Twenty-Seven
Leah
G raduation day was pretty standard.
Nothing overly exciting about it. The only thing I was happy about was the photos of me in the graduation gown and the silly cap with the annoying tassels falling over my face every time I looked down.
I’d done it.
I had graduated.
For someone with my beginnings, this was surreal.
Once I accepted my degree and got the hell out of there, I tore the gown off and went to an early dinner with Melanie and Rome’s parents.
Marlena and Harold were exceptionally good with their poker faces, completely overlooking the events that happened between Carter and me. I knew they were perfectly aware, and I cringed every time I imagined them in the grocery store, passing the magazines with my ass and stars-for-boobs on display.
Thank God those magazines were no longer poisoning the check-out stands.
I had this ridiculously giant burger with guacamole in it, determined to finish every last bit. Graduating wasn’t the only thing I was celebrating. It was the Junior Accountant position I’d just landed from an accounting firm not even a week ago.
Thank God old grumpy accountants didn’t give a fuck about the media and had no idea who I was.
I should have been happier than I was, but my heart was heavy as my thoughts meandered to Carter. Always him and the last words he’d said to me.
I missed him.
So fucking much.
I finished out dinner, happy on the surface, and then we returned home. The plan was to get changed and head out to a club for a few drinks. What it didn’t involve, however, was the blue card taped to the door.
I ripped it off and tore it open.
Removing the card, I opened it as Melanie hovered over my shoulder, reading the lines.
Hey ladies, it’s Rome.
Leah, we wanted to congratulate you on your graduation, and, since we’re in the city at the moment shooting a music video, we thought what better way than to take you to one of the best clubs around. You’re on the VIP list. You don’t have to come if you don’t want to, but I hope you do.
Below that were the directions to the club.
“Do you want to go?” Melanie asked, her voice lighter than before. Was she holding her breath, nervous of my response?
I sensed she wanted to see Rome.
“I don’t know,” I answered, hesitantly. “Carter will be there, right?”
“Do you want me to call Rome and check?”
I mulled it over before nodding. “Yeah, just ask. I don’t think it’ll be a good idea to go if he’s there, you know?”
She pulled out her phone and dialled Rome’s number.
Uncertain feelings swirled inside of me. The idea of seeing Carter was exciting, but the reality of it would be painful. I rejected him after those few amazing days, and then I stressed to him about keeping things the way they’d been.
Seeing him would be awkward, to say the least.
Melanie chatted for only a minute before she got off the phone. “He said Carter’s not around, and that he’ll most likely be in his hotel room.”
“Why would he be in his hotel room?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know.”
I eyed her curiously. “Is he with a girl or anything?”
“I’ve sort of been dodging the news after everything. I don’t know.”
She waited patiently for me to decide. I could tell she really wanted to go.
I stuck the key into the apartment door and stepped inside. Dropping the purse to the ground, I sighed and said, “Okay. We’ll go.”
She squealed, letting her feelings show. “Yes! Okay, so I’ll be the designated driver, since it’s your graduation and all.”
“No,” I disagreed, shaking my head. “We’ll just take a taxi in and get smashed together.”
A drive there wasn’t going to be cheap, but we deserved a bit of fun.
We changed and fixed our make-up as Melania blasted music and danced around the apartment. She was beyond happy, and I felt myself loosening around her. Melanie was so infectious when she wanted to be.
Then we called a taxi and left.
On our way there, I fought the urge to look him up on the phone.
What had he been up to?
Was he seeing someone?
If he was with a girl, then…
Well, then nothing.
*
The night club was famous and known for its rowdiness. The VIP room itself was brilliant, I quickly came to realize. There was no bar drama, no waiting for an eternity to be served. It had plush seating areas throughout, and while there were a lot of people, it wasn’t obnoxiously loud.
Oh, and it was also filled with some seriously rich people.
“Oh, my God, he’s that guy in that agent movie with the secret double life,” Melanie said on a gasp, pointing across the room to some dude with a chick on his lap.
I laughed and shoved her hand down. “Don’t point!”
“There are famous B-grade actors everywhere, Leah! This is amazing.” She gasped again. “That dude over there got eaten by that fake flying shark from Flying Sharkageddon.”
I held my laugh in. “That sounds like the dumbest movie—”
“It was really awful.”
“I bet everyone tells him he did amazing.”
She groaned. “Fucking look how hot he is. I’d tell him he was amazing in it, too.”
I held in my next laugh and glanced around the room, and then I stilled when I caught Jared’s face. He was seated on the couch, a beer bottle in his hand, chatting to some girls.
“There’s Jared!”
We spared no time going to him. The guy was exactly the same as I remembered: funny, ridiculously obnoxious, and still filled with jokes. His eyes lit up the second he saw us, and it wasn’t long after that Leo joined, drunk and with a hand up some girl’s skirt.
“Fuck, looking good, girls,” he said.
“The drinks are on the house, by the way,” Jared then said, motioning to the bar. “Rome’s spoken to the bartenders. Just tell them your names when you get something to drink.”
“And congratulations on graduating,” Leo told me, giving me a half-assed hug. I maintained my distance because his hand was still under some girl’s skirt. Always rowdy, of course.
“Thanks, guys!” I said, smiling.
We reminisced for a bit, conversing about all that’d happened. They seemed happy. We drank a lot, and Melanie dragged me to the dance floor. We danced, our heads growing cloudier by the minute when Rome suddenly intervened, hugging me tightly.
