Awake (Reflections Book 3)

by A. L. Woods

  “I love you, do you know that? I’ve always loved you,” he brokenly whispered. “Did you ever really love me back, though?”

  I squeezed my eyes shut before speaking, “I did.”

  “Did?” He chuckled, reinforcing the question with a slam of his hips.

  “You don’t love me, Sean.” My fingernails sank into the muscles of his ass, holding him close while he thrust himself into me. “You love the idea of me, just like he did.”

  It was a cheap shot. He looked wounded before the veil of his anger shadowed his features in something ominous.

  “Fuck you,” he growled, the hand that had been around my waist grabbing my chin once more. He slowed to regard me with an inferno that blazed and lit up in his face. “Fuck you for always comparing me to him.”

  He lowered his mouth to mine, holding me flush while he fucked me in a way devoid of rhythm. He tucked his face against the crook of my neck when he broke our kiss to catch his breath in frantic pants.

  “Did you think I would say yes?” I hissed, my ass lifting off the mattress under his relentless thrusts.

  Sean raised his head, his smile smarmy. “Your mouth is saying no, but in here…” his callused fingers grazed my chest, “you said yes to me months ago.”

  He flexed his hips, and my spine curled to spur him deeper. “Go to hell.”

  “Only if that’s where you are, Hemingway.” His teeth grazed the column of my neck, the pad of his finger finding the pulse in my throat.

  My fingers pushed past the breach of his shirt, my nails raking against his spine in a way that drove his eager thrusts. We found our tempo, his hips a punishing piston, my core an envelope to stow all of our pain. Our breathing was an entanglement of heat and lust that blanketed us both.

  “I need you to look at me,” Sean demanded.

  I didn’t want to. I was afraid of what I’d find in his eyes.

  But he didn’t give me a choice. He cradled my chin within one of his big palms, drawing my focus to his. “I’m going to ask you one last time. Do you love me?”

  Hope forged a path in his eyes, his heartbeats a vibration in his palm I felt going through me like a life force.

  My breath caught in my chest, and it wasn’t from the mounting pleasure. “Don’t ask me that.”

  “Yes or no? It should be easy enough for you to answer.”

  My teeth ground together just as he swiveled his hips in a way that sparked the incoming orgasm edging the surface.

  “Answer the question.”

  “Not anymore.”

  He smirked, but it contained no amusement. A storm of desolation brewed in his eyes. “I may have lied to you once, but you’ve always been one hell of a pathological liar.”

  My hips chased after his, my nerve endings losing themselves to the tantalizing assault of each roll of his hips, of his pelvis grinding against mine.

  I broke, my orgasm ephemeral as it shot through me. I lost it to the hot tears that rolled from either corner of my eyes as heartbreak finally broke through the chink in my hardened armor. The retraction and release of my muscles that would have milked him under ordinary circumstances gave him permission to slide out of me.

  His hand went around his freed cock, fisting himself, his baneful eyes leering.

  Just like the first time he’d told me he was falling in love with me.

  And I had rejected him back then, too.

  Sean pumped himself hard, his eyes holding my gaze. “Even if you do lie between your teeth, I’ll always love you.” He leaned forward, his mouth melding over mine with a painful desperation. I felt the warmth of his orgasm hit my belly, heard the groans of ecstasy that lodged in his throat.

  Sean didn’t collapse on the opposite side of me. He hovered above me, his expression tentative and his posture stiff. After a minute, he climbed off the bed, disappearing to the bathroom and returning with a warm washcloth. He said nothing as he wiped his cum from my stomach, his expression listless. I rolled over when he finished cleaning me off, staring out the back window, listening as he fastened his belt back into place.

  It didn’t escape my notice that it was close to seven p.m. and Rosa hadn’t come.

  She must have known somehow that he was here.

  The mattress sagged when he lowered himself upon it, his body edging closer to mine. I didn’t turn around to face him; I didn’t want to confront that we were both prolonging the inevitable.

