Take Me Away, page 17
“Oh God,” I whispered. “Xavier.”
I blinked. I couldn’t leave without saying goodbye to Xavier. And my parents, I told them I was staying, I couldn’t let them think they’d lost me again. And I was really curious about the McCabe’s Christmas party everyone kept mentioning, and Brynn had promised to take me, plus the town tree lighting was coming up and I really wanted to see it….
I slapped a tear off my face.
I didn’t want to go. I didn’t want to run away again.
But I needed to be somewhere else than here.
And right now I really needed a friend. And a couch to crash on.
Maybe a bed. And a breakfast.
I made the call as I wound down off the mountain, so when I pulled into the drive at the Abbott House, every light was ablaze and Xavier was out waiting for me on the porch. I did a double take to see that his hands were stuffed into the pockets of a very unfashionably puffy coat.
He did a triple-take when he saw my hair.
I grinned. “Hi.”
Xavier staggered back from the door with his hand pressed to his heart. “Well then. I’ve always said you needed to find a look and commit to it. And that’s definitely a look, Kitten.”
I touched my shorn head. “You like?
He tilted his head thoughtfully. “You can definitely pull it off,” he said. “This probably makes no sense, but you look like… yourself.”
Chapter Forty
Derek
I’d made my world small on purpose. Orderly and quiet and under control. I’d shrunk it down until I was the all-knowing center of my private universe.
Then Aria had burst in and made my world so much bigger than myself. The more out of my control things got, the more scared it made me. Every step of the way, I’d tried to put limits on my feelings for her - tried to force them back into my tiny little world where things made sense.
But Aria was bigger than anything I could imagine. There was no limit to what I felt for her. She was now the center of my universe, and because of that it was infinite.
She was beyond my control.
And I surrendered.
Happily.
Forever.
In my haste to get back home from Jesse’s, I nearly ended up in a ditch. Which might have been poetic if it wasn’t so stupid.
I let my foot off the accelerator, gritting my teeth.
But when I finally, finally arrived home, it was to discover the great house was dark. Her shitty little hatchback was gone from its spot in the drive, the first time I’d seen that spot empty since the day she’d slapped me on the lawn.
She was gone.
I gripped the steering wheel and tried to hold off the rising panic. Okay. She was gone. But that didn’t mean she was lost to me forever. I knew Aria. I knew where she might go - to her parents or maybe to Xavier’s, or, and this would be weird, to Cole’s - and how long she’d be gone.
She’d be back.
I believed this the entire time it took me to clean up the carriage house. I wiped down the counters and made sure her favorite mug had a place of honor. I pre-mixed a batch of homemade cocoa in case she wanted to warm herself by the wood stove while I ran down the list of apologies I owed her and promises I’d keep.
It was nearing the solstice, so as the sun slipped lower, I told myself that it didn’t matter. Maybe wherever she was, she’d decided to stay for dinner.
It wasn’t like she was far away.
It wasn’t like she’d left forever.
I fixed myself a plate of food. I’d done that so many times before, but tonight, the solitary action seemed suffocating. I kept staring out the window. My hand went to my phone a million times, the need to call her and make sure she was okay, make sure she wasn’t doing something out of control, something rash… like leaving me forever….
“Fuck,” I growled at my reflection in the dark window.
A bearded stranger stared back at me. A full day of worrying and trying to keep busy was all my beard needed to assert itself. Where I’d once kept a nicely trimmed scruff was now a cloudy tangle that obscured my jawline.
I was turning back into a mountain man recluse every second I went without her.
“Dammit.” I turned away from the window and forced myself into the bathroom, where I attacked the impending beard with a bit too much zeal. Nicking myself in the cheek, I swore, and dragged the razor over my skin, leaving a line of paleness in its wake.
“Shit.” I glared at my reflection. There was no saving it.
The beard had to go,
The last time my cheeks were naked, I was sixteen years old. As I shaved off the beard, I felt like an archaeologist uncovering an artifact, layer by careful layer, exposing something underneath it all that hadn’t seen the light of day in centuries.
I faced the mirror a brand new man.
A bewildered, broken-hearted man.
Where was Aria?
I sat down at my computer. It would be a matter of a few keystrokes to track her down. Her phone was unlocked, I realized that when I’d put up the firewalls to keep her safe. She wasn’t trackable inside the perimeter I’d thrown up, but if she was outside of it?
I leaned forward, brushing my fingers up and down the keys to make them rattle.
Did it matter that I was interfering out of concern?
I leaned back and deliberately set my hands in my lap. No. She had a right to live her own live without me trying to intervene and make it better.
It never worked out for the better when I did stuff like that.
I reached for my phone instead.
My finger hovered over her name - Baby Girl - in my contacts list. I wished like hell I had someone - my brother, Jesse, hell, Nick Butler might even have an opinion to share with me about the right course of action, though I’d be sure to do the exact opposite of whatever he said.
Sometimes solitude is a real bitch.
Especially when you’re looking for advice on how not to hold too tightly to the best thing that ever happened to you.