“Congratulations, Leah!” he shouted over the music. “I’m glad you showed up!”
I smiled back at him. “Thanks for inviting us out.”
He turned to Melanie, his eyes roaming her up and down for a flash of a second. She was dressed to kill in a mini-skirt and halter top. I was, per usual, on the tamer side in black tights and a billowy top with purposeful rips along the side. I guess it was meant to look hip? I didn’t know. I’d just borrowed it out of Melanie’s dresser before we left and loved the way it felt on me.
She maintained her distance from him, smiling in that friendly way, but I could see the want in her eyes as she nervously looked around. They spoke, very briefly, before he left her alone to get some drinks.
“You okay, babe?” I asked her.
“Yeah,” she answered with a nod, but it couldn’t be further from the truth.
“He can’t stop looking at you,” I told her next, studying her closely.
She just bit her lip and shrugged. The girl was good at bottling it in.
We took breaks in between dancing and downed tequila shots at the table with the boys. As I got drunker, my thoughts meandered to Carter. I glanced around the room, part of me hoping I’d see him, the other part of me glad I hadn’t.
When I was drunk, I could admit how absurdly attracted to him I was.
When my head was this cloudy, the walls I’d erected crumbled, and the truth seeped into my mind.
If he was here—I’d go home with him. It was that simple. I could pretend all I wanted that I was strong, that I needed the distance, but my body was tethered to him and I…
I was so weak.
Which was why it was good he wasn’t here.
It was only toward the end of the evening, while dancing half-drunkenly on the floor, that I caught the overwhelming scent of him. I stilled right there on the floor, turning my head to the side, shutting my eyes to focus on that scent that seemed to grow stronger around me.
Was I too drunk to make sense of things?
But then hands went around me, roaming up and down the sides of my body. I gasped, my reaction immediate. I knew it was him. Those calloused fingers were a dead giveaway.
It was instinct that had my back sink into his chest, the top of my head hit his chin. His body moved with the music, and I was more intent on moving against him . My ass rubbed along his pelvis, and I felt his face brush against the side of mine.
“Congratulations,” he said in my ear, his voice breathless and hoarse.
I opened my eyes and turned my head to him. And it was him. Yes, he was here in the flesh, and he was holding me more than he was dancing with me.
The room was dim, but his eyes looked bright. I lost myself in them as we moved to the music, and I knew right away, by the minty smell of his mouth and the solemn look on his face, that he was completely sober.
The second he began to pull away, I grabbed his arm and forced it around my stomach. “No,” I told him desperately, already near tears. “Don’t go.”
He paused, staring down at me with a pained look. On a sigh, he moved closer to me. I turned my body in his arms and wrapped my own around his neck, looking up at him, in awe of his beauty.
“You’re really here,” I said, and I didn’t think he could hear me, but he stared at my mouth and his eyes looked raw as he stiffened a nod.
My fingers combed through the hair at the nape of his neck as he only slowly moved. The music was fast paced, and we were like snails on the floor, more content on the feel of each other’s bodies than anything else.
The heat of him combined with the alcohol had me needy and wanting. I moved as close to him as humanly possible, feeling him harden against me. My breathing slowed as he dipped his head to me, his forehead pressed against mine.
I couldn’t stop myself.
That need—it burned deep within and spread throughout my body like wildfire.
I remembered how good he felt, and for a moment, I wanted him again. I wanted his length inside of me, wanted to know what it felt like to be pleasured again by his dexterous hands. My lips brushed against the stubble along his cheeks, and his breathing hitched. His eyes stared into my own as I barely pressed my lips against his soft plump ones. I darted a tongue out, lightly tasting his bottom lip, and my being warmed.
He shook before me, that pain permeating his features as he muttered, “You told me you weren’t ready.”
I froze, and all at once he began to move away from me. His hand trailed down my arm, leaving behind goose bumps as he backed away slowly.
“Again, congratulations,” he said one last time.
He turned away and disappeared into the crowd, leaving me shaking and scatterbrained.
The tears fell from my eyes.
I had lost him.
Again.
That was the last time I saw him before the plane crash.
*
When we got back to the apartment hours later, drunk as shit, I found a small box in front of our door with a card on top. Melanie was too close to puking to stick around to see what it was. She rushed inside the apartment, leaving me alone and dazed in the hallway.
I removed the card and opened it first, my eyes reading the words in record speed.
Congratulations on achieving your degree, Angel. I’m not surprised. You are so fucking amazing. I knew this day would come—always believed you could achieve anything that you set your mind to. Funny, I have fans all over the world, and I only know what it’s like to be them because I’m your biggest fan.
My sweet Leah, my neighbour, my best friend, my light in the dark.
I wish you the best.
I want you happy, and if this—being apart—is the best for your soul, then I want your soul to fucking thrive.
Look toward the future Leah, and I’ll reach my hand out and touch the past where you will always live inside me.
You will now be chained to a desk with a calculator in the palm of your hand for a whole eternity. Hopefully, this will make those poor hands look alright.
-Carter
I opened the box and pulled out a bottle of rosy, red nail polish. A poor quality one, to boot. In fact, upon closer inspection, I realized it was the same brand of the one from my childhood.
The one he replaced for me.
A lump formed in my throat.
I knew what he was trying to tell me.
The past doesn’t have to stay in the past.
But he was wrong.
It did.