For Lila, Forever

by Winter Renshaw

  “Yeah.”

  “It was like that.” I take a seat on the bed, the mattress springier than I remember. I make a mental note to have a new one delivered ASAP.

  “That’s our daughter,” Lila says, folding a sweater and placing it in a dresser drawer.

  “I should probably get back,” I say, yawning. I’ve been in town four days now, overseeing all the final details, and I’ve got a room at the Marriott on the square. Despite what transpired between us this afternoon, I don’t want to be presumptive.

  “Get back where?”

  “I’ve got a room in town,” I say.

  “What? No. You’re not sleeping in a hotel. This house is just as much yours as it is mine.”

  “The house is yours,” I say. “Just so we’re clear.”

  “I want you to stay,” she says as she crawls across the bed and curls into my arms, resting her arm across my chest as she nestles against me.

  The springs squeak with each movement.

  I vow to make the new bed agenda priority one first thing in the morning.

  “Tell me everything I’ve missed the last ten years,” she says, voice low as she stifles a yawn.

  I close my eyes for just a moment, and suddenly I’m transported all over again. She’s the eighteen-year-old girl with pinwheel eyes who can’t stop playing with my hair and I’m the nineteen-year-old boy who can’t take his eyes off her for more than a minute at a time.

  When I open my eyes and look down, I find her sound asleep. Her breathing is steady and her beautiful face wears the most peaceful expression, like she doesn’t have a care in the world.

  And she shouldn’t.

  As long as we have each other, we’ve got everything we’ll ever need.

  Chapter 62

  Lila

  I wake to the smell of bacon and eggs Saturday morning, the other half of the mattress vacant. Sliding my phone off the nightstand, I check the time.

  Holy shit.

  I don’t remember the last time I slept in until ten o’clock.

  Crawling out of bed, I make my way to the kitchen, following the savory scents wafting in the air along with the sound of MJ’s cherubic giggles.

  “And that’s your Ancient Egypt Fact of the Day,” Thayer says as he flips a pancake.

  “That’s disgusting. I can’t believe they ate moldy bread,” MJ says, pinching her nose and sticking out her tongue as she colors in a coloring book I’ve never seen before.

  “You should try it. Maybe you’ll like it,” Thayer says, though I know he’s messing with her.

  “Only if you try it first,” she says.

  Touché.

  “Hey, Mom,” MJ says.

  Thayer turns around, a spatula in his hand. “How’d you sleep?”

  “Like a rock,” I say.

  “How do you sleep like a rock?” MJ asks.

  “Figure of speech,” I say, ruffling her messy dark hair.

  Thayer carries a plate of pancakes to the table, and I notice they’re filled with an abundance of chocolate chips and covered in powdered sugar, but I let it slide because this is a momentous occasion, and momentous occasions deserve chocolate chips and powdered sugar.

  “Mom, why is there writing on that wall over there?” MJ asks, pointing.

  “Thayer did that,” I say, winking at him.

  “Okay, I wrote on the wall one time and I got in huge trouble. You took my markers for a week!” She spears a piece of pancake on her fork.

  “It wasn’t a week. More like three days,” I say. “Not that it matters. You were four when you did that. I’m surprised you even remember.”

  “How old was Thayer when he wrote on the wall?” she asks.

  “Nineteen,” he answers. “Old enough to know better.”

  “Then why’d you do it?” she asks.

  “Because I wanted to impress this girl I liked …” He carries two breakfast plates to the table and places one in front of me. “She liked this cottage and I liked her, so I promised it to her and I wrote it on the wall so she knew I was serious.”

  “Who was the girl?” she asks.

  Thayer and I laugh, exchanging looks.

  “Me, silly,” I say.

  “Ohhhhh.” MJ perks up, as if it all makes sense now.

  Under the table, Thayer’s fingertips graze the top of my knee until I slide my hand into his.

  Thank God he’s persistent. It kind of equals out my stubbornness.

