Chapter 23
Alyse
My eyes slowly open, bringing me out of the dark recesses of slumber. I vaguely note it’s still dark outside. A warm, hard body spoons me from behind. It takes me a minute to remember where I am and who I’m with.
Friday.
Chicago.
Asher.
I look at the digital clock, noticing it’s early. Only six o’clock. Asher’s usually up before now, running off to the gym or to an early morning meeting, but by the even, shallow breaths and steady rise and fall of his chest, I can tell he’s still in a deep sleep.
I’m grateful, because I need a few moments to digest the dream I just had about Beck. I haven’t dreamed about him in years and I have to wonder why I’m doing it now. Is it because I’ve fallen in love with Asher and Beck’s now haunting me or because I met a man who is almost his spitting image?
“What time do you get off, babe?”
“Three. Why?” I haven’t seen Beck for a week. We’ve barely spoken during that time. After only three months, I’ve fallen hopelessly in love with him, but when he disappears for days at a time without a word, it hurts and pisses me off. During those times, he’s distant and every single time I feel like he’s trying to break things off. But then he comes back and is his usual charming, irresistible, attentive self and I forgive him again.
He says it’s family stuff, but he won’t tell me anything else. He’s always so secretive about them, I’m beginning to think he’s trying to hide me, although I’m doing the same exact thing with him, because I know neither my father nor Livia would approve. That makes me frown.
“Don’t plan anything. I’ll pick you up at your house at three-thirty. Pack a change of clothes and tell your dad you’re spending the night at Ali’s.”
I’m instantly aroused and scared as hell. We’ve done a lot of making out, tons of heavy petting, but we haven’t had sex yet. I’ve wanted to, only Beck’s been the one to stop us from going further every single time. If we’re spending the night together, that can only mean one thing. “What are we doing?”
“It’s a surprise. God, I’ve missed you, babe.”
Well that’s your own damn fault, I think. “Okay. Three-thirty.”
A little before five, we’re pulling up outside a small, secluded cabin on the outskirts of Monroe, Michigan.
“Where are we?” I ask, looking around. There’s a tiny lake with a small forest-green rowboat attached to a weathered wooden dock. Evergreen trees line the horizon as far as the eye can see. I don’t notice another cabin or any other signs of human life besides us.
“My dad’s cabin,” he replies matter-of-factly. Turning off the engine, he opens his door. Before he gets out, he leans over and takes my mouth in a greedy kiss. Grabbing our duffels from the back, he exits. I guess that’s my cue to follow, so I do.
The place is as rustic on the inside as it is on the outside. Puke green must have been the decorating theme. It’s everywhere. The appliances, the pilled couch, and even one of the stucco walls carries the putrid color. The main area houses a small table and three chairs, a couch, and one armchair. No TV. I notice an open door to the left and from this angle I see it’s a bedroom.
My eyes wander, trying to glean any information about his family from the meager contents of the cabin, but it’s generic, functional. No pictures, no knickknacks, no personality. Just the basic necessities for a weekend fishing getaway.
“What are we doing here?” I finally ask, admiring the view out the front window.
He comes up behind me, wrapping me in his arms. “Whatever we want,” he whispers against the shell of my ear, before placing open-mouthed kisses along my exposed neck. Electric sparks ignite everywhere his body touches mine. You’d have to be ten shades of stupid not to get what he’s saying, especially as his hand travels up to cover my breast.
“Beck.” His name comes out on a breathless wave of desire.
Then his mouth is on mine and within minutes, our clothes are on the floor, we’re lying naked on the double bed, and he’s pushing into me slowly. The pain of my womanhood being breached is unlike anything I was prepared for, but Beck takes it slow.
“I tried not to fall in love with you, Alyse. Fuck, I tried,” he whispers against my neck as he pumps leisurely, taking the utmost care to attend to me. “I’m done fighting it. I love you. God, I love you so much.”
My heart races and soars at the same time. This is the first time he’s said those words. “I love you, too,” I reply. I’m breathless. I’m giddy. I’m high on teenage love.
He tells me repeatedly how much he loves me, that he can’t believe he found me, and that he wants to spend the rest of our lives together. My naïve eighteen-year-old self believes him.
As painful as it is to have sex the first time, I can’t imagine anything more perfect than that day. I was in love with Beck, it felt right, and I never regretted it. But even when he was inside me I remember the guilt because I wondered what it would have been like to have that moment with Asher instead.
I still remember every detail of that day like it was yesterday. We made love, we hiked, we fished in the tiny rowboat, not catching damn a thing. Then we made love again before we spent our first night together in each other’s arms. He was selfless and sensitive to my every need and regardless of the fact that I’d thought about Asher, it made me fall in love with Beck even more.
Beck was perfect in many ways, but he was also a complete enigma at the same time. I never felt like I knew someone so well but not at all. He was vague about his job, his family, his past. He would only say “it’s complicated.” I never even knew his parents’ names. All I really knew about him personally was that he was an only child. I didn’t even know what he did for work and he said he never went to college.
Whenever I’d ask a question about anything he didn’t want to talk about, he’d hedge or evade or distract me with his body.
I know what you’re thinking.
Stupid, naïve girl. And in retrospect, you’d be right. But I was blindly in love, so I overlooked things I shouldn’t have. I figured once we were married, he’d have no choice but to let me all the way in, so I let it go.
Then one fateful night everything was taken away from me. And I was left with grief and nothing but a mountain of questions that I’ll never get the answers to. I still feel tethered to the Widowmaker’s curve, where two more sad, weathered wooden crosses mark untimely deaths.
One for Beck.
One for our baby.
I find it ironic now that I can’t let people in and I ended up loving a man who was exactly the same as me. Had that horrible night not happened, I have no doubt we wouldn’t have made it long-term. There were too many secrets between us. He knew my mom walked out on us, but I never talked about her. I didn’t talk about Livia and my resentment that she was never around. And he never knew my dad was a gambling addict.
Now that I’m in love again, I don’t want that secrecy, that barrier between Asher and me, because ultimately it will destroy us. Secrets are nothing more than lies of omission and I’m a big, black cavern of them. I don’t want to be this person. I don’t want to lose the best thing to happen to me in a very long time because I’m incapable of exposing my inner ugly scars. I’m starting to think I need professional help.
“What are you thinking so hard about over there, baby?” Asher’s breath skates over my naked flesh and a wash of heat instantly settles over me, bringing me back from the past firmly into the present.
So much, I want to say, but instead of telling him everything I’m really thinking, I deflect, because I’m a fucking expert in that art. And we do need to talk through last night with words, instead of with our bodies.
I need to make sure this relationship isn’t going down the same path as my last one. Because I don’t think I can handle it if it is. I loved Beck and losing him was hard. But already my feelings are so much stronger for Asher, and losing him…I just don’t know if I’m strong enough to survive it. The fact that I feel this way about him so early in our relationship is extremely disconcerting.
“Who was she?” I ask quietly.
He stiffens behind me. “Who was who?”
“The woman who made you so mistrustful.”
I turn in his arms so our faces are just inches apart. Reaching up, I trace his thick brow, lightly dragging my finger down his scruffy jaw. I want to look into his eyes and have him tell me the truth.
“What makes you think it’s a woman?” He’s not sarcastic, but asking like he genuinely wants to know.
“A woman recognizes another woman’s handiwork in the wounds left behind on her man.”
He laughs. “Is that so?”
“Yes.”
“What do you think this elusive woman did?” He brushes a piece of errant hair from my face and I’m not sure I could be any more in love with him than I am right now. The words are on the tip of my tongue, but once they’re out, I need to be willing to be completely honest with him. About everything. And I just don’t think I’m quite there yet. But I want to be. I want to get there.
“Hmmm…if I had to guess it would be that she cheated on you.”
He gazes at me thoughtfully. I easily see the hurt flicker in his beautiful blues. It makes me sad. It hurts my heart.
We both have a past. We’ve both endured pain at the hands of another person who was supposed to love us, yet here we are, willing to try again. Trying hard to unlock the chains, to be vulnerable, to open up. We’re both struggling with former demons that want to keep us shackled and unhappy, and somehow that makes it a little bit easier. At least for me.
“It was a long time ago,” he replies quietly.
“But the wound still runs deep.”
A sad smile curls his lip. “It sounds like you know all about it.” His reply isn’t accusatory or confrontational. It’s fact. He sees more than I think I let on. He wants me to know it. No one has ever gotten me like Asher. No one.
“I have my own wounds, yes.” He has no idea that even that small admittance is a very big step for me. I take great pains to make sure everyone around me thinks I’m hunky dory, but deep down I’m just…not.
“I know, baby. You can trust me.” We both smile at the exact words that caused this mess to begin with.
“I think that’s something we both need to work on,” I tell him.
“Hmm,” he says thoughtfully, almost like he’s far away. “I guess so.”
I don’t want to lose what we’re building here and I suddenly panic. What if he decides I’m just too much work? That my outer shell is too damn hard to crack before he can get to the gooey goodness inside? I need to start opening up, as hard and painful as it may be. Maybe if I open the door just a crack at a time, I can get through this.
“You’re the only person that I’ve ever wanted to let all the way in, Asher. The only one. I’m trying. I want you to know that.” Tears well and I blink fast, trying to willing them away.
His eyes soften. Palming my cheek, he runs a thumb across my lower lip. Tingles shoot like fireworks through my veins, warming me inside. “It doesn’t have to be all at once. We can go slow.”
I breathe a sigh of relief. “Okay.”
“So, I’m your man, huh?”
I roll my eyes, pretending to think for a few seconds before answering. When his hand squeezes my side, I squeal, “Yes! Yes!”
He tickles me until I’m begging for him to stop through broken gasps. When I end up underneath him, his arousal presses against my opening, and all playfulness evaporates. His eyes pin mine, penetrating into the depths of my very being. “Alyse.” He says my name with such quiet reverence my eyes sting again. “Christ, I’m falling so hard for you. So damn hard.”
My eyes drift shut as my heart greedily sucks in his words. Then his soft lips touch mine. “Tell me you feel the same. Please feel the same,” he begs between kisses that are getting more urgent.
“Yes,” I mumble against his warm mouth. “Yes, yes, yes.”
When my legs instinctually part and he slides in, I ask breathlessly, “Don’t you have to get to work?”
“Fuck work,” he mumbles against my mouth, shifting his hips so he’s angled just right before he begins driving me quickly to the gates of heaven.
In that moment, I swear I feel our two souls merging into one. The only word running through my mind as we make love is: beginning. I finally feel like that’s what I’ve been granted.
A new beginning.