Always Only You

by Chloe Liese

  “It’s cold, you’re still—”

  “Please, Ren, let me tell you. Let me say what you mean to me.” She inhales roughly, then shouts through rain and thunder, a rush of wind through the trees,

  “‘Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

  Within his bending sickle’s compass come;

  Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

  But bears it out even to the edge of doom.’”

  I hold her close and kiss her, then pull back enough so I can stare into those wide, deep eyes. “I love you. I always have.” Wind rushes through the trees, wraps around us, as I tuck her close, as I press a kiss to her lips and whisper, “It was always only you.”

  Her cry breaks against my kiss, as I sweep her up in my arms, shielding her as best as I can from the rain. She shrieks with laughter, clutching her bag and cane tight against us, throwing her head back to the open sky. Tears of heartache become tears of joy, as the clouds break for the determined sun.

  I kiss Frankie and taste hope.

  31

  Ren

  Playlist: “Like I’m Gonna Lose You,” Meghan Trainor, John Legend

  I watch firelight play on her skin, a wash of sunset watercolors. Gold and bronze, ruby shadows beneath her chin, the swell of her bare breasts. Frankie, naked on a couch dragged in front of the fire is a vision of sated beauty.

  Leaning past her, I poke the fire and throw on another log. Her hand slides up my back and tangles in my hair.

  “That was nice of Aiden to make himself scarce,” she says.

  I laugh drily. “It was a requirement that Aiden make himself scarce.”

  Which he did. He took one look at me holding Frankie, both of us sopping wet from the rain, laughing and love-drunk, hiked his bag onto his shoulder and muttered something about the airport as he walked out. I heard the tires of his rental catch on the gravel, then the noise of an engine fading in the rain. Then I tore off her clothes, set Frankie in a hot shower, and got down on my knees to show her how much I missed her.

  Frankie smiles up at me. “I feel bad, but it’s best he’s not here. You are a noisy lover, Mr. Bergman.”

  A blush heats my cheeks as I glare down at her playfully. “I think you mean, passionate, Ms. Zeferino.”

  Her smile deepens, broken only briefly by a lingering cough that sounds much better than it did three weeks ago.

  I slide my finger along her dimple. “This has tortured me many months, Francesca. Years, to be precise.”

  “My dimple?” She slaps a hand over her cheek and my finger, looking self-conscious. “It’s weird I don’t have two, isn’t it? It always bugged me because my mind craves symmetry.”

  “That’s why I like it. You were always so neat and exact. Then you had this lopsided dimple that I only saw when you gave a rare smile. Even if it’s an imperfection, it’s beautiful to me.”

  Her face falls. “Some imperfections aren’t so beautiful, Ren.”

  “No. Perhaps not.” I slip my fingers through her hair. “But if they’re yours, I love them. And you love mine.”

  She grabs my wrist, stilling my hand. “I need to explain this. I need you to understand.”

  Smoothing her cheek with my fingers, even as she holds my wrist captive, I stare down at her. “I’m listening.”

  Frankie holds my eyes as often as she can, before they dance to my body, the fire, my mouth, my hair. “Something my therapist said to me a few weeks ago… I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about it.”

  I wait for her, listening in silence but for the snap and pop of the cured wood roaring in the fireplace.

  “She said you can’t believe someone’s love for you until you think that you’re worthy of it,” she says quietly, staring at the fire. “You have to love yourself. And in that way, I think you are far ahead of me, Ren.”

  “How do you mean?”

  She sighs. “Some days I do feel cynical. Other days I’m optimistic. I think that on hard days, when everything hurts and everything feels difficult, I don’t find myself very lovable. And I know it’s not true, that I’m not allowed to struggle, that I’m not lovable when I do, but it feels…real.”

  I pull her close.

  Frankie blinks up at me, breathtakingly lovely, lit by the fire, bare and rain-washed, wary and hopeful. “Does that make sense?” she asks.