  His tears plopped against my scalp, each sob he valiantly swallowed back with a shudder, then squeezed me around the middle a little tighter.

  The pillow underneath my head was a net for my own tears, but I didn’t try to conceal the anguish racking through me. I was too tired to keep fighting to be something I wasn’t.

  Strong.

  We didn’t speak, we just laid there, his body spooning mine, watching the sun retreat over the distant beach. Another day in our story disappearing alongside it.

  Forever.

  When I woke up the next morning, the side he’d laid on was cold to the touch. The robe we’d discarded to the floor was now draped over my body; he’d put it there before leaving.

  The sunlight caught on the small diamonds that framed the pearl setting of the ring that lay on the nightstand. Gingerly, I picked it up and slid it on my left ring finger, then clutched my fist tightly to my chest.

  After staring at it for some time, I sat up in bed. My eyes found the typewriter that I sparingly touched. Swinging my legs to the floor, I carried myself to the desk and dropped into the seat.

  Then I did something that hadn’t felt natural in a long time.

  I wrote.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  No one questioned my premature return. I took a redeye back to Boston, grabbed a cab home, and kept it together until my keys were the in lock of my front door. The person I became once the headlights of the cab disappeared from my driveway wasn’t a side of me I wanted anyone to know.

  I woke up in my bed nursing a feeling that was worse than a hangover. I couldn’t make Raquel love me, and worst of all, maybe she never did. The whole thing forced me to consider that maybe I had been around her so much early in our relationship that I never gave her the opportunity to formulate an opinion without crowding her.

  I was always there, wanting and waiting for someone who would never feel the same about me. The reality was devastating.

  I would never have been able to do what she did. If she had come here, prostrating herself, giving me everything she had on a silver platter, there would have been no question that the result would have been different.

  But Raquel was different, wasn’t she? Wasn’t that why falling in love with her had been so easy to begin with? She was transcendental. There was nothing ordinary about her.

  And maybe that’s what made the devastation of her loss that much worse, an agonizing hole inside of me that grew day by day. Somehow, I didn’t think popping a couple of Tylenol tablets was going to change that, either.

  Upon learning of my return, Dougie refrained from telling me I told you so, and Maria had given me the courtesy of dissembling what she really thought about the whole thing. No one made a point of invading my space to fix me—thank God—and I took the rest of the week to myself.

  To mourn, to gain perspective, to finish what I’d started.

  It took me three weeks and four days to renovate the bathroom. Record time for me. Then again, working on this bathroom went beyond the call of a labor of love. It became something to bury my thoughts in. Another tile in place, another memory stowed away somewhere. A new faucet to wash away the pain. A new glass shower pane in place of the old curtain, a new tub, sparkly and white, to remove the taint of the one it replaced. A fresh coat of storm gray paint on the walls that mirrored my mood to pull the whole thing together. It was a bold color choice, but then again, maybe I’d been spending too much time with Penelope.

  When I wasn’t here, I was with Dougie and Penelope. No one really said much. I didn’t want to ta
lk, and neither did they. Most of the time, we just sat in silence. They’d watch television while I stared at the darkened office from my place on their couch, replaying things in my mind until my brain wanted to explode.

  That desk was where it all started.

  Penelope would rub a hand over her growing middle with a vacant expression painting her face. Sometimes, she would open her mouth as though to say something, but Dougie would silence her with the purse of his lips and a quick shake of his head.

  She would button it right up again.

  I found things to do with my time to distract me, and eventually, I made it back to work. I was grateful no one crossed me there, I just wished the pitiful looks would stop.

  Then again, it wasn’t every year their boss got dumped on New Year’s Eve and they got to witness the whole thing go down. Could I blame them? I’d probably be whispering about what a pathetic motherfucker I was, too, if the steel-toed boot was on the other foot.

  Hell, a year ago, I would have been. A lot changed in a year. Hell, a lot had changed in three months.

