That's a Relief (Promises, Promises Book 3)

by Victoria Klahr

  I smile and release a long sigh. “Been busy, babe.”

  “Yeah you have!” She giggles. “Bow chicka bow wow.” I hear a deep voice in the background. “Brody, guess who got it on last night? No definitely not your brother. God, no. Just stop. I’m never playing this game with you again. It was Josie, you big dummy. Oh, yeah. I’ll tell her.” I roll my eyes. This should be good. “Brody says congrats and also to make sure you do that thing with your tongue in other areas too, if you get his drift.”

  “Oh. My. God.”

  “Hey, it’s not my fault you swapped spit with the dude.” I hear her take a sip of something before talking again. “So anyway, you two should come over later. We’re gonna go out again tonight before Alec comes home tomorrow. And it may be the last time we get to go out, since we have to move in less than a month.” I hear her pout through the phone.

  “I don’t want you to go,” I mumble, leaning my head back against the wall.

  “So come see me so we can bitch about the boys together. Please.”

  I smile and start walking to the bedroom. “Yeah. We’ll be there later.”

  “Bring some tequila!” she shouts before hanging up the phone.

  I walk into the room and step to my side of the bed. “Man, it is freezing outside today,” I say, climbing back under the covers.

  I look over at Seth and straighten when I see his position. His naked body is folded over his knees, hands pulling at his hair. My breath catches, and I tentatively reach my hand out to rub his back. “Are you okay?” I whisper.

  He nods but doesn’t look up, instead, pulling in long breaths of air. I wait with him, running my hands up and down his back. I’d know this reaction anywhere.

  “You left,” he says after several minutes. He turns his head in my direction, eyes filled with so many emotions, I can’t pick one to focus on.

  I nod and reach out to grab his hand. “I needed to get something from the car. I wasn’t leaving you.”

  “I woke up and you weren’t here,” he says, voice pained.

  It’s hard swallowing past the lump that forms in my throat. “Did you have a bad dream?”

  He turns away and looks across the room at nothing in particular.

  “Do you get them a lot?”

  “Every night,” he says softly.

  My heart breaks. I tug on his arm until he’s forced to move. I guide his head to my lap and run my fingers through his hair as he gazes up at me.

  “Me too,” I admit. “It’s going to take a lot of time and a lot of work and a hell of a lot of support, but we can get through this, too.” I lean down and press my lips to his. “I’m not leaving you. Not ever again.”

  He nods and we lay in a comfortable silence. Last night gave us time a lot of time to talk and heal, and while we haven’t fixed all the pain we’ve been through, I know we’re on the right path.

  Seth told me how he felt like everything snapped when he got the call that his dad died, and how he’s been losing his grip on reality since then. He told me about the voice in his head that stoked his pain until he couldn’t stand to be around anyone. He told me all the things he’s scared of, moving forward and all the hurt he felt when I left him. He told me how he replays the scene of me being stabbed and him killing Michael over and over again, a constant torture that further deepened his depression.

  I told him how it felt when I woke up in the hospital without him there to help me through the loss of our daughter. I even bared every ugly thing Michael did to me when he held me captive in our house—every word he said and every violation he made on my body.

  That was the hardest to get through. Between my racing heart and his ever-growing anger, we were a mess. It was when I brought up the day I tried to kill myself that he broke down into tears.

  We talked for hours and in-between those hours, we used our bodies to help mend the pain.

  “What did you get?” he asks, his voice rugged with lack of sleep.

  I look down at him and give him a sad smile. “I remembered something your dad gave me when I came to his house that day that … yeah, that day. It’s been sitting in my car ever since, and I thought you might want to look at it.”

  He sits up quickly, keeping his eyes on mine. “Yes,” he says so softly, I barely hear him. I grab the photo album from the pillow behind me and set it in Seth’s lap. He closes his eyes briefly, then slips his arm around my waist and tugs on me until I’m settled between his legs.

  Leaning my head against his chest, he places the book in front of us and rests his chin on my shoulder to look at it. The Montgomerys is embroidered on the front of the blue album, and Seth’s thumb grazes it.

