“I remember everything,” I whispered, and with each stroke, I confessed.
“Your heart.” I kissed her neck. “Your willingness to help me.” I pulled out then slowly inched myself back in as she cried out, tears running down her face. “Your laugh. The way you live life with everything you have.” I wasn’t going to last long. I was already on sensory overload. More tears filled her eyes and flowed over her cheeks as I picked up my pace, my hands digging into her hair, her mouth clawing at my shoulder as she screamed my name.
“I love you,” I said one last time.
“I missed you.” She tasted like salty tears. She tasted like Fallon, my Fallon.
“Don’t ever let me go,” I begged. “Never again.”
“I never did,” she whispered. “You’ve always been here.” She placed her hand on her own chest. “Home.”
“Home,” I repeated. “Thank God for home.”
Zane
My world of grays and fuzzy black turned into full color the minute I walked into that room. I had no idea why.
Maybe because that room signified a moment in my life when I finally let go and allowed someone else to help.
My moment wasn’t just giving up my virginity to Fallon — it was about allowing her in.
That room was the room I had bled all over. I’d cut my soul into pieces in that room, and she had managed not to step on the ones that were still hurting. Fallon helped heal me without even realizing that was what she was doing.
That room represented everything I’d always wanted to have with another human being — but been too afraid to hope for.
I collapsed against her and then rolled off.
Her chest rose and fell with effort, and then her hand reached out for mine, fingers locked together, I closed my eyes as tears threatened to pour down my face.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered.
“You were just lost… for a while.”
“It was a horrible feeling,” I admitted, leaning up on my elbow so I could look down at her the way she deserved to be looked at, with love, adoration, appreciation, “Staring at you and knowing something was missing but not knowing how to get it back.”
She nodded and then her face crumbled into a mass of tears as she pulled me into her arms and pressed her face against my chest. It broke my heart, it killed me, those tears weren’t my fault, but they sure as hell weren’t hers either.
“Fallon, look at me.”
She pulled back and wiped her eyes.
“I love you.”
She nodded.
“I’m not going anywhere.”
“But you have concerts to do, and—”
I slammed my mouth against hers. “Come with me.”
Her eyes widened. “What did you say?”
“So I’m leaving.” I shrugged. “Come with me. That is, unless you want to clean rooms here at the resort and honestly, if that’s what you want, if this is the dream.” I smiled. “Then I’m in… we’ll figure out a way to make it work.”
“Okay.”
“Okay, you want to clean hotel rooms with me or okay you want to go on tour?”
“Okay to everything.” She smiled, it was a real smile, one that reached her eyes, one that wrapped itself around my body and squeezed until it was suddenly hard to breathe. “Since I’m home, it only makes sense that you take me with you, right?”
“Like a turtle.” I nodded. “You’re my turtle.”
“Are you sure your head is fine?” She pressed a hand to my forehead and pulled back with a laugh.
“No, actually, oh wow.” I winked. “I may need more sex. The doctor suggested as much sex as possible in order to… heal.”
“Oh?” Her eyebrows shot up. “I don’t remember seeing any of that in your discharge papers.”
“I didn’t want to embarrass you in front of the parents. Plus, your dad carries a concealed weapon, enough said.”
“True.” She kissed my mouth softly and lingered there. “Is this real?”
I linked our hands together and kissed her open palm. “It’s real.”
* * *
* * *
Fallon
* * *
“When do we leave?”
Happiness surged out of him in uncontrollable laughter. “When do you want to leave?”
“As soon as we can.”
“We can stay the night in Portland…” he said aloud. “Or go hang out with our friends on the beach one last time.”
I sighed loudly. “Beach tonight. Portland tomorrow night.”
“Deal.”
“Zane?”
He met my gaze.
“I love you too.”
“Of course you do, I’m Zane Andrews.”
“And he’s back, folks.” I wrapped my arms tighter around him, needing my body to catch up with my brain — that he was with me, my Zane was with me, body and soul.
“Remember, I was just lost for a minute,” he whispered, eyes locked on mine.
“And then you found your way home.”
“I never lost faith I would, even if you did.”
Fallon
Eventually, I would get over the fear that it wasn’t real — I was probably driving Zane completely insane.
I kept staring at him.
Wanting to pinch myself.
I felt so giddy I almost skipped into the resort office. Instead, I ran, tossed my keys onto the table, and left.
My boss yelled.
I didn’t care.
Zane was waiting for me outside the resort. The moon shone over the clear water; the storm had passed through.
I grabbed his hand and stared up at the stars. “It was a good night.”
“The best,” he whispered, wrapping an arm around me.
While I’d been busy quitting my job, he had been busy texting everyone about a late night bonfire in celebration of getting most of his short-term memory back.
He even invited my parents.
I was already bracing myself for the crying from my mom and the celebratory slaps on the back from dad.
“Wait!” Zane stopped and then winked. “As much as I’d love to go down to that beach with you, we have a problem.”
