Chapter 23
New York City
“Please, come right on in,” I say sarcastically.
Fallon barges right into my room without knocking. He flops down on the bed beside me where I’m resting with my back propped up against the headboard, my hands linked behind my head. The muted television is set to ESPN, but I haven’t been watching it.
“Don’t mind if I do.”
If anyone said a year ago, a month ago, or even a week ago, that I would be in some fancy hotel suite fit for a movie star with Fallon Montgomery on New Year’s Eve, no less, I would have laughed hysterically in your face before laughing some more. Yet, here I unbelievably am.
“Still no word from him?”
“Nope. You?”
“He’s being an ass.”
No truer words have come out of Fallon Montgomery’s mouth.
I sit up and fold my arms over my bent knees. “Liz still asleep?”
“She’s out like a freaking light. She needs it.”
Yes, she does. She isn’t having as much morning sickness, but something much worse has taken its place.
Depression. Ry skipped town with the excuse that he was visiting his grandparents.
No matter how many times Fallon, Jules, or I have tried to text him or call him, he won’t answer.
His silence is hurting Liz the most. She hasn’t smiled or laughed once for days.
She spent Christmas crying. She had been refusing to get out of bed unless we came over to her house and physically made her.
Liz has basically checked out of life. That’s why we’re here in this palatial penthouse suite overlooking Central Park.
Apparently, this is the same place where Fallon brought Liz while they were in New York City before he flew her across the Atlantic to visit all those cities in Europe. That was only two months ago, but it feels like a lifetime with everything else that has since happened.
“You sure about all of this?” I ask him, because I’m kind of feeling guilty with how we ambushed Liz with this sudden, impromptu trip.
Fallon dangles his legs over the end of the bed and lies back. “Yep,” he replies popping the ‘p’ like Liz used to do, and I can’t stop the tug of a grin from forming.
Fallon and I have never gotten on. That’s a nice way of saying we basically despise one another.
In my mind, Fallon is a spoiled, entitled, rich boy.
When he started sniffing around Liz a couple of years ago—let’s just say, my hatred for the guy skyrocketed, as did my jealousy.
He and Ry have been friends for a while, and now he and Liz seem to be joined at the hip.
I’m still trying to understand their new relationship.
I know he wants her. It’s not like he’s trying to hide how he feels.
Fallon turns his head to look at me. His eyes are so pale blue, they seem to glow. Liz used to say that about my and Julien’s silver-gray eyes. She would say our eyes were bright moons that lit up the night sky.
“We’re going to start ticking items off of her YOLO list one by one.”
Liz had made a checklist of things that she wanted to do.
Hailey told us about it. She was able to sneak access to Liz’s phone the other day and she sent us a screenshot of the list. There was a big check mark on the line next to racing Ryder at the Fields and a star next to the one that said record a duet.
Fallon mentioned that he was helping with that one and had booked her time at a recording studio in Raleigh for next week.
“When kitten and I were here, she said she wanted to come back one day to see the Statue of Liberty and visit the MoMA, so I’m adding those to her list. Lucky for us, they are both open tomorrow for New Year’s Day. Tonight are the fireworks which we can watch from the roof.”
Large groups of people and Liz do not mix, so doing the whole New Year’s Eve Times Square thing is out. Fallon said we would see the fireworks just as good from here.
I scan around the room and take in all its luxurious details.
There is nothing Holiday Inn about this place.
It has its own elevator and staff. The bedrooms are large and ornate.
Silk wallpaper, attached en suites with garden tubs and waterfall showers that could fit ten people easily.
Curtained canopy beds with expensive bedcovers, and French doors that lead out to an expansive balcony.
The penthouse itself is two stories. The place has a full chef’s kitchen and a private chef who will come in and cook for us if Fallon requests it.
It’s all totally insane and shows just how wealthy Fallon and his family are.
The guy flew us here on a private jet, for Pete’s sake.
“Whatever it is, just spit it out. You keep scowling like that, you’re likely to scare Liz,” Fallon comments.
“Just amazed by how much money you have.”
He sobers instantly. “I can’t help which family I was born into. And I will never apologize for the lifestyle I get to enjoy. If you have a problem with it, there’s the door. I’ll have the pilot ready and waiting to take you back home.”