Chapter Forty-One
Aria
“Kitten.” Xavier sounded annoyed.
I looked back at him, embarrassed. “What? Sorry, were you saying something?”
He sighed and looked up to the timber—framed ceiling. “Here’s a question I hope I’ll never have to ask again, but, am I boring you?”
“No!” I protested and reached for his hand. “No, sorry, I’m just….”
“Thinking about your man?”
I grimaced.
“Go ahead and check your phone,” Xavier sighed. “Again.”
I pulled it from my pocket and stared at the blank screen in mute disbelief. “Nothing.”
“Hmm.” Xavier scraped the remnants of his dinner onto his fork and licked it thoughtfully.
“He must be really angry.” I made to put it back into my pocket, then thought better off it, and set it onto the table instead. Face up.
“Does he have reason to be?” Xavier wanted to know. “You said you kicked him out. Why, again?”
My hand twitched towards my phone involuntarily. Xavier eyed it and I pulled it away. “Because.” Worry was clouding the memory of my anger. I could barely recall the reason I’d left in the first place. “He… wanted me to join a support group,” I mumbled, looking down at my hands.
“Mm hmm.”
“I know it doesn’t sound like something to get mad about.”
“Mmm.”
“Is there something you want to say? It’s not like you to hold back, Xavier.”
He set his fork down. “Kitten. I adore you. Any time you want to drop by like this, I’m thrilled because I love you to pieces.”
“But?” I took a sip of my water.
“But.” He ran his tongue along the inside of his cheek. “I’m pretty sure you’re eating dinner with the wrong man who loves you to pieces.”
I choked on my water.
“Check your phone again.”
“Nothing!” I almost wailed. “He’s not even worried! He’s done with me, Xavier. I fucked it up!”
“You’re sure of that?”
“Of course I am! He’s not calling me. He’s not looking for me. I left and he just let me go!”
“So go back.”
I gaped at him.
Xavier sipped his wine.
“Go back?” I sputtered.
“This doesn’t have to be the end, Kitten. You can turn around, retrace your steps.” He raised his eyebrows. “Leaving doesn’t have to be a permanent thing.”
I sagged back in my chair. “Shit.”
He nodded.
“This is what I do.”
“So stop doing it,” he snapped.
I stood up from my chair. “I love you.”
“You’re not sleeping here, Kitten.”
“I know.”
“Go get your man.”
“I will.” I grabbed my coat.
“You can stay here for your honeymoon!” he called after me as I sprinted through the door.
Chapter Forty-Two
Aria
It took every ounce of strength I could call up to propel myself across the frozen lawn.
He’s going to be so angry with you. It wasn’t so much a thought as a conditioned response from years of training.
But I wasn’t a beaten dog. And Derek’s anger… well Derek’s anger was something I could face.
I knew that if I worked up the courage to face him, he wouldn’t repay my trust with fists.
I just had to trust myself enough to be brave and apologize.
The light was on over his porch. His Jeep was there.
I raised my hand to knock on this door.
It flew open.
He was clad only in his boxers. His hair stuck out in wild tufts and his beard…
His beard was… gone
I’d prepared an entire speech and what came out first was, “You shaved?”
His eyes scanned wildly over me like he was checking first that I was real, and second that I was uninjured. A slow grin spread over his face. “And you got a hair cut.”
“I keep forgetting,” I confessed, raising my hand to my head. “But then the wind blows and my ears get cold and I remember.” I blinked. “You like it?”
“I don’t know how you get more beautiful every day, but you do.” He opened the door wider. “Come in, let’s warm up those ears.”
“Wait, really?” I licked my lips. “You’re letting me in?”
“Why not?” He looked genuinely confused. “I want to apologize.”
“No, wait, I want to apologize.”
He grinned. “On the count of three?”
“I’m sorry,” we said in unison.
He smiled again and folded me into his arms, whisking me over the threshold and into the warmth of his house. “Your ears are so cold,” he clucked. “Come in.”
He shoved a mug of steaming hot cocoa in my hands. I looked up at him in awe. “You had this ready?”
“I’ve dumped out three batches prior to this one,” he confessed. “But yeah. I wanted to have one ready for you when you were ready to come home.”
“You mean, to your house.”
He blinked at me. “I mean come home.”
I had to look away. The disconnect between what the years of training told me would happen and what was actually happening between us now was giving me vertigo. I squeezed my eyes shut.
He knew I was coming home. He trusted me enough to leave to get my head together, to take some time away and realize my mistake.
Realize I loved him.
“I’m sorry I ran away,” I breathed.
“You came back.”
“You knew I would.”
“I was pretty sure. Like… ninety three percent.”
I touched his smooth face. “You were trying to help.”
“It wasn’t the right kind of help.” He shook his head. “I’m sorry for interfering.”
“I don’t think I’m ready to sit in a room and talk to people who’ve had the same experiences as me. But maybe only one person?” I shivered and then sipped my hot cocoa. The warmth spread through me and I smiled. “Wait, this is making me feel really warm and relaxed.”
