by A. J. Sand
“The Silver Method black and white anniversary one? I had planned to tell you, I swear! It’s on my list.” As Naomi turned to her iPad, Erica remembered that Bryson’s dad was celebrating his record label’s thirty-five years of existence. Naomi jerked her gaze up from the iPad screen and her facial muscles tightened.
“What?” Erica asked. Her brow furrowed as she pondered. “Are you dragging me to meet caterers, too?” But Naomi’s expression was too grave for anything wedding-related, even if it might have been about her future in-laws. Erica’s heart tumbled down her abdomen and was now submerged in her stomach. Fuck. Bryson has a new girlfriend, I bet. That’s probably why she didn’t tell me about the party. She wanted to break this to me beforehand. Yet, as she studied her sister, she knew that it was beyond even potentially heart-shattering gossip, and a chill raced down her spine. “What’s going on?”
“Oh God, please don’t be upset with me, E. I’ve been so busy and—”
“Jesus, what? Is it mom? Did something happen to her?” Both girls had lost contact with their mother years ago, and Naomi had been trying to track her down to invite her to the wedding. Erica had also tried to locate her once to tell her that she was getting married, too. No need now.
“No, not mom. I’m still out of luck with that, though.” Naomi took in a deep breath. “Please don’t be mad at me for not saying anything, but last week, this older guy started showing up at Bennie’s during my shifts, and we made friendly small talk about ourselves while I was taking his drink order, like I always do. I didn’t think anything of what he was saying when he was asking more about my family, but his questions all of a sudden started focusing on you, and he asked about the nature of your relationship with…Jeremy Bunyan. And then he showed me photos of your other guy friends and asked me whether you were ever only friends with them or if you more or less sometimes fooled around with them. How did he put it? ‘If your relationships tended to be fluid.’ I demanded to know who he was; I don’t think he was a cop because I told him to give me his badge number, and when he didn’t, I told him I was going to tell my manager to kick him out, so he left.”
What. The. Hell. “Did he come back after that week?” Erica’s heart slammed against her breastbone.
“Not since then. I told everyone who works there he’s not welcome back.”
“You remember what he looked like exactly?”
“Like someone’s grandpa, one minute, and then some Law and Order detective, the next. Nothing about him was out of the ordinary, like a scar or tattoo or anything.” Naomi rapped on the table with her nails as she searched her thoughts for any important details. “Oh! He was wearing a worn black and orange baseball cap. Orange bill. He took it off when he sat down at the bar, but I remember it being next to his drink. I think it had a cute, cartoon-looking bird on it. The bird was wearing a cap, too.”
Black and orange cap with a bird? “Sounds like he’s a Baltimore Orioles fan. Anything else?”
Naomi nibbled on her lip before switching it out for one of her nails. “I followed him out, but he got into his car so quickly. The bouncer told me the guy was in a Camry with another guy, who was waiting for him. He didn’t get a plate number or anything. But it was—”
“A Camry? Was it a gold one? That color they really like to put Camrys in?” Like the one near her car where the yoga studio was. A cutting chill tore at her spine. No. It couldn’t be. She prayed Naomi was about to say any other color.
“Yes… that’s the one.”
Her heart was about to fly out of her mouth any minute. She rubbed the front of her forehead, her emotions caught between irritation and fright, though she felt herself tipping toward irritation, and maybe simply bypassing it for rage. “He sounds like a private investigator.” And he was prodding in her life, which meant Jeremy definitely knew that there was an investigation. He was digging up dirt on her, and Chase’s comments suddenly made sense. If she were promiscuous, or “slutty,” or at least made out to be that way, the rape would seem unlikely to some people. Was this meant to scare her into begging the investigators to never resolve the case if it meant her reputation might be tarnished by public opinion, if and when the investigation ever went public? Would they use whatever they gathered to fight his extradition to Thailand?
Erica pressed through her memory for every older guy she’d come across the past few days. Had any stared at her too long? Had she seen any in more than one place where she was? But if he were good, she wouldn’t be able to answer any of those questions. And it was impossible to remember something she hadn’t been aware of in the first place. She wondered how long he had been following her. Weeks, probably. Shit.