  “I think so. I’m not saying it’s the same, but it reminds me a bit of when I spiral into old places from the bullied years. Telling myself I don’t fit, that I can’t get it right, that I’m not good enough because I’m not a ‘normal dude.’”

  “What do you do when that happens?”

  “Sometimes I call Ryder and just let him make me laugh. Other times, I reread a book that was the escape I needed at a critical moment in my past, that made me feel like I belonged. Most often, I just count down the minutes until I see you again. Because you, Frankie, have always made me happy. You have always made me feel like I’m exactly who I’m supposed to be, that it’s good.”

  She sniffles. “How? I’ve always been so surly.”

  I laugh. “Maybe that was why. You were the nicest surly grump I’d ever met. You cared. You seemed like you at least picked up on those parts of me that I tried to minimize. Like the parts that I felt made me weird were actually the parts you liked best.”

  “Ren,” she says, cupping my cheek. “You are weird.” We both break down laughing as she strokes my beard and steals a kiss. “And so am I. But not everyone has to love us, just the people who matter. That’s what I told you, but you showed me: be yourself, and let those who are lucky enough to love you, love you for who you are.”

  I wrap my arms around her, kiss her hair, her temple, her cheek. My lips find the corner of her mouth as she tips her head to meet my kiss. Slipping my hand around her back, I hold her close. “I love you.” I tap her bum and squeeze. “So much.”

  She grins up at me. “And you love my butt.”

  “It’s only fair. You love mine.”

  Sighing, she kisses me, nuzzles my nose. “This cabin’s cozy. Let’s move here.”

  “I don’t think so. You’d never leave. You’d wall up the windows with books and make Uber Eats use a four-wheeler to bring us Chinese.”

  “That sounds like a brilliant existence.”

  I smile down at her. “Where you go, I’ll go. I didn’t take you for a drafty Pacific Northwest girl but…”

  As if only by the power of suggestion, she shivers, her nipples hardening in the cold. It makes parts of me harden, too. I stare at her, tenderly cupping her breasts.

  “Excuse me. Eyes up, Zenzero.”

  I don’t glance up. I kiss each nipple, swirl my tongue and lick until they’re stiff peaks and her breath comes shorter, faster. “What?” I ask.

  “I—” She sighs, pulling me over top of her, taking my aching hard-on in her grip, rolling her thumb over the exquisitely sensitive tip. “I forget. I was going to argue about something, but this is much more enjoyable.”

  “Frankie,” I whisper. Easing inside her, I hold her close.

  “Ren,” she breathes against my skin.

  My mouth finds hers, as I taste and savor and tease. As my hips roll, each stroke steady and reverent. My hands find the soft swell of her breast, the velvet between her legs. My fingers sweep over her, as her hands claim my shoulders, then neck, as she sighs, quiet cries that grow in desperation.

  The room is a haze of firelight and candle glow. Smoky air and sweat and soft blankets tumbling to the floor. Her hands hold mine and tangle our fingers. Glorious, tortured need, sharp demand course through my body.

  I call her name, pressing my body deep inside her. Frankie clasps me close and writhes beneath me, as the waves of her release catch me in their power and take me with them.

  On a gasp for air, I turn her with me, our bodies close, our hearts closer. I kiss her hair, look into her eyes. And I stare at Frankie for long, quiet moments, memorizing firelight on her skin, the
way flames dance in her eyes that watch me intently.

  I push up on my elbows, carefully separating myself from her. “I’ll be right back.”

  “Where are you going?” Her hand trails down my chest. Her voice is tentative.

  “You’ll see.” Giving her a kiss, I smile down at her. I was going to wait, but if this experience has taught me anything, it’s that the only right time to tell someone what they mean to you is the moment you know it. No more waiting. No more partial truths.

  I sit up and hurdle the sofa, strolling down the hall until I find my jeans in a pile near the bathroom. Yanking out my wallet, I extract the paper and toss my wallet aside.

  Frankie watches me reenter the great room, arms behind her head, a wide smile on her face. “I think you should slow down probably,” she says. “The floors seem slippery. You, rushing, naked, lit only by a fire… It seems dangerous.”

