The Last Word

by Everly Lucas

  I shiver as I cling to him, locking my arms and legs around him. Only when his body stills and his breathing slows do I even think of letting go.

  After he disposes of the condom, he rejoins me on the couch and cradles me on his lap. I lay my head on his broad shoulder, inches from the gold jewelry resting on his chest. Not bothering with the clasp, I rip the chain from his neck and toss it to the floor. Aware that he’s watching my every move, I hold out my right hand and slide the claddagh onto my ring finger, heart facing in. It’s a tighter fit than the last time I wore it, but I smile at the bite of pain as it scrapes my knuckle.

  He takes my hand in his, threading our fingers together. “I swear, I tried to be strong, Erin, but I can’t fight this anymore—what I feel for you, what I’ve felt for you my whole fucking life. I don’t know what the hell this means or what happens next, and I don’t care. All I need to know is that you’re mine. Tell me you’re mine, baby.”

  I nod and press a kiss to his bare chest, tears of relief staining my cheeks.

  He still hasn’t apologized for driving drunk, for risking Danny’s life. But the man he is now—a man strong enough to rise above the odds stacked against him, steady enough to counter my volatility with an unwavering calm, and kind enough to wrap my sprained ankle, even though I acted like a total bitch—is better than any apology. He hasn’t tried to make excuses or reason away his culpability. He owns his guilt. He’s served his time and done his penance.

  I respect him for that.

  I forgive him.

  “I’m yours, and you’re mine,” I say. “Always.”

  We stay on the couch, just breathing and being together, for five minutes. Maybe ten. Definitely not long enough. Van suggests a shower, and after imagining his seriously impressive body all slick and glistening under a stream of water, I realize how very filthy I am. In all the ways.

  Van tosses my damp clothes into the dryer on the second floor. In the bathroom, we step into several sprays of water falling from large, metal fixtures in the subway tile. So, basically, Heaven. The owner of this place must make serious bank somehow. He didn’t get rich bartending, I’m sure.

  In the shower, I catch my first glimpse of naked Van and lose my balance, falling sideways against the wall.

  He’s a god. All-powerful, devastating, scary-beautiful, and…damaged. Like, physically damaged. By me.

  He turns to grab body wash from the built-in shelf behind him, his back facing me, displaying angry red scratches striped across his shoulders. When he spins my way again, a self-satisfied grin creeps up my lips at the sight of deep, teeth-shaped indentations in his skin.

  Looking down at my own body, I cringe at the mottled pink circle near my neck. Tomorrow, I’ll have a dark hickey in a spot that’s difficult to cover with summer clothes. And an ache high up on my inner thighs promises bruises in the near future.

  Van didn’t go easy on me. The delicious soreness inside me is a testament to that.

  By the time we finish washing all the sex off each other, my clothes are dry. Wearing low-slung jeans and nothing else, Van phones his boss to tell him he’ll be late for his shift at the bar. He apologizes over and over until I hear the boss laugh through the phone and say, “Seriously, don’t sweat it.”

  I like this guy. He seems chill, as opposed to my boss, who’s a total dickwad and would fire me for being late to a catering gig…or smack my ass and call me a bad girl, like he did when I dropped a tray of champagne glasses at a bougie wedding.

  Van offers to stay home and spend all night with me, but as much as I’d love to, I can’t. I have some errands to run. The fridge at home is bare, and a few prescriptions need filling. But I can’t bring myself to leave right away, either.

  Back on the couch, I recline with my feet propped on his lap as he ices my left foot and massages the right. I haven’t received this kind of treatment from a man, well, ever. And I’ve never felt so relaxed, so at peace.

  That is, until his hands quit working their magic, and he asks, “What did you mean earlier, when you said you’re not okay?”

  Eleven

  Well, he’s bound to learn the details of my shitty life eventually. Better he hear it from me now than witness it firsthand without warning. “Things at home are… They’re bad.”

  “Bad how?”

