by Abby Brooks
My sisters stay with me until I manage to trick us all into thinking I might be okay. As they’re standing to go, I’m laughing at their jokes and starting to think it might all end up okay. That this is just a hiccup on our path, not a divergence. Not the end. I hug them and I thank them and hug them and thank them again.
“You guys are the best,” I say, waving from my doorway.
“We know!” they call back in unison, blowing kisses at me.
I pour myself a shot of whiskey in my Grand Canyon shot glass. Throw it back and imagine I’m kissing him, tasting the whiskey from his tongue. Maybe, just maybe, I can give him time and space to work through all this.
And maybe, just maybe, when this is all over I’ll be at his side, holding his hand as we travel the globe. I’ll be smiling too wide, filled with every color imaginable. Maybe this pain right now is just the price of admission.
I head upstairs and curl up in bed, where his scent is still on my pillow. Where I still remember the way he looked, those dark eyes staring up at me. I feel surrounded by him and he isn’t even here. His taste in my mouth. His scent in my nose. His name in my heart.
Needing him, I grab my phone and open up Instagram, moving on instinct to his profile. My heart soars when it sees his face and then falls to the ground at the very next picture. It’s almost the exact same picture he took of us that first night we met. The one where he’s smiling and I’m staring and it might be the first time I felt beautiful.
Except that’s not me with him. It’s another woman. And he’s not smiling at the camera, he’s staring at her. His eyes dark and hungry. A look that I thought was mine is now hers.
Numb, I scroll through the comments. A swell of virtual high fives, referencing some video on his channel. Even though my heart is screaming that it’s already had enough, I click on over to YouTube and find the newest upload. It’s him, with that woman who must also be a bartender. It’s our video, but with different actors. The crowd cheering him on as he sets up a trick. The woman all coy and flirty, totally melting under his gaze. She doesn’t figure it out and somehow I know that it’s because she actually doesn’t know how.
The crowd loses its mind when she concedes and he pulls her close. He doesn’t kiss her, but his eyes are devouring her. I drop my phone like it burned me. Storm downstairs and pace the living room. I want a drink. I want to call him. I want to throw something. My hands are fists and my jaw is a vise and my heart is still upstairs, sobbing in the bedroom.
I pour myself another drink. Vodka this time. But it still tastes like whiskey because I never rinsed out the shot glass. With his taste in my mouth and tears in my eyes, I race upstairs and pick up my phone.
Fuck you, Dominic Kane.
I send the text, hands shaking. Heart racing. Life shattering and falling to my feet like shards of broken glass scraping against me, biting into my skin.
Phone in hand, I pace my living room. Scream into a pillow. I don’t want to admit it, but I’m waiting for a reply. An explanation. A chance to scream at him.
I never get one because he never replies.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Even my sisters are broken hearted. Because they fell for it, too. They thought, like I thought, that I found a love that transcends all other loves. That I found a soulmate. That we would be the kind of couple that inspired books and movies and who lived happily ever after in a world that doesn’t believe in that anymore.
Turns out, I just met a creep who’s really good at selling himself.
And I’m the idiot who fell for it hook, line, and sinker. I’ve got the scars to prove it, scattered across my heart and my bones.
I wait for a reply for days.
Nothing.
I unfollow him on Instagram. Even remove it from my phone so I can’t accidentally see anything I don’t need to see. I can’t find my smile. My color is gone. I go to work, come home. Sleep. Sometimes I bathe. Most times I cry.
The gold rush at The Bad Apple is over. All the attention is on that other bar, with that other woman. The people who come in either don’t know what happened and could care less about me, or they do know and they treat me like I’m fragile. Smiling those tense smiles that never quite reach their eyes. I try to pretend like I’m okay, but there’s just no hiding the fact that I’m not.
It’s been a week of no contact. A week of silence. A week of broken heart and tear stained cheeks. A week of sad smiles from strangers and solemn apologies from my sisters. The clock on the wall at The Bad Apple says I still have four more hours before I can go home. Of course, the only difference between here and there is that there’s no one to make me feel worse at my apartment.
There aren’t many people here. Jeremy and The Fish are huddled together at the end of the bar. There’s a few frat kids playing a relatively respectful game of pool in the back. There are a few couples at handful of tables. Conversations are hushed, like the people are afraid to be joyful around me.
When the door opens, I can’t help but look, glad for a distraction from the long stretch of nothing I’ve had to do. At first, I can’t process what I see. And then when I do, I don’t understand the rush of emotions that set my hands shaking.
Dominic Kane walks towards me, his eyes locked on my face. He steps around the bar and pulls me into him, pressing his lips into mine. He threads his hands up into my hair and for just the briefest of moments I relax into him, my heart finally at ease. After a week of missing him. After a week of sadness and worry, here he is, kissing me like I am his again.
But then, in a great whirr of thoughts and indignation, the world catches back up with me and I push him away. “Get the fuck away from me.” The words hiss through clenched teeth.