  Ten years and a rollercoaster ride later, I’m finally realizing that all of our differences were a good thing. His strengths and weaknesses balanced my strengths and weaknesses.

  It turns out all of those opposites I was so worried about were the very things that made us perfect for each other.

  Epilogue

  5 years later

  Thayer

  “The twins are en route,” I say to Lila as she pushes our two-year-old, Benjamin, in the swing that hangs from an oak tree in the backyard. “They just called. Landed a little bit ago and finally got their luggage. Said they should be here within the hour.”

  Shortly before I moved to Summerton, I sat my parents down and explained why I was moving and filled them in on every last detail. My mother was, of course, in disbelief. I think it took her a solid week to come around and start asking questions. She didn’t want to believe that the father she knew was capable of orchestrating such a despicable arrangement, but in the end she chose to focus on her newly-minted status as a grandmother and started asking when they could come visit.

  By the end of the summer that followed, Lila and I were married. It was a small ceremony, no more than twenty of our closest friends and family gathered in our backyard as we said our vows with MJ at our side and her best friend, Taylor, officiating.

  Lila wore a simple white dress and a marigold wreath in her hair as a nod to the first picnic date we had on the island. When it was over, I took my bride to Italy for two full weeks while my parents stayed with MJ.

  I fire up the grill on the back patio and head inside to grab the meat. As soon as Westley, Whitley, and Whitley’s husband arrive, we’ll have a barbeque dinner and do some catching up. Lila doesn’t quite have that brother-sister dynamic with the two of them yet. It took my mother three years before finally deciding to tell her sister what she knew about Ari.

  She struggled with knowing it would destroy Lorelai’s life as she knew it, but she also felt Lorelai deserved to know and that Ari needed to be held accountable for his transgression.

  It was hard on them at first, they did couples counseling for over a year, but in the end, Aunt Lorelai couldn’t forgive him. The hurt was too devastating and it ran too deep. It was a scab on their marriage that was never going to heal.

  I head back outside to prep the grill. The sound of Benjamin’s giggles fill the air along with the chirp of birds and sunset crickets. To my left, MJ has her nose buried in a book, lying in her mom’s hammock. We ended up replacing the old one years ago for safety reasons, and I swear MJ hasn’t left it alone since. If ever we can’t find her, we know where to look.

  My gorgeous wife turns to give me another wave and then she cradles her growing belly. Without a doubt, Lila is the most stunning pregnant woman I’ve seen in my life. Everything about her glows, and she radiates a sense of calm like I’ve never seen.

  We’ll be welcoming a little girl this August that we plan to call Emilia, but the way everyone’s acting, you’d think we were expecting the future Queen of England. The whole reason the twins are in town is because Whitley insisted on throwing a “baby sprinkle.” She threw Benjamin’s baby shower two years back and suddenly realized she had a knack for party planning, and she’s trying to build her portfolio.

  Once Emilia’s here, I plan on taking at least a month off from the law firm to bask in those first few newborn weeks and help out with MJ and Ben.

  The cottage is feeling smaller by the day and a few times I’ve broached the topic of looking for something a little bigger, but Li
la won’t hear it. The cottage is her favorite home, she says. The only one she ever needs. The only one she ever wants.

  But I don’t mind. Home is wherever I’m with her.

  THE END

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  SAMPLE - Pricked

  Chapter One

  Brighton

  "I can’t help but notice you don’t have any tattoos.” At least none that I can see beyond his white tank top and ripped jeans. I scan the smooth, tanned arms and the arch of his muscled shoulders as he concentrates on my bare flesh. “Why is that? If you don’t mind my asking?”

  "I’m going to need you to stop shaking." The raven-haired man with bronze skin ignores my questions and quiets the buzz of his tattoo machine. He forces a hard breath through his nostrils like he doesn’t have time for this, resting his forearms on the tops of his thighs as he studies me. “You want this to be crooked?”