“Wait…you don’t seem surprised. You expected this, and you said nothing to me about it,” Naomi said with a tone highlighting her feelings of betrayal. Erica didn’t speak but kept an apologetic expression aimed at her. She was not proud that she had become someone who was always keeping secrets from the people she loved. She wasn’t proud of a lot of things lately. “And here I was freaking out about not telling you immediately. For letting wedding stuff take over my life! I really thought I’d be the last person on Earth you’d shut out, E. After…after everything…” Naomi got quiet when her lip quivered.
“You’ve got a lot on your plate right now, Mimi,” Erica said, but the explanation clearly left Naomi dissatisfied, and she lowered her eyes to her iPad screen, leaving Erica to finish her cold meal without any more conversation. Naomi was right; the explanation wasn’t good enough. She was the one who had flown to the other side of the world to be with her during the early days of the investigation. Naomi had come the closest to seeing the worst of it. The problem was that Erica’s need to always be strong, was just short of instinctual at this point.
When the waiter cleared their plates, Erica tried to make amends by squeezing her sister’s arm, but Naomi ignored her until Erica shielded the iPad screen with her hands.
“Meems… don’t be mad at me, okay? Because you’re stuck with me. And you know stuff like this is hard for me.”
Naomi leaned away, frowning as she crossed her arms over her chest, but her face soon smoothed out. “I know, Erica, and that’s why I don’t really push you about Bryson and telling him and fixing it, but…but it’s me, you know. I’ve seen you throughout this whole ordeal, so you don’t have to hide things from me.” Naomi slapped her palm down on the table and rolled her eyes. “Gah.”
“I’m sorry,” Erica said. She could act without question when she thought someone else was in need, but she constantly struggled with knowing what that truly meant for herself.
Buttons’ sharp barks permeated the door to the apartment before Erica turned the key, and she heard Dylan call to him as she walked in. She was standing at the kitchen island, and a cheerful look took shape on her face when she lifted her head from the elegant bouquet of pink flowers before her.
“We get it, okay? You guys are in love,” Erica said with pretend animosity, as she tossed her stuff on the couch. She threw herself on it next, exhausted, and too lazy to shower. Naomi hadn’t exactly been truthful about what she had planned to do today, and the list kept growing longer and longer as the time slipped away. Four freakin’ hours!
Dylan lifted the vase and brought it over to her. “Oh, no, these are not for me. I got all excited and interrupted Kai’s studio time calling him because I thought, ‘Okay this is a nice change for the guy who doesn’t buy flowers!’ Nope. For you. They came about an hour ago. From So Sorry.” After setting the vase on the coffee table, Dylan handed her the card to read before she vanished into her bedroom. The bouquet was formed of fresh pink Asiatic lilies, but there was a single silk pink camellia in the middle, and it was a message all on its own. Erica plucked out the camellia as she flipped open the card.
I’m so sorry.
Erica’s shoes were off before she walked into the apartment. Something on the stove smelled good and she eyed the gorgeous bouquet of pink flowers on the dining r
oom table, silently thanking Joseline for both. She hadn’t eaten at her meeting with Kai’s record label because she was leaving for the Philippines and Thailand tomorrow with her friends, and she wanted to have her last meal in America for a while with her fiancé.
My fiancé!
God, it was so cheesy, but she was excited to tell him that she would change her last name to Ellis. He had never brought it up, and she was pretty sure he didn’t care, but it was her way of showing that she meant forever.
“Bryce!” she called out after shutting the door, nearly tripping over her packed luggage, where her printed boarding passes and passport lay. A bittersweet feeling settled in her chest, almost pushing tears up to the surface. She loved traveling with her friends, but leaving Bryson…that was like a hammer to the heart. They both wished he could come but, at work, he was part of a management team that was essentially in a bidding war with another management firm for a new artist. He had to stay. It was one trip, she reminded herself, and she could talk to him whenever. Technology would make it like he was right there.
