27. Evie
T ristan and I spend the holidays with his family in Boston. I’ve spent every Christmas of my life in Savannah, so leaving feels bittersweet at first, but mostly I’m just excited to see Tristan’s city. I’m hoping for snow.
It's fun catching up with Lucky, who I haven’t seen in years, and meeting his adorable little boy, Liam. His wife Bria is classy and beautiful, but that’s not surprising. Her kindness complements his sharper edges perfectly, too. Maeve flies back for just four days, much to the family’s chagrin, because she has rehearsals in Oakland. And—she reveals to Bria and me—because Callum wants her to spend New Year’s with his extended family in Belvedere, a fancy city in fancy Marin County. I’ve never been to California, so I don’t know much about that, but she seems happy, if not anxious, to fly back when it’s time.
Bria takes me holiday shopping at the winter markets and Beacon Hill’s boutiques. Tristan and I go on a holiday cruise around Boston Harbor with Owen and Sloane, and to a Celtics game with Lucky and Bria. We go ice skating with Liam, which I suck at, and have dinner with the entire family, uncles, aunts, and cousins included, at an upscale restaurant in Back Bay.
On Christmas morning, we wake up to a sparkling white wonderland. After breakfast and opening presents, we make snowmen and snow angels in Boston Common until our fingers are numb. The only person more excited than Liam is me.
I love seeing Tristan’s beloved city through his eyes. He takes me to all his favorite haunts from Callaghan’s boxing gym to Salty’s, a rooftop bar with stunning city views. “It’s better in the summer,” he says from within our igloo-for-two, designed to keep the elements out.
“I don’t know.” I take a big sip of my Dirty Snowman—a boozy, hot chocolate with loads of Bailey’s—and sink back into my chair. “This is pretty perfect to me.”
“I keep forgetting you’re not used to real winter,” he says, wrapping an arm around me. “You actually like when it’s cold.”
Seeing Tristan in his element is jarring, but in a good way. This is where he belongs, the place that made him who he is. He and Lucky have a ton of family and even more friends, some of whom I recognize from their trip down south. Alex hugs me when he sees me, telling everyone else that I’m the badass Tristan’s needed all along. They treat me like family, like I belong, just like Tristan promised. Bria and Sloane confide in me and include me like I’ve always been around, and Liam even calls me Auntie Evie.
It’s so nice that when our last night in town rolls around, it’s almost as bittersweet to leave Boston as it was to leave Savannah.
“We’ll be back soon,” Tristan says with a smug smile, drawing his finger down between my breasts to my belly button.
“You knew I’d love it here, didn’t you?” I accuse, gazing at Boston’s glittering skyline just beyond the sliding glass doors. We’re tangled up in each other on the cushy white carpet in his living room, where we just had sweet, tipsy sex by the crackling fireplace.
“I did,” he agrees, capturing my nipple in his mouth.
I thread my fingers through his hair, wavering between holding him close and squirming away. “Too sensitive,” I whisper after a moment.
He gives it a chaste kiss and rests his head on my belly instead. “I love your tits.”
“They love you, too.”
“I want to live here,” he says, gazing up at me. “With you.”
“I want that, too.” I loop one of his curls around my finger. “But not all the time. I’d miss home too much.”
“Not all the time,” he agrees. “We need to be in Savannah sometimes for the distillery, anyway.”
“Don’t forget about Opal, and my garden,” I say with a smile. “And Poppy and Juniper.”
“I’d never forget about the kids,” he says so solemnly that I giggle. “Seriously though, we can live where we want, Evie. Home is wherever you are.”
“Oh, boy.” I sigh as I trace the line of his jaw with my fingertips, feeling the slight stubble that’s grown over the day. “If I wasn’t already in love with you, that probably would’ve done it.”
Tristan keeps ribbing me that nobody does St. Patrick’s Day like Boston, but Savannah goes hard too—our celebrations are some of the largest in the country. Some of my earliest memories are of the parade, riding on my dad’s shoulders as we watched the floats and musicians go by.
Typically, Doyle Whiskey closes so that our employees can spend the day as they like, and this year is no different. At eight a.m., a slightly hungover Tristan and I make our way down to the Basilica Cathedral of St. John the Baptist. Owen and Sloane, who flew down a few days ago with Lucky, Bria and Liam, really wanted to start the day with the traditional St. Patty’s Day Mass. My parents used to take Maribelle and me every year, too, so it’s nostalgic.
Sad though too, as I haven’t been back to this church since Daddy’s funeral.
Leaving Mass early, we head over to Oglethorpe Square to get situated before the parade starts. A group of my friends are there, having held down the fort since daybreak, something we do every year because St. Patrick’s Day is bananas and the best viewing spots get taken fast.
We spend the next couple of hours enjoying green beer, street food and the echo of bagpipes. Green confetti flutters like leaves in the breeze. Tristan nudges me, pointing toward a float decorated with an enormous shamrock and a troupe of Irish dancers, their feet tapping in perfect unison. “You’d fit right in,” he teases .
“I was almost one of those girls,” I yell over the noise. “I took classes for a year, but I wasn’t very good.”
“I bet you were cute. It’d be cooler to be that guy over there, anyway,” he jokes, pointing to a man on stilts towering over the parade-goers, handing out green bead necklaces.
A wave of happiness hits me as the midday sun casts a warm hue on the trees and buildings surrounding the square. This is one of my favorite times of year, in my favorite place, and this year I’m spending it with my favorite people. Bria and Lucky lean in as Tristan wraps his arm around my waist, tugging me close. Sloane snaps a picture, and then Liam demands the phone so he can take one of all of us. He ends up taking about a hundred, giggling and darting away like an imp as his dad gives chase.
I’ve just taken a Guinness and Green Jello shot with Bria when I catch a glimpse of a familiar profile in the throng of festive chaos. Was that Cole? My stomach snarls into a nauseating knot. I haven’t seen him in months, not since the day I gave him the whