s take a walk.”

  Thoughts of being apart eased further away with each stride across the campus. At the edge of the sports field, Riley slid me a lopsided grin.

  I eyed him back. “I know that face. What are you up to?”

  He swayed his head from side to side. “Nothing. Just this.” He hoisted me over his shoulder and jogged to the middle of the field.

  The view above us stole my focus the minute we toppled onto the grass. Our private planetarium. A haven as rich and reassuring as his eyes.

  He stretched his hands behind his head and sighed with an audible reverence. “Ahh . . . Oregon’s skies.”

  “Nothing like them.” Nothing like lying there, letting the stars stand in for all the answers I’d never been able to find anywhere else. Nothing like the peace this part of the campus washed over me. I took it all in. Just as he planned, no doubt.

  I turned from the sky to the other source of awe in my life. “How do you always know what I need, even when I don’t?”

  He leaned on his elbow. “Who said this was for you? I might’ve brought you here with purely selfish motives.”

  “Oh, really? And what might those be?”

  His expression deepened. “Memorizing the way your hair looks spread out over the grass. The way your eyes hold stars of their own on nights like this.” His thumb smoothed over my cheek, my mouth. “The way your bottom lip pulls to the left when you’re trying not to smile.”

  I tried to fight it. Useless.

  He curled me in the crook of his arm. Nearby maples and red cedars waved in the breeze, blending scents that would always remind me of this exact moment—right here in Riley’s arms, in the damp grass, in the place where life made sense.

  He drew circles over my arm with his fingertips. “What if they don’t like my music?”

  Where’d that come from? “They gave you a record deal. Pretty sure they think you’re amazing.”

  “No, not my label. The public. What if I don’t measure up to other artists they love?”

  He couldn’t be serious.

  He rolled onto his back and released a labored exhale. “I don’t know. I was all excited at first, but now that it’s sinking in, I’m not sure I’m ready for this. What if I’m making a mistake?”

  I propped myself up to face him. “You’re not making a mistake. This isn’t some wistful daydream. It’s your life. What you were made for. You’re going to thrive in every part of your career. I promise.”

  He brushed my hair from my face, left his thumb over my temple, and studied my eyes. No words. He brought his lips to my forehead.

  I turned and nestled against him again. We’d be okay. Love would be enough to hold both our dreams, no matter where they led us. I had the promise on my ring finger to prove it. Always.

  I knew then what he needed from me.

  “Riley?” I whispered. “Would you come by in the morning before work? Think I need a redo. I’m sorry for the way I reacted. Austin had me all worked up. I should’ve—”

  “Tomorrow, Em.” He pulled me closer.

  I closed my eyes. Being brave could wait for tomorrow.

  In the stillness, he hummed softly, notes merging into lyrics. “Come find me. Under a cloudless sky, I’m waiting for you here. Dance with me. Where the grass and trees absorb every last fear.”

  He drummed his fingers over my arm. “Hold me close. Let every whim and every sorrow, drift into the night holding back tomorrow. Right here now, let’s fall in love underneath the stars. Dance until daylight chases away the dark.”

  The longer he sang, the tighter I hung on to the moment and prayed this same sky would extend all the way to Nashville.

  chapter three

  Redo

  The morning sun kissed the treetops and warmed my cheeks through the living room window. A new day. A chance to start over and give Riley the same support he’d given me last
year. Even if it meant saying goodbye.

  I wrenched back my sleeves and the thought.

  The soft boiling of the teapot rumbled from the kitchen. Hopping on one foot, I slipped on my other fuzzy sock and rounded the partition.

  While my tea steeped, I grabbed a frying pan from the drawer under the oven. It clanked into the pot next to it. I froze. Please don’t wake Jae.

  Not a sound.

  Delicately this time, I lifted the pan out the rest of the way and inched the drawer closed. One screech after another bounced off the kitchen walls all the way down the hall. I held my breath.

  A loud thud answered the awaited silence. Our bedroom door opened to reveal a disoriented, tousled replica of my best friend. Jaycee squinted at me through half-opened lashes.

  My shoulders nearly touched the bottoms of my ears. “Sorry.”

  Her arms stretched with a yawn. “I needed to get up anyway.” She stumbled into the kitchen on autopilot and snagged a mug almost the same size as the coffeepot. “Trev should be here by eight. He made me clear my whole day for him. He’s up to something.”

  We exchanged a foreboding look.

  “That reminds me.” She swirled creamer into her coffee. “I can’t take you to the center today, but Trev promised me he’d have something worked out.”

  No telling what that meant. I was scared to ask.

  She leaned against the counter and breathed in the hazelnut-scented steam from her mug as if it were some kind of aromatherapy treatment. Her eyes fluttered open a minute later, awake and alert.

  I scanned the label on the coffee can. “Sure this isn’t laced with something else?”

  A don’t-ask-don’t-tell grin snuck around the corners of her mug.

  “Oh.” Pushing off the counter, she held her mug away and wiped a streak of coffee from her chin. “Shoot, I forgot to tell you. Trev heard from his advisor yesterday about that internship he wanted. Guess someone ended up backing out last minute, so Dr. Jenkins got him in.”

  “That’s awesome.”

  “Yeah. Except . . . that means he can’t do the coaching gig you asked him about.” She scrunched her lips to the side. “Sorry. I know you were counting on him.”