Chapter Eight #2
“The Midnight Baker is not my dream, it’s just something I like doing. I’ve only just started chasing dreams, and I don’t think I’m very good at it. You’re the brave one of the two. Look at what you’ve accomplished.”
How, I wanted to ask. What are those dreams Turner Reece is chasing?
But the question felt … so fragile. Vulnerable. As though if I asked, I would be putting me on the spot and not him. Because what if he turned it around and I had to confess that I continued to let those dreams slip through my fingers? Either by not measuring up, or giving them up?
“If I was that brave,” I said with a shake of my head.
“I wouldn’t be stalling in this bed, postponing opening those drapes, and finding out whether the whole place is covered in snow.
If I was brave like you say, I wouldn’t be wishing that’s the case, and the convention is cancelled, and I don’t get to find out that yes, the last shot I had at seeing that I somehow still matter proves that I don’t. ”
“You matter.”
I sighed. “That’s sweet.”
“It’s not,” he said. His hand clasped my jaw, softly but firmly, keeping my eyes on his. “I’m not being sweet. You matter, Frankie Rossi. You’ve always mattered.”
Emotion rose, but with it the need to fight it. “Turner—”
“No. Don’t tell me you don’t matter when ever since that day, you’ve been my superhero, all right?”
Something in my chest rippled, releasing a flutter in my belly.
My heart swelled, tears rushing back.
“It’s not just about writing the books,” he continued.
“It’s everything else. It’s putting yourself out there, not just your words, but all of you.
You make yourself vulnerable in every way a human being can be.
” He clamped his jaw for an instant. “When you signed the book deal and we all travelled to New York for your first event, I was so goddamn terrified, Frankie. Petrified. I don’t think I talked for hours.
What do you mean I had to go see how you lay yourself open for dozens of people?
What if you got hurt? What if some idiot said or did something to hurt you?
And what if you had a certain set of expectations and the night disappointed you?
What if you took it personally? Made yourself responsible, huh?
I couldn’t do anything to protect you. And it broke me. ”
My voice shook with barely contained emotion when I spoke. “I had no idea you were feeling that way. I wouldn’t have told you to stop acting like I was being deployed to Mars instead of heading to a party.”
“You said what you needed to say. And those fears you’re telling me about?
Been having them ever since. They are human, Frankie.
They place you back on Earth with me for a little while.
What matters is that you still did it. With that book, and every book that came after.
You’re still doing it now, coming all the way here to prove some point you think you need to prove.
So yeah, you are brave. You’ve always been.
And to me, you will always, always matter. ”
He … He was impossible not to love. Turner made it impossible.
I want to keep you, I thought, this, always. I don’t want to mess it up with my big bruised feelings, and I thought of it so loudly I was scared he might hear it. “I’ve missed you, Turner. So badly.”
He pulled me into his chest, wrapping his arms around me. “I’m glad you have, baby. I’m so glad you have.”
Could I try to be brave? Could I try to be a little like that girl that was all hope and no fear? Turner’s superhero?
“Let’s open those drapes,” I said into his neck. “Then we re-assess the situation. All of it. Together.”
In a whirlwind of hands and bed sheets, Turner was on his feet. With me in his arms. Somehow. He carried me to the window and set me down on the carpet.
“We’re okay,” he said before pressing a kiss on the tip of my nose. “Doesn’t matter what’s out there. We got this.”
I loved that he used the plural like that. Like it made it true. Like I’d be fine if I was with him.
“All right,” I answered with a nod. Then, I snagged one of the thick curtains and shoved it to the side.
There was snow.
So much snow. Everywhere. Blanketing every tree and slope and landmark surrounding the property.
“Shower,” Turner said from my side, quickly. Before I could sit in the way this changed absolutely everything. “Let’s get you in that tub, while I check with reception. You loved that tub, remember?”
Before I could articulate an answer, his hand was around mine and he was leading me into the ensuite bathroom.
He turned on the water, as hot as it would go.
Steam started to fill up the space, clinging to my skin, making his shiny.
His shirt was somewhere in the floor of the room, and there were so many new tattoos sprinkled all over his back too.
It was like art. Like what I did in my books, with my writing.
Leaving little pieces of myself on every page of those stories.
Could I continue to do that? Was the convention cancelled? Were we stuck here with—
“We’re good,” Turner repeated. “And I’m here. To deal with this with you.”
A breath was knocked out of me. I nodded. “Can you call reception? For me? Like you just said.”
“Absolutely,” he answered before kissing me and returning to the room.
This felt so natural. The way he kissed me and it made it all better for a few moments.
I blew air through my lips, and when I turned around, I caught my reflection on the mirror.
My lips were a little swollen, my hair a mess that I should probably deal with before getting under the stream of water.
I looked around, searching for the brush I’d left here yesterday.
Once located, I returned to the mirror, hand up in the air, and ready to get in a workout out of untangling the knots.
The brush dropped to the tiled floor though.
Whatever sense of calm Turner had infused into me shattered.
Every muscle in my body was locked, frozen, and the way I screamed his name? It would have made the cry of any fictional Last Girl worth her money pale in comparison.
Turner’s arms were suddenly around my shoulders, and before I could so much as blink, he was shoving me behind him.
He didn’t ask what was wrong.
He could see it. It was right there, on the mirror.
YOU BETRAYED ME,
MY SWEET EDEN.
I couldn’t know if, like me, he recognized the words.
But at the heart of everything, it didn’t matter.
Someone had been there. While we slept.
And they’d left a message on the mirror.
A message that could only be for me.
Since I was the person who had written those six words on a book.