  “It’s a little chilly in here.” And I might be the tiniest bit anxious. If I could stop myself from shaking, believe me, I’d have done it by now.

  A cool draft of air from the AC kisses the bare skin of my exposed abdomen, and a rush of goose bumps spray across my flesh.

  His full lips press together as he studies the custom drawing he sketched and stenciled on me a little while ago, and I can’t help but wonder if he always looks this serious. I figured the owner of a tattoo parlor would be more on the laidback side, but Madden Ransom hasn’t so much as smiled since I got here, and every time our eyes meet—little bursts at a time here and there—there’s a kind of heaviness in his stare that I’ve never seen on anyone else before.

  “A lot of people come in here saying they don't have a thing about needles, and then as soon I get started—"

  "—I don't have a thing about needles." I clear my throat, my fingertips tucked under the hem of my shirt, which is lifted just enough to cover the lowermost part of my bra. “I’m pre-med actually.”

  I offer a nervous chuckle and, in this moment, I detest how much I sound like my mother, casually and nonchalantly working humble brags into conversations. Only despite the way it might seem, I’m not bragging, I'm simply trying to prove a point.

  “Good for you.” He doesn’t look up, doesn’t seem to care in the slightest. His needle returns to my skin, the buzz filling my ear, and my body tenses. "The pain okay?" His voice is monotone, disingenuous. I suppose if a person does this job long enough, their sympathy eventually wears off. "You need a break?"

  Madden stops.

  “No … keep going.” Dragging in a hard breath, I let it linger in my chest as I brace myself against the hard bed beneath me.

  He readjusts his black latex gloves before switching the machine on again. And that’s what it’s called—a machine. According to the research I did before coming here, tattooists hate when you call it a “gun.” I wanted to make sure I knew the vernacular before I wandered in here like a lost child off the street (or an overprotected, naive, Park Terrace princess who’s rarely allowed to venture outside her castle).

  "So, why don't you have any tattoos?" Once more I ask the question that’s been bothering me since I walked through the doors of Madd Inkk a half hour ago. A ribbed tank top made of bleached cotton hugs his sinewy torso, and I couldn't help but notice when he took me back to his station that there wasn't so much as a hint of ink on his perfect skin.

  The man at the next station over gives a puff of a laugh, his full chest rising as he shakes his head.

  "Madd’s got commitment issues for days," he says, turning his crystalline blue focus back to his client and filling in a geometric pattern with ink the color of midnight.

  The sturdy-shouldered man in his chair doesn't so much as flinch as the needle pricks his skin. He just keeps scrolling his thumb along his phone like it doesn't feel like a thousand tiny kittens are scratching his flesh.

  “Can’t commit to a woman, a car, or a tat,” the artist adds.

  "Fuck off, Pierce." Madden returns a gloved hand to my ribcage and starts the machine once more. A moment later, the needle peppers tiny specks of ink into my skin. Every so often, he wipes the area clean and starts again. "About half done."

  He said it would only hurt a little, and that it wouldn't take long, but the past eight minutes have all but dripped by, like morphine into saline, tiny drop by tiny drop.

  "Seriously though, why don't you have any?" I ask.

  I'm not letting this go because it's a valid question given his profession as both an artist and the sole proprietor of this shop.

  Plus, I’m curious.

  And I need a distraction to get me through the rest of this. The front of the shop is covered in wall to wall “flash.” Drawings and renderings. Hundreds if not thousands of them. Back here the walls are less interesting. There are certificates. State licenses. A few framed photos. And a privacy curtain.

  I don’t expect some lengthy, personal response. I’ve spent maybe a half hour with this man and he’s said all of fifty words to me. A simple answer would suffice.

  The needle drags against my ribcage and his mouth flattens into a hard line. "Guess I haven't found the right one yet."

  I don't buy it. And I’m pretty sure he’s giving me an answer just to shut me up, but it's not like I can call him a liar. I don’t even know him.

  “It’s ink, bro. Not a woman.” The artist at the next chair—Pierce—says without so much as glancing in our direction.

