Ever After Always (Bergman Brothers Book 3)

by Chloe Liese

  Ever After Always

  Bergman Brothers #3

  Chloe Liese

  Cover Art by

  Jennie Rose Denton of Lamplight Creative

  Ever After Always

  A Bergman Brothers Novel (#3)

  Chloe Liese

  Copyright © 2020 Chloe Liese

  Published by Chloe Liese

  All rights reserved.

  This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Sensitivity Note

  **PLEASE SKIP THIS IF YOU WISH TO AVOID SPOILERS**

  This story includes a main character with generalized anxiety disorder. It also touches on childhood poverty as well as parental alcoholism and abandonment. Particularly with the guidance of sensitivity and beta readers, I hope I have given these subjects the care and respect they deserve.

  Playlist Note

  At the beginning of each chapter is a song and artist that is offered to provide another means of emotional connection to the story. It isn’t a necessity—for some it may well be a distraction or for others, inaccessible, and thus should be ignored entirely!—nor are the lyrics literally “about” the chapter. Listen before or while you read for a soundtrack experience. If you enjoy playlists, rather than individually searching each song as you read, you can directly access these songs on a Spotify Playlist by logging onto your Spotify account and entering “Ever After Always (BB #3)” into the search browser.

  Contents

  Prologue

  1. Freya

  2. Aiden

  3. Freya

  4. Aiden

  5. Freya

  6. Aiden

  7. Aiden

  8. Aiden

  9. Freya

  10. Freya

  11. Aiden

  12. Aiden

  13. Freya

  14. Aiden

  15. Aiden

  16. Freya

  17. Freya

  18. Aiden

  19. Freya

  20. Aiden

  21. Aiden

  22. Freya

  23. Aiden

  24. Freya

  25. Freya

  26. Aiden

  27. Freya

  28. Aiden

  29. Aiden

  30. Freya

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Books by Chloe Liese

  “You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone forever.”

  — Jane Austen, Persuasion

  Prologue

  Aiden

  Playlist: “Melody Noir,” Patrick Watson

  The day I met Freya Bergman, I knew I wanted to marry her.

  Some mutual friends threw together a pickup soccer game one balmy summer Sunday and invited us both. I’d played in high school, kept up with a recreational soccer league while I went through undergrad. A poor PhD student by that point, I liked the game enough to value the opportunity for fun without a price tag. No awkward outings where I didn’t buy an entree because I’d just paid rent and emptied my account, no well-meaning buddies insisting—to my humiliation—on treating me. Just a place and time where I could stand tall and feel like I was everyone’s equal. A lazy morning under that bright California sun, juggling a ball, goofing off with friends.

  But then she walked in and goofing off went out the window. Every man on that field froze, backs straight, eyes sharp, and all manner of stupidity vanished as quiet settled over the grass. My eyes scanned the field, then snagged on the tall blonde with a wavy ponytail, wintry blue eyes, and a confident grin tipping her rose-red lips. A shiver rolled down my spine as her cool gaze met mine and her smile vanished.

  Then she glanced away.

  And I swore to God I’d earn her eyes again if it was the last thing I did.

  I watched her trying not to be flashy when she juggled the ball and messed with ridiculous moves that she nailed more than flubbed, how effortlessly she balanced skill and playfulness. I watched her, and all I wanted was closer. More. But when we broke into two sides, I realized with disappointment we’d been placed on separate teams. So I volunteered to defend her, with the arrogant hubris typical of twenty-something men, thinking a guy my size who could still put down some fast miles had a prayer of keeping up with a woman like her.

  That was the last time I underestimated Freya.

  I all but killed myself on the field, trying to track her fast feet, to anticipate her physicality, to find the same explosive speed when she flew up the sidelines, betraying a fitness I didn’t quite match. I remember marveling at the power of her long, muscular legs that made me daydream about them wrapped around my waist, proving her endurance in a much more enjoyable form of exercise. Already, I knew I wanted her. God, did I want her.

  I may have been taking defense a bit more intensely than everyone else on that field. I may have stuck to her like glue. But Freya radiated the magnetism of someone who knew her worth, and in a flash of desperation, I realized I wanted her to see that I could be worthy, too, that I could keep pace and stick close and never tire of her raw, captivating energy.

  In Freya’s aura, I forgot every single thing weighing on my mind—money, a job, money, food, money, my mother, oh, and money of course, because there was never enough, and it was an ever-present shadow darkening moments that should be bright. Like the sun ripping a cold, solitary planet into orbit, Freya demanded my presence. Here. Now. Just a few dazzling minutes in her gravitational pull and that pervasive darkness dissolved, leaving only her. Beautiful. Bright. Dazzling. I was hooked.

  So, in my young male brilliance, I decided to show her my interest by sinking my claws into her shirt, tracking her every move like a bloodhound, and doing anything I could to piss her off.

  “God, you’re annoying,” she muttered. Faking right, she cut left past me and took off.

  I caught up to her, set a hand on her waist as she shielded the ball and leaned her long body right against mine. Not romantic, but I remember exactly how it felt when her round ass nestled right in my groin. I felt like an animal, and that was not how I worked, at least not before Freya. But she felt right, she smelled right, she was right. It was simple as that.

  “Don’t you have someone else to bother?” she said, even as she glanced over her shoulder and those striking eyes said something entirely different. Stay. Try. Prove me wrong.

  “Nah,” I muttered, my grip tightening in every sense of the word, my desperation for her already too much. Grappling for possession, I met her move for move in a tangle of sweaty limbs and scrappy effort, until finally I won the ball for the briefest moment and did something very stupid. I taunted her.

  “Besides,” I said, as she came after me. “I’m having fun messing with you.”

  “Fun, eh?” Freya stole the ball off of me too easily, pulled back, and cracked it so hard, straight at my face, she snapped my glasses clean in half.

  As soon as I crumpled to the ground, she fell to her knees, brushing shards of the wreckage from my face.

  “Shit!” Her hands shook, her finger tracing the bridge of my nose. “I’m so sorry. I have a short fuse, and it’s like you’re hardwired to push every button I have.”

  I grinned up at her, my eyes watering. “I knew we had a connection.”


  “I’m really sorry,” she whispered, ignoring my line.

  “You can make it up to me,” I said, with as much Aiden MacCormack panty-melting charm as I could muster. Which was…challenging, given I’d just taken a point-blank shot to the face and looked like hell, but if there’s one thing I am, it’s determined.

  Freya knew exactly what I meant. Dropping back on her heels she arched an eyebrow. “I’m not going on a date with you just to make up for accidentally busting your glasses.”

  “Um, you intentionally pulverized my glasses. And quite possibly my nose.” I sat up slowly and leaned on my elbows as the breeze wafted her scent my way—fresh-cut grass and a tall, cool glass of lemonade. I wanted to breathe her in, to run my tongue over every drop of sweat beading her throat, then drag her soft bottom lip between my teeth—to taste her, sweet and tart.

  “Just one small kiss.” I tapped the bridge of my nose, then winced at the pain, where a bruised cut stung from the impact of my glasses. “Right here.”

  She palmed my forehead until I flopped back on the grass, then stepped right over me.

  “I don’t give out kisses, four-eyes,” she said over her shoulder. “But I’ll buy you an apology beer after this, then we’ll see what I’m willing to part with.”

  To this day, Freya swears she was trying for the goal which was, ya know, twenty yards to the right of my head, but we both know that’s not what happened. The truth is, we both learned a lesson that day:

  Aiden can only push so far.

  Freya can only take so much.

  Before something breaks.

  Badly.

  Freya

  Playlist: “I Go Crazy,” Orla Gartland

  I used to sing all the time. In the shower. On road trips. Painting our house. Cooking with Aiden. Because I’m a feeler, and music is a language of emotion.

  Then, one week ago, I crawled into bed alone again, curled up with my cats, Horseradish and Pickles, and realized I couldn’t remember the last time I’d sung. And it just so happened to be when I realized that I was really fucking fed up with my husband. That I had been. For months.

  So I kicked him out. And things may have devolved a bit since then.

  Hiccupping, I stare at Aiden’s closet.

  “You still there?” My best friend Mai’s voice echoes on speakerphone, where my cell rests on the bed.

  “Yep.” Hiccup. “Still drunkish. Sorry.”

  “Just no operating any heavy machinery, and you’re doing fine.”

  I hiccup again. “I think there’s something wrong with me. I’m so pissed at him that I’ve fantasized about sticking chocolate pudding in his business shoes—”

  “What?” she yells. “Why would you do that?”

  “He’d think it’s cat shit. Pickles gets diarrhea when she eats my houseplants.”

  A pause. “You’re disturbing sometimes.”

  “This is true.” Coming from a family of seven children, I have some very creative ways to exact revenge. “I definitely have a few wires crossed. I’m thinking about resurrecting some of my most sinister pranks, and I’m so horny, I’m staring at his closet, huffing his scent.”

  Mai sighs sympathetically from my phone. “There’s nothing wrong with you. You haven’t had a lay in…how long, again?”

  I grab the bottle of wine sitting on my dresser and take a long swig. “Nine weeks. Four days—” I squint one-eyed at the clock. “Twenty-one hours.”

  She whistles. “Yeah. So, too long. You’re sex starved. And just because you’re hurt doesn’t mean you can’t still want him. Marriage is messier and much more complicated than anyone warned us. You can want to rip off his nuts and miss him so bad, it feels like you can’t breathe.”

  Tears swim in my eyes. “I feel like I can’t breathe.”

  “But you can,” Mai says gently. “One breath at a time.”

  “Why don’t they warn us?”

  “What?”

  “Why doesn’t anyone tell you how hard marriage is going to be?”

  Mai sighs heavily. “Because I’m not sure we’d do it if they did.”

