Chapter 33
33
OPHELIA
B efore we know what hits us, March is over and the lowcountry is starting to warm up again. Malcolm has been busy running the bar through the spring break rush and I have been slammed at work managing and launching spring campaigns that we’re starting to feel like ships passing in the night. For a relationship I never really wanted, the lack of connection between us is really starting to weigh on me.
I understand why he is being so distant—ever since losing Marshall it’s like he’s lost his way, like he’s lost who he is as a person. When we do see one another, it’s as if he’s somewhere else completely. I try to talk to him, ask him how he is, but he either gives me one word answers or acts like I’m his mother prying into his private life. He’s hurting, that much is clear, but every time he pushes me away I’m reminded of why I never liked to tie myself to another person in the first place.
Not that we’ve ever named whatever it is we have. It’s more of a mutual understanding, what we are. I know it, he knows it, and Marshall knew it too. That he and I belong together, even when things get hard. I think that’s why Marshall asked me to look out for him, to take care of him, before he passed. He knew more than I did when he asked me to take care of Malcolm as he laid in his hospital bed but over the last few weeks, I started to understand it too.
No one has ever made me feel the way I do before Malcolm. Not one of the many, many men I’ve been with in my life has made me feel as strong, confident, sexy, or safe, like he does. And none of them, not even Jarrett who I almost called my husband, made me love myself as much as Malcolm does. The way he looks at me, talks to me, and treats me makes me love who I am even more than I ever did before.
And that’s why I’m willing to sit and wait for him to come back to me as he navigates his way through his grief and rediscovers who he is without Marshall being part of his life.
When I hear a knock at the door, my hand reaches for the remote to pause the reality TV show I’d been watching as I waited for him to come over. After begging him all week, I’d finally convinced him to take the day off and come over to hangout. He hadn’t left the bar for more than a few hours at a time and he really only ever left to go to game night with his friends. Sure it hurt that he was willing to drop everything to go and be with them but wouldn’t do the same for me, but I also understood the significance of their time together and I did my best to not let it bother me. It took both Alice and I begging him to leave Butcher and Block for a full twenty-four hours and I was ready for some ‘us’ time.
When I swing the door open, I try to hide my surprise when I see him.
He looks…brighter than he has over the last few weeks. Before today, you could tell he had a cloud hanging over him. The space under his eyes was dark from lack of sleep and his clothes were generally wrinkled from wearing the same thing for several days in a row. But today he seems…refreshed. His hair is slicked back and his glasses are perched on his nose. The jeans he’s wearing hug him in all the right places and he’s wearing an unbuttoned collared shirt thrown over a black tank top. The tips of my fingers twitch and want to run along the exposed tattoos that snake around his arms. Before I can say or do anything, he lunges for me and picks me up off my feet, pulling me into a hug.
“Hello there, beautiful,” he hums in my ear.
“Hey there. You seem happy today,” I can’t help but comment. He sets me down gently but I keep my arms around his neck.
“Do I not usually seem happy when I’m around you?” He squints down at me.
“No, you do. It’s just…these last few weeks have been hard on you. You’ve seemed a little…worn down, I guess.”
“Well I’m not worn down now, now am I?” he teases, pushing me back into my entryway and kicking the door shut behind him. His lips are on mine before I know what’s happening and he has me pinned against the wall. I willingly let him push his tongue into my mouth, excited by his change in demeanor. He looks at me with a grin after he pulls away, allowing us both to catch our breaths.
“Did something happen today?” I question, eyeing him skeptically.
“Why does something have to happen for me to be excited to see my girl?” His arms are pressed into the wall behind me as he drops his lips to my neck. A wave of energy shoots down my spine and warms my insides as he gently nibbles on the soft spot behind my ear.
I bring my hands to his chest and push him away only because if I don’t, I’ll lose all sense of self-control. It has been a minute since we have been intimate which I’m fine with but having him on me now reminds me of how badly I’m missing his touch.
“I am not ‘your girl,’” I say with a playful eye roll.
“Let me get on my knees for you and then try to tell me that you aren’t,” he offers, flicking his eyes between mine and my mouth. His hand slips under the dress I have on and quickly slides down my panties to cup my ass. As badly as I want him to, I stop him and pull the hand into my own.
“How about we just hangout for a little bit first?”
Dragging him towards the couch, he kicks off his shoes as we go and we find our spots next to one another. He sits down first and spreads his arms out wide as an invitation for me to settle in next to him which I take.
“Are you sure nothing happened before you came over?” I question again, so thoroughly stunned by the one eighty in both his attitude and energy levels since the last time I saw him.
“ Yes , little fox, nothing happened. Why can’t you believe that I’m just happy to see you? Maybe it’s because you and Alice were right and I just needed a day to relax, ya ever think about that?” His fingers are woven into my hair as he finds a piece to play with. I’m tucked under his arm and pause for a moment, feeling like somethings off that he just isn’t telling me, but push the small seed of doubt out of my mind and turn my head to look at him.
“Okay, if you say so. I’m happy you’re so happy.” I push my lips together and he leans down to bring his lips to meet them. “And to make me happy, we’re going to watch my show.”
“Nooo,” he groans, dropping his head behind him before we both break into a fit of laughter.
And for a moment, I find hope that he’s coming out of the daze he’s been in and things are finally starting to get back to normal.
* * *
Several hours pass and the Saturday afternoon turns to evening. We had successfully binged four hours of reality TV with minimal groaning from Malcolm but only because whenever he whined too loud about how everyone was dumb or that it was all for the camera, I would turn around and kiss him until he stopped. This was just the day we needed together.
“I’m getting kind of hungry, you want to order something?” I ask, pushing up from where I’m laying on his chest.
“Sure, you want me to go grab us some food from the bar?” His eyes go wide as the perfect excuse to go and check on things comes up.
“ No. No bar, no talk about work. Alice promised to call if anything happened and she hasn’t. You still have a few hours left of your ‘no work’ day and I won’t let you ruin it.” I point a finger at him as I stand from the couch and cross the room, heading for the bathroom. He stays where he is on the couch and rolls his eyes before pulling his phone out of his pocket and scrolling through some messages. When I return to the living room a few minutes later, a pounding comes from my front door.
“Did you order crazy fast delivery while I was in the bathroom?” I joke, looking at him then over my shoulder towards my door.
“No,” he replies apprehensively. When the pounding gets louder, he gets up from the couch and comes to stand next to me. “What in the hell?”
“Open up, Ophelia, I know you’re in there,” a voice booms out from the other side of the door and I feel my whole body tense up. It’s a voice I haven’t heard in years and one I can’t believe I’m hearing now. He sounds drunk which isn’t a surprise knowing how he is. I take a few steps towards the door when Malcolm wraps a strong hand around my arm to stop me.
“You’re not answering that.”
“He won’t leave if I don’t.”
“You know who it is?”
More sounds of his fist hitting the wood ring out across my condo and I flinch instinctively—the memory of his fists coming down hard on my body comes back without pause.
“Yes, I know who it is. It’ll be fine, just let me get him to calm down and go away.” I press up onto my toes and kiss his cheek before pulling my shoulders back and taking a breath.
I open the door just an inch and peek at him from behind it. “What the hell are you doing here, Jarrett?”
“There she is, my runaway bride. So this is where you’ve been hiding the last four years.” His breath reeks of alcohol and I try not to shrink at the sight of his cruel smile.
“How did you find me? Why did you come here?”
“Well after you pulled your little disappearing act on the night of our wedding—cute touch with your dress, by the way—I figured good riddance. But then, I ran into your mother a week ago at the grocery store and she told me a very interesting story about you.” My eyebrows furrow as I try to figure out what she could have said to him. I had emailed her a week or so ago updating her on things in my life like we do once a month, but I don’t remember telling her where I live.
“She mentioned to me how you recently met someone and that things were hard between you two. How you were worried about him after he lost his mentor and how he was dealing with being a new restaurant owner.” I turn and look at Malcolm who’s standing dumbfounded, overhearing everything Jarrett is drunkenly admitting to. “She made it clear to me how desperate you were for a strong enough man who can deal with life’s changes. Something about how you wished your current man was stronger?”
“I never said anything like that,” I stress before turning to look at Malcolm again. “I swear, I never said any of that to her.”
