“You’re grieving. It’s nothing to hide. You don’t have to talk about it, but I can be here for you.”
God, I feel like a goddamn wimp. Tears threaten behind my eyeballs, and I burrow deeper into her chest, trying to take comfort in the warmth of her silky skin.
“Sometimes I wish my Dad were here, just so I could ask him if he was proud of my recovery. I’m not sure if he knew how bad my addiction was getting before he died. I was only twenty-two when he died, enrolled at the local public college, and I wasn’t around for much of his last years. Part of me has always wanted to know what he would have done had he seen me spiral like I did. Or maybe, I wonder more, if I would have spiraled like that? My dad was a great father, but he could be harsh. He never hit us, but his words or lack of them could serve as an even swifter hand of punishment most times.”
Ryan listens intently, letting me work out my own feelings on the subject.
“Would he have dragged me home by the ear and gone all Marine or some shit on me? Would he have locked me in a bathroom for three days to detox, and then told me to get my fucking life together? I think about it all the time; how, if he were still alive, maybe I wouldn’t have gotten away with so much.”
“I’m not sure that’s a very fair judgment of what your mom and brothers did for you, though. They gave you space, stepped in when necessary, tried to allow you to mature and do things on your own. Some might argue that you had to hit rock bottom before you could improve your life.”
She had a point. If my father had forced me to get clean, would it actually have lasted? I doubt it.
“I guess I just miss him. I’m the baby, the one who spent the most time clinging to his pant legs, following him around the office or listening to his deep philosophies on baseball strategies and using statistics to set a lineup. My older brothers were off and gone living their own lives before I could really remember, and Forrest was always in a world of his own. I probably spent the most time with my dad, alone, out of all of us. We fell into almost … a friendship, when I wasn’t out partying. All the time, I think about what he’d think of my woodworking, how he’d have helped me move into my first apartment.”
Then Ryan says something that I think will stick with me for the rest of my life.
“I think trying to interpret what our parents would think of our life is the wrong way to go about it. Sure, I assume all parents have a vision of where they want their child’s path to go. But … that isn’t the point. Our choices and our dreams are. People waste a lot of time trying to please others, especially the ones responsible for creating them. If we spent half as much time just living for us … we might all be a lot happier.”
How did I find someone whose soul completely matches my own? I thought this on an almost daily basis, that’s how much Ryan shocks me with the things she says. As if she and I share one brain.
And one heart.
30
Fletcher
“All right, bend it, bend it … just a little more …”
The piece fits snugly, exactly where I intended it to go, and I turn the welding torch off and flip my mask off.
“Damn, that looks nice.” Stefan high fives me, his coveralls dirty as hell from the last two hours of grease and fire.
I huff out a breath, examining the work. “Yeah, it really does.”
We’ve just finished bending one of the metal pieces into the circular face of the clock I’m due to deliver in a month and half’s time. The piece was a coppery straight bar of steel that I used a saw and a torch to mold and sculpt into a line of flowers, shooting off in every direction from the center bar. It took me weeks to get the hang of the welding practices, but with some help from Stefan, the expert in that field, I pulled it off. The two semi-circles I created, from sketches of real flowers I found in Bloomfield Park, outline the face of the clock perfectly.
“Almost done now,” my friend muses, plopping down on a stool and wiping the sweat from his brow.
He’s not kidding. I can’t believe how fast the last three months have moved. What started as a conceptual idea then moved into the drawing and design stages, which led to picking out the materials. From there, I spent hours in my barn, cutting and sculpting, sanding and studying the inner workings of a clock. Forrest helped a ton because my brain just couldn’t compute a lot of it, but the creativity was all me.
When it came time to start threading metal into my massive cube that would be installed on top of the tower on Main Street, I knew I needed help. So I called Stefan, a buddy I met at a local artist trade show near Philly.
And together, we’ve been working for the past few weeks to infuse copper into the stained wood design. It gives the clock an old-world feel, while also keeping it timeless. Not to be punny, or anything.
But it looks … damn good. I’m bragging, because yeah, I’m fucking proud. This project has been really tough to pull off, and by the time it gets hoisted up there with a crane and installed, it will be my biggest piece finished to date.
“Don’t you have a hot date to get to?” Stefan looks at his phone and then holds it up for me to see.
“Oh, shit,” I mutter, pulling the welding mask clear off my head as I start shrugging out of my dirty work jumpsuit.
“Yeah, don’t make the mistake of standing your woman up. Especially in the early days. It’ll leave you in the doghouse, bro.” He chuckles to himself.
Stefan lives with his wife and two kids about an hour from here, and for as much as he talks crap about them, you can tell he’s a dedicated family man.
“I don’t plan to. I can make it to Ryan on time … if I do fifteen over the speed limit.”
I slip into my boat shoes, comb my fingers through my hair, and leave Stefan to clean up. I know he’ll take one for the team as he yells after me, “Don’t kill anyone or get pulled over!”
Damn, I totally lost track of time. It’s not that I forgot about our date, but I just got so wrapped up in what I was doing that the hours blended together. Ryan will forgive me if I’m a few minutes late; she loves how hard I’m working on the clock.