  I grin at her, freezing for just a moment to let her feast her eyes, before I run at the sofa, stopping myself enough to gently land back on the couch with a flop.

  She sighs. “One day I’ll turn you into an exhibitionist for me.”

  “Here.” Pressing a kiss to her temple, I offer her the fortune cookie paper, pinched between two fingers. “You do the honors.”

  Frankie unfolds the paper, spins it around and stares at it, then reads quietly, “‘Your love is the one you look upon.’ Oh, Ren,” she whispers, throwing her arm around me and kissing my neck. “This is insanely sweet. And thank goodness you weren’t ‘looking upon’ the wonton soup when you read it.”

  I laugh as I kiss her back. “I’m so glad it was you instead.”

  “You didn’t really love me at first sight,” she says skeptically. “That doesn’t exist.”

  “I don’t know, buttercup. You walked through the door on my first day, and my heart kicked in my chest. Knocked the wind right out of me.”

  “Hm. Well, for my part, I realized I liked you when I bumped into that fabulous naked chest.”

  “Francesca.” I growl softly against her neck and nip it.

  “Okay. It was when you were doing shirtless push-ups.”

  Pressing her into the sofa and sliding down the blanket, I settle between her legs. “Gumdrop, you’re taunting me.”

  “Doodlebug.” Frankie slides her arms down my back. “I’m going to be real honest and confess the first thing I liked about you was your butt, but only because you’d passed me while my head was down, walking into the meeting room, so I only caught the back half of you.” She gives the backside in question an affectionate squeeze.

  “But then I walked in, and saw this copper hair, those wintry eyes.” She sighs. “And I thought, ‘Well, damn. He’s off-limits, Frankie. So fuhgeddaboudit.’

  “Don’t notice the way he listens attentively. Don’t fall for how gentle he is, how hard he works. Don’t feel yourself falling deeper when you see him demonstrate that strength lies not in an assertion of power but in acts of service. Don’t love him when he reads children’s books and tears up or holds your friend’s baby like he was made to hold babies. Definitely don’t give him your heart when he dances with you by the shore and makes you feel like you’re light on your feet.”

  She smiles up from underneath me, her hands gentling my face. “Don’t fall in love with him when he touches you. When he makes you feel from a place in your heart that you didn’t know existed. All that ridiculous naysaying, and I still never stood a chance.”

  Her hand rests over my heart as I hold her eyes. “Francesca?”

  “Yes, Søren.”

  “I love you. Always.”

  “Always,” she whispers and seals it with a kiss.

  * * *

  THE END

  * * *

  Ren and Frankie’s story is over, but this isn’t the last time you’ll see them! Freya and Aiden’s story is next, and with their marriage in crisis, the whole Bergman family is in on the plan to save it. Read on for a sneak peek at their story, EVER AFTER ALWAYS…

  Acknowledgments

  This wasn’t an easy book to write. More than usual, it felt like tugging out my guts and shoving them into a romance novel for theoretically countless people to put their eyeballs on and critique. A bit exposing, you might say.

  I’ve known I wanted to write an #OwnVoices story, but for a good while, I was far from confident about where to begin. Turns out, confidence never came so much as conviction. Conviction that autism needs to be loved and better understood, and that as an autistic woman, I am the best person to write stories that affirm that.

  Frankie is me in some ways, and in others, she is not. She’s an amalgamation of life experiences and autistic friends and research. Though autistics are not a monolith, we have things in common, and so I hope that while Frankie does not capture all facets of autism any more than a single autistic person in real life would, she does justice to the many spectrum girls and women who deserve to be compassionately, sensitively represented. A special thanks to Katie who gave me one of my favorite things as an autistic: straight talk. Katie made Ren and Frankie stronger both individually and together, and affirmed that the two autistic women in this story are not caricatures or cliches, but three-dimensional, lovably imperfect people.

