Chapter Four
Seth
The drive to Hart’s Creek is a very familiar one. For a while, when I first started seeing Everly, I used to make this same journey, every Friday night, leaving Concord the moment I finished work, my bag already loaded into the trunk of my car. I was impatient to see her, and I can’t help smiling at the memories, even though I’m more nervous now than I think I’ve ever been before.
I used to be excited when I made this journey, not nervous… not even when I drove it in reverse after that first day we spent together. It wasn’t even a whole day. It was an afternoon and most of a night… and while I know how that sounds, it wasn’t like that. All we did was drink coffee, have dinner, take a walk… and talk. Man, did we talk.
Everly told me how her parents had been killed in a car accident when she was five years old, and how she’d been taken in by her Aunt Clare. I’d met her at the coffee shop… although I guess ‘met’ might be overstating it. She’d served me coffee, and said goodbye to me when Everly and I left, after I’d persuaded her to have dinner with me. Even so, I could tell just from that brief encounter that Aunt Clare was a kind woman, and that Everly was very attached to her. That was understandable. Not only had Aunt Clare taken her in and raised her, but she’d given Everly part-ownership of the coffee shop. It meant a lot to her. Anyone could see that… but I suppose I could see it better than most, because I’d been studying her. I’d noticed that, as well as having silky blonde hair, sky blue eyes, and a perfect, slim figure, she was also shy, insecure, full of self-doubt, and the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen.
She was kind, too, and I think it was her kindness that made it so easy to tell her about my parents’ divorce.
“When did it happen?” she asked, after I’d initially raised the subject. That was unusual for me. It’s not something I often tell people about, although I don’t really know why.
“I was seven when my dad left,” I said. “He ran off with another woman. I never knew who she was, and if my mom did, she didn’t tell me.”
We were down by the creek, walking in the moonlight, and she stopped then, looking up at me. “Does that mean you didn’t see him again?”
“Yeah. He disappeared from our lives.”
Looking back at that conversation, and everything that’s happened since, I can’t help wondering if I’m so very different from my father. Everly and I may not have a child, but I still abandoned the woman I love… although at least I didn’t leave her for another woman. I guess that’s something.
Everly didn’t make that connection on the day I walked away from her. She didn’t accuse me of being like him, although she had every right to. The idea may have crossed her mind since, though, and that thought leaves me cold.
Because I held nothing back when I told her about my father’s departure, and the effect it had on my mother… and on me.
“What did you do?” she asked after my initial revelations. “I mean, what did your mom do?”
“She found us a small apartment, which she had to work two jobs to pay for, and I guess she just got on with things, like people do.”
“What about you?” She tilted her head, looking up at me as we started walking again.
“It was a big change, obviously. I wouldn’t say we’d lived a life of luxury before my dad left, but we’d had a nice house, cars… nothing ostentatious, but very different from the life we led after he’d gone.”
“Did you go to college?” she asked, and I realized then that I hadn’t explained what I did for a living.
“Yes. I studied architecture.”
She smiled up at me. “How did you manage… financially, I mean?”
“I worked my ass off.”
She giggled, and although I was already holding her hand, I gripped it a little tighter, determined not to let go.
“Doing what?”
“Anything I could. I worked in a diner, a couple of fast food restaurants, a clothing store, and even a coffee shop.”
“A coffee shop?”
“Yeah, but it was nowhere near as nice as yours.” She giggled again, and I resisted the temptation to put my arm around her.
“I assume you graduated?”
“Naturally,” I said, giving her a smile. “I even found a job, which was more down to luck than anything else.”
“I’m sure it wasn’t all luck,” she said, and I leaned in to her a little, to let her know I appreciated the compliment.
“It was mostly luck,” I said. “One of my tutors knew this guy called Aiden, and he was looking for an entry-level architect. I was obviously looking for work and my tutor put A in touch with B.”
“And that gave you a start?”
“It gave me more than that. I’m still there… although I’ve progressed from entry-level, I’m relieved to say.”
“You clearly enjoy working there.”
“I do. Aiden and I got along really well, right from the moment we met. He offered me the job on the spot, even though I hadn’t actually graduated yet.”
“So, it wasn’t just luck, then?”
I smiled at her, feeling embarrassed. “Maybe not.”
“Your mom must be very proud of you.”
I stopped walking, a shiver running down my spine. “She was,” I said, and although Everly didn’t notice the change in tense, I carried on, “I can remember when I told her about the job. She was trying to decide what to wear for my graduation ceremony, and I went into her room and told her I’d buy her something new, and that she’d never have to worry about money, ever again. I told her I’d take care of her, just like she’d always taken care of me. She… she burst into tears when I said that.”