  I take a deep breath and spill everything. All the secrets I’ve worked hard to keep hidden from everyone outside my immediate family. Until now.

  “So, you know about Danny being hospitalized after the accident, but you probably never knew the extent of the damage to his spine.” I pause as Van gives a slow shake of his head, his expression instantly grave. “It caused a loss of function from his neck down. The doctors called it an incomplete injury, which meant there was a chance of recovery, but for weeks he was basically paralyzed.”

  “Jesus…”

  Yeah, that was pretty much my daily reaction to seeing my brother immobile and practically helpless, hooked up to all kinds of tubes and bags. “After a while, he started to regain feeling, and with time and rehab, he was eventually able to walk. He’ll never be one hundred percent, like he was before the crash. He has to use a cane, and his fine motor skills aren’t what they used to be, but at least he’s independent.”

  Van stands, gently laying my legs on the sofa. He paces the small room a few times before parking himself on the coffee table, his elbows on his knees and his fingers locked behind his bowed head. He obviously had no clue about any of this. How could he? He was in prison, and we’d cut all ties with him. But if this is his reaction so far, he’s gonna hate the rest of the story.

  Rubbing my sweaty palms on my shorts, I clear my parched throat and go on. “The months in bed and the changes to his body took their toll on him—physically and mentally. I can’t fathom the pain he was in as he slowly regained sensation. His orthopedist prescribed oxycodone, but the original dosage didn’t help enough, so they increased it. Eventually, they switched him to Dilaudid. He was also put on an antidepressant, but I don’t know that he ever took it.”

  Doing my best to keep my emotions in check, I push through the waves of despair I feel every time I think about what my brother’s life has become. “He got addicted. I can’t blame him for that, really. The same could happen to anyone in his situation. But he refuses all offers of help. His doctor ended up discharging him for being an ‘uncooperative patient,’” I say, making air quotes, “and for throwing violent fits in the waiting room when they tried to taper down his meds.”

  Van shakes his head. His hands grip the edge of the table, his knuckles turning stark white. “Erin, I—”

  “I’m not done.”

  “What more could there be?”

  “Dad— I’m sure you remember how he had trouble keeping a job. He always drank a little too much, and every few years, the drinking got bad enough to wreck things for him.”

  Van nods and huffs out a humorless laugh. “Yeah, I remember.”

  “That hasn’t changed, except now he goes years between jobs. And he’s always either at the bar or in the driveway, working on his car.”

  “The old Pontiac?”

  I nod, smiling. Having someone to talk to—someone who knows all the details of my life, whose memories are the same as mine—relieves some of my loneliness. I hadn’t realized how badly I needed that.

  “The very one,” I say. We share a nostalgic smile, but a brief one. “So with Dad essentially out of the picture and Danny losing himself more and more each day, Mom, she…she faded away without us even realizing it. She doesn’t work. She doesn’t go out. Hell, she hardly leaves the couch, even to sleep.”

  His eyes meet mine, looking so weary. I want to hold him and comfort him for something that, until the past couple days, I blamed him for. But he doesn’t move, so neither do I.

  “What about you?” he asks.

  “What about me?”

  “Your whole family has gone to shit. That has to be hard on you.” He takes both m
y hands in his and kisses the backs of them. “Are you living at home with them, or do you have an apartment? Maybe a place on campus?”

  Huh? “On campus?”

  “Wherever you ended up going to college. With all this going on, I’m guessing you stayed local.”

  “Van, no, I— Danny needed someone to take care of him after he came home from the hospital. Between that and work, I just… There was no time for college.”

  “Fuck.” He pushes to his feet, hulking over me and radiating anger. “This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. God, especially not for you.”

  I stand, too, placing my full weight on my good foot. “How what was supposed to be?”

  He drops his gaze to the floor, avoiding my probing stare.

  “Damnit, Van. Answer me.”

  Still refusing to look at me, his hands ball into fists and his whole body shakes with rage. Or fear. I can’t really tell.