I frowned while my stomach dropped. “Problem?”
“Fallon…” He tsked. “I’m so disappointed in your lack of attention to detail. If you’re going to work for me, you need to be on top of these things.”
“Work for you?”
“Yeah, like a work study, you work for my corporation or me, I pay you. What could go wrong?”
I burst out laughing. “Haven’t we already tried this?”
“Hmm, doesn’t seem familiar.”
“Zane!” I slapped him across the chest. “You can’t pay me to sleep with you!”
“It’s completely legal, Fallon. I checked.”
“You’re such a liar.”
“I never lie. I’m like George Washington and his cherry trees.”
“Apple.”
“Cherry!”
“APPLE!”
“Look, Fallon, I know you’re used to being the smartest person in the room, but I have two degrees to your one, I win.”
I rolled my eyes. “So?”
“Oh, right.” He kissed my mouth. “We need mallows, woman.”
“You and your marshmallows.”
His answer was a blinding smile. “You love it.”
“I do.”
“You love me.”
“More than marshmallows.”
“Blasphemy.”
“Only you would think so.” I wrapped my arms around him. “Now, let’s go get the makings for s’mores so we can meet everyone, we’ll be late if we don’t hurry.”
He kissed the top of my head. “Deal.”
Epilogue
Will
He was back. Thank God.
His memory. His snarky weird-ass attitude and love for all things sugary and sticky.
At least that problem had solved itself.
>
I twirled the stick between my hands over the fire. I was exhausted.
I love my job.
I love my job.
I love my job.
I freaking hated my job.
I was thirty, and I wanted to retire.
I was an agent, partially because I was good at it, partially because when my boy band broke up, I didn’t really have a choice. I needed a purpose, and it was easy to go into the business side of things.
I had an ear for talent.
I loved managing musicians.
I loathed actors.
I wanted to strangle them with my bare hands, give them a little shake, then take them for a long drowning swim in the ocean.
“You look like hell.” Lincoln sat down next to me and sighed. “And you’re burning your marshmallow.”
Zane shot me an evil stare from across the fire, I held up my hands in surrender. “I wasn’t paying attention.”
“She coming?” Linc whispered.
“Hell if I know.”
I let the sound of laughter float around me. It was nice, the laughter, seeing Zane dance around the fire with his girlfriend. Out of all of my clients — I loved him the most.
I wasn’t supposed to pick favorites.
Our clients were our children — God knew they acted like them most of the time, but Zane had always been different.
More of a brother than a client.
And watching him grow up in the industry had been a pleasure, a privilege.
But as if the universe needed to remind me of the current hell I was residing in, the sound of a car door slamming jolted me out of my happy place.
And Angelica Greene marched toward me, her tiny hands clenched into fists, her face one of beautiful fury.
Yeah.
We weren’t supposed to pick favorites.
And we sure as hell weren’t supposed to sleep with them.
Granted, our history was just that — history.
And I was her last hope. The only guy willing to work with her.
Her final shot at stardom.
“Sis,” Linc coughed into his hand while the gang around the fire grew quiet.
Zane shared a horrified look with me. Yeah, I might have forgotten to mention that she was the new client.
Jay held out his hand. “Glad you could make it, Angelica. Guys,” he grabbed her by the shoulders. “Most of you know Linc’s sister. She’s graciously agreed to star in the final movie — as you know, Jessica had to pull out due to her pregnancy.”
Alec made a cross motion over his chest while Demetri looked like he was about five seconds away from throwing her in the fire.
I wasn’t the only one who had history with her.
She was known for burning bridges almost as much as she was known for her drug problem and inability to get over Alec Daniels.
Hell, I was in over my head.
“Hi.” Angelica found her voice and addressed everyone with a haughty expression that had me groaning out loud.
Lincoln winced and then patted the sand. “Angelica, why don’t you sit, I know it was a long drive back from Portland.”
Her eyes penetrated mine with ferocity.
“Well…” Her voice always did remind me of sex, damn it. It was low, controlled, raspy. “I would have gotten here a lot sooner if my jackass of an agent wouldn’t have dropped me off on the side of the road with nothing but a twenty dollar bill and a cell phone.”
Jay glared at me.
I crossed my arms. “Well, maybe your agent wanted you to remember who’s in charge of your career. The same career hanging on by a thread. I’ve heard walks are good for dogs, you know, clean air and all that.”
She gasped in outrage.
Zane shot me a “really man?” look across the fire.
But I was over it.
So over it.
I was over it the day Angelica Greene walked out of my life and into my band mate’s arms.
I was over it then.
And I was over it now.
The only reason I was even involved in it was because she had about just as much shit on me as I did on her — and most days I loved my job.
She kicked sand onto my marshmallow.
I loved my job.
I loved my job.
I loved my job.
I hated Angelica Greene.
* * *
For more information about Rachel Van Dyken and her books, be sure to visit her website!
http://rachelvandykenauthor.com/main
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