  I turn my head and plant a kiss on Seth’s cheek as he opens the book. His beautiful blue eyes meet mine and he smiles. We look back down at the book and flip through pages of memories. The pictures tell a story of love found throughout the family. The pictures date back to the 1930s, and the progression of time is beautiful to navigate.

  When we flip to the pages with his mom and dad, his hand stills. His arm moves across my stomach and he holds me tight. We watch George and Gayle fall in love with each other through the first page and then fall in love with their son when he was born in the next.

  We spend several minutes on those pages, not saying anything, simply remembering the loving man that he got to call his dad.

  Then he flips the page and we see our story come to life.

  Six-year-old kids covered in mud, laughing with an arm over each other’s shoulders. Our backs as we were trotting side by side on horseback, eyes on each other instead of what was in front of us. The two of us before our graduation party, me looking at the camera and Seth looking down at me with a half-smile on his young face. Another of us on the couch in his parent’s house, my head in his lap, a book lying on my chest as I slept, and Seth’s hand playing with a strand of my hair as he watched me. The last one on the page shows me in Seth’s arms, legs wrapped around his waist and arms around his neck, my head thrown back on a laugh and Seth’s face alight with a bright smile.

  We flip to the next page and we both stay silent for a few minutes. Seth’s fingers trace the sonogram picture of the baby we lost and I feel his heavy breath against the back of my neck. Below the picture is a note written from his dad, a piece of him we get to keep even though he’s gone.

  Forged in love of the purest kind, to be loved for eternity.

  PawPaw and Nana will always love you.

  “He never believed you didn’t love me. He kept telling me something was wrong,” Seth speaks quietly, closing the book. “When you left the house that day, he told me to go after you.”

  “I’m glad he did,” I whisper.

  “I miss him,” Seth admits, running his hands up and down my arms.

  I nod, turning my face into the crook of his neck. “I know.” I turn around in his arms and wrap mine around his neck. “He said he was proud of you for more than just saving me, Seth. He was proud of the man you’ve become, and he would still be proud if he were alive right now.”

  “Thank you,” he says, voice tight. I don’t need to ask what for; I understand the self-doubt he has, and I understand what it means to hear that his dad will always be proud of him. His hand moves to cup my cheek and I turn to plant a kiss on the fresh tattoo on his arm.

  The beautiful ink honors the daughter we lost with a willow tree and the date that was supposed to be our wedding day etched into the roots. Willow. We were going to name her Willow if we were having a girl.

  My heart burst when I finally saw what it was last night.

  I snuggle in closer to him, and he works the tie keeping my robe together loose until the silk is falling down my arms. I bite the side of his neck and try to hide my smile when he narrows his eyes on me. He snatches my lips in a long stolen kiss, gently stroking my mouth in the most sensual way.

  When we break apart, Seth’s braced above me, eyes bright and alive, something I haven’t seen in the few brief
encounters I’ve had with him lately. It brings a smile to my face, and then we’re lying there staring at each other with goofy grins on our faces.

  “I missed you, Pussycat.”

  He dips his head to my neck, sucking on the skin until I’m laughing and trying to shove him away. My phone goes off with a series of text messages and Seth looks up, perturbed that he was interrupted from giving me a hickey on my neck.

  I shoot out from under him and grab the phone, laughing as he huffs in his frustration.

  “Brooke wants to know if we’re coming over later.”

  Seth’s arm comes out of nowhere and pulls me back into bed, wrapping a large muscled thigh around my legs to keep me in place. He snatches my phone and types out a message, a grin tugging on the corner of his mouth.

  “I’m going to miss her when she leaves,” I say, waiting for him to finish what he’s typing.

  Seth’s eyes look thoughtful for a moment, and he lays the phone down next to my head. His grabs a piece of my hair and twirls it between his fingers.

  “You don’t have to miss her,” he says, eyes meeting mine.

  I raise my brows and suppress a smile. “I mean, you’re amazing and all, Seth, but she’s my best friend, too. Of course I’ll miss her.”