  “Any of it!” he shouts, and I flinch back. “Danny’s life. Your life. What the fuck was the point of going to prison…of leaving you…of losing it all? If I’d known— If I'd had any idea, I wouldn’t have—” He breaks off, slamming his jaw shut and pacing away from me.

  My eyes close as I try to make sense of what he’s saying, but they fly back open when I hear a loud crash and the crunch of plaster—the sound of a fist punching through a wall.

  Okay, now I’m pissed.

  “I have no clue what you’re talking about. What wouldn’t you have done? What aren’t you telling me?”

  He pulls his hand—covered in blood and plaster dust—free of the wall. The old Van was never violent. Compared to me and Danny, he was a full-on pacifist. The rough sex on the couch and the marks he left on my body—that was passion…intense, unchecked passion for me. This violence is something else altogether. Something that scares me. I wrap my arms around my waist, hugging myself.

  He must recognize the fear behind my reaction, because he checks himself, pausing to take a deep breath. “It doesn’t matter, now. None of it matters.” Stepping closer, he tries to hold me to him, but I twist away. I refuse to let him touch me until he gives me a real answer.

  “I know you, Van. I know when you’re lying to me. Just tell me the truth. Please.”

  “I can’t, baby,” he says, reaching for me again. “I’m asking you to trust me. I’m asking you to drop this. Can you do that for me?”

  I’m shocked to find that I can…for now. If he’s not ready, I won’t push. But if he can’t give me this, he needs to give me something. “Fine. I’ll drop it”—I point to the word inked across his chest—“if you tell me the story behind this.” My finger slips lower, to the winged heart. “And this.”

  Loyalty and betrayal. Those words have meaning. I’m willing to trust him, but only if he can trust me enough to open up.

  But he bows his head, defeat clear in his wilted stance.

  I back away from him as the silence between us drags on.

  I just bared my soul to this man. Exposed all my sorrow and suffering and regret—pieces of me I never wanted anyone to see—trusting they wouldn’t scare him away. That nothing could. And I want to trust him now, to give him the benefit of the doubt and put the past behind us. But he’s giving me nothing—no secrets, no hidden pieces, no trust.

  If he can’t do this for me, then I was wrong. We were never meant to be together. Van and I are destined to break each other, to rip out each other’s hearts and set them on fire. A cruel cycle of hope and pain.

  The cycle ends here.

  Grabbing my bag off the floor, I sling it over my shoulder and fish out my keys. I limp to the door, each step sending shocks of pain up my left leg. Standing in the doorway, with the sunset and evening heat at my back, I look him square in the eyes, giving him one last chance to open up to me, to fight for me.

  His gaze doesn’t waver from mine, but his eyes are empty of the life that filled them less than half an hour ago. He parts his lips, sparking hope inside me—hope that dies when he closes his mouth without saying a word.

  “Goodbye, Van.”

  Twelve

  “If I don’t grab the mail first, just open and sort it when you come in. Any spam, junk, or whatever, you can toss. All new invoices go here.” Henry Carmichael grabs a stack of papers from a wooden tray on his desk and hands them to me before standing and pulling out his chair. “Have a seat.”

  My head spins as he teaches me how to document invoices in the accounting program, talking me through the steps for the first few, then watching as I enter the rest on my own. He doesn’t stop me or point out any mistakes, so I guess I’m doing okay.

  “I’m impressed,” he says, grinning, and I can’t help but swell with pride. “Now, once those are recorded, you can go ahead and pay them by—”

  “Wait, really?”

  In the past hour, Henry’s gone over managing the staff schedules and time-off requests, taking inventory and ordering supplies, plus reconciling the cash at the end of the night. Now he wants me to pay his bills? I mean, I’ll do it all, of course. But what if I fuck up?

  “Yeah, don’t worry. The program makes it easy. Just click here, then here.” He points out a few more steps, and he’s right, it is easy.

