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Contents
Title Page
Playlist
PROLOGUE - The Letter
1. Lily
2. Lily
3. Wes
4. Wes
5. Lily
6. Wes
7. Wes
8. Lily
9. Wes
10. Lily
11. Wes
12. Lily
13. Wes
14. Lily
15. Wes
16. Lily
17. Wes
18. Lily
19. Wes
20. Lily
21. Wes
22. Lily
23. Wes
24. Lily
25. Wes
EPILOGUE - Lily
EPILOGUE DEUX - Wes
Acknowledgments
Spotify Playlist
Connect with Kayley
Also by Kayley Loring
Back for More SPOTIFY PLAYLIST
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2019 by Kayley Loring
All rights reserved.
COVER DESIGN: PopKitty Design
COVER PHOTO: Sara Eirew Photographer
COPY EDITOR: Jenny Rarden
To the First Love that we all deserve
PROLOGUE - The Letter
Dear Wes,
I’m leaving.
I’m leaving Belford.
I’m leaving my father.
I’m leaving Fanny the cat here with you and Toby because I know you’ll take good care of her.
I’m moving to New York.
I’ve been slowly leaving this place ever since my mom died.
You know that.
I’ve been trying to stay away from you because I knew you’d never leave your dad.
You know that too.
What you don’t know is that I wish things were different for us.
I wish that I could be different with you.
I wish I weren’t so afraid of these feelings I have for you.
I don’t know why I am the way I am, but I’ve been like this since before I met you, and I just know that when I’m with you I want to be more. I want to have more. With you.
And that scares me.
And that’s why I’ve hardly ever said to you what I really mean or meant what I said.
One of the last things my mom ever said to me, when she was exhausted and in a daze from the morphine, was that she wasn’t afraid of dying because nothing could be scarier than falling in love and nothing could be as beautiful as letting go of your fear.
She said that she knew I’d already met the love of my life and that her only regret was that she wouldn’t be around to keep me from running away from him.
She said to forgive my dad for not knowing what to do with me.
She said to forgive myself for not knowing what to do other than run away from what I want more than anything.
She said that I can always come home again, but I don’t know if that’s true.
All I know is, I can’t stay here anymore.
I may never be able to know the beauty of letting go of my fear, but at least maybe it will be half as beautiful if I just let go of everything I want here.
Just please keep in touch with me.
Or come find me.
Come be with me.
For a day or a week or a month or forever.
If you can.
If you want to.
Or just know that I want you to.
Know that I’ll be missing you even if you don’t hear from me.
Know that I’ll always think of you as the best guy I’ve ever known.
Know that the truest thing I ever told you was in my crazy kisses.
Even now, even on paper, I don’t know if I can tell you what I really want to say in words.
Maybe in French words.
Merde.
Où est la discothèque?
Au revoir.
Believe it or not…Je t’aime.
~ Lily
1
Lily
*Not Yet*
When I was fourteen, the old couple who had been living on my family’s property as groundskeepers retired and moved to Florida. I liked them, but ever since I had read Harry Potter, I was disappointed that they were in no way similar to Rubeus Hagrid in personality or as adult friends, and their total lack of magical creatures was unfortunate. They were replaced by a nice middle-aged man named Toby Carver, and I was told that he had a son who would be helping him out with the gardening. It didn’t even occur to me that that son of his would be the magical creature I had been longing for to visit my secret garden.
If that sounds naughty, it’s because that boy has only ever inspired naughty thoughts. Secret, forbidden, uncontrollable naughty thoughts. Even calling him a “boy” seems silly. I think he must have been born a man, and I know he made me want to grow up. Fast.
My first sighting of him was burned in my brain forever: tanned and shirtless in a pair of tight dirty jeans and unlaced low-cut boots. He was pushing a wheelbarrow filled with soil toward one of my mother’s flower beds. He’d had the kind of muscles that I had never seen on a guy in real life before, and his skin had glistened with sweat in the midday sun. He’d carefully lowered the wheelbarrow handles to rest it on the grass and wiped his brow with his forearm.
Even at sixteen, on a hotness scale of 1 to 10—where every actor on a CW show is an 8 or 9 and Chris Hemsworth is a 10—Wes Carver was the entire Marvel Universe.
* * *
When he looked over and finally saw me standing there in the shade of a crabapple tree and those soul piercing eyes studied me as if he were deciding whether or not I was a flower ready to be plucked, it didn’t matter how many boys had asked me to dance at Homecoming that year. I felt like a knobby-kneed, buck-toothed dork. I could tell the answer was: Not yet. I was simultaneously disappointed and relieved, paralyzed by the conflicting desires of wanting to run away from him until I’d stop feeling so much and leaping toward him while singing “A Whole New World” and hoping that he would wrap me in his arms and put his mouth on my mouth until we took flight together.