“Jesus, man. Chill. I wasn’t saying it to insult you.”
Fallon stands up and walks over to the French doors. “Then I’d appreciate if you kept shit like that to yourself.”
He pushes the doors open and walks out onto the balcony.
A blast of frosty air whooshes in and the ambient temperature in the room plummets.
Old me would have gotten mad at what Fallon said and then I would’ve gotten up in his face.
I’m trying to be a better person. I laugh at that because I had told Ry last month when we had our heart-to-heart that I wanted to be more like him. Yeah, not so much now.
Following Fallon, I find him leaning over the top railing and looking out over Central Park.
From here it looks like a winter wonderland all decked in holiday lights and covered in a blanket of partially melted white snow.
The trees are stripped of their leaves, but many of them have been wrapped in lights like I had done to the old oak tree back home.
The tree that represents me and Liz and what we used to have together.
“I really didn’t mean anything by it,” I tell him again, mirroring his stance against the balcony railing and trying hard not to shudder at how cold it is.
“Hair trigger,” he says, and bumps my shoulder, letting me know we’re good.
I mull something over in my mind and then decide to just say it.
“Not to ruin our kumbaya moment or anything, and I don’t care if it ticks you off, but I need to know exactly where you and I stand with Liz.
Because, regardless of whether the baby is mine, in my heart, Liz has always been mine and if Ry doesn’t step up, I will. ”
Fallon rotates to face me, and he crosses his arms at his chest. The way he’s studying me makes me feel like he’s seeing me for the first time.
“I’ll be whatever she needs me to be. I’m not blind to your little love quadrangle.
I know what the deal is when it comes to you, Ry, Jules, and her.
I don’t have the history with her that you guys do.
But I’m not going anywhere. I’m all in.” Those frigid blue eyes lock onto mine in a stare down.
“And whatever beef we used to have with each other doesn’t exist anymore.
We bury that crap right here, right now. Got me?”
In answer, I hold out my fist and Fallon taps it.
“I must still be asleep and dreaming,” Liz says, stepping outside to join us.
Her hair is a wild mess, but she’s still the most beautiful girl in the world to me.
“And oh my God, it is freaking freezing out here!” she yelps and does a little step dance.
The balcony tile is icy-cold and she’s barefoot, hence the Irish jig she is doing.
But she’s smiling. And that smile means everything.
“Come here, princess,” I tell her.
Liz rushes over to me and Fallon, and we wrap around her, sandwiching her between us to warm her up.
Fallon and I kiss the top of her head at the same time, and it elicits a giggle from her. That’s one smile and one laugh. But I’m greedy. I need more.
“This is nice,” she sighs, tilting her head to my shoulder while holding on to Fallon’s waist. “I love it when my boys get along.”
“You just ruined the moment,” Fallon tells her, and her laughter is strong and full.
That’s two.
“Thank you for bringing me back,” she tells Fallon.
“Where I go, you follow,” he replies and she laughs again, but this one is sweet and full of happiness. That’s three.
“It’s supposed to be the other way around.”
I give her hip a squeeze. “I must be missing something.”
Liz and Fallon have this weird way they communicate sometimes, like when they say “secret for a secret” to each other.
He seems to get her, the new her, in a way that Julien, Ry, and I don’t.
It just makes me want to peel back the new layers of New Elizabeth even more.
To discover the parts of her that were buried deep and only emerged after her car accident and memory loss.
Liz plants a kiss to my cold cheek, but all I feel is warmth. “It’s something Fallon would say to me on our trip whenever we went anywhere,” she explains as a full-body shiver shakes her.
Fallon immediately takes her shoulders and turns her around to walk her inside. “Alright, kitten. Let’s get some food in you and wake Julien. We have stuff to do.”
“Remember that morning when we scared Elijah and he fell out of the bed?”
I also remember Ryder and I tackling Liz to that bed and tickling her until she cried uncle. Well, she actually cried flubberjizz, which is basically the same thing.
“Yeah?”
Liz wiggles her fingers and I catalog another of her smiles. “I say we wake Julien up with icy hands.”
“You are evil,” I tell her, but my grin says I’m all in.
Skipping to the French doors, she sing-songs, “But you love me anyway.”
Yes, I do. So very much.