  He smiles and shakes his head. “No. I mean, we could go, too. We could pack up our shit and move to Washington, too.”

  I lift my head up and check his face to see if he’s teasing me.

  “But … We can’t just move across the country, Seth.”

  He lifts a shoulder on a shrug. “Why not? Mom sold the farm so I don’t have to be here to take care of that anymore. You can teach anywhere, and I can take pictures anywhere.” His thumb catches my bottom lip, and he leans down to kiss me briefly. “What’s keeping us here anymore? You tense up every time you walk out into the rest of the house and you obsessively look around the corner to make sure no one is there before you enter a room. We’re not going to be able to keep living here, anyway, so why not start over in a state you’ve told me numerous times you would want to move to if you could?”

  He’s right about the house. I can’t live here. It’s fine being secluded in our bedroom, but going out into the rest of the house gives me anxiety. But what about … “Dad? Your mom?”

  “My mom will go anywhere I go. As for your dad, I’ll just wear really tight jeans and accidentally spill something on my shirt the next time we’re at his house. That’s when you casually bring up moving to Washington and that he should consider selling the business.”

  I giggle and shake my head. “You are so wrong, Seth.”

  He smiles down at me. “He mentioned wanting to give up the business a couple months ago, Jos. I think he’d be easily swayed into moving with us.” He grows animated as he talks about it. “We don’t have to live in Seattle, since we’re not city people. But we can live close by, so we’ll still be near Brooke and Brandon. We can get enough land to bring Ash and Kitten with us. We can start over.”

  I smile wide, and reach up to grab his stubbly face in my hands. “Okay.”

  “Yeah?” he asks, biting his bottom lip.

  “Yeah. Let’s do it. Let’s start over. Let’s move to Washington.” A giddy shiver rakes my body and I giggle as he ravishes my face in kisses.

  My phone beeps again, and I grab it before Seth can reach it, looking at the messages.

  Brooke: Get it girllll

  Curiosity gets the better of me, and I look at the message above hers.

  Me: We’ll be there right after Seth’s done eating me out and making me come.

  “Seth!” I holler, dropping the phone on the floor. His deep chuckle gets lost in my squeal when he widens my legs and starts kissing between them.

  “What?” he says, head peeking up to look at me. He licks his glistening lips and smirks.

  I roll my eyes and shove his head back down. “Well, you better do what you said, Sethy.”

  “Oh, I plan to,” he mumbles.

  I fall back onto the mattress and sigh when his tongue gets back to work.

  Chapter 47

  Seth

  We walk into the dimly-lit club, my arm resting naturally on the small of Josie’s back. Strobe lights pulse with the hard beat blaring through the speakers. Josie snuggles in closer to my side as we try to make our way through the crowded room.

  Sometimes time can’t heal all wounds. Sometimes, the fear becomes second nature and you have to learn to cope with the new reality.

  Josie’s reality will always be one in which she can’t confidently walk into a crowded room without being cautious of the people around her.

  The tension in her body eases when we see our friends across the room, and she hurries to catch up with them, slipping out of my arm and gripping my hand. I don’t mind trailing behind her when I get a perfect view of her ass in her short green dress. We should have just stayed in bed.

  But alas, Josie picked the most annoying girl to be her best friend and she apparently thought three hours was way too long to be getting it on.

  It’s not.

  Everyone hoots and hollers when we walk up to the table, hand in hand. Brooke smiles at Josie, hopping off of Brandon’s lap to pull her into a hug. In a rare show of affection, Brooke pulls away and wraps her arms around me.

  “Thank you for hearing her out,” she says softly, eyes filled with gratitude. “She really needed you.”

  My heart squeezes and I nod my head. “Thank you for being there for her when I wasn’t,” I say back to her. “Especially for finding her before she could …” I trail off, swallowing hard at image of her on the bathroom floor embracing death.

  Brooke nods and quickly pulls away to grab a handful of shot glasses.