Instead of doing either of those things, I stood my ground, blinked at him, and said, “Hey.”
“Hey,” he replied. His voice was deeper than I was expecting it to be, rich and earthy as the soil he’d been transporting. “You must be Lily.”
Teehee. He said my name! I managed to maintain my carefully cultivated resting b-face. “You must be a genius.”
He grinned and shook his head and gave me a so that’s what you’re like look.
“And you must be the gardener’s son.”
“Groundskeeper’s son. I’m Wes.”
Wes. I couldn’t decide if that name sounded British or like a cowboy from one of my mom’s romance novels. I loved his name. Loved. It.
“Good for you.” I shrugged. I had perfected my ability to seem like I didn’t give a fuck by the time I was eleven. It was a defense mechanism, sure, but my real defenses were in no way mechanizing when it came to this person. I was pretty sure he could hear my heart beating from twenty feet away.
“It’s pretty good. Can’t complain.” He mirrored my shrug and then ran his fingers through his wavy brown hair, turned around, and bent over to pick up a bottle of water.
My eyeballs nearly sprang from their sockets when I saw that butt in those jeans. If every member of every boy band had bent over in front of me in a lineup, I would not have had anywhere near as overwhelming a response as I had to Wes Carver’s behind. I hated knowing that another person could have that much power over me, just from being naked from the waist up and having a well-formed posterior. It was humiliating. I hated this feeling.
I decided then and there that the only way to overcome the feeling that I hated was to hate the guy who made me feel that way.
As he bent over again, I took one last look at his bum before turning to walk back to the house.
“Hey,” he said before I had even taken three steps.
I took a deep breath and casually glanced over my shoulder.
He was holding up a fresh bouquet of purple calla lilies from my mother’s flower bed. “For you,” he muttered as he sauntered toward me. He wasn’t smiling or anything, just handing me nine elegant, perfectly clustered flowers like it was no big deal.
I took them in both hands and cradled them in one arm like a prom queen. When his fingers grazed mine, I looked up into gray eyes, the color of an overcast Pacific Northwest sky when it weighs down on you until you just can’t take it anymore. Calla lilies are not scented, but he was. He smelled like pine and freshly cut grass and an honest day’s work, and I inhaled deeply, my eyelids fluttering.
I thanked him, genuinely, in the way that a teenager can only ever sound genuine when caught off-guard.
“Put them in water right away, okay? Cold water.”
“Oh my God… Is that what you do with flowers? Thanks, I had no idea!”
“Oh my God… Is that sarcasm? I’ve never met a sarcastic teenage girl before. You’re super unique and amaze.”
Who was this guy? People didn’t talk to me like that. I was either moderately revered (by my peers), lovingly placated (by my mom), politely tolerated (by most adults), or politely ignored (by my dad).
I didn’t know how to respond, but I also didn’t feel like leaving anymore, so I switched gears and changed the subject. “My mom’s name is Calla,” I said.
“Yeah, my dad told me. It’s a nice name.” He returned to the edge of the garden bed, picked up a shovel, and began shoveling the soil from the wheelbarrow and carefully depositing it around the clusters of calla lilies. They were thriving now, in early summer, and my heart ached because my mother wasn’t at home to enjoy them.
“So, you’re all moved into the back house?”
“Yeah. Is that what you call it? Because from there, your house is the back house.” He didn’t look over his shoulder at me, but I could tell from his voice that he was smirking.
The Barnes house was a six-bedroom mansion. The groundskeeper’s house was a two-bedroom near the rear entrance to the property. While I liked my own room and my mother’s bathroom and library, I was always more comfortable in smaller homes. The shoeboxes I would later inhabit in New York and LA were just fine with me.
“Where’s your mom?” I asked.
“She lives in Europe now,” he stated very plainly.
“Lucky. Why aren’t you guys there too?”
“She ran off with someone.”
I blinked, confused. “Wait. What? Oh, your parents are divorced?”
“Not technically. They’re separated. My dad doesn’t know exactly where she is, so he can’t file papers.”
“How do you know all that?”
He squinted at me. “What do you mean? My mom told me she was leaving. And my dad told me he doesn’t think she’s coming back.”
“I mean…why would he tell you all that? Why wouldn’t he just lie and say she’s on a cruise and the ship got taken over by pirates or something?”
“Because he knows I can handle the truth and I’m not an idiot, I guess.”
I bristled at that. Was he implying that I was an idiot who couldn’t handle the truth? And if so, how could he tell this when I had spent so many years of my life trying to hide it? “Pirates take over cruise ships all the time.”
