Chapter Nine #2
God. My life had turned into one of my books.
My head was a mess. Probably more than my heart.
The convention was cancelled, my career was in shambles, messages were being left on mirrors, and Turner, the man I’d loved ever since I had memory, was here too.
Kissing my hand and my mouth and giving me orgasms and saying things like ‘you’re my superhero,’ or ‘you’re so beautiful,’ or ‘we got this,’ and I … I was on the verge of hyperventilating.
My breathing was shallow and my thoughts were exhausting and I—
“Hey,” Turner said, bringing us to a stop as the chaos in the lobby continued to move around us. His palms clasped my cheeks. “I’m not going to let anything happen to you. Hear me? Say you trust me.”
“I trust you.”
More than that, I loved him.
He looked down at me like he could see it right there, hear the three words dangling off my tongue.
A part of me urged me to say them. Get them out, now that I can.
I’d been holding onto them for so long, I was exhausted.
But I didn’t. Despite it all, my bruised, battered heart couldn’t help it.
I didn’t know if loving him was enough. I didn’t know if I could get past everything that preceded this weekend.
I felt selfish even contemplating my heart instead of thinking about everything else. It was almost laughable.
But the alternative felt as dangerous as the turn the whole situation had taken after that message on the mirror.
It was more than clear that Turner wanted me. Now. I wanted him back. Always. But once we stepped out of this half alpine-bubble, half whodunnit-nightmare, could I survive his answer to the question I wanted to ask him?
Why now, Turner?
I’d been there all this time. He’d never seen me. I should be feeling joy over the fact he did now, just like I had when he’d kissed me.
But I couldn’t.
Not when I kept thinking that I’d never come first to him.
And I didn’t know how to fix that.
“Do you want to join them?”
I zeroed back into Turner, his question catching me off guard. “Who?”
“That group of authors,” he said with a nod of his head. “The one you said hi to earlier. You’ve been stealing glances at their table behind me since they sat down.”
I hadn’t realized I’d been scanning the outdoor patio where we were breathing that much needed fresh air. Or at least, the small section of it that had been spared thanks to a flat-roofed iron pavilion.
It was hard to shake off the feeling that someone was watching.
Watching me. Watching us. Watching everyone really, even if there were only a few small, scattered clusters of people gathered outside.
There was a couple cozied up in a long chair, sipping cocktails under a blanket.
Two of the convention organizers that had already been here were settled next to one of the outdoor heaters the staff had switched on for us.
A man in an orange fleece sitting alone and reading a nonfiction book.
And then, there was the table behind Turner.
“We’ve met at a couple of conventions in the past,” I heard myself saying, voice low, just for him. “Follow each other on social media. Exchanged comments and likes, a few messages here and there, but we’re not friends-friends.”
He frowned in their direction. “So you don’t like them?“
“Oh no, they’re great,” I clarified. “They really are. But they are friends, in real life. Like real friends. They hang out and have a relationship that transcends social media and publishing. I don’t have that kind of relationship with them.
I kind of tried to squeeze myself in one time but …
” I trailed off, that familiar pang of embarrassment making my voice wobble.
“It’s all right. I like them, and they like me back. We’re friendly and they’re wonderful.”
“If they were that wonderful, they would have asked you to hang out with them. Or come up and offered for you to join them. Now, or earlier. You’re all stuck here and there’s no convention to attend.”
“I’m here with you, though. I’m not by myself.”
“What if you were, though? You’ve just said you had to try to squeeze yourself into their group one time. I don’t like the thing your voice did.”
I huffed out a chuckle. “We’re grown-ups. They don’t have to go out of their way to make me feel comfortable. This is not high school. It’s fine.”
Turner clicked his tongue, unconvinced. “Who’s in your group of author-friends, then? I never thought to ask you, and I’d like to know. Check their books out, too. Support them.”
That was so … Ugh. That was so nice of him.
So very Turner. “No group,” I said, wishing my answer was different.
I made myself smile. “I’m friendly with people here and there, but I’m more of a loner.
And it’s okay. I’m good that way. But I can still give you recommendations. I know a few authors you’ll love.”
“And if you had that group,” he pressed, relentlessly on topic. “Would you go out of your way to have that one person who keeps stealing glances at your table feel included?”
My lips pressed into a line. “It’s hard to say.”
“It’s not hard for me. I’ve seen you do that.
Multiple times in the past. You had that one exchange kid from Germany sit with us for a whole semester.
You two were the only two freshmen to sit at a senior table.
And you even helped him translate the shit your brother would say, which was no easy feat.
” There was a pause. “You also brought Mia into our group when she was new in town. So yeah. I’ll risk it and say yes.
You would go out of your way to do that. ”
“Maybe,” I murmured. Shoving aside how torn bringing up Mia still made me feel. “Poor Fritz. I always wondered why he stopped sitting with us.”
“He was intimidated.”
“You think?”
“I know. I was one mean motherfucker to him.”
“No, you were not. You’re never mean.”
“I was to him.”
I arched my brows. “Why would you be mean to Fritz?”
“Because he liked you. And I did not like that. He was German.”
“You don’t like Germans?” I asked with a snort. “Since when? Your pretzels are to die for.”
“All right,” he said with a tilt of his head. “I like Germans. I just didn’t like him. He wanted you. And he was very obvious about it. With me and Ric sitting right fucking there.”
I rolled my eyes at him. “Can’t say I remember any of that.”
Turner’s gaze shifted back to the table behind him, remaining there for a few moments before returning to mine, resolute.
As if making the decision not to buy my very plausible explanation.
To see past my bullshit and decide that yes, I’d tried and failed to become friends with them.
That they had their group, and I wasn’t part of it, and they were okay with it because who needed more friends when you had them?
That making friends as an adult sucked, but making work-friends as an author who basically existed in a social media space was even worse.
That there were cliques, in all careers, all literary genres, all over the place, and whatever it was about me meant I didn’t fit into any of them.
Even my publisher had struggled to fit me in a genre.
Too much spice for a thriller. To little spice for a romantic suspense.
Too much gore for a thriller. Not enough gore for horror.
Too adult for the young adult market. Too juvenile for the adult one.
“I wish they could see what I do when I look at you,” Turner said, suddenly.
“And what’s that?”
“Someone funny and smart and loyal beyond words. Someone you want sitting at your table for the rest of your life.”
“Turner,” I whispered. “You can’t say that stuff.”
“Because it makes you regret leaving Portland?”
“Because it makes me want to go home, but is it home when so much has changed?”
“It is,” he said, coming to the edge of his chair. “I can be.”
I closed my eyes, shook my head, laughed brokenly. “That’s …”
“Blunt. Yeah. You always knew I was blunt. You loved that about me.”
“And I still do,” I said with a sigh, that resistance to admit any of my feelings starting to melt the instant he poked it with a finger. “It’s one of the things I love the most about you.”
That only seemed to embolden him. “I have your books. Up in my room.”
“I thought you said you listened to audiobooks.”
“I do, but I like seeing your name on the spines. That way I get to have a piece of you in my home. With me.”
He was killing me. And now all I could do was think of those spines in his shelf.
The shelves of his living room or bedroom?
And where was that? In the place he’d rented with Mia or somewhere else now?
My throat went dry. There was so much we still hadn’t had time to talk about.
“Would you like me to sign them?” I asked, staying in the safest corner of that topic.
“I would love that,” he admitted, still looking so serious. Determined. “But that’s not why I came here. To Vermont. Or this convention.”
My heart started to thrum again. Just like any time we so much as danced around the topic of us. I remained quiet.
“I had a speech, you know?” He continued, unprompted. “I learned it by heart.”
“What did it say?”
He pushed his chair back, then came to me and braced his hands on the arms of mine.
He leaned down, tilting my head back so I could look at him.
“That I want to kiss you. That I hated losing you. That you’re beautiful.
That I want you to sign my books. That I’ve missed you. And that I want you back.”