  Stepping closer to the rack of Aiden’s immaculate, wrinkle-free button-ups, I press my nose into the collar of his favorite one.

  Winter-skies blue, Freya. The color of your eyes.

  I feel a twisty blend of rage and longing as I breathe him in. Ocean water and mint, the warm, familiar scent of his body. I fist the fabric until it crumples and watch it relax when I let go, as if I never even touched it. That’s how I feel about my husband lately. Like he walks around our house and I could be a ghost for all it matters. Or maybe he’s the ghost.

  Maybe we both are.

  Slapping a palm on the closet door and slamming it shut, I hit the wine bottle again. One last gulp and it’s gone. Freya: 1. Wine: 0.

  “Take that, alcohol,” I tell the bottle, setting it on my dresser with a hollow thunk.

  “Is he still in Washington?” Mai asks, tiptoeing her way around my tipsy rambling.

  I stare at his empty side of the bed. “Yep.”

  My husband is, at my request, one thousand miles north of me, licking his wounds with my brother and duly freaking out because I put my foot down and told him this shit would not stand. I’m home, with the cats, freaking out, too, because I miss my husband, because I want to throttle this imposter and demand the guy I married back.

  I want Aiden’s ocean-blue eyes sparkling as they settle on me. I want his long, hard hugs and no-bullshit musings on life, the kind of pragmatism born of struggle and resilience. I want his tall frame pressing me against the shower tiles, his rough hands wandering my curves. I want his sighs and groans, his dirty talk filling my ears as he fills me with every inch of him.

  Distracted with that vivid mental image, I stub my toe on the bedframe.

  “Fuckety shit tits!” Flopping onto the mattress, I stare up at the ceiling and try not to cry.

  “You okay?” Mai asks. “I mean I know you’re not. But…you know what I mean.”

  “Stubbed my toe,” I squeak.

  “Aw. Let it out, Frey. Let it goooo,” she singsongs. “You are, according to my kids, Elsa, Queen of Arendelle, after all.”

  “But with hips,” we say in unison.

  I laugh through tears that I furiously wipe away. Crying isn’t weak. I know this. Rationally. But I also know the world doesn’t reward tears or see emotionality as strength. I’m an empowered, no-nonsense woman who feels all her feelings and battles the cultural pressure to contain them, to have my emotional shit in order. Even when all I want to do sometimes is indulge in a teary explosion of hugging my condiment-named cats while cry-singing along to my nineties emo playlist. For example. Like I might have been doing earlier. When I opened and started chugging the wine.

  In a world that says feelings like mine are “too much,” singing has always helped. In a houseful of mostly stoics who loved my big heart but handled their feelings so differently from me, singing was an outlet for all I felt and couldn’t—or wouldn’t—hide. That’s why, last week, when I realized I’d stopped singing, I got scared. Because that’s when I understood how numb I’d become, how dangerously deep I was burying my pain.

  “Freya?” Mai says carefully.

  “I’m okay,” I tell her hoarsely. I wipe my eyes again. “Or…I will be. I just wish I knew what to do. Aiden said, whatever it was, he wanted to fix it, but how do you fix something when you don’t even know what’s broken? Or when it feels so broken you don’t even recognize it anymore? How can he make that promise when he acts like he has no fucking clue why I’m feeling this way?”

  Horseradish, ever the empath, senses my upset and jumps onto the bed, meowing loudly, then kneading my boob, which hurts. I shove him away gently, until he moves to my stomach, which feels better. I have cramps like a bitch. Pickles is slower on the uptick but finally jumps and joins her brother, then begins licking my face.

  “I don’t know, Frey,” Mai says. “But what I do know
is, you have to talk to him. I understand why you’re hurt, why the last thing you want to do is be the initiator when he’s been so withdrawn, but you’re not going to get answers if you don’t talk.” She hesitates a beat, then says, “Marriage counseling would be wise to try. If you’re willing…if you choose to. You’ll have to decide if you want to, even if you think it’s too far gone.”

  And that’s when the tears come, no matter how fast I wipe them away. Because I don’t know if I have anything left to choose with. I’m scared we are too far gone. Crying so hard my throat burns, I feel each jagged sob like it’s breaking open my chest.

  Because the past six months, I’ve witnessed the core of my marriage dissolving, and now I don’t know how to build it back. Because at some point, critical damage is done, and there’s no returning to what it was before. In the human body, it’s called “irreversible atrophy.” As a physical therapist, I’m no stranger to it, even though I fight it as much as I can, working my patients until they’re sweating and crying and cussing me out.

  It’s not my favorite part of the job, when they hit their low point, shaking and exhausted and spent, but the truth is, that’s good pain—pain that precedes healing. Otherwise, muscles that go unchallenged shrink, bones left untested become brittle. Use it or lose it. There are a thousand variations on the fundamental truth of Newton’s Third Law: for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. The less you demand of something, the less it gives back, the weaker it becomes, until one day it’s a shadow of itself.