Chapter 15
Friday
Matt
Brooklyn had been worried that I wouldn’t love her as much now as I did when she was 16. But she couldn’t be more wrong.
I slammed into her harder. And she pushed back on the bed, trying to match my pace.
Yeah, I loved Brooklyn now more than ever. Especially the way her ass jiggled each time I thrust into her. I ran my hand over her ass cheek and squeezed it. The heels she was wearing just made her ass look even more perfect.
She’d been teasing me in this red dress all night. Grinding against me on the dance floor. And she was so fucking wet, coating my dick in her juices. I pulled out and stared down at my slick cock and then slammed it back into her.
Brooklyn arched her back, making the dimples above her ass more apparent. She was so fucking perfect. Every inch of her.
My hand slid to her hip. I knew she was close. My fingers dug into her skin as her pussy started pulsing around me.
“Matt,” she moaned.
The way she said my name pulled me over the edge. I thrust forward, all the way to the hilt, and exploded inside of her. My name on her lips. And my cum deep inside her pussy where it belonged.
“Mmm,” she sighed and relaxed on the bed.
I slowly pulled out of her, watching my cum leak down the inside of her thigh. I’d never get tired of the sight of that.
I collapsed on the bed beside her.
She turned her head and smiled at me.
Some days, when I looked at her, it still felt like she was just an image in my head. I reached out and traced the engagement ring on her finger. It sure felt real to me.
“What are you thinking?” I asked.
“That I like grown up Matt.”
I smiled. “I love you.”
“I love you too. But there is one other thing that I’m thinking about.” She rolled over on her side and propped her head up on her hand.
“And what is that? If Tanner is right about chicks in twos?”
“No,” she said with a groan. “Definitely not. I was wondering what other stuff you kept of mine.” She was staring over my shoulder.
I turned to see a framed picture of us on my nightstand. She’d already seen my paintings of her. She knew how much I’d missed her. How desperately I wanted to hold on to her memory forever. This didn’t have to be weird.
“Let me show you,” I said. I grabbed a tissue and placed it against her leg.
She finished cleaning up as I pulled my boxers back on. I grabbed a key from my nightstand and slid my hand into hers.
Her eyebrows pinched together as she stared at the key. But she didn’t say a word as I led her down the hall.
We stopped at the door of her old bedroom here. She spent every night in my bed. But all her things had been in this room. Mostly things she’d gotten after she moved in during high school. I put the key into the lock and turned it.
I coughed and waved my hand through the dust in the air. I hadn’t been in here in ages. And no one else had a key. I switched on the lights and turned to Brooklyn.
She didn’t look back at me. Instead, she walked into the room.
There was a dusty picture of us on her nightstand. She stared at it for a moment and then went to the closet.
I swallowed hard as she opened the double doors.
All her things were packed away inside. There were garments covered in plastic hanging up. And clear plastic bins lined the floor. Everything was packed away, neat and tidy. Almost like it was waiting for her to come back.
“Did you do all this?” she asked and touched the plastic outside one of her dresses.
I shook my head. “No. My mom. I couldn’t do it.” I’d been such a fucking mess.
Brooklyn let her hand fall to her side. “But you kept everything? Why?”
I swallowed hard. “Because getting rid of it would make everything that happened feel…real.”
She didn’t reply. She just folded her arms across her chest and kept staring.
And I didn’t know what to do. It was like she was hugging herself. Piecing herself back together. And I wasn’t sure if she wanted a minute to herself or not. I cleared my throat. “I guess it makes sense now. Why your father didn’t let me keep more of your things. You needed them.”
She shook her head, but still didn’t say anything.
I’d always wondered about her Keds. And her mother’s dress. Some of her framed pictures. Even my varsity jacket that I’d given her. It was like her father had locked away all her favorite things from me just out of spite. Because it certainly hadn’t seemed like he’d cared about her death. But it all made sense now. She really had needed them. Some of those same pictures now lined our mantel back home.
“Sixteen years.” She wrapped her arms tighter around herself. “Sixteen years, Matt.” Her voice cracked.
She didn’t need to hold herself together. Not when I was here to hold her. I walked up behind her, wrapping my arms around her.
Her head melted back against my chest.
For a few minutes, we just stood there, staring at our past.
Brooklyn sniffed. “I guess you should have dressed like the stage five clinger tonight instead of me.”
I laughed. “I’ve always been obsessed with you.” I rested my chin on top of her head. “I’m not ashamed to admit that.”
“I never stopped loving you either,” she said. “I guess I should have dressed like a monster tonight.”
“You’re not a monster, Brooklyn.”
“Aren’t I? My heart has always belonged to you and Miller.”
I tried not to let her words affect me.
“I’m a monster for holding on to you for the fifteen years I was with him. And I’m a monster for repeatedly talking about him to you. Because I just keep hurting you. But my heart will always be torn. I’ll always love you both.”
I held her tighter. “I know. I understand.” I did. It hurt, but I did. “We’re going to be okay.”