That was … All I’d ever wanted to hear. Except for an almost imperceptible detail that made all the difference. “You’ve never had me,” I said, honestly. “You can’t have something back you never claimed as yours. Because that means you couldn’t lose it in the first place.”
“Biggest regret of my life.”
Everything in me stopped. I could do nothing but look at him, feel him occupying every single inch of the space around me. “Turner,” I mumbled. “Don’t joke about that. Please.”
“I never joke about the things that matter.”
You matter. You’ve always mattered. He’d said that.
“Words mean something to me,” I managed to get out. He leaned further down, trapping me in that chair. I wanted to drag him closer. Stop him from advancing. “And the ones you’ve just said mean something big. Important.”
His head descended the last stretch, his lips brushed mine, then my jaw, then my ear. “I know.”
He didn’t though. Could he?
I laughed. Strangely. Brokenly.
My hands clasped at the knit wool covering his chest. Just like last night. But so different. He returned his gaze to mine.
Turner looked at me like he waited for me to break so he could piece me back together.
I pulled at the sweater, begging him not to push me. If he made me cut myself open like that, everything would come out. I’d pour all over the place, make a mess of it. It seemed impossible not to warn him.
“I don’t know if I can do this,” I whispered. “I don’t know if I can be something you regret not having just because you’ve had a realization. I … I don’t know if I can come second to you.”
“Don’t give up on me, Frankie,” he told me, his voice even softer. Like a mellow plea. Gentle. But unshakable. Just like him. “It kills me that I keep getting the timing all wrong. But you need to let me fix it. Let me show you. Make it up to you. I promise you I will. Baby, please.”
A broken whimper left me without me being able to stop it.
Turner responded by taking my mouth in his. And when the beaten sound rose in my throat again, he parted my lips and kissed me harder. At first to make a point, back up his words, I was sure of it; but then turning the kiss into one of reassurance. Prayer. Overture.
“I’ll show you,” he told me when he broke the kiss. “I don’t care about the specifics. I came here to get you back, and that’s what I’m gonna do, hear me?”
I was dazed.
Disoriented from that kiss.
Bewildered by Turner’s words.
My lips parted, and I swore to God, it was with a question—how?—but my phone buzzed between us.
We looked at my lap, where it had been.
The notification was an airdrop request.
“Frankie,” Turner called. Or warned.
But I was already picking it up and hitting accept.
The image downloaded and filled up my screen.
It was of us, me sitting and Turner standing right where he was. Over me. On the patio armchair. And it came with a caption that had been added in red bold letters:
“Elliott and Eden, sitting in a tree. K.I.S.S.I.N.G.”
Turner straightened with a curse, pulling me up with him. He spun us in a circle as I gasped for air.
“You’re okay,” he told me, holding me close. “It’s just a picture.”
I nodded, although I could sense that he knew it wasn’t just a picture. It was a picture of us, from seconds ago, airdropped to my phone.
My stalker was watching us. And he was letting us know.
Someone cleared their throat beside us.
We both flinched.
“Sorry to interrupt,” a man said, looking as startled as we were. It was a different hotel employee that we hadn’t seen earlier. “We finally have that info for you, Mrs. Rossi.”
He handed us an envelope.
“Thank you,” Turner murmured, taking it from him.
I waited for Turner to say something about the photo. But he didn’t.
I didn’t either. What could the hotel management do? Sharon had stated it very clearly. The police couldn’t get here, and considering there was no previous record of a report, they probably thought it was a prank or the overactive imagination of a writer.
We watched the man walk away apologetically, oblivious to what he’d just interrupted, and when he disappeared behind the patio doors, neither of us moved or talked for a moment.
Turner continued to hold me, and I continued to let him.
I knew he was still scanning our surroundings for my stalker.
And I knew I was postponing the inevitable: opening that envelope and adding one more piece to the puzzle I never asked to put together.
“Turner?” I called, bringing his focus back to me. His eyes darted to my face, then to the envelope. He waited for me to tell him what I needed from him. I could see how this had sent him for a loop as much as it did me. “Take me back to your room. I don’t want to open this here.”