Chapter 36 THEO
THEO
The day after Alex finds the photos, I have such a bad hangover that I can’t even make her breakfast, so I give her the car keys and the details for the spa and go back to bed. She’ll be irritated when she realizes I’ve booked her for every service they offer, but she won’t say no.
She acts like she hates gifts and hates being pampered, but she doesn’t.
I was supposed to need her to be out of the house for hours to set up decorations and put gifts under the tree and make gingerbread for us to build a house and all the other shit I thought might make for a perfect first Christmas together, but now that’s pointless.
I scrap all my plans for the day, and I drink instead.
I don’t think about the photos, or about Kevin and Ashley, or about Melissa and Jason, or about Boss and Nana.
I just drink and think about the fact that after Thanksgiving, I didn’t bother to ask Alex how she felt about other holidays because I’m a selfish fucking asshole who wanted to have something nice with her.
I lie on the couch and stare into the fireplace, somewhat drunk and exceptionally angry that this isn’t going how I wanted.
Fuck it, I’m going to do one of the things I had planned for this weekend.
I already have everything I need to make a panettone because there was always some in the photos of her and her parents at Christmas, and she should have one thing that feels familiar to her, that lets her know her traditions matter in this relationship.
As I make the dough, I think about what I need to do to kill Danny.
I’ve never planned to kill someone before, and figuring out what I need to do to not get caught is annoying.
He’s a cop, so I have to factor in that the cops will give a shit that he’s dead and actually investigate it.
Still, it shouldn’t be that hard. I cover the dough and slip it into the fridge to rest overnight, trying to figure out if Alex would be likely to run away back to Boston if she got her old identity back.
I don’t think she would anymore. I think we’re in a good enough place that she’d stay with me, where she fucking belongs.
I cut myself off from drinking after the dough is made so that I’ll be relatively sober when Alex gets home. I don’t want to be drunk around her again, because I almost told her I loved her last night when she came upstairs to comfort me.
She’s not quite there yet, but she’s close.
Alex comes home pampered and glowing and exasperated. I smile and try to act normal, but she’s not buying any of it. She wraps her arms around me and tells me I’m a shitty liar and tries to get me to open up to her, but I don’t. We talk about virtually nothing over dinner, but it’s comfortable.
When we’re sitting on the couch afterward, Alex crawls into my lap and kisses me, undoing my belt and telling me she wants to make my day better.
For the first time ever, it takes me a while to get hard for her, but she doesn’t say anything.
She keeps kissing me and touching me, and I lose myself in her affection until she kneels between my knees.
I can’t tell exactly why she’s sucking me off, but the idea that she might be apologizing makes me uneasy.
I watch her closely, but she’s so engaged, her face flushed and not blank at all, and she looks up at me adoringly as her cheeks hollow out around me.
I think she’s trying to take care of me, which makes me come immediately.
Alex curls up in my arms after, shyly asking me if that made me feel better. It did, but I don’t know how to feel about the fact that she’s using sex like this, so I make her come instead of answering her.
This isn’t going how I wanted.
This was all supposed to go so fucking differently.
When we go to bed, Alex gently turns me away from her and curls up around my back with her arm around my waist, pressing soft kisses into my shoulders.
I think she’s trying to take care of me again, and it’s the best I’ve slept in a long time.
The next morning, I wake up early to find a naked, mostly asleep Alex halfway on top of me with my thigh between hers, her hips moving the tiniest bit.
I roll her carefully onto her back, touching her until she’s wet enough that I can push into her.
She wakes up to me fucking her, humming with delight as she wraps herself around me.
Once she’s fully awake, I fuck her hard the way she likes, loving her screams and the way she begs me for more.
I leave her lying on the bed with that dreamy smile she gets after sex and go upstairs to make breakfast, relieved that things feel back on track.
She comes into the kitchen in my sweater and nothing else, her hair fucked up and her thighs still messy with me, and I’m finally calm as she smiles up at me before pulling me down into a long, sweet kiss.