Except he wouldn’t be.
She stared at the new curtains they’d put up as she struggled to slide her zipper down the back of her dress. The shade was called Bordeaux. She’d picked them. She smiled as she gave the place a cursory glance, spotting all the permanent details she’d added over time. It was becoming a home. It was becoming their home. Bryson would roll his eyes, but she’d get a doormat that said, ‘The Ellises,’ and maybe a sign to hang on the door, too. The Ellises would be living here!
“No, it’s not Evigan anymore. It’s Ellis. Please call me Mrs. Ellis,” she whispered out loud, unable to not laugh at herself, but she was looking forward to correcting people. And changing documents and credit cards. And all those things that probably seemed like a hassle. She would enjoy doing them. If she were fourteen again, she’d be doodling his last name on her binder in big, curled letters with a heart dotting the i. Who was she kidding? She’d be drawing hearts on all the letters.
“Hey, babe…” Bryson walked out of the bedroom, with messy hair, contacts out, glasses on, and was still the sexiest thing she had ever seen. Erica smiled.
“Hi! Wanna know how cool your fiancée is?” She pulled a CD case out of her bag and handed it to him.
“Cool enough to make CDs a huge thing again?” he said with a confused look as he flipped the unlabeled jewel case back and forth. “‘Cause you’re cute, but it’s not happenin’, baby…”
“No, you dork,” she teased. “It’s Emerson Shipley’s uncut LP. The one not even being released until the end of the year. Kai White is a cool boss with a lot of friends and knows that his best friend-slash-publicist adores her fiancé, who happens to love Emerson. We pulled a few strings and… here stands the coolest fiancée ever.”
“Whoa! This is awesome! Thanks, babe,” Bryson said. “Hey, how come you’re home so early? I thought the meeting was supposed to go a lot longer?”
“Why? No time to kick your girlfriend out?”
“She’s rappelling down the side of the building right now,” he said with a playful look before sweeping her up into his arms for a hug. “These kisses are a distraction to give her time to get to the car. C’mon, let’s do it so she makes it.”
Erica smashed her laughter on his lips, and as she weaved her fingers through his hair, anxious to savor their last few hours together, her amusement faded. “I came home ‘cause I missed my man.”
No getting lost in the blur of it all, just remembering every piece of tonight before she left. The meeting of their lips made her heart constrict in yearning. Yearning in the now and in the days to come while she was away from him. Bryson’s hands roamed her body over her clothes, and it was satisfying but teasing at the same time. She was aching for him everywhere, possessing an insatiable need for skin on skin, him in her. A want to express with body what had been shown through words so many times. He shuddered when her palms grazed his abdomen and went down past the waistband of his PJ bottoms. On the way to the bedroom, their clothes came off in a fury of tangled limbs, and they were exploring each other’s bodies with soft touches, tight grips and wandering tongues before even landing on the mattress.
He grazed her lips with his then slipped his tongue between them, and she was almost overwhelmed by the desperation beneath the kiss. He claimed every part of her mouth, teasing the roof of it, relishing her near swollen lips and stroking her tongue with his. Bryson kissed between the mounds of her breasts then traced each nipple with his tongue, as one of his hands caressed her thigh before pushing them both open just slightly. Erica closed her eyes on a moan for a few seconds, and her back arched when his fingers sought out her most sensitive parts. But the delicate touch was infuriating, and he knew it. Some noises—guttural, impatient, assenting, begging—burst from her throat. Dipping his head between her legs, he sank a smile into the flesh of her inner thigh and kissed up to her clit. Soon the slow but firm flicks of his tongue and the bounce of his fingers inside her left her quivering with her hands folded around tufts of his hair.
“I’m going to miss you so much, baby,” he said as her spasms stilled. The warmth of his breath spreading over her skin stirred up a restless need in her; it made her hungry for him. It was almost agonizing to draw the wait out any longer with her emotions powering at full speed. His smile was sad, and it tore at her heart, nearly to the point of deciding to cancel her flight.
