by Jaimes, Cole
“I am.”
“And your company’s being investigated?”
“Yes.”
He nods, takes a sip of his coffee. “Sounds serious.”
“Financial matters usually are, I’ve come to realize.”
“She didn’t have anything to do with it, you know.”
“To do with the investigation?” Why would he feel the need to tell me that?
Max nods. “She’s been worrying herself sick over it. You thinking she had something to do with your kingdom on the hill falling into disrepute.”
“I’m not sure what you’re talking about. Of course I know she didn’t do it. I told the authorities. It was the right thing to do.”
Max’s eyebrows rocket upward. Clearly this wasn’t what he expected me to say. “Right. Well. That was ballsy. The reports on the news and online made it sound like someone had blown the whistle on you or something.”
I wouldn’t know. I made a point of not reading any of that shit. It makes me angry to hear that, but it also makes sense in a way. “It would make for pretty boring news if they told the truth and said I raised the red flag myself, wouldn’t it? Far more exciting if there’s an element of scandal to the story.”
Max grunts, taking a sip from his coffee cup. “Yeah. You’re right there.”
He goes silent and we both sit there, eyeing each other up. He seems to be making his mind up about something. He gets up and pours himself another cup of coffee. “She was here,” he says quietly.
“Was? So she’s not anymore?”
He shakes his head. “She wanted to come out here, do some thinking she said. About three days ago she said she was done with that and needed to move on.”
“She went back to Chicago?”
He looks torn, like he’s not sure if he should tell me or not. “She’s not going back there to live, man. She’s going back there to pack up her shit and get the hell out of dodge. She was talking about the west coast or something. I don’t think she’d made up her mind yet, though.”
God, my head is pounding all of a sudden. “Is she still there? When is she leaving?”
Max leans against the table, angling his head from side to side until it makes a loud cracking sound. “I don’t know. She needed some space, so I haven’t been texting her every five minutes. I can call and tell her what you said about the investigation, though—that you reported it yourself. That should bring her some peace. She worries about what you’re thinking.”
“She does?” Seems to me, if she were concerned about what I’m thinking, she would have reached out to me by now. She hasn’t, though. She’s been radio silent, and that’s been screaming volumes.
“I know Essie,” Max says. I know her well, and when she’s feeling threatened she goes to ground. She’s been like that since her parents died. But I don’t know. These past few weeks, something’s changed in her.” He looks down at his hands where they’re gripping the back of the chair in front of him, and his brow furrows. “She’s turned a corner. It’s been a long time coming, and I have to say I’m fucking relieved. She’s letting go of what happened. She’s not hell bent on making someone suffer anymore, and that is entirely down to you. I don’t know if she’s gonna come back to you, man. She may have already left Chicago. She may not. She may call you tomorrow. She may call you in six years. She may never call you again. I have absolutely no fucking clue what she’s planning on doing. Essie isn’t the type of person you can predict at the best of times, and right now she seems to be opening her eyes to a number of possibilities. What I can say is that I hope she does find her way back to you. I think you were the only one who could snap her out of this terrible place she’s been occupying in her head since Vaughn died. And I thank you for that.”
The last thing in the world I ever expected this guy to do was thank me, or tell me he wants her to be with me. “Thank you,” I say. He clasps my hand, and his grip is warm, strong.
“You’re welcome,” he says. “Like I said, I hope this works out. I really do. Essie’s had a brutal time over the past few years. It would be amazing if something went right for her for once. I hope you can forgive her for what she was planning.”
“I already have.”
Chapter Thirteen
Essie
Back in my apartment, the flowers Aidan gave me are still here. The water dried up in the vase long ago, and the flowers are dead, brown and brittle. Fitting, I suppose, yet I still can’t bring myself to throw them away. It’s the only thing left that hasn’t been packed, donated, or tossed. The apartment seems cavernous, stark, and empty. The only furniture left is the bed and a bookshelf, and both are going to be claimed later this afternoon by people from Craigslist. It’s hard to believe I lived here for as long as I did, hard to believe that it’s so easy to just pack up a life and make it seem like it never actually existed.