This is what I wanted.
I tell her we have plans all day, starting right after breakfast, and she says she needs two hours for her own plans, which she won’t tell me anything about.
In return for not asking any questions, she lets me give her one gift.
***
“What is this place?”
“You’ll see.” I help Alex down the slick rocks, grateful she’s wearing the nice hiking boots I bought her for this exact purpose and not the canvas sneakers she brought with her.
We finally get onto the flat part of the rocks and start ambling across them, Alex taking her time peering into tide pools and pointing out starfish.
I watch her, feeling more relaxed. This is how I wanted this trip to go.
She smiles up at me from the edge of a tide pool, and she looks so picture-perfect that I wish I could fill my phone with photos of her.
I can’t, not while she’s still worried about Danny, but I’ll fix that problem for her soon enough.
“Honey, we need to time this right. Can you follow me?” I reach my hand down to her, and we pick our way across the rocks, headed for Thor’s Well.
I know the best time to see it is at high tide, but that’s a more dangerous time to navigate the rocks, so I get her there just before the tide starts coming in so she can watch it change.
There’s a burst of water ahead, and she looks at it, confused and excited.
It’s fun to see this from her eyes, and I pull her closer to the collapsed sea cave as a wave crests over the rocks.
She watches with wide eyes as a bigger wave rolls in, the water covering the rocks before it pours down into the cave mouth, making it briefly look like there’s a sinkhole in the ocean.
A minute later, a large wave hits the inside of the cave exactly right, and the water bursts up through the hole like a geyser.
Alex is delighted, taking photos with her phone and watching with an amazed smile, seeming to enjoy it most when the water creates the illusion of a hole in the ocean.
I lead her closer, but she gets nervous about getting too close.
I keep going, stopping a few feet from the cave opening and looking down at the churning water, waiting.
I see the right wave come in and step back quickly, watching the water surge into the air, and I laugh as the water sprays my face.
When I grin over at Alex, she’s putting her phone away with a shy smile.
We walk around the perimeter, and I keep my eyes on the waves and the water level gathering on the rocks so Alex can enjoy it.
We stay until the water on the rocks starts getting too high, then I lead her away, watching her feet for her so she can peruse the tide pools.
Alex is nearly giddy, chatting animatedly about rock formations and tidepools, googling Thor’s Well and reading up on it as we return to the car.
We navigate down the coast, and Alex slips her hand into mine almost absently as she changes the radio dial from news to Christmas music, and something in me unwinds a bit.
She makes me pull off into a large store down the coast and tells me to wait in the car and to give her as long as she needs, and she seems excited as she hurries into the store.
She left her phone in the car, so I open it, looking through her photos.
There are mostly scenic photos of the coast or Portland, a few of Miles and Bailey, some of Anna and Jessica, and now a handful of me.
She’s never taken a photo of me before, and my chest loosens entirely.
There’s a few of me looking at tide pools, a photo where I’m looking down into the cave, another where I’m laughing at the water shooting upwards, and yet another where I’m looking over at Alex with a stupid smile.
I put her phone down and sigh in relief.
She’s been more adjusted lately, but this is different.
She wants these reminders of me, of the time we’re spending together, and they’re proof of me as an established part of her life.
I have worked so fucking hard to make this relationship work because I knew we were connected, and I fucked it up over and over again, but I finally fixed it.
We’re finally on the same page now.
When I see Alex coming out of the store with a cart full of bags, I get out to help her put them in the trunk, but she points her finger at me, her expression stern.
“No! Stay in the car. You can’t see anything!” I grin and do what she says.
I keep asking her teasing questions about the bags, trying to guess what’s inside, and she keeps deflecting, trailing off in the middle of sentences as she looks out at the water.
I forget she’s never been this far down the coast, so I drive slowly and stay quiet, letting her enjoy the fog drifting off the grey, frothy ocean and into the evergreens that jut up out of the cliffs.
She slips her hand into mine again, and we drive like that, quiet, with slightly staticky Christmas music playing softly in the car.