  “Good to see things are back to way they should be,” Brandon says, clapping me on my shoulder. “Glad to have my best friend back.”

  “How do you know I’m not still going to be a dick?” I ask, taking the shot of alcohol that Brooke shoves into my hand.

  “It’s more like the level of dick decreases when you and Josie are together,” he says, smiling.

  Brody and Breanna scoot out of the booth to stand with us, Brody wearing a suit like always, and Breanna wearing a turtleneck and jeans. Brody twirls Josie around in a circle before planting a kiss on her cheek. He looks at me, and smiles when he catches my glare.

  I hate that I like him so much.

  “To Josie and Seth getting it on and making the world right again,” Brooke hollers, holding up her shot glass. We clink the glasses together, and I sneak a peek at Josie’s reddening face before she throws the shot back.

  We grab another round just as quickly, and this time, Josie raises her glass and says, “To friends who always have your back.”

  We all whoop at that and take the shot, Breanna being the only one who doesn’t drink anything. Brody looks down at her, his ever-present grin never leaving his face. He says something to her quietly, and she tucks her hair behind her ear before nodding.

  Brody’s smile grows and he takes her hand, turning back to us. “We’ll be back. We’re going to dance.” He leads her onto the dance floor spinning Breanna in circles by her hand. I’ve only talked to her a couple times, one of those being the other day when I tried teaching her guitar, but I feel like genuine affection is hard for her. Nevertheless, she smiles at Brody in a way I’ve not seen her do with anyone else.

  It’s a train wreck waiting to happen. I pull my eyes away and settle them on the length of Josie’s body as she talks animatedly to Brooke. I follow the curves hidden beneath the thin fabric of the dress she wears.

  Greediness takes over, and I have this urge to pull her away from this club and keep her hidden away in bed with me for days. Weeks. Months. Years. I linger on her cleavage before I realize she’s walked up to me, slipping her arms around my neck.

  “You gonna dance with me, or do I need to find someone else?”

  “Definitely the first option.”

  She grins
and starts to say something else, but Brooke’s squeal draws our attention.

  I slip my arm behind Josie’s back, suddenly becoming even more possessive. Josie’s hand rests on the center of my chest, reassuring as we watch Blake walk up to our group, dressed in black slacks and a white dress shirt.

  He doesn’t come up to hug Josie, but his eyes fall on her and he sends her a smile. “You look much better than the last time I saw you.”

  I tense and Josie’s hand slides down to my stomach. “Speak for yourself,” she says, laughing. “I can’t believe you’re out of all those casts already.”

  I look down at her, jaw tightening. She looks up and mouths I’ll explain later.

  “I was lucky I had the help of a really hot nurse,” Blake says, turning his body to the woman next to him. It’s the first time I notice the redheaded bombshell close to his side.

  Brooke definitely doesn’t miss anything. “You guys got engaged?” she screams, grabbing the girl’s left hand to look at the rock on her finger.

  The redhead smiles at Blake and nods. “We went hiking yesterday and Blake had this romantic dinner set up for us at the top of the hill. Candles, champagne, and even tiramisu. He asked, and I said yes!”

  Josie turns into me and discreetly sticks her finger in her mouth, pretending to gag. I laugh and hug her closer. My Josie, never the romantic. Damn, I love her.

  “I’ll take stars and takeout any day,” she whispers, wrapping her arms around my waist. My heart thumps hard in my chest. I want that ring back on her finger ASAP.

  Brandon informs us that he is in desperate need to piss and walks away from our group. Brooke decides she needs to take Josie and the girl whose name I found out is Echo to the bar to get some more drinks. So I’m now left alone with this person I’ve hated for as long as I’ve known him.

  “I’m glad you two worked things out,” Blake says, leaning against the table next to me. I dip my head in acknowledgement and look to the bar wondering how long it would take for them to come back.

  “Look,” Blake starts, grabbing my attention. I turn my head and raise a brow, waiting for him to continue. “I’m sorry for all the unnecessary bullshit I put you guys through. I should’ve backed off as soon as I realized she was in love with you when we first started dating.”