  It is my hope that you see them that way, too—as women who are most likely different from you, who struggle in ways you do not, yet who are worthy of great lives and deep loves; who have so much to gain from and give this world not in spite of being neurodiverse but because of it.

  * * *

  XO,

  Chloe

  Exclusive Sneak Peek: Ever After Always

  (Bergman Brothers #3)

  Prologue: Aiden

  Playlist: “Melody Noir,” Patrick Watson

  The day I met Freya Bergman, I knew I wanted to marry her.

  Some mutual friends threw together a pick-up soccer game one balmy summer Sunday and invited us both. I’d played in high school, kept up with a recreational soccer league while I went through undergrad. A poor PhD student by that point, I liked the game enough to value the opportunity for fun without a price tag. No awkward outings where I didn’t buy an entree because I’d just paid rent and emptied my account, no well-meaning buddies insisting—to my humiliation—on treating me. Just a place and time where I could stand tall and feel like I was everyone’s equal. A lazy morning under that bright California sun, juggling a ball, goofing off with friends.

  But then she walked in and goofing off went out the window. Every man on that field froze, backs straight, eyes sharp, and all manner of stupidity vanished as quiet settled over the grass. My eyes scanned the field, then snagged on the tall blonde with a wavy ponytail, wintry blue eyes, and a confident grin tipping her rose-red lips. A shiver rolled down my spine as her cool gaze met mine and her smile vanished.

  Then she glanced away.

  And I swore to God I’d earn her eyes again if it was the last thing I did.

  I watched her trying not to be flashy when she juggled the ball and messed with ridiculous moves that she nailed more than flubbed, how effortlessly she balanced skill and playfulness. I watched her, and all I wanted was closer. More. But when we broke into two sides, I realized with disappointment we’d been placed on separate teams. So I volunteered to defend her, with the arrogant hubris typical of twenty-something men, thinking a guy my size who could still put down some fast miles had a prayer of keeping up with a woman like her.

  That was the last time I underestimated Freya.

  I all but killed myself on the field, trying to track her fast feet, to anticipate her physicality, to find the same explosive speed when she flew up the sidelines, betraying a fitness I didn’t quite match. I remember marveling at the power of her long, muscular legs that made me daydream about them wrapped around my waist, proving her endurance in a much more enjoyable form of exercise. Already, I knew I wanted her. God, did I want her.

  I may have been taking defense a bit more intensely than everyone else on that
field. I may have stuck to her like glue. But Freya radiated the magnetism of someone who knew her worth, and in a flash of desperation, I realized I wanted her to see that I could be worthy, too, that I could keep pace and stick close and never tire of her raw, captivating energy.

  In Freya’s aura, I forgot every single thing weighing on my mind—money, a job, money, food, money, my mother, oh, and money of course, because there was never enough, and it was an ever-present shadow darkening moments that should be bright. Like the sun ripping a cold, solitary planet into orbit, Freya demanded my presence. Here. Now. Just a few dazzling minutes in her gravitational pull and that pervasive darkness dissolved, leaving only her. Beautiful. Bright. Dazzling. I was hooked.

  So, in my young male brilliance, I decided to show her my interest by sinking my claws into her shirt, tracking her every move like a bloodhound, and doing anything I could to piss her off.

  “God, you’re annoying,” she muttered. Faking right, she cut left past me and took off.

  I caught up to her, set a hand on her waist as she shielded the ball and leaned her long body right against mine. Not romantic, but I remember exactly how it felt when her round ass nestled right in my groin. I felt like an animal, and that was not how I worked, at least not before Freya. But she felt right, she smelled right, she was right. It was simple as that.

  “Don’t you have someone else to bother?” she said, even as she glanced over her shoulder and those striking eyes said something entirely different. Stay. Try. Prove me wrong.

  “Nah,” I muttered, my grip tightening in every sense of the word, my desperation for her already too much. Grappling for possession, I met her move for move in a tangle of sweaty limbs and scrappy effort, until finally I won the ball for the briefest moment and did something very stupid. I taunted her.