“Dakota—”
“Don’t speak to me. Don’t touch me.” I back up, holding out my hands, showing him my palms. After all this time wishing I was with him, here he is and I just want him gone. Out of my sight. Out of my heart and my head. I don’t want to hurt for this man anymore. I don’t want to yearn for him. I don’t want to cry myself to sleep for him. I don’t want to want him. Not if all I am to him is a publicity stunt to further his online fame. A place to stay when he doesn’t have one. A place to put his dick.
“I need you to hear me.”
“No. You had your chance to be heard when I texted you and you never texted back.”
“You mean the time you said ‘fuck you’? That was my chance to be heard?”
People are staring now and I really don’t care. Our relationship started with an audience, it can end with one, too. “It certainly didn’t mean just disappear and never say anything.”
“I’m here now, aren’t I?”
He has a point. One that my heart and soul are begging me to listen to. They are on their knees, hands clasped, pleading with my mind to stop worrying about being right and just pay attention to what he has to say right now.
I put my hands on my hips and sigh, lifting my chin and putting on my Small but Bitchy face. Jeremy and The Fish are watching us, their heads pinging back and forth like they’re watching a tennis match. “So speak,” I say, hoping that my eyes are hard and my jaw is set and that’s what he sees rather than the little girl inside me who wants to run into his arms and never leave.
“Here?” He gestures to the now totally quiet bar.
“This is your chance, Kane.”
Dominic sighs. “The pictures and the video were staged Dakota. The whole reason I was in Wyoming was because that bar wanted a publicity stunt just like the one I accidentally did for The Bad Apple.”
“Bullshit.”
“It’s not. You can call them and ask them. Hell, you can even ask to talk to the bartender. Her name is Anna. She’s nice.”
Rage hits me in the chest. “I have absolutely zero desire to talk to her. And zero reason to believe you. If it was staged, why didn’t you tell me?”
“If you love something, set it free.” He looks lost. So hurt and so lost that my heart is beggi
ng me to forgive him.
“What the hell is it with you people and the dumb quotes?” I run a hand through my hair. “If you’re going to talk to me, at least have the decency to use your own words.”
Dominic closes his eyes and sighs—a long heavy breath—and I see the dark circles under his eyes for the first time since he walked in. “Remember the conversation we had the last time I was here?” His eyes dart towards Jeremy and The Fish, he’s begging me not to make him repeat it in front of them.
I concede and nod. In fact, I’m really starting to feel like I don’t want this on display any more. “I remember,” I say, the harsh edges in my voice softening.
He steps into my personal space and the rest of the world zooms out of focus. It’s just him and me and that’s all that matters. “I thought that if I could make you hate me, then you wouldn’t sit here, missing me. Wishing you could be with me. That I wouldn’t have to worry about you getting hurt or leaving me because you’d be safe here. Like a bird in a cage. But not that at all because I thought if I could just free you from me, then you’d go on and be happy without me.”
“I wasn’t. I shattered when I saw those pictures.”
“That was the plan.”
“What?” My voice cracks. How could he want me to hurt? How could he want me to fall into a million pieces?
“You’d get over it. Time and all that. You’d realize that you didn’t need me to be happy and go on living your life without me dragging you across the world and putting you in danger.”
“You broke me to save me? Do you hear how ridiculous that sounds?”
“I do. It does. And clearly, it didn’t work. I can’t be without you, Dakota. I need you with me.”
He puts a hand on my shoulder and I flinch away. Not only am I not ready for him to touch me, but I don’t think I can stay strong against his touch. “I don’t know if you’ve earned me, Dominic.”
“I know for a fact that I haven’t. But I’m here in front of you, begging you to let me have another chance. I didn’t want to lose you because I couldn’t survive without you. But that’s true no matter what. I can’t survive without you. And you being here, possibly moving on, living your life … well … that’s me being without you.”
“You’re not making any sense, Dominic.” I’m so confused that I don’t know what to do with myself.
“I love you, Dakota London. I thought if I could leave you, make you hate me, that you would be safe here in Townsbury and would go on living your life, happy and carefree. I thought that just knowing that you were okay would be enough for me and I could survive without a you-sized hole in my heart. But I’m too selfish. And the only time I don’t have a you-sized hole in my heart is when we’re together. So I’m here. Asking you to be with me. To forgive me. To travel the world with me. Let me show you adventure. I’m asking you to let me set you free.”
“What?” My head is spinning and my heart crying out. “I don’t want you to set me free. I want to be with you.”
Dominic shakes his head and runs a hand up the back of his neck. “I’m doing a terrible job of this. You always wanted to be a bird, free to fly wherever you wanted to go. And you’ve said that this place is a cage. Let me free you from the cage.”
I step towards him. “Stop trying to be poetic and tell me what you want.”
“You.” He puts his hands on my arms. “I want you.” His eyes soften. “I want you to travel with me. Go where I go and see what I see. We could start a travel blog. You write the articles and I take the pictures and we just go where life takes us. Together.”
He moves a hand to my cheek and I lean into it. Everything I’ve ever wanted is standing right in front of me. My dreams handed to me on a platter. I want to say yes to him. I want it more than anything in the whole wide world.
