50. Graham
THE PREVIOUS JANUARY
I wake to find two fingers on my neck, checking my pulse, as a woman’s voice, husky with sleep, says, “God, not again.”
And even though I’ve got a headache beginning and I’m not quite awake, I laugh.
Keeley .
Obnoxious, over-confident, logic-impaired…and the only voice I’ve wanted to hear on the phone for the last six weeks.
I dream, for a half-second, that I’ve taken those two fingers of hers and pulled them into my mouth, wetting them to push inside her. I make her get herself off until she begs me to fuck her and then…
The hand leaves my neck and I wake again, then roll over to look at her.
She is all lush lips and wild hair, looking like exactly what she is: a woman who was up most of the night getting fucked within an inch of her life; a woman who made me wild and unhinged in ways no one else ever has.
There was actually a point, in the early hours of morning, when I caught myself thinking “I need to marry this girl.” Me —a guy who has spent his entire life swearing that’s the one thing he’ll never do.
I’m sure it was just the dangerous combination of alcohol and Keeley naked, but it wasn’t an entirely new thought.
It’s been in the background, barely repressed, for a while now, as if my world had been in black and white and I didn’t know it until I first heard her voice.
Who’d have thought my life would be transformed by a woman who’d called me both “boring” and “cheap” during the first five minutes of a phone call? I’d laughed over that conversation for days afterward.
“Did you just check my pulse?” I ask.
She stares at me. And then she scrambles out of bed.
“This didn’t happen,” she says, and I’m regrettably slow to understand. When I finally get it, it hits me like a hammer.
Everything I assumed was wrong and even the words she said aloud were completely meaningless. The whole fucking night meant nothing to her.
“Because you’re still on your mission to fuck the rock star,” I say. It’s an effort not to sound bitter. But how can she possibly want that moron after the night we just had?
“If mankind let every simple mistake get in the way of its goals, we’d still be communicating via cave drawings,” she replies, shimmying into her dress.
She’s hunting the floor for something while my shock morphs to disappointment.
Never in my life have I so misread another person’s feelings, but I certainly had some help…
a few hours ago, she was saying she wanted to marry me and have a million babies.
I knew even at the time it was standard Keeley hyperbole—it’s something I’ve heard her say of ice cream as well—but it turns out it’s what she says to someone she doesn’t even want .
Thank God I never told her what I was thinking. I’ll get through today and process my misery back home…the sooner the better. It’s an afternoon party—I can definitely make a late flight. I can’t believe I ever suggested I might stay the full week.
I reach for my phone to text my assistant.
Me: Jana, please get me on the redeye back to JFK tonight.
But just as I send it, Keeley turns to say goodbye, and there’s something in the way her eyes drift over me for a moment, as if she isn’t entirely sure she wants to leave. As if there’s some small piece of her that wishes this was different.
I wait until she’s gone before I send Jana a second text.
Me: Scratch that. I think I’ll stay.
I gamble at work, I take risks. But I’ve never taken one with my personal life until now. It’s not likely to pan out, but my God…if it did.
I guess I’m willing to find out.
Ten hours later, the party is over, and Keeley’s still by the rock star’s side.
This gamble of mine does not appear to have been worth taking, and yet I can’t look away from her.
She’s in a white dress with a v cut so low she can’t possibly be wearing a bra, and all I can think of is sliding my hand inside to feel her nipple harden against my palm.
I want to hear that small gasp of hers again, the way her eyes will fall shut and her head will roll backward when I do it.
The fact that Six is looking at her like he wants to hear her gasp, too, has me on edge…
and hearing him refer to her as his girl, earlier, nearly put me right over it.
She’d just asked what I remembered from last night when Six interrupted, and she had that glint in her eye, as if she already wanted to repeat it, no matter what she’d said this morning.
I wish I’d gotten the chance to tell her.
To step close enough for my breath to brush her ear as I described watching her on her knees in front of me, how my hand wound tight in her hair as I tried not to come.
How it felt to slowly push inside her for the first time, how it took all my self-restraint to be careful with her, and when she whispered, “more” and dug her nails into my back, I gave in, and it was wilder and rougher than I’d ever been.
I’d have told her how fucking alive I felt during those hours, and that the desire to take care of her—unexpected, and something I’ve never felt for anyone else—still hasn’t left.
But he did interrupt, and he hasn’t left her side since, and the longer it goes on, the more I find myself drinking, and assuming I won’t get that lucky twice. She’s across from me now, at some club Drew’s brought us all to, and Six—again—is trying to look down her dress.
I’ve got to walk away.
I go to the bar and order another whiskey—God knows how many I’ve had at this point. My stepsister appears by my side a moment later and politely waits until I’ve slammed my drink before she speaks.
“You might want to slow down,” Noah says. “This isn’t like you.”
“Did you see how drunk Drew is? And Colin and Simon are over there lighting shots on fire. I’m not who you need to be concerned about.”
Her gaze goes back to the table. “The difference,” she replies, looking at my brothers, “is that they’re having the time of their lives while you look like you’re at a wake.”
I should have gotten on a flight to New York tonight. Hell, I should have left this morning, the minute she walked out my door. This situation is that fucking unbearable.
Except just as I think it, Keeley’s eyes meet mine. She’s been looking at me, on and off, the whole goddamn day, but this is the first moment where I know I didn’t imagine that look on her face this morning…the indecision there, as if she’d suddenly remembered what she saw in me.
She rises, holding my gaze as she walks to the dance floor.