“Come here,” she said, curling a finger at him. Once he moved up and his hips settled between her thighs, Bryson slid into the wet warmth always waiting just for him and stroked her cheek with his thumb. She hooked one of her legs across his back, and he sank deeper into her. Face pressed to her neck, he rocked against her, finding a spot that released intense, uncontrollable moans out of her. He trembled a little when her fingers skimmed his bare back, and Erica locked both her legs around his waist and held him so close with her arms that his weight was almost uncomfortable. But the splendor of the moment, the unearthly pleasure overtaking her body, numbed her to everything else.
As their hips moved with a momentum that slammed the headboard into the wall, Bryson shivered and her fingernails bit into his slick shoulders as she cried out in excitement. This was the moment she wanted to remember, the point of delirium, when her body was ablaze, drenched in sweat, wanting the orgasm, wanting his orgasm. Bryson pushed up to his elbows and seared her with a pleading gaze as his strategic hip swivels sparked the friction against her clit she needed. The heat built quickly, and Erica gave in to it. She came with him watching, tightening around him as his thrusts went even deeper. Once her body settled, he flattened against her again as his groans got more forceful, more urgent. A tremor finally ripped down his entire body for what seemed like an eternity before his breaths quieted.
He rolled off her with a deep sigh and she cuddled against him. It was these times she loved the most, when they were so close in the dark, just the sweat between them, talking to each other. Where honesty could always replace vulnerability. Where they could talk about anything. This was her place to share her fears of becoming her mother, and she knew his about not being able to become his father. Nakedness was easy; actually baring it all, took courage. But tonight they were both quiet, meditative. Erica’s mind was on the future. Bryson idolized his parents, and she wanted to be like them. They were two best friends who had married each other, and she hoped so much for what they had.
“I can’t believe this room is going to be green soon,” Bryson said, hugging her closer to him. “Almost makes me wish the landlord had told us no.”
“And not just green. Hunter green, Ellis,” she corrected. “Hun. Ter.”
“‘Cause they can’t call it Baby Poop.”
Erica pushed up to her elbows and aimed a playful scowl at him. “Well, just so you know, you’re marrying me and my color palette, which happens to adore the shades in the green family.”
“Oh God, Hunter has relatives?” Bryson asked, exaggera
ting a horrified look that quickly softened into laughter.
Erica was giggling too. “Yup. Wait until you see what I have planned for the other rooms. Asparagus, Praying Mantis, Olive, Fern, Seafoam...” With each successive name, he pretended to gag before he pulled her back down to lie against him.
“I don’t care if you want to just throw buckets of paint at the walls, baby girl. You can do whatever you want. This is our life now and I plan to adore you…and your color palette for every single moment of it.” Bryson lifted her hand with the ring on it, and he pressed his lips to the back of it. “If the world as we know it turned to chaos tomorrow, and you were still mine, Erica, it would have enough beauty in it to be worth saving.” Bryson touched his lips to her forehead and it set off her tears.
She quietly palmed them off her face. She couldn’t stand the idea of him being sad right now. “And I’d love you until it couldn’t be saved. Until the very end of it. You know that, right?”
He nodded. “I’m going to miss you every day, Erica Anne Evigan. Every day.”
Erica sat up and hung her face over his. “I’m coming back, baby. Duh!” But it felt different. No ominous feeling or nightmares about plane crashes, but leaving her fiancé felt different than leaving her boyfriend.
He finally smiled when she dropped her lips to his. “Duh!” he parroted, but she knew his eyes, and all these years of staring into them meant knowing when there was more on his mind. Once they were in their PJs, Erica realized she still hadn’t eaten, and they both went out to the kitchen. She scooped some chili into a bowl, and Bryson gestured for her to sit on his lap at their dining room table.
She did most of the talking at this point, musing out loud about Kai’s upcoming album. “I’m thinking about doing this really cool thing for a pre-release album listening party. The album is sort of divided into three parts, so… You okay, babe?” she asked, twisting to look at him. Bryson had been silent, except for the occasional, “Mmhmm,” as his lips skimmed her upper back.