She sniffed again. “I’m not okay, Matt. I don’t know if I’ll ever be okay again.” She let one of her arms fall, wrapping it in front of her stomach.
And I wondered if she was thinking about the child she’d lost. “You will be, Brooklyn.” I’d make sure of it.
We stood in silence for a few more minutes.
“Oh my God.” She pulled away from me and pushed some of the plastic covered garments aside. “You kept it.”
“Kept what?”
“My wedding dress.”
I actually didn’t know that was in there. I had stayed away from this room after my mom packed away all Brooklyn’s things. Painting her had been my therapy. Going through her old things would have hurt more than it helped. I tried to step around her to see the dress.
But she immediately spun around to block me. “You’re not allowed to see it. That would be bad luck.”
I smiled. “Seriously?”
“Seriously.”
My eyes searched hers. “Does that mean you’re planning on wearing it soon?” We had barely spoken about being engaged. With everything that happened. But I wanted to move forward. I was done with living in the past.
“I…” Her voice trailed off. She pressed her lips together and looked down at the ring on her finger. Or maybe she was peering down the front of her dress at where the rings Miller gave her were hanging against her chest.
“I…I…can’t…” Tears started falling down her cheeks.
Baby.I reached out and wiped her tears away with my thumbs. She didn’t need to say it. I had my answer. She wasn’t ready. “I’ll wait another lifetime if I have to.”
She laughed through her tears. “I don’t want to wait a lifetime. But…I’m not ready. Yet. Soon though. I promise.”
I knew she was still grieving. But I was worried that she’d always be.
I was glad my ring was back on her finger where it belonged. But she should have had a wedding band too. She’d said it herself. She’d always been mine, even when we were apart.
And we were already acting like a married couple. Maybe it was the officiality of marriage that unsettled her. A piece of paper that said she was mine. Instead of his. “I’m not asking you to forget him,” I said.
She stared up at me with her big blue eyes. “I know.”
Then what was the problem? “You said yes to my proposal.”
“I did.”
She really wasn’t giving me much to work with here. “A marriage proposal.”
Brooklyn exhaled slowly. “And what’s so wrong with being engaged?”
“Nothing. But we haven’t really spoken about it since the night I proposed. Or our plans. We haven’t even told Jacob.” I knew she’d been excited to tell him. Before she’d been kidnapped. We had been on the same page. We’d both been excited. And now it felt like we kept taking steps backward.
She pressed her lips together. “I want to tell him.”
“Okay.”
“Let’s do it tomorrow.”
“Yeah?” This felt like a good step.
She nodded. “Yeah.” She looked over her shoulder at all her old clothes and then back at me. “But before you get any ideas in your head, I need to say one thing. I can’t marry you in December, Matt.”
That had been our original plan. A wedding right before Christmas. Instead she’d married Miller on Christmas day. Did she think that marrying me in December would be a betrayal to Miller? Because her getting married to him on Christmas certainly felt like a fucking betrayal to me. But I swallowed down the words on the tip of my tongue. “How about November then?”
“Next November?”
I shook my head. “This November.”
“November is in just a few days, Matt.”
“You already have a dress.”
She laughed. “I doubt that dress still fits me.”
“Then you can get it altered.”
“When I said soon, I didn’t mean next month.”
“Then what did you mean?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know.”
I was pretty sure if I let her have her way, she’d just stay engaged to me forever. And that wasn’t okay with me. She was always meant to be Brooklyn Caldwell.
“Let’s talk to Jacob about everything. And then go from there.”
I nodded. One step at a time. As long as we weren’t going backward, I could be patient. Well, patient-ish. I’d been tiptoeing around her the past few weeks, terrified that I was losing her. But she was talking to me now. We were going to be okay.
“Thank you,” I said. “For coming tonight. For talking to me.”
“Thank you for being patient with me.”
Patient-ish, I thought again.
“I really don’t know what’s been going on with me. I tried to talk to you about it. But I can’t really put it into words. I just want to be…”
“Home,” I said, finishing her sentence for her.
“Yeah.” She smiled. “Home.”
“Did you want to get going?” I was grateful that she’d come tonight. But snuggling up to her on the couch actually sounded pretty good right now.
“I think I still owe you a few more Halloween dances,” she said.
“A few? Years worth, Brooklyn.”
“Then we should definitely get back downstairs.” She grabbed my hand and pulled me toward the door. But she looked over her shoulder one more time at the open closet.
I wondered if she was picturing that dress. And walking down the aisle to me. I hoped so. I hadn’t been joking when I said we should get married next month. Any time, any place. I’d been ready to marry her since I was 16 years old.
Her fingers tightened in mine as we made our way through the spooky hallway.
“Shit,” I said when we reached the gate near the end.
The zombie started rising from the floor behind us.
“What?” Brooklyn asked.
“I don’t have the key.”
“What do you mean you don’t have the key?” She held my hand even tighter.
“The invitation really should have said to bring it…”
The lights flickered and went out in the hall.
“Finally. I’ve been waiting to talk to the two of you all night,” said a deep voice from behind us.