  But still… “You’re trusting me with a lot here, boss.”

  “That’s because I know you’ll do a good job. And with my personal life all…”

  “Complicated?”

  He leans a hip against the desk, chuckling under his breath. “Exactly. My priorities made an unexpected shift, so even though it pains me to do it, I have to take a step back from this place. To be honest, I should’ve hired a manager a long time ago.”

  “No kidding,” I say and pretend to wince when he punches my shoulder. “So you need me to take care of all this until you find someone to bring on?”

  “Well…” Henry straightens, rubbing his hands together and sporting a timid smile. “How would you feel about being that someone?”

  No way did he say what I think he said. Not possible. I must’ve heard it wrong. “Come again?”

  “I want to promote you to manager.”

  Blood drains from my face and hands, and I swallow hard. I think I’m in shock.

  When Tino got me this job, I thought I'd hit the fucking lottery. A fair boss, minimum-wage work for more than minimum wage, and coworkers who grew to respect me.

  Having a shot at Frankie’s old spot behind the bar was dope enough on its own. But this is on a whole other level. I know I can handle anything Henry throws at me—at least, I hope I can—but why the hell would he want to throw it my way?

  “Why me?”

  “Because I can’t think of anyone better for the job. You have a way with people—customers, staff, vendors. They all like you, but they know you’re no pushover. Plus, you’re the hardest worker I’ve ever had. You’re as dedicated to this bar as I am.” He shrugs. “Makes perfect sense to me.”

  Slumping way down in the leather office chair, I stare blankly at the computer screen with no clue what to say.

  The last three hours have been one hell of a roller coaster. What happened with Erin came so out of left field, I still can’t make sense of it. Back at the school, she was playful. Out on the sidewalk, she was ready to bite my head off. On the couch… On the couch, we fucked. We connected. She let me inside her, and I never wanted to leave.

  The way her pussy clutched my dick too tight felt like a punishment—just like the biting and scratching and screaming my name loud enough to bruise my eardrums. Erin Kenny fucks like a wildcat, and I get off on bringing her claws out. I’d dedicate my life to that cause, if I could.

  But I can’t. Not when all she’s asking from me is the one thing I can’t give her.

  She was willing to let me keep my secrets, to let go of the past, despite how much it still affects her present. All she wanted was the meaning behind my tattoos. Such a simple question…only it’s not simple, at all.

  How can I tell her that “LOYALTY�
�� stands for the sacrifices I made in the name of friendship. Or that “betrayal” is the sin I committed against my own heart. And Erin’s. But explaining that without telling her the whole truth is impossible. So I gave her nothing, and I lost everything.

  “If you don’t want the job, I won’t think less of you. I’ll be disappointed, but—”

  “No, no!” I bolt upright like a spaz. The chair flies back and bangs against the wall behind me, causing Henry to crack the fuck up. A valid reaction. “Of course, I want it. I’m honored. Seriously. I’m just surprised, that’s all."

  “You can handle this, Van. No doubt in my mind.” He reaches out to shake my hand, and I go to give him my right one, forgetting about the bandages on my knuckles and wrist. Henry drops his gaze to it, then back up. “Do I want to ask?”

  I hope he doesn’t. “Let’s just say, you’re not the only one with a complicated personal life.”

  He nods in understanding. “Is she worth it?”

  Fuck, yes. “She’s worth everything.”

  God, I’m such a dumbass. Erin Kenny is worth more than my pride, more than my loyalty to her brother, and more than the silent pact I made with myself four years ago. All she wanted was one small piece of my truth. Well, fuck that. I’m giving her the whole damn thing.

  At the end of my shift, I make up my mind to text him, praying he hasn’t changed his number since high school. Breathing deep, I press send.

  Me: It’s Van. We need to talk.

  He responds just as I’m unlocking my front door.

  Danny: when?

  Me: Tomorrow. Midnight. And don’t you dare try and duck me, bro.

  Danny: fine.