  The crew made tremendous progress on the house despite my flaky ass not being around. Being in charge suited Trina. She didn’t take shit from anyone and held them accountable when they tried to take advantage of her for being young and a woman.

  She fired three guys and brought in three more—within twenty-four hours.

  No one crossed her again.

  Dougie didn’t intervene, merely observed quietly from the sidelines and offered her counsel when she asked for it. In moments like those, it reminded me I was acting like a self-serving douchebag whose head had been so far up Raquel’s ass I’d missed everything else going on around me.

  Trina was coming into her own, trying to forge her own identity and find her place in the family business.

  Livy appeared to be thriving in New Hampshire, where she had moved to for school. She was fighting for her dream and pushing through the fear of performing to get what she wanted.

  Maria was around more often. I would give her credit; she was trying despite the tempestuous nature of her relationship with Ma.

  And I…I was just trying to get through each day. Smile when the situation called for it, laugh on cue, get pissed when someone was dicking around.

  It was a facade, of course.

  An act.

  The gift for the theater hadn’t skipped me like I thought. I was a contender on par with Livy. I was doing a fine job convincing everyone around me that I didn’t see Raquel’s face behind my lids. That I didn’t replay our last exchange in my head every time I was talking to someone else. That I didn’t still taste her kiss every single day. That I wasn’t trying to pick out the sound of her voice through the sea of so many others.

  How did I manage to screw this up so badly? Why did I think asking Raquel to marry me was a good idea? Why did I interpret Maria’s concept of a grand gesture as proposing marriage?

  My sister’s exact words had been, “Make a proposal she can’t refuse.”

  She hadn’t implied to ask Ma for her engagement ring, the one that had belonged to my avó, my father’s mother.

  And now it was in California, with someone who didn’t even want it. It wasn’t just the ring Raquel didn’t want; it was me, too.

  That realization alone made me want to take the nail gun I held in my hand and lobotomize myself. Then maybe the racing thoughts would stop, the daily anxiety would cease from existence, the worry, the guilt, the shame disappearing alongside with it.

  I squeezed down on the release of the nail gun, affixing another roof shingle in place. The foundation, plumbing rough-ins, and white oak timber framing were all done. The walls and roof trusses had been installed while I had been away. I was grateful the architect rendered a near carbon copy to the original blueprint that we were working with. The only major difference was that Pen got her open concept.

  At least someone was happy.

  I volunteered myself to install roofing felt and didn’t really give a fuck about the rain or the cold temperatures I was exposing myself to. I barely felt any of it, anyway. I stayed up there and installed the shingles myself, too. I liked the solitude, and it was easier to pretend that everything was fine when you were masking it from thirty feet up in the sky while the rest of the crew milled about below.

  Today, I arrived at the jobsite before anyone else, the sun a streak of brilliant orange and pink across an inky sky. The air was fresh, every exhale I made left vapors steaming from my mouth. It was a little after seven, and in another thirty minutes, this place would teem with bodies and loud voices, arousing curious eyes from the neighbors as they watched us erect a new piece of history.

  My phone broke up the stillness of the chilly and wet morning by vibrating in my back pocket. I popped another nail into the shingle before I lowered the nail gun to my side and pulled the phone out of my back pocket.

  After punching the accept button, I brought the phone to my ear. “Hi, Ma,” I greeted, clearing my throat.

  “Parabéns, my son.”

  Parabéns? What was she congratulating me for?

  Then it hit me.

  My brows furrowed, the silence loud between us. I looked skyward. Had I really forgotten it was my birthday? Was I that far gone? A snapshot of the calendar I glanced at briefly this morning on my way out of my kitchen replayed like a movie reel in my mind. I didn’t even notice it was the twenty-third.

  I measured dates and time by how much of it had passed since Raquel had left.

  I sniffed the air, needing to fill the silence with something. “Thanks,” I replied in Portuguese.