“First of all, they do not attack cruise ships all the time. Secondly, my mom would never take a cruise. And third, if she did, she’s smart enough to avoid pirate-infested waters.”
“Well, if she’s so great, then why’d she leave you?”
“She’ll be back. Where’s your mom?”
“She’s at a spa. She was getting really skinny and pale and tired, so she’s at a spa for a while. To rest.”
“Oh.” He looked at me like he was about to say that he was sorry but held back.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing. Hope she gets better.”
“Of course she will.” Did he know something I didn’t know? That she wasn’t really at a spa? Did he feel sorry for me? None of this was acceptable, and all of it was unbearable. “What’s that even supposed to mean? Rich women go to spas all the time. You wouldn’t know because you’re just the help.”
I hated myself for saying that, but I hated so much more how he was making me feel. I hated that he thought he knew more than I did. I hated that I knew he was right. I really hated that he was completely immune to my venomous remarks. I stormed off, felt him watch me go, and didn’t stop thinking about him for the rest of the day.
* * *
At a certain point, being around him would become the worst kind of torture a sheltered, rich white girl could imagine.
A year after we’d met, after my mother had passed away, there were only two things I knew for sure: I would leave our small Southern Oregon town because it was no longer my home, and Wes Carver would never leave with me.
It made me want to grow up even faster, because once I turned eighteen and graduated high school, I would take the portion of inheritance from my mom that I had access to and never look back. I would take all the words I had never said to my father or Wes with me. I would prove to myself and my father that I could make it on my own, without him or his money. I would prove to myself and Wes that I wasn’t in love with him, whether he cared or not.
2
Lily
*An Itch I Can’t Scratch*
Five years after leaving Belford, and the jury’s still out on whether or not I have proven anything to my father or anyone else. Nine years after meeting Wes, and I’m still paralyzed by the same conflicting desires. Running away never did stop me from feeling the feelings, any more than finally kissing him ever did.
So now I’m back in Southern Oregon.
I never thought I would be.
Not now.
Certainly not like this.
But I refuse to classify this as a defeat. Giving up on my first attempt at a career and moving back is, in fact, a win. It’s good adulting.
No really, it is.
Most people go to New York and Los Angeles because they’re chasing a dream, trying to become the person they want to be. I went because I was running away from the life that I wanted but couldn’t imagine myself having once my mother was no longer around. I took the guts and the money she had left me with and invested it in myself—acting lessons for myself, headshots for myself, audition and modeling casting call outfits for myself, shockingly modest apartments for myself. I’m not saying I’m a risky investment, but being an actor in New York and Los Angeles is expensive as fuck. The patience and the rejection and the constant honing of the craft and the waitressing—that I could handle. My budget—not so much.
I’m at a Denny’s right outside of town, nearing the end of my two-day road trip from LA, and my old BMW is so loaded up with all my earthly possessions that I can’t open the glove compartment. My credit cards are so maxed out I’ve been consuming nothing but coffee, water, bananas, and celery with almond butter for days. My ego is so tiny now you need a magnifying glass to read the “will work for food” sign.
I signal to the waitress, asking for yet another coffee refill. She rolls her eyes, grabs the coffee pot, and saunters over, hand on her waist. It’s not like I’m dying for another cup of this stuff, but I came in to use the ladies’ room, and it has been occupied for the past ten minutes.
“You from California?” the waitress asks.
“Yes. How’d you know?”
“Saw you get out of the car with the California plates.”
“Oh. Right. I thought maybe it was obvious that I was a failed actress or something.”
“You kidding?” she says. “You’re young and skinny and gorgeous. You drive a BMW and carry a Burberry handbag. Besides, nobody’s a failure at your age. Anyway, I don’t believe in failure. At any age.”
I fucking love you, Tammy.
I smile. “That’s nice of you to say. I think I’ve been in LA too long. And PS… The handbag was secondhand when I bought it.”
“Well, it’s the nicest handbag anyone’s ever brought in here, that’s for sure.”
It is killing me that I can’t order more food from Tammy, but I can barely afford this coffee. I remember coming here with my best friend when we were seventeen and ordering half the menu. We were such little turds. Now I just want Tammy to adopt me.
“You doin’ a road trip or something?”
“Moving back home, actually.”
“Yeah? Around here?”
I nod. “Belford.”
She places my bill on the table and gives me a little look. The Denny’s waitress feels sorry for me. Because moving home to Belford from California when you’re single in your early twenties is never a sign that things are going well. “You hang out here as long as you need to, hon. Lemme know if you need anything else. Welcome home.”