Strangely, I can’t seem to make myself leave just yet. This wasn’t how it was supposed to end, yet in a way, it feels fitting. It is fitting that I should finally be leaving this place, a city where the majority of my memories consist of struggle or pain or loss. I think of San Francisco, and everything I’ve read about it, the pictures I’ve seen online. It must be quite something to live in a place where it doesn’t snow, where you can wear short sleeves in January. To have the ocean right there.
I’m not sure what kind of life I imagine for myself there, what I’ll do, where I’ll live, who I might become friends with. It’s scary to be planning a move somewhere I’ve never before, where I don’t know anyone. It feels like I’m throwing myself off a cliff before I’ve even had chance to figure out if these brand new wings of mine are working or not. I seriously hope they are.
I’m scrubbing the kitchen when someone knocks at the door—must be the Craigslist person here for the bookshelf, a woman named Laura. I’m breathless, wearing rubber gloved and my hair is a ratty mess when I reach the door and open it.
“Hell…Oh.” The breath leaves my body like it was just kicked out of me. Aidan Callahan is standing on the other side of the door. And he does not look happy.
He’s so fucking beautiful. Like an angel Michelangelo painted on his ceiling. We stand there, neither of us saying anything for several long seconds. Finally, the grim expression melts from his face, to be replaced by a weary smile.
“Essie,” he says.
There is part of me that wants to run to him, jump in his arm. There is part of me that can’t believe he’s here, and that I am seeing him again. But there’s another part of me that knows this can’t work, it won’t work, I’ve already made up my mind. I’m moving. I might as well already be gone. I back up, shaking my head. “No. What are you doing here, Aidan?” I reach out to push the door shut but he’s stepping in, his gaze locked on my face.
“Don’t even try it. I’m not going anywhere until we’ve spoken,” he informs me.
I press my forehead into the edge of the door, closing my eyes. “I can’t fight with you. I just can’t. I don’t have it in me anymore.”
“I don’t want to fight. I want to know you’re okay. I want to know you’re not planning on leaving this city without talking to me first. Don’t you think we owe each other that, at least?
He looks wounded, like I’ve hurt him beyond measure, and that makes my eyes prick painfully. “I’m okay. Though I guess it depends what the definition of ‘okay’ actually is. And yes, perhaps I was planning on leaving without seeing you. What would have been the point in raking us both over the coals one last time?”
The muscles in Aidan’s jaw tighten as he clenches his jaw. “Invite me in. I have some things I want to say to you, Essie. And I’m sure there are some things you’d like to say to me, too.”
I’m scared to let him in. I’m scared to let him see how broken I am, now that I’ve finally realized what I was trying to do to him. “I don’t know if that’s such a great idea.”
“Essie, please.” He carefully reaches out and touches the top of my arm, fi
ngers skating over my skin, and I shiver involuntarily.
“Okay,” I whisper.
I move through to the kitchen, and Aidan follows close behind me. “Do you know how freaked out I’ve been that I couldn’t find you?” he says. “You just dropped off the face of the planet. Who does that? Do you know how many times I called you? How many texts I sent? And you never replied to a single one. Not even to let me know that you were still alive. You scared the shit out of me, Ess. I haven’t been able to sleep. I haven’t been able to think about anything but you. And considering all the other shit that’s going on right now, that’s really saying something.” His eyes are bright with agitation and pain.
“I didn’t think you’d want to see me,” I say quietly. “I mean, the last time we saw each other, I was screaming at you in a cemetery. You were just trying to be nice, and I…I was awful to you.”
