Ever

There is a sliver of time between four fifty and five p.m. in Manhattan that signals the yellow cab shift change. Day shift ends, meaning those drivers are no longer taking fares. And the night shifters are coming on, but they’re all being swallowed up by people dipping out of work and beginning the daily rush hour hustle. Uber hasn’t solved the lack of available hired transportation, either, because there are literally eight million people trying to get home at once, while service industry folks—like me and Nina—are moving our asses, trying to make it to dinner shifts in bars and restaurants.

We tried to get a cab and failed. Uber wanted to charge triple the fare, and it wasn’t in our budget for the night. Not to mention, traffic is gridlocked and cabs can’t fly, anyway. So Nina and I are currently on the rush hour 5 train, holding four refrigerated bags full of pies, trying to get uptown and deliver them on time. To a cigar and pies rooftop party. Because why not?

Ask me if I’m in the mood for this. Go ahead.

Realizing that I’m glaring at innocent people on the train, I let my eyelids drop.

Well. I’m not in the mood. My skin is itchy under the straps of my overall skirt. I’m running on about eight cups of coffee because I slept past my alarm, then baked a trillion pies, two of them with kale, three with cardamom—by request—and I have no patience for another passenger’s armpit in my face. I think . . . I think I’m overwrought. That’s what this urge to cry and scream and bite a stranger is defined as, right?

Worse, I’ve had this awful knot in my stomach since I woke up alone Wednesday morning. No trace of Charlie, apart from the scent he’d left behind on the pillow. The smell is fading, though. Fading fast. I had to battle the urge to crawl into one of the refrigerated bags earlier and zip it shut. Sunlight is bothering me. Silence, too. All the things I used to love are missing an ingredient. Charlie. His smile. That endearing mixture of cockiness and vulnerability. The way he rests his tongue on the inside of his bottom lip when I’m talking. He does it when he’s dancing, too, so I know it’s a sign of concentration, and I miss that little gesture so much. So much. And I know I’ll move on to something else about him soon, missing it just as bad. Like the bump on his nose. Or the fact that sometimes he wears old-school white undershirts.

Tonight is my date with Reve S. Guy. I have no idea how I’m going to manage it. After spending the night with Charlie, feeling him kiss my hair and neck when he thought I was sleeping, seeing another man feels wrong. Horribly wrong. I keep expecting him to text me or show up unannounced, admitting he misses me too, but he doesn’t. He won’t. Every minute that goes by feels like a bad dream.

“Why don’t you blow off the date tonight?” Nina suggests quietly, leaning against the silver pole we’re both wedged against. “I don’t see it going well when you’re still—”

“I’m going.” I give her an apologetic look for being short. For every time I’ve been short with her all day, really. “If I cancel this one, I’ll cancel the next one. And . . . it’s over with Charlie.” Swallowing is a feat. “I don’t know why I asked him to stay over. It just made everything harder, you know?”

Nina sighs when someone bumps her from behind. “You asked him, because it was natural. He should have been staying every night. From the start.” She shakes her head. “I’d never really seen you two together until the night we went to Webster Hall and . . . wow. I don’t think you realize the way you behave together.”

Don’t take the bait. Don’t ask. “What way is that?”

Nina’s mouth turns down at the corners, her eyes sad. “Like you’re each waiting for the other to say goodbye, so you can fall apart. And that’s a damn good indication you shouldn’t say goodbye at all.” The loud speaker comes on, announcing the next stop, static and squealing breaks making the audio impossible to hear. “I mean, I had my doubts about him after . . .”

When Nina trails off, I give her a curious look. “After what?”

She chews her lip a moment. “There’s something I have to tell you, Ever. I really hope it doesn’t make everything worse, but it’s been killing me—”

The train jolts to a halt, flinging us back a few steps. Having no choice but to postpone the odd conversation or risk missing our stop, Nina and I heave the refrigerated bags onto our shoulders and push through the sea of grumbling passengers, dodging new riders already trying to wade into the train. As we lug the heavy bags up the steps, my muscles groan, but I’m distracted by what Nina needs to tell me. God, I really can’t take any more bad news right now. I just want to deliver these pies, go home, get ready for my date and face it head-on. As long as I keep my head down and move, maybe there’s a chance tomorrow I’ll miss Charlie a smidgen less.

Not likely. Especially considering I start looking for him the moment we step above ground onto the sidewalk. Didn’t I run into him in this neighborhood after speed dating a few weeks ago? Maybe . . .

My phone buzzes in my pocket. No way am I answering it right now. We’re mere blocks from the drop-off site, and I’m loaded down like a freaking pack mule. But as Nina and I cross the busy intersection, pedestrians bottlenecking around us, my cell vibrates again. And again.

I stop outside the address, carefully setting down the bags and massaging my aching shoulders, Nina doing the same. “Someone keeps calling me,” I say, while at the same time, Nina mutters, “About what I was saying on the train . . .”

A quick check of my phone, though, and my pulse drowns out everything but the vicious hammering in my blood. “Charlie. Charlie is calling me.”

Nina cocks an eyebrow. “Are you going to answer it?”

“He’s called me six times,” I say, mostly to myself, hitting the green button. “Hello?”

“Ever.” His voice is like churning gravel and I’m immediately on alert, my fingers going icy around the phone. “I’m sorry to call you like this. I know I shouldn’t.”

The street traffic is so loud, I cup my hand over the receiver and move into the doorway. “What’s wrong?”

“My father is in intensive care.” A door slams on the other end of the line, voices follow. “He had a heart attack. During a media briefing. And . . . fuck, can you come to me?” There’s a short pause during which I think my heart explodes into a million pieces, with worry, relief, urgency. “I need you. Christ, I need to see your face so bad.” My breath rockets out of my lungs, leaving them depleted, my knees turning to vapor. “Lenox Hill, Ever. Will you come?”

Charlie

There’s a loose thread in the waiting room carpet. It’s squiggly and beige, just to the right of my boot. And I wonder if it’s the one squiggly, beige thread that has gotten the most attention in the world, from shell-shocked family members needing something to focus on besides the waiting room door. I wouldn’t notice it any other day, but kind of like the gurgling drain back in the locker room, it’s reminding me I’m awake. Whether or not being lucid is a good thing? That’s debatable.

My father was brought into the emergency room at Lenox Hill in critical condition. Me, Greer, Jack and Danika had to push through a sea of reporters to reach the entrance, some of them recognizing my brother, although they hadn’t gotten a single word out of him. Nor had I. After he’d ordered the waiting room television shut off, he’d sat down across from me, stone-faced and eerily silent, where he still remains. My friends have gone off in pursuit of coffee, which I’m grateful for, because I can feel them watching me helplessly, but can’t form the right responses to let them know I’m all right. I’m not all right.

Chief Xavier Burns is supposed to be immortal. It never really crossed my mind that he was human. Children are supposed to grow out of that belief regarding their parents long before now, but none of them were raised by my father. I’ve never seen him show a weakness and yet—until Greer had demanded they shut off the evening news—they continued to replay the footage of him collapsing. His face paling, that iron fist clutching at his chest, legs giving way. I’m never going to get the image out of my mind.

And I’m never going to forget what occurred to me after the doctors confirmed our father was still alive, still fighting. I’d thought, we will all die. I could die. I will die. Maybe it’ll be seventy years from today, but it’s going to happen. All the achievements and commendations and records my father has earned? They didn’t mean anything when the EMTs loaded him onto the stretcher. He hadn’t asked for his medals or appointment book. According to my father’s assistant, he’d asked for his sons.

And he’d begged for his wife, who of course, no one knew how to reach.

Because she was long gone.

Hearing that, I’d called Ever before I registered the shaking phone in my hand, my fingers punching the wrong buttons eighty times until I finally got it right. So that’s where I’m at right now. In this cold, lonely, terrified place. I’m praying to every god of every religious denomination that Ever walks through the waiting room door, so I can lock her in my arms and throw away the key. I don’t want to beg for her on my death bed. I want her now. Want her every day. And I’m terrified that it’s too late. If she’s only coming to the hospital to be a good friend, I would completely understand. I haven’t been worthy, but if she shows up, I swear to all the gods, I will die making up for it.

The waiting room door opens, bringing Greer and me shooting to our feet. Jack walks in, followed by Danika, who says, “Found someone in the lobby.”

It’s Ever. It’s Ever. I break the law of physics lunging across the room, dropping my face into her neck and breathing, breathing for the first time in hours. “You came.” I look like such a pussy, leaning my entire body on this girl who I outweigh by several dozen pounds and I don’t give a shit. “Thank you for coming.”

She drops her purse on the ground, wrapping both arms around my waist. “Of course I came,” she breathes near my ear. “Is there any news?”

“Not yet,” I rasp. “Can you come with me for a minute? We need to talk, and it can’t wait.”

I glance over at Greer, wishing for the first time we were the kind of family who didn’t shut down when something bad happened. Maybe I’ll get the ball rolling. I have to, because it doesn’t work for me anymore. “We’ll be out in the hall. Come find me when the doctor comes?”

I wait for my brother’s barely noticeable finger flick, then I take Ever’s hand, leading her past the tense, busy nurses’ station. A few of them watch us go by with interest, but I’m so focused on getting Ever alone, I barely manage a nod. As soon as we reach the dim side corridor, I pull Ever into my arms and we crash together against the wall. Urgency pumps in my veins, demanding I suck in great, greedy gulps of her. My mouth moves over her neck, into her hair, across her lips. Inhaling, retaining.

“Everything is going to be fine,” she whispers, dragging me into the safety she began representing to me, somewhere along the line. “He’s getting the best care, and everything is going to be okay, Charlie.”

“But I’m not okay.” I pull back, cupping the sides of her beautiful, singular face. The face I see in my dreams and while I’m awake. I never stop, and I was a fucking idiot to think I could let her go. “I’m not okay without you, Ever.”

“Charlie.” Her eyelids flicker as she looks down. “You’re going through a difficult time right now, and you’re not thinking straight. We should talk about this when your father is out of the woods.”

“No.” Oh God, this is what I was worried about, without being able to pinpoint it. I’ve been so goddamn elusive and unpredictable, coming in and out of her life, she isn’t taking me seriously when I need it most. “No, you don’t . . . just . . . please. Look me in the eye. Before we fell asleep in your bed, before your mother called, I started to ask you to be with me. All the time, cutie. All the time. But I panicked when I heard those things she said to you. About coming home to someone every night. Having someone you can depend on. And I didn’t think I could deliver. I knew I couldn’t.” My heart has veered into a wild, never-ending drum solo, but I push. I push. Because I have no choice. This is do or die. It has been all along. I was just too stupid and short sighted to realize it. “But it took this fucked-up thing happening for me to understand. I understand now why I can look at you, Ever, and be happy and sad and horny and miserable and crazy and want to laugh—all at the same time. I’m in love with you. I love you so much. And you can depend on that. You can depend on me for the rest of your life. I won’t let you go for anything. Just give me a chance to show you.” I point in the general direction of my father’s room. “This job? It can work around us. This world can work around me and the girl I love. Okay? This isn’t a tragedy talking. This is what’s inside me and I’m handing it all over, because you’re the only one I trust to make sense of me. You make sense of me.”

She’s quiet for so long, I’m tempted to look for the closest window, so I can dive through it headfirst into traffic. But no. Even if she has to think about everything I said, I will keep coming at her. I’m not packing it in. I’m not giving up, so she can just—

“I knew you were a relationship guy all along.” She sounds almost awestruck. “Ever since you failed the test and said you cried during the wrong scene in Titanic. I knew you were a relationship guy deep down, and I still went home with you.”

My head is spinning. Is this good or bad? Do I need a decoder ring in order to learn my fate? “What does that mean?”

“It means I love you, too, Charlie.”

She looks a little shocked at having said the words out loud, but it does nothing to lessen the impact of total, blinding rapture. I don’t even think my feet are touching the floor, but I manage to trap her against the wall, my hands flattened on the cinderblock above her head. “Get out of town.”

“I do.” Her laugh is gorgeous and watery, her eyes shining. “For a long time. Even before we tried to be friends—”

I shoot forward and snag her mouth in a kiss, but a dull note of panic starts to beat in my chest. I’m kissing her half because she loves me, half because the words before we tried to be friends just sent me screaming back into reality. The speed dating, the fire alarm at the tapas place, the lies I told. She knows none of it. Would she still love me if she knew? Or would she look at me as if I betrayed her? Did I?

Yeah. Jesus. I did.

As if I can erase the moronic things I did to ruin her noble plans, I press Ever back against the wall and give her everything I have to offer. Every ounce of feeling in my body, head to toe. Our mouths are the hungriest they’ve ever been, because there’s no holding back when you love someone. When they know it. Feel it. These are things I’m learning on the fly, and I can’t believe I was ever scared of this. Terror is being without this.

My tongue makes promises to her and she understands, responds with a whimper. I didn’t even have a second to savor winning her back, before the prospect of losing her again hits me. Hits me hard, like a spike between the shoulder blades. But I’m a man who’s scared of losing his woman, so I do what I’m driven toward. I try to distract from the oncoming pain with my body. To give her something to remember when she wants to murder me. I stroke her between the legs with my bulge, dragging it up and back, nudging her onto her toes. All the while, my lips pry apart her swollen, wet ones, giving her my breath, licks of my tongue.

“I love you.” My mouth races along the underside of her chin, my hands climbing the backs of her thighs. “Oh God, I love you. Just try to be patient and understanding with me. Can you do that?”

She nods, her face glowing. But she has no idea what I’m talking about. Not yet. “You’re going to come to my place when your father is better. You’ll stay the night.” Her eyes flicker. “We’ll take it slow, but you’ll stay, won’t you?”

Jesus, I can’t believe she still doubts me. “I don’t want to sleep without you. Ever again. And fuck taking it slow. I want to meet your mother. Want to charm her and explain that I’ll be the one you count on, just like she hoped for. I want clothes and a toothbrush at your place. I want keys. And I want the people in your building to buzz me in when I forget my key, because they know I’m your boyfriend. I want to walk you home from concerts and dance to our song when it comes up on shuffle. You and me, Ever. I want it to be you. And me.”

Her breath whooshes out against my lips. “Me, too. I want all those things. I feel like I’ve wanted them forever, but I didn’t know until you said them.”

I would love to go on standing there forever, making her promises. But there’s no option but to tell her what I’ve done. To let her know I disregarded the importance of fulfilling her mother’s wishes and tried to make her my fuck buddy. I hate myself right now. I do, so I try to bury it all inside her. Lifting her against the wall and molding our bodies together. There’s a sliver of clarity left in my mind, so I know I can’t take Ever in this hallway, but I can remind her we’re so good together. Maybe it’ll help. Maybe.

“Charlie.” She gasps when my teeth nip into her neck. “I know you’re upset, but . . .” I squeeze her ass and she turns pliant, going limp between me and the wall. “I think we need to get back to the waiting room. I’m not going anywhere. We’re not going anywhere. There’s time for everything.”

Now or never. I press my face into her hair. “Ever . . .”

“Charlie.” My brother’s voice finds me from around the corner. “The doctor is coming out to speak with us. He’s bringing us in to see Dad, too.”

Worry for my father blasts back to the forefront, but revealing my treachery to Ever is there, too, clashing with it. Blackening my vision. She’s there, though, stroking the sides of my face, kissing me hard on the mouth. Loving me, grounding me. “Hey, that sounds like good news. They wouldn’t bring you in to see him if things were getting worse, right?” Another sweet kiss on my cheek. “Go. I’ll be here when you come back.”

I pull away, but I’m tempted to bring her with me. “Please be here.”

“Why would I be anywhere else?” She covers her mouth a moment, then drops her hands to reveal an expression of pure, flushed happiness. “I love you.”

Dear God, please let that love stay strong through what comes next.