I make it to the sushi restaurant in twenty minutes, meaning I’m five minutes past the time my girlfriend and I decided on to meet for date night.
The minute I get out of my car, she’s on me. It’s only a joke, but this wouldn’t be Ryan if she didn’t rib me.
“I have to drive myself to the date and he’s late. Jeez, not sure this guy is getting in my pants after this asshole behavior.” She rolls those beautiful amber eyes, that tonight are lined with black kohl.
The makeup only enhances her minx-like beauty, intensifying every already knockout feature of her face. She’s more dressed up than usual, probably because I’m finally taking her out of Fawn Hill. She’s been asking for sushi for a month, and we don’t have a local restaurant, so I finally ponied up and asked Forrest where he likes to go. So here we are, standing outside of an eatery I know I won’t like, with Ryan in a leather mini-skirt that my dick can’t seem to keep calm about.
“Where is he? Let me at him, I’ll beat his ass.” I hold up my dukes, and Ryan chuckles.
“Lost track of time?” She saunters to me on those fuck-me heels, wrapping her slender arms around my waist.
I nod, bending down to cover her mouth. God, she smells good … like warm chocolate chip cookies, the kind you can never just have one of. The kiss stretches on, until someone opens the door of the restaurant and almost hits Ryan in the back. The man walking out looks at us with a knowing smile, and I shuffle us backward as Ryan drops her forehead to my shirt.
“Well, guess that asshole might be getting to second base.” I wiggle my eyebrows at her, and she hits my chest with a weak tap.
“Maybe even third, since he’s taking me to eat sushi, which he claims he doesn’t like.” Ryan smiles over her shoulder as I hold the door open and we walk in.
I chuckle. “Can we stop talking about me in third person?”
“Yes, please. It’s getting
hard to keep up with.” She laughs, agreeing, and we’re led to our table. “So, I have the real story. I called Forrest, and he told me that you’ve never even tried sushi.”
My jaw drops, but in good humor. “You called my twin? Behind my back? The nerve!”
Ryan gives me a sly smile. “He said that he brought Penelope here when they were dating because she claimed she didn’t like it either. Now it’s one of her favorite foods! So, I’m going to give you a crash course in raw fish.”
Now it’s my turn to school her. “I don’t need any help when it comes to you and raw fish.”
My tone is complete innuendo, and Ryan balls up the wrapper she just plucked off the end of the straw in her water and throws it at my head.
“You’re a dirty man.”
I run a finger up and down her wrist where it rests on the table. “And you like it.”
“I’m not going to confirm or deny.” She turns her attention to the menu in front of her.
I don’t even bother, because I won’t know what to order anyway. I’m here for her, because she’s done so much for me. Staying in Fawn Hill, taking a job that is out of her norm, spending so much time with my family … she’s given up a lot to fit into my life. The least I can do is shove seaweed in my mouth for her.
Honestly, I’d do just about anything for her. My heart is a beat up, scarred, mauled thing. Before her, it didn’t beat correctly and barely felt. But with every touch, every whisper, every moment spent with her … it has come alive. It’s not perfectly healed, but it is hers. And … she claims she wants it. Apparently, miracles do happen.
Ryan places our order and then squares her shoulders to grin at me. “I can’t wait to watch you try this. You’re going to fall in love.”
I roll my eyes. “We’ll see. Is it your favorite food?”
She tilts her head to the side, her eyes going to the ceiling in thought. “Hmm, no. The best meal I ever ate was at this little shack by the ocean in San Diego. This place was like, right off the highway. It literally shook every time a car drove by. But, they had the best scallop tacos I’ve ever eaten in my life. God, thinking about those just gives me a food orgasm.”
Her joy about the food makes me smirk. She’s so damn cute when she gets passionate about her travels. “If you could travel to one place in the world, where would it be?”
I ask because I know she loves this topic of conversation, and Ryan doesn’t even hesitate.
“Well, I’ve already been there. But, I’d go back to The Maldives. It’s the most beautiful place I’ve ever been in my life. The water is clear, the bluest blue you’ve ever had the honor to view.”
“That rhymes.” I lace our hands together on the table. “But it sounds picturesque.”
Ryan regards me for a moment. “If you could travel to one place in the world, where would you go?”
She hasn’t asked me this before. Normally, she’ll just regale me with her tales of adventure, and I listen, truly interested. But now that she has, I’m stumped to realize I never thought about it.
It takes me a few moments, but then I speak. “I’m … not sure. Maybe Italy, or France. For the art. I’d love to see the ceiling in the Sistine Chapel, or some of the works in the Louvre. I’d like to see these pieces that are so iconic, that were made centuries ago.”
Ryan nods, grinning from ear to ear. “The artist seeking his passion.”
“Something like that.” I nod. “But, that’ll take a lot of clock towers. You know anyone else looking for a new one?”
Ryan taps her chin. “Not that I can think of. But, don’t worry … someday, we’ll go see those places. Together.”
It’s the first time she’s said the word someday, and my heart begins to bloom with the possibility.
31
Ryan
Fletcher and I lay in bed after having sex, our labored breathing mingling as our legs tangle in each other and the sheets.