“You know what to do,” that gaze says. “Exactly what you did last night . ” There’s a petulant voice inside my head saying, “she should be coming to me”, and I ignore it.
This is the moment I’ve waited all day for and I’m not letting it slip past.
“Sorry, Noah,” I announce as I rise. “I need to take care of something.”
I push my way through the crowd on the dance floor.
When I find her, she grins at me, and I want to stay mad about this morning but, somehow, I can’t.
I grab her hand, tugging her deeper into the crowd—if Six sees us together he’ll be here in a moment’s time trying to stop me.
I’d be thrilled to set him straight, but turning the situation violent can wait until she’s agreed to leave with me.
“State dependent memory,” she says as if answering a question I’d just asked.
“You’re more likely to recall things when in a similar state of consciousness to the original incident.
If you’re inebriated when an event takes place, then you’re more apt to remember it when you’re inebriated again. That’s why this is happening.”
My mouth softens. The funny thing about Keeley is that the more she drinks, the smarter she sounds. Right now, she sounds like she’s getting ready to lecture doctoral students at MIT. Six hours ago, sober, she was asking everyone who the “hottest” Spiderman was.
“Why what is happening?” I ask, fighting a smile. Once again, the world is in color.
“Why I’m remembering last night,” she says, reaching up to run a hand over my shirt. “I like this shirt. Where did you get it?”
“You don’t give a shit where I bought this shirt,” I say with a grin, stepping closer. I suddenly need to feel a lot more than her hand on my chest. “I didn’t realize you’d forgotten last night. You didn’t even seem drunk.”
“It’s my superpower,” she says. Before I can ask what the hell that means, she’s sliding her hand into my shirt and pulling my mouth down to hers.
It feels like falling, as if I have no sense of where we are, of where she ends and I begin. But it’s also like being found, and it’s a feeling I don’t want to lose.
“How am I going to keep you from forgetting again?” I ask against her mouth.
“I won’t.”
“Prove it,” I say, pulling her snug against me, my erection throbbing painfully now, and she groans when she feels it for herself.
She grabs my hand and turns for the exit. “Let’s go back to your room. I’ll prove anything you want me to prove.”
Yes.
No .
Yes, I’d very much like to see Keeley attempt to prove something, anything in my room.
No, because I don’t want to go through another day like today. I don’t want to wake up tomorrow to have her rushing out of my bed, acting like I was a regrettable mistake.
I want more. I want more than one night. I want more than anything she’s planning to offer.
I take her in, her hair falling out of its careful updo, looking angelic but fragile in that goddamn dress…which is way too low cut. I rest my hands on her bare arms and they’re cold to the touch, so I pull off my jacket and drape it around her.
I’ve never wanted to be responsible for anyone. I’ve never wanted to belong to anyone. But I want both those things with her, and I don’t want the job of keeping her safe and happy to belong to anyone but me for the rest of our lives.
“Marry me,” I say, and when the words emerge, I expect to regret them. I expect to want to pull them back…but I don’t. I’m simply stunned by how perfect a solution it is. “That’s how I want you to prove it. Marry me.”
She laughs. “Sure, I’ll marry you…like, eventually. But right now, we really need to go back to your room.”
Yes.
No .
“Tonight. Before you forget and decide you’d rather be with Six Bailey.”
She stops in place, blinking up at me. Maybe it’s because she’s the only one of us sober enough to see this whole thing clearly, but I feel clearer than I ever have in my life.
“You don’t think you’ll regret it in the morning?” she asks. “You seemed pretty unhappy with me a few hours ago.”
“You were letting Six fucking molest you all afternoon. Of course I was unhappy.”
Her mouth opens to argue, which is when Drew pushes between us, drunkenly throwing an arm around Keeley’s shoulders. Poorly timed interruptions are apparently the primary character trait of the Bailey family.
“What’s up, kids?” she asks. “We’re taking this party back to my house because my pool is way better than the one at the hotel. I just called for the limo.”
My gaze locks with Keeley’s. Don’t go with them , I silently plead.
Drew looks between us. “Umm…what’s going on right now?”
Six is Drew’s brother-in-law, so this is definitely a conversation she shouldn’t be privy to. “Just party stuff. Some issues with the—”
“Graham thinks we ought to get married,” Keeley says. “Like, tonight. In Vegas.”
Drew’s eyes widen, and I wait for her to say, “ that’s insane ” or “ you guys hate each other .”
Instead, she looks at Keeley. “Wow. What are you going to do?”
“I still don’t even know why he asked,” Keeley says, but she’s smiling, and it gives me hope that I can still sell her on this.
My fingers twine with hers. “Maybe I just wanted someone who’d force me to go to Santorini.”
She grins wider. “We both know that’s not true.”
I was joking, of course. But maybe I wasn’t. Maybe I do want someone to force me to go Santorini. Maybe I’ve been locked up for a long time and I’m starting to think she’s the key to the outside.
“I want to marry you because you don’t wear enough clothing when you go out, and I want it to be my jacket you wear home at night. And because a part of me has wanted to marry you since the first time we spoke. You bring my entire world into color, and I don’t want to go back to the way it was.”
Tears spring to Keeley’s eyes. “I wasn’t planning to ever get married,” she whispers.
“I wasn’t either,” I tell her. “But I want to marry you.”
“Oh boy,” says Drew, pulling Keeley away. “We’re going to have a chat outside. Meet us out there in five.”
Keeley allows herself to be led, but at the last moment she turns and smiles at me.
I’m pretty sure it was a yes. And for the first time in decades, the future is technicolor and open wide, and I can’t wait for it to start.