  “I’m making your favorite later,” she chirped, but I heard the thin glass in her voice. Like she could see that none of her efforts to cheer me up had been working the last couple of months. “I started marinating the beef last night.”

  “Oh, yeah?” I indulged her with a laugh I didn’t feel, hating the grit that lined my throat.

  Ma made bife a casa every year for me without fail. She always splurged on the sirloin steak, even though she could get away with something cheaper, like a six-dollar package of beef fillets. She cut potatoes into shoelaces, despite the easy availability of frozen fries. She went next door to her neighbor and bought fresh eggs from her rather than just going to the grocery store like everyone else.

  This was one woman who’d never stop loving me, no matter how much of an ass I was, and who always put in the effort.

  “Don’t forget the malasadas, all right?” I teased, fighting the emotion that thickened my throat. I was going to punch myself in the fucking face if I started crying again, over deep fried dough and sugar for that matter. I was a pathetic mess.

  “Never,” she said with a gasp, feigning insult. I smiled, crunching my molars together. “Come over by seven.”

  “I will.” I cleared my throat. “I gotta go, Ma. I’ll see you later, okay?”

  She hesitated, sounding as if she didn’t want to let me go. “Yes, okay,” she said in English, and I could almost see her nodding. “Happy birthday, meu rico filho.”

  “Bye, Ma.” I ended the call, sitting on the seam of the roof. Looking up at the sky, I lost myself to the slow climb of the sun in the sky and the tears that rolled from the corners of my eyes.

  I didn’t know where to find the answers I was desperate for. I couldn’t figure out how to release myself of the burden I carried that told me I had irrevocably fucked up the trajectory of my life. I could have had the girl, and I lost her. I could have had the career, and I’d given it up for my family because I felt it was the right thing to do.

  And the man who would have known how to set me right had been dead for a decade.

  “I need a sign, Dad.” I choked, scraping my face with my rough hands. “Tell me what to do next, ’cause I’m at a fucking loss here.” I buried my face in my callused palms, not caring how I would have looked to anyone who saw me like this.

  I already felt like I had lost everything else.


  Who cared if my dignity and pride went, too?

  “Can you wish him a happy birthday for me?” I whispered, cradling the receiver to my head. My fingers flexed against the plastic spine, nervous energy making me jittery.

  “Isn’t it, like,” Dougie paused, his voice heavy with sleep, “four in the morning in California?”

  Was it? It was dark outside, that was all I knew. I was reliant on a little table lamp to illuminate the darkened space. Turning my head to glance at the digital clock on the nightstand, I confirmed Dougie’s observation with a wince.

  “Yeah.” I curled the coiled cord around my finger. I had dragged the whole phone set to the desk, the cable running across the width of the room.

  “So, shouldn’t you still be asleep?”

  Still be asleep? I hadn’t even gone to bed yet, so the joke was on him. Not that I would tell him that.

  “I had to pee,” I lied.

  “You sound pretty alert for someone at four a.m.,” he said skeptically, unconvinced by the fast one I was trying to pull.

  Gritting my teeth, I ignored the pain that pulsed there. I was growing a little more resentful with each passing day at how perceptive this fucker was becoming.

  “She probably hasn’t even gone to sleep yet,” Penelope loudly grumbled in the background, confirming Dougie’s suspicions.

  Damn her for knowing me so well, too.

  Things were still tense between her and me, but I considered the fact that she hadn’t yelled at me in two weeks to be massive progress.

  “Go to bed, Raquel,” Dougie grunted. I heard water running in the background, like he had just turned on the shower. “I’ll let him know.”

  “Promise?”

  “Promise?” Dougie retorted. I could almost visualize with perfect clarity the arch of his thick brow nearly touching his hairline with his hand pitched on his hip.

  Yeah, I know. It was pathetic even for me to be borderline begging him to wish the guy I’d destroyed after he had come to plead his case a happy birthday on my behalf.