  “No fucking shit, bro,” Madden snaps back at him, and I can’t tell if he’s joking or not. His expression hasn’t changed since the moment I first laid eyes on him.

  I lift my gaze to a hand-written sign across the room, hanging behind the cash register.

  NO INFINITY SYMBOLS

  NO TRAMP STAMPS

  NO TRIBALS

  NO CHINESE SYMBOLS

  The distractingly pretty, lavender-haired girl working the front snaps her gum as she hunches over the glass counter, her face colored with boredom as she thumbs through her phone. The shop isn't as busy as I thought it would be, but then again, it's the middle of the day on a Wednesday. It’s not exactly peak hours around here.

  "I think you're going to like this." He wipes a damp rag across my stinging flesh, his inky brown eyes resting on his work. Madden sniffs, though it isn’t quite a laugh. “Shit. You better. It’s forever.”

  He looked at me sideways when I told him I wanted him to choose the design. I didn't come prepared. I didn't bring screenshots or Pinterest pins or any other kind of inspiration. To be perfectly honest, this isn't about the tattoo so much as it is about getting the tattoo.

  "I trust you," I told him as his dark brows knitted together, and then I added, "I just want it somewhere hidden."

  A moment later, I was handed a clipboard and a small stack of forms to complete, trying my hardest to steady my breathing as he prepped his station.

  When he brought me back, Madden suggested the side of my ribcage, in an area easily hidden by bras and bikini tops, and he didn't once ask me why I'd take the time to have this done if I wasn't going to show it to anyone. His one and only caveat was that I never ask him what it means.

  Ever.

  He was adamant.

  “Not even on your deathbed,” he said. One of his colleagues overheard him and called him a “heartless bastard,” offering a laugh that was more amusement than anything else, and for a split moment, I felt like the butt of some inside joke.

  And then I wondered if he was gaslighting me. I know what people see when they look at me.

  Privileged.

  Naive.

  Innocent.

  Gullible.

  Easily had.

  "Still doing all right?" he asks, not glancing up.

  I nod even if he isn’t looking at me right now. "Yes."

  The muscles of his forearm flex as his left palm splays across my skin. A moment later, our fingers brush when he pushes the fallen hem of my top out of the way.

  I
n the strangest way, this feels like a dream.

  The icy-cold air on my bare flesh …

  The sterile scent of alcohol wipes and powdered gloves …

  The vibrating sting of the needle against my skin …

  The heavy metal playing on speakers in the back …

  The shaved heads, “sleeved” arms, Harleys parked out front, and the girls in half-shirts and mini-skirts all work together to form an ambience foreign to any I’ve ever known …

  I try not to stare too much, but this must be what Alice felt like when she first arrived in Wonderland.

  “There.” Madden shuts off the machine when he’s finished, and then he cleans the tattoo one more time before dabbing on a finger-sized scoop of ointment.

  “Can I see it first?” I ask when he reaches for a bandage.

  He stops, turning to face me, his shoulders slumping like I’m asking the world of him. “Right. Go ahead.”

  Sitting up, I contort myself until I can almost see the beginning of a black and blue outline against warm pink skin.

  “Here.” Madden shoves a handheld mirror toward me.

  It’s a butterfly. Small. Not much bigger than a silver dollar. Brilliant blue with black veining.

  “You done now? We good?”

  I place the mirror aside and let him patch me up. Tattoos are flesh wounds, I know that. And I’ve already read up on the aftercare. I say nothing as he hands me a set of instructions printed on yellow paper.

  Madden cleans up his station before yanking off his gloves and tossing them in the trash. “Missy will check you out up front.”

  “Oh.” I’m not sure why I expected him to walk me up. He’s not a hairstylist or aesthetician. People don’t come here because of the service.

  Sliding off the client bed, I tug my shirt into place and locate my bag. My skin throbs from beneath the bandage, but it’s tolerable and not as bad as I expected.