“This is crazy,” I say, my words a whisper, my resolve crumbling, my anger dissolved by the look in his eyes.
“Love is crazy.”
Over Dominic’s shoulder, I see the doors open and Maya and Chelsea come through—they probably have some sort of sisterly rescue plan in mind. Their eyes go straight to us and their jaws drop in unison. I smile and give my focus back to Dominic.
“I really fucking love you,” I say. “And I thought I died last week. I’ve never known such pain. I shriveled up into this tiny little cold thing and you have a long way to go before I forgive you.”
“But you’ll come with me?”
“What about money? A job? How do you even make money off a travel blog?” But my mind is already connecting the dots. I might be able to make a living as a writer. Traveling the world with the man I love the most. I glance over his shoulder and see my sisters, huddled together, smiling bigger than I’ve ever seen them smile.
“You write like you were meant for this. And I have connections. And sometimes we’ll have to rough it, but sometimes that’s the best part of the job.”
I study him. Can I do this? Can I give up my apartment and my family to travel with this man? Can I set sail on a wish and a dream? Everything inside me is saying yes.
“You want me to leave my hometown? My family? A job that pays the bills? And you want me to travel with you? Write about what we see and hope we make enough money to survive?”
He nods. “Yep. I want all of that. And I want one more thing.”
I sense my sisters edging closer. “What else do you want?”
“You. I want all of you. I want you to be mine. Forever.” Dominic holds out his hand and somehow, out of nowhere, there’s a ring pinched between his fingers, a diamond glinting in the overhead lights of the bars. “I’ve met a lot of people in a lot of different places and never in all my years have I met someone who makes me feel like you do. We aren’t just cut from the same cloth, we’re heading in the same direction and I would be a fool to let a jewel like you slip through my fingers because I’m scared of what would happen if I lost you.”
I’m staring at the ring. Mouth open. The whole bar wavers as if I’m underwater as tears well up in my eyes.
Dominic gets down on one knee. “Will you marry me, Dakota? Will you be the one to love me and set me free?”
“This is crazy,” I whisper and glance from his hopeful face to where Maya and Chelsea have come up near the bar. They’re grinning like idiots and I realize that I am, too. I look back at Dominic without saying a word.
“You’re killing me here,” he says with a pained expression.
I laugh and the tears fall. “Yes. Yes, I’ll marry you.”
My sisters squeal as Dominic slides the ring onto my finger. He swoops me up in a giant hug and swings me around while everyone cheers and claps. “Were you able to get everything ready?” he asks Maya and Chelsea. I turn to him in confusion.
“Yep,” says Maya.
“It’s all out in the car.” Chelsea grins at me with her biggest older sister smile.
“What’s going on?” I ask.
“You didn’t make it to Vegas last time. I thought you’d want to go.” Dominic smiles at me, that wide, swoon-worthy smile that makes me shiver.
“Now?”
“Yep. Want to get married?”
“In Vegas?” I’m smiling. “Now?”
“As soon as we get there.”
“This is crazy.” I look at my sisters who are beaming at me. And then I look at Dominic and my heart melts and my soul starts flying.
“So is that a yes?” The look on his face tells me that he knows it is.
“Take me to Vegas, baby.”
I holler at Big Jake. Tell him I quit. He just shrugs and lumbers his big ass behind the bar and starts taking orders. I hug my sisters and can’t decide if I want to thank them for keeping it a secret or yell at them. In the end, I just squeeze them tight.
“Is this right?” I ask them as we huddle in our London sister clump.
“Do you even have to ask?” Chelsea smiles down at me.
I smile and shrug. “I just need to hear you say it.”
> “I’ve never seen anything more right in the world. Go. Be with the man you love. Marry him and live your crazy life.”
Maya’s nodding her agreement, tears sliding down her cheeks. I hug them both one last time before tucking myself back into Dominic’s arms. He leads me outside where there’s a car waiting with our bags packed and filling the trunk. He kisses me, slow and sweet, filled with need and longing.
“Thanks for being my happily ever after,” he whispers and kisses my forehead.
I look up at him, my heart swollen with a love so strong it hurts. “Thank you for being my everything.”
Epilogue
Vegas is amazing. Of course. Dominic is strong and in charge. Gentle, yet in control. He knows his way around like he built the place himself and is the best possible tour guide. We get married as soon as we get there. A simple ceremony, just the two of us. No fluff or frills.
I’d go into details, but I’m not sure I’m ready to share it just yet. Right now it feels so perfect and wonderful. A secret that is for me and Dominic.
Ours.
To have and to hold.
Til death do us part.
I’m sure I’ll be talked into sharing the details at some point. But that will be later.
For now, it all belongs to me and Dominic.
He has our itinerary for the next couple weeks on a lovely calendar in his laptop. I sent the info on to Maya, Chelsea, and our parents so they would know where I am. My parents were not very pleased about my sudden marriage. Not at all. But I’m happy and so they say that makes them happy and they’ll learn to live with me gallivanting all over the globe with a man that makes me happier than I’ve ever been—even if they haven’t met him yet.