“Damn straight you were.” Aidan shrugs out of his leather jacket. He throws it down on the kitchen counter. “I told you that I’ve been watching you for years, Essie. I’ve had the benefit of seeing you on your good days and your bad. I knew you were suffering before we even met. It wasn’t a surprise to me that you were angry. I expected it. I wanted to get it out of the way, though, so we could move on and forget about bad days. So we could be happy with each other. Look after one another. Take care of each other.”
“And I ruined that. I told you about what Alex did, and I ruined it.”
Aidan blows out a deep breath. He won’t look at me, and my stomach feels like it’s tying itself into knots. “You lashed out,” he says quietly. “But I had faith that you wouldn’t purpose try to hurt me with the information.”
“I was going to, Aidan! I was really going to. Even three days before, I had it straight in my head that I was going to leak the data to the press and ruin the Callahan Corporation. I changed my mind, though. I swear to god, I have no idea how the media found out, but it wasn’t me.”
“I know. I told them, Essie. It’s okay.”
“You?”
He nods. “It felt wrong knowing something like that and not taking the appropriate action. It would have come out eventually. Companies are audited all the time. If I’d left it well alone and someone had figured it out later on, it would have ended very badly.” Sighing, he sits down on a bar stool; he looks worn down and exhausted. “I don’t want to talk about the business. I don’t want to talk about what you were planning, Essie. I want to talk about you and me.”
“How can there be a you and me?” I whisper this, because even talking about us in the same sentence makes my head spin. “There can’t be a you and me.”
“And yet there is.” Aidan folds his arms across his chest, and now he looks at me. Looks me dead in the eye. “It’s not humanly possible to switch off your feelings for someone, Ess. You should know that. You’ve been trying ever since you met me and you failed. I watched you wrestling with your emotions, trying to deny them, and all you succeeded in doing was making yourself miserable. Do you see that now?”
I do see that. I see it, and I regret it so much. “Yes. And now it’s too late.”
“It isn’t. It’s only too late if you let your past win here, beautiful. I love you, Essie Floyd. I don’t love you because you’re damaged and you need protecting. I don’t love you because I feel guilty over Alex causing Vaughn’s death. I don’t love you because you tricked me into it as part of your grand scheme to seek revenge. I love you because you’re strong and fierce. Because of your loyalty. Because the vastness of your heart is capable of overflowing with so much love, yourself.”
“How? How can you say that? My heart isn’t capable of anything but hate. It’s broken.” Tears stream down my face. I have no idea how he can say those lovely things about me, especially his last comment, when I’ve been so terrible to him.
Aidan slowly shakes his head. “Your heart may be broken, but it still loves. You love your brother so much that you dedicated most of your adult life to trying to fix a wrong that should never have taken place. And you did that the only way you know how. Now, you’re realizing there’s another way, though. I know you are.”
When I set out on this journey six months after Vaughn died, I never thought I’d be in a position to agree with Aidan Callahan about anything. Definitely not about this. “I know that, too,” I say. “Vaughn was a goofball. He was a sweet, giving, honest guy, and he would never have done the things I chose to do if I had died. He would have honored me by living a good, happy life. That’s what I should have done in the first place.”
Relief flashes across Aidan’s face. “It’s not too late for you to do the same, you know? You can honor him by really living. By letting happiness into your life. Let me help you do that.”
That’s it. That’s well and truly all I can take. My cheeks are wet with my tears already, but now I start sobbing. I don’t deserve this. I don’t deserve his forgiveness, and I sure as hell don’t deserve his love. I cover my face with my hands, wanting to hide away my shame. Warm, strong arms wrap around me, and Aidan pulls me to him, holding me against his strong chest. The smell of him is everywhere, filling my head with memories—beautiful, wonderful, special memories that I thought were going to have to last me a lifetime. There was no way I thought I was ever going to get to make more with him.
“You can’t seriously want me,” I whisper into his t-shirt.
“I do. Of course I do. People get lost along with way sometimes. We are all perfectly imperfect in our pain. I’m not stupid enough to think you’re going to heal overnight, but I know you will heal eventually. I want to help you do that. I want us to be perfectly imperfect together, okay? I love you, Essie Floyd.”