Derek looked down. “It’s spiked.”
I snapped my eyes open and stared in horror at his own mug. He looked down at his hand, comprehension dawning on his face. “Oh, no. No no no, of course not. I borrowed a half empty bottle of Kahlua from Jesse’s wife.” Naked entreaty shone in his eyes. “I was trying to help you warm up. You can take it back to your house if you don’t trust me, or pour it down the sink, I just thought you could use it…”
I kissed him hard enough to silence his worry. “I trust you.” I pressed his face between my still-freezing hands to make sure he met my gaze. “I trust you and I love you.”
Disappointment flashed in his eyes. “Dammit.”
“What?”
“I was going to tell you that first. You beat me to it. God, I’m terrible at this shit.” He dragged his hand down his face in exasperation, then looked startled at his lack of beard. “Aria, I’m going to make so many mistakes at this. You have to know that.”
“I am too. We’re both pretty terrible at relationships in general.”
He laughed and then seized my shoulders. “But I love you. I love you so much that it doesn’t even bother me to know how many mistakes I’m going to make or how badly I’m going to inevitably fuck this up. Because I love you enough to show you every day that I won’t give up and stop trying. I love you so much I can’t hide it from you, my self or the world any more.”
I blinked. “Are you telling me…?”
He squeezed my hands. “If you’re ready to be a part of this town again… If you’re able to… Then so am I.”
“Derek…”
“Did you hear me when I said I got the bottle from Jesse’s wife? That’s because I went to his house. I asked his advice and he knocked some sense into my head. Friends, parents… people. The town Christmas tree lighting.” He swallowed. “The McCabes’ party…”
“Seriously?”
“Let’s do it.”
I wrapped my arms around him and then pressed the back of my palm to his forehead, “Are you feeling okay?”
He laughed. “I don’t know. I’ve never been in love before. Is it always this tough on the tummy?”
I smiled. “I don’t know. I’ve never been in love either. I guess we’ll find out together.”
Chapter Forty-Three
Aria
The roaring in my ears sounded just like the roar of the falls. A thunderous cacophony - the sound of a flood - swelled up around me.
Only it wasn’t water. It was music.
I hunched over the piano, ignoring all my training to get closer to the music. My fingers moved so fast my brain could barely keep up.
This feeling was still new enough to catch me by surprise. Though it shouldn’t have. Not any more. It had been happening this way for weeks now. I’d come home from an appointment with my therapist and sit down at the piano and just… play. Trying to translate all the feelings into music, the language I was best able to understand.
I saw Dr. Wright every day at the start. But at the last session, she’d set down her pen with a smile and told me she thought it would be okay if I started coming every other day.
I realized how far I’d come when I’d eagerly agreed, telling her - without irony - that the daily sessions were starting to cramp my social life. “I’m helping Xavier with his website tonight, and I’m supposed to meet Brynn and Autumn for coffee tomorrow, plus Derek has like no groceries in his cupboard so I have to fit that somewhere in there as well. What?” I asked when Dr. Wright started laughing.
“You don’t have to get better all at once, Aria.” She’d smiled.
“I know.” I smiled back. Because I did know. There were certain things that would take me longer to get past than others. But I wouldn’t know what those things were until I found them.
And I wouldn’t find them unless I went looking.
I stopped the flood of notes mid-measure to jot some notes on the pad I kept beside me. In the sudden quiet, I heard the sound of the Jeep climbing the drive.
I looked up and smiled.
Derek was home.
Eagerly, I stood up from the piano bench and stretched. He’d been leaving the house a lot more often too. Most often he returned smelling of stale coffee and complaining of about his new sponsor’s habit of calling him ‘champ.’
I always kissed him before he could get too growly about it, though.
I was looking forward to kissing him right now.
It was the first of December and the snow was falling gently when a stranger walked up to my door. A stranger with carefully combed hair, and a crisp blue flannel shirt tucked in to completely unfaded blue jeans. The stranger was clean shaven, and walked with his shoulders thrown back, and when he got my door he shot me a wide crooked smile, amusement dancing in his dark, beautiful eyes.
I opened the door. "Damn," I said looking Derek up and down. "You clean up nice."
He stepped towards me, sliding his hand into the back pocket of my jeans. “Date night is a special occasion," he said, leaning down to brush a kiss across my lips.
I stood up on my tiptoes, reaching for him eagerly. "Is this the shirt from the outfitters?” I asked, thinking back to our day in town. The corset had been fun, but hadn’t lasted very long at all. I felt slightly bad about destroying an antique that way, but wow had it been worth it.
“Yes, it is," Derek sighed, plucking at the lapel of his new shirt.
I looked up at him and grabbed his hand. "You let me dress you," I said, licking my lips. “I kind of love you for that.”
“Kind of?“
“You know I love you,” I chided him.
“Hell yeah you do.” I also loved the way his eyelids grew heavy when he looked me in the eye. "