He brushes my hair behind my ear, a quiet smile ghosting over his lips.
“What’s going on in that head of yours?” I ask, curious.
While he’s always honest, there are a lot of moments where Fletcher goes quiet. I’ve learned this about him in the time we’ve spent together. I’ve never asked why, but I think he’s trying to fight away those demons in his mind. Should I tell him I know all too well what that’s like?
“Why did it take us so long, do you think?” he asks, twirling a lock of hair in his finger.
“Why do you think it got so deep, so quickly?” Because to me, everything seemed to happen so fast.
Fletcher seems to ignore my question. “I think … I’ve spent a lot of the last few years denying myself every urge. The urge to drink, the urge to fuck, the urge to get close to someone or make something of myself. See, Ryan, my brain has taught itself that when I really do want something, it’s probably bad for me. Alcohol? Ruined my fucking life and I wanted every drop of it desperately. From there, every base need was detrimental, and it stripped away who I was, right to the core. I had to build myself back up. I wanted to be worthy of you, Ryan.”
I love that he only calls me by my name, and not babe or baby or sweetheart. I’ve wanted to hear those endearments from men in my past, but the fact that he says my full name every time he’s talking to me … it almost seems more intimate.
And the confession … my lord.
A streak of moonlight dusts over his hair as I skim his temple with my thumb. “You’re more than worthy. The way your brain works, my brain works.”
“Is it too fast for you?” He pulls me in closer, if that’s even possible with how snug our bodies are fit against each other right now.
I don’t need to think before I shake my head. “Maybe a part of me was delaying the inevitable. I think we both know that there is … something unspoken that connects us. I thought I knew what having a spark with someone was like, but this is different. When I saw you for the first time, there was just this … shift. Not one that was difficult, or some flame that I was trying to keep alive … it was just there. This constant buzz that I knew would be so right when I finally acknowledged it, but that’s the thing, isn’t it? Sometimes we avoid the things we know will complete us because we think we’re not ready.”
Fletcher’s eyes bore into mine. “I’m ready.”
In the quiet of our bedroom, I feel more vulnerable than I have in my entire life. Like a nerve that’s been exposed, trying not to get shocked.
“Me too,” I whisper.
Looking at him, I know I am. Maybe I had to go through those bad times, the periods of my life when I thought I’d never find someone to truly love me … that I’d never find someone to be my family.
But what I’d said to Fletcher at the restaurant had been true; I had been looking for someday, and with him, I could finally picture it.
32
Ryan
After a long day of teaching, which is really only eight to one but feels like three years, I head to Presley’s studio for a much-needed yoga practice.
My muscles are tense and stiff after a day trying to get through to stubborn pre-teens, and nothing relaxes me more than down dogs and child’s poses. That isn’t to say I don’t really enjoy what I’m doing. When Hattie used her pull to get me hired on as an aide to Mr. Billings, the middle school computer teacher, I was a little hesitant. A job here, especially one in the school district, meant permanence. But for the last two months, it has been going rather well. I enjoy getting up the three days a week that I help Billings and interacting with the kids. I’m more of an adult friend to them than a teacher, and it’s why they’re all clambering to tell me their ridiculous pre-teen drama.
Secretly, I love it. This is the best job I’ve had in years, and it’s opening my eyes to just what life could be like if I stay in Fawn Hill.
Not that I have any intention of going anywhere, anytime soon. Fletcher and I spend every night together, and I’m so close to telling him I love him, it freaks me the hell out. In
a good way.
Because I know now that I’ve never truly been in love. Not in this complete way, where it’s as if the man is the other half of my soul, walking around just waiting to be connected to me. When I’m not with Fletcher, it’s like a part of me is dimmed. I’m both shaken by and addicted to the feeling of needing him as entirely as I do.
Pushing through the front doors of Presley’s studio, a calmness sweeps over me. That’s what she’s designed the aesthetic to do, put her clients at peace, but I’m always amazed at how much stress comes off my shoulders the minute I walk through the entrance.
Abigail, Presley’s lone employee, sits behind the desk that’s flanked with racks of soft tank tops and stretchy pants for purchase.
“Hey, Abby. Presley in the back?” I ask, setting my shoes and bag in a cubby.
She shakes her head, the dark dreads she sports shaking like one of those dogs that looks like yarn. “Nah, she called out. Has me covering her classes. Think she might be sick or something.”
A frown has my lips turning down, because that’s unlike Presley. First of all, she’s that freak of a friend that we all have who never gets sick. The entire island of Manhattan could have the flu, and she’s healthy as a spring daisy.
The nagging feeling stays with me throughout the workout, making it impossible to calm down and give in to the peaceful burn of the exercise. I take off early, forgoing the breathing exercise that Abigail takes the class through as they lie on their yoga mats with their eyes closed.
It takes me ten minutes to walk to Presley and Keaton’s house, and I realize that soon, the weather will turn much colder. We’re into October now, and I’ll have to figure out a car situation. Walking through Fawn Hill in the snow and slush is not my idea of fun.
Using the key I still have, I let myself in through their front door, and call her name.
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