“I’m not surprised.”
I shook my head, because I knew she didn’t understand. She couldn’t. “It was the first time I’d ever seen her cry. Despite everything my father had put her through, she’d never shown any emotion to me before, but no matter what I said or did, she couldn’t seem to stop her tears from falling. Like you, I thought she was just emotional because I’d finally made it through college, and things were looking up at last… but that wasn’t it at all.”
“It wasn’t?”
“No. Eventually, I got her to calm down, and we sat on her bed… and she told me she had cancer.”
I heard Everly’s gasp, and instinctively moved closer, wanting to protect her from what I knew was coming.
“How long had she known?” she asked, her voice a barely audible whisper.
“About a month. She’d wanted to keep it from me until after I graduated, because there was nothing they could do. It had spread too far. She… She died at the end of that summer.”
Even in the moonlight, I could see the tears in Everly’s eyes. Her response was overwhelming, and I longed to hold her… to make it better for her, if I could. I didn’t, because we barely knew each other. Except even then, I felt as though I knew her better than anyone. Which was probably why I’d felt I could talk to her in the first place.
We continued on our walk for a while until Everly shivered, and I realized she was cold. I shrugged off my jacket and put it around her shoulders, and she looked up at me, tempting me to kiss her… even if she didn’t mean to. I glanced at my watch as I lowered my hand from her shoulder and noticed it was a few minutes after two in the morning. Neither of us had any idea it was so late – or so early – and we started back toward the coffee shop.
When we got there, I apologized for keeping her out so late, although she didn’t seem to mind, and when I asked for her phone number, she recited it to me without even a second’s hesitation.
I remember how hard it was to work the next day. Not because I was tired, but because my mind was full of thoughts of Everly. She filled my head, and the moment I got home, I called her. Hearing her voice made me smile, and we talked for ages.
I called her again the next day, and the day after, and on the Friday, I returned to Hart’s Creek, desperate to see her again.
I hadn’t told her I was coming, but she smiled when she saw me, and I think I knew then that everything would be okay between us. It may have only been a smile, but it lit up my world… and it captured my heart, too.
I’d booked myself into the hotel, having decided to spend the weekend with Everly – or as much of it as her responsibilities at the coffee shop would allow – and that evening, while we were on our way to dinner, I kissed her.
At twenty-seven, it wasn’t my first kiss, and I didn’t like to ask if it was hers… but as our lips met, I knew I’d never want to kiss anyone else as long as I lived.
It was the most perfect of kisses, starting slow, but then building and growing, until we were both breathless, and Everly was clutching on to me, like she couldn’t support herself any longer. I liked that, and I held her close, just to be sure she didn’t fall.
I knew I’d have to take it slow with her, though. She wasn’t the kind of girl you could rush things with. So, no matter how much I wanted her, I waited…
It might have been a difficult wait, because kissing her only made me want her more, but it wasn’t an interminable wait. Thank God.
I’d been wondering how to ask Everly if she wanted to take things further, or if I should just try something… touch her, maybe, and see how she responded. I wasn’t sure about that, but if I was going to try, it had to be somewhere private, so I contemplated asking her to come back to my hotel room with me one evening. Obviously, I didn’t want to scare her off, and my biggest fear was that she’d run a mile, so I was still at the thinking stage when Aunt Clare gifted us the perfect opportunity.
She had to leave town for the weekend to visit a sick cousin and, rather than expecting Everly to run the coffee shop all by herself, they closed the place down.
I was unaware of this until I arrived that Friday, but by the time I did, Aunt Clare had already left, and Everly was closing up for the day.
“Do you want to have dinner with me upstairs?” she said once she’d explained her aunt’s absence and their plans for the weekend.
“I’d love to.”
I hadn’t booked into the hotel yet, but had gone straight to the coffee shop, desperate to see Everly, after a week apart.
She took me up to the apartment, and after we’d eaten, we sat on the couch together.
“Do you wanna watch a movie?” she asked, and I shook my head, pulling her into my arms and kissing her. She seemed a little nervous, but she didn’t need to be. I wasn’t going to push her into doing anything she didn’t want. The thing was, though, when I pulled back, she asked me not to stop. She was staring into my eyes at the time, breathing hard, and when she bit on her bottom lip, it was all I could do not to bite it back.
“What do you want?” I asked her, because I couldn’t be sure whether she just wanted us to keep on kissing, or if she wanted more.
“Everything,” she whispered, and I thought I’d died and gone to heaven.
I asked where her bedroom was, and rather than telling me, she took my hand and led me up the stairs, opening the door at the top and going in ahead of me.
“You’re sure about this?” I asked, looking down at her. She nodded her head, and that was all I needed.