If hearts could stop, the world could cease to turn, and time could stand still, then all three things happen at once. Since that day at the cemetery, I’ve dreamed about being able to tell Aidan how sorry I am and how foolish I’ve been. But even more than that, I’ve dreamed about telling him how I feel. I thought my one and only opportunity to do that had slipped through my fingers, and yet here I am, gifted with one last chance. I’m the luckiest girl alive. “I love you, too, Aidan. God, I love you, too. So much.”
Aidan smiles, his eyes shining brightly, and he looks like he’s finally at peace. “Then forget about everything that’s happened up until this point. This is where we start, okay? This moment right here is where our lives together begin.”
He kisses me, and everything melts away. All of the worry and all of the pain we’ve both been suffering for what seems like forever suddenly doesn’t matter anymore. Neither of us has to bear it alone anymore.
For so long, it felt like Aidan Callahan was responsible for destroying my life. How ironic that he should now be the one to show me how beautiful it can be.
Epilogue
There’s sand down the sides of the sofa. There’s sand shored up in little dunes against the kick-boards. There’s sand in my pockets, and in my socks, and yes, there’s sand in my underwear. There is sand literally everywhere.
Hawaii is a paradise I would never have gotten to experience if I hadn’t forgiven myself and said yes when Aidan asked me to marry him. It took three months for the investigation into the Callahan Corporation’s accounts to draw to a close; the day they announced that no further legal action was going to be taken and the business was allowed to continue trading, Aidan dropped down on one knee in front of a hot dog stand where we were grabbing lunch, and he asked me to become his wife. I was stunned, followed by incredibly happy, and then bemused as people started taking pictures of us on their cellphones. The next morning, the front cover of numerous tabloids were plastered with grainy shots of a grinning Aidan slipping a beautiful, simple, understated diamond ring onto my finger while I stood there, my other hand covering my mouth as I cried my eyes out. I guess that’s what happens when you’re with Chicago’s most eligible male. Not so eligible anymore, though.
Since I’d given up my apartment when I was planning on running away t
o San Francisco, I’d moved into Aidan’s. Following the proposal, we arrived home and I was shocked to find all of my things packed into suitcases and boxes by the front door. “What’s all this? Were you planning on kicking me out if I’d said no?” I’d laughed at the time, but a small part of me had been panicking. My fears were washed away when he took me in his arms and kissed me, however.
“Of course not. I’d have lived in sin with you forever, Ms. Floyd. I just don’t particularly want to do that here. If it’s okay with you, I thought we might go and live somewhere a little quieter. Warmer. More…beach oriented.”
“California?”
“How about Oahu?”
And that’s how we ended up living in Hawaii. Aidan set up a small office for the Callahan Corporation five miles from our new home, and he spends the afternoons working from there. His mornings are spent teaching children how to surf, and I’ve never seen a man happier in all my life.
I was worried about what I was going to do to fill my time until I came across a flyer for the University of Honolulu, and realized I’d actually love the opportunity to study. Six weeks after arriving in Hawaii, I was enrolled in a Bachelors of Arts in Psychology, and I’m thriving. Understanding how the human mind works is helping me to understand myself better, and when my studies are complete, I aim to set up a practice as a grief counselor in the hope that I can help people deal with loss and pain in a productive, healthy way.
Monday through Friday, both Aidan and I work hard so our schedules are clear at the weekend to spend time together; Aidan always surprises me with a stunning hike or something adventurous for us to do. This weekend, he shoos me back into bed and brings me pancakes and coffee, though, and he has a mischievous glint in his eye.
“Why are you looking at me like that, Mr. Callahan?” I grin, scooping up a forkful of my breakfast and popping it into my mouth. The sweetness hits the sides of my tongue, and it’s divine. He’s such an amazing cook.