“Oh, but you did, Ophelia. She even showed me the email and was nearly begging me to come and find you. Using the information you gave her, I looked up local obituaries and business ownership documents, they’re all public records you know. When I found what I needed, I simply called up your boyfriend’s bar and asked to speak with him. When they told me he wasn’t in, I asked if they knew where to find him and they told me he would probably be with you. You in there, Malcolm?” He calls out his name and Malcolm nearly throws himself through the door but I push him away before he rips the door off its hinges.
“The nice girl on the phone told me what building you lived in but couldn’t tell me which unit. So I grabbed some takeout, walked in, and told the front desk people I was here to drop off some food.” He leans closer to the doorway and looks at me through the less than an inch opening I’d allowed for and meets my eyes through the crack. “It’s time to come home now, Mrs. Wheeler.”
The sound of him referring to me as his wife is what breaks any sense of control Malcolm is hanging onto. He pulls me out of the way before tearing the door open completely, slamming his body into Jarrett’s, causing them to clash in the hallway. There is a clear size difference between the two of them that Malcolm uses to his advantage. Years of training with Reese and Marshall doesn’t make for a fair fight. Not that Jarrett deserves it. The entire exchange is over before it starts when Malcolm lands a hard left hook into Jarrett’s chin, nearly knocking him out completely.
“If you ever come near her again, I will fucking end you, you hear me?” Malcolm growls, holding Jarrett up by the collar of his shirt. His head is limp and his eyes are hardly staying open as he looks between me and Malcolm. Between Malcolm’s punch and the jug of alcohol he seemed to have consumed before coming over, he is struggling to maintain any sense of coherence.
“She’s my wife, you stupid prick. She was never meant to be yours,” he slurs.
Malcolm yanks his head up to meet him and looks at him as if he’s ready to beat the life out of him. “If she were your wife she never would have run away in the first place, but she did. She’s mine now, and I’m never letting her go. Now you better get lost before I make it so no one ever finds you again. Got it?”
“Whatever. The bitch isn’t worth it anyway.” Jarrett’s eyes close as his body finally succumbs to the beating. Malcolm drops him and stands, leaving him on the floor passed out and comes to stand next to me.
Forty-five minutes later, the cops are walking Jarrett out in handcuffs, arresting him for trespassing and harassment. When the whole ordeal is over and we’re alone once more, we climb into bed and lay close to one another.
“Malcolm, I’m so sorry. I promise you, I never said any of that to my mother. I told her about you, yes, but nothing like what Jarrett said I did. I swear to you I didn’t.” I don’t know if it’s the adrenaline finally kicking in from what happened or the fear that he will be upset with me that causes my voice to crack. Tears spring into my eyes and I look towards the ceiling in an attempt to force them back down. He moves closer and wraps his strong arms around me like a shield.
“You have nothing to be sorry about, princess. You did nothing wrong. You’re allowed to share things with your family. It makes me happy knowing that you told her about me, about us,” he speaks into my hair.
“I didn’t know she still talked to him, I wouldn’t have ever said anything if I thought she did.”
“I know you wouldn’t, I know. It’s okay that you share things with her,” he hushes, wrapping his arms around me tighter. “I’m sorry, Ophelia.”
I pull away and look up at him, confused by his apology. “ You’re sorry? What do you have to be sorry about?”
His hand comes to my forehead and smooths some of my hair out of my eyes. “For not doing a better job of protecting you. For not being here enough. For being so distracted by everything—Marshall, the bar, my friends. I’m sorry for treating you so poorly the last few weeks. I promise to do better.”
“Malcolm—”
“No, I’m serious. I like you, Ophelia, I think I might be in love with you. But I’ve done a pretty shitty job of showing you that since losing Marshall. But I’ll be better from now on, I promise.”
My mouth falls into a small ‘O’ at his confession and my brain is too stunned to form words.
“I–I—” I falter.
“You don’t have to say anything back, just come here.” He pulls me into a hug and holds me against his chest for what feels like hours. Eventually, he falls asleep and the sounds of his slow and steady breaths fill my quiet bedroom. But I lie awake next to him, unable to comprehend what he said to me.
I think I might be in love with you .
But what I can’t believe more is the fact that I don’t totally hate the idea that he is.