Her body was beyond anything I could have imagined. Slim hips… narrow waist… firm breasts. She was everything a man could want… and more.
I tasted her. She was honey-sweet, and so responsive, holding the back of my head as I flicked my tongue across her, taking my time, until my name was a scream, filling the air around us.
“I want you,” I whispered, rolling a condom over my straining cock before kissing my way up her body, letting her taste herself on my lips as I settled between her parted legs, her eyes wide with wonder.
It was her first time, which didn’t surprise me in the slightest, and although I’d never had sex with a virgin before, I wasn’t having sex with Everly, either. I was making love. That first time, I was as gentle as I could be, swallowing her brief cry of pain with a kiss, and holding her in my arms while we moved together, grinding, rocking, falling…
We came together in a crescendo of emotion, the like of which I’d never felt before, and then we lay in each other’s arms, just breathing. It was all I was capable of for a while, but after a brief visit to the bathroom, I returned to her in bed, pulling her into my arms. I wasn’t sure if she wanted to sleep, but I didn’t have to wait long to find out that sleep was the very last thing on her mind.
“You’ve obviously done that before,” she said, looking up at me as she let her fingers trail across my chest.
“Yes.”
“How many times?”
I chuckled. “I have no idea, but if you’re asking how many women I’ve slept with, the answer is fifteen.”
She nodded her head. “Does that include me?”
“No. And before you ask, none of them were serious.”
“How did you know I was going to ask that?”
“I didn’t. I guessed.”
“Am I serious?” she asked, biting on her bottom lip.
I freed it with my thumb and pulled her up on top of me, her body along the length of mine. “You’re about as serious as it gets, babe.”
She giggled then, and I rolled her over onto her back. She used the momentum to keep the roll going, kissing my chest, before I dumped her on her back again. Our hands were everywhere, as were our tongues and lips, and she spent the rest of that night proving to me that, although she might have been shy and lacking in self-confidence about most things, she could be wild in bed.
We made the most of having the place to ourselves that weekend, only getting up when we had to, and enjoying each other. It was a journey of discovery for both of us… sometimes fast, sometimes slow, but always together.
On the Sunday afternoon, while we were making love very slowly, savoring our last moments of solitude before Aunt Clare’s return, Everly rested her hands on my shoulders and whispered, “I love you, Seth.”
I was deep inside her at the time, but I knew I’d heard her right, and I stilled, lowering myself to my elbows, my fingers caressing her cheeks. “You mean that?” I said, and she nodded her head, a smile forming on my lips as I bent my head, tracing a line of kisses from the corner of her mouth to her ear. “I love you, too,” I whispered, because I did. I always had, from the moment I first met her. I still love her now, although whether she feels the same is another matter… one that makes my heart ache.
I cough down the lump in my throat as I drive into Hart’s Creek, pulling into the hotel parking lot and finding a space. It might seem like a strange thing to have done, considering I only live a short drive away, but I booked myself a room last night. I’d played through a few scenarios in my head, wondering how Everly might react to seeing me again, and although I still had no way of knowing what she might do, I decided there was no point in me coming here, and then leaving again straight away. Staying here – even if it’s just overnight – seemed like a good way of letting her know I’m committed to talking things through, to getting it right this time. I don’t care if we have to go back to the beginning, I want this to work.
The lady behind the reception desk is a stranger to me, but she hands me my key, and I make my way up the stairs, hoping I’m doing the right thing here.
I guess only time will tell, although I don’t intend waiting long to find out.
Letting myself into my room, I glance around. Things have changed since I last stayed here… but I suppose that was six years ago, and the hotel has changed hands since then. The furniture is new and mostly made of pine, including the king-sized bed that dominates the room. Over by the window there are two comfortable-looking chairs, covered with plain blue fabric, and there’s a wall-mounted television above the dresser. I dump my bag at the end of the bed, taking a few moments to freshen up before I leave the room again, pocketing my key as I walk down the hall to the stairs.
There’s no time like the present…
Main Street is as busy as I’d expected it to be on a warm spring Saturday, which probably isn’t helping with my nerves. Still, I’ve come too far to back out now, and as I pass the offices of the Hart’s Creek Courier and come up to the coffee shop, I allow myself a surreptitious glance through the window.
There’s no sign of Everly, although I’m surprised to see that there’s a guy standing behind the counter. He’s new… not just because I’ve never seen him before, but because the employees here were always women. It was a ‘thing’ of Aunt Clare’s to employ women and to make it a safe place for them to work. As well as the part-time help out front, Sandra and Lyla worked in the kitchen. They had assistants who came and went, but they were the mainstays. I got along well with both of them, and although I never knew Sandra’s story, I knew Lyla’s. She told me once that she’d left her husband after a violent fight. It wasn’t the first, and she knew it wouldn’t be the last. She had nowhere to go, but Aunt Clare helped her out, gave her a job, and set her back on her feet again. That was over ten years before I came on the scene, and as far as I know, she’s still here. It seems odd that Everly would have broken with her aunt’s tradition… unless…
My blood runs cold as I take a second look at the man. He’s around the same age as Everly, which makes him about five years younger than me, and has dark hair, and even darker eyes, with an athletic build, and a sickeningly handsome face.
I find it harder and harder to put one foot in front of the other as I picture the two of them together, my stomach churning. In all the months we’ve been apart, and all the scenarios I’ve created in my head, I’ve never once imagined her with someone else. I don’t know why… but I haven’t. And that leaves me with a quandary. Should I go back the way I came, collect my things from the hotel and drive back to Concord? It’s a tempting idea… except I know I’ll always wonder.
I’m still struggling to breathe, just as I notice Everly coming in through the swing door at the back of the coffee shop. Her arrival does nothing to help with my inability to draw breath, or with putting one foot in front of the other, although I do my best, taking it slow. She looks as beautiful as ever, her long blonde hair tied up in a ponytail, just like it used to be, and her slim figure hidden behind a black apron. It seems nothing changes… including my love for her. It’s still just as strong as ever.
She’s carrying a pile of plates and several cups, and at that moment, she looks up and a cup slides from her hand, falling to the floor. I can’t see from here whether it breaks on landing… my attention is diverted by the way the guy behind the counter rushes to her aid, fussing around her and taking the plates… ever the gentleman, it seems.
Asshole .
What makes it worse is that Everly grabs his arm, like she needs his help. How can she, when I’m here? It feels so alien… except it doesn’t, because I’m reminded of that sense of redundancy I used to have, when Everly was so wrapped up in the coffee shop, she forgot about everything else. I wonder if anything’s changed as I watch them lean closer together, whispering to each other, by the looks of things.
I’m at the door now, and part of me wants to stride in there and tell him to leave her alone… remind her she’s mine. Except she’s not, is she? Not anymore.
The guy glances over in my direction, then turns and speaks to Everly again, taking the cups from her now. I’m done with this, and I step inside, closing the door behind me. As I turn, Everly’s eyes meet mine, and she seems to trip slightly, righting herself before I walk over to the counter.
We’re feet apart, but she still makes my skin tingle, and my breath catch in my throat. She still makes me want her, like no-one else ever has, or ever could, and I know I’ll never stop loving her, even if the void between us is so much bigger than just these few feet. Judging by the look on her face, I think it might be too wide to bridge… but I guess there’s only one way to find out.
“Hello,” I say, because one of us has to break the silence, and it should probably be me.
“Hello.”
Her voice does crazy things to me, bringing back memories and giving me hope, even though I have no right to any such thing.
“How are you?” I ask. It feels like a logical question, even if it is too formal for us.
“I’m fine,” she says. “How are you?”
God, I hate this.
“I’m okay, I guess.” I could never lie to her, and I can hardly say I’m doing great when I’m not.
“Can I get you anything?” she asks, like I’m a customer, which is kinda disappointing. I do my best not to let it show, though, and nod my head.
“Sure. I’ll take a flat white, if that’s okay?”
She turns away without a word, taking a few minutes to prepare my coffee, and I use that time to admire the way her jeans fit so snugly to her ass, recalling what it felt like to let my hands wander, and how she used to moan when I did.
The guy who helped her earlier is putting away the cups still, and taking his time over it, if you ask me, glancing across at Everly every so often. I can’t read his expression from here, but I wish he’d find something else to do… somewhere else to be.
“There you go,” Everly says, putting a cup of steaming coffee in front of me.
I take my chance, grabbing her hand before she can pull it back, noting her gasp and the way her body tenses against me.
“Can we talk?” I ask. She stares at me, then lowers her gaze to our hands, although she doesn’t actually pull away. “Please?” I whisper, and she looks up at me again.
“Okay. I’ll just get myself a coffee.” She pulls her hand free and I smile, and although she doesn’t smile back and simply gets on with making another coffee, I take heart from the fact that at least she’s fixing herself a drink. It suggests she intends to talk for a while… or to listen. Either will do.
She turns back around, putting her cup next to mine.
“Shall we find somewhere quieter?” I suggest, desperate to escape her friend… if that’s what he is.
“Table twelve is free.” She nods toward the back of the coffee shop, and I pick up both cups. “I won’t be long, Owen,” she calls over her shoulder as she comes around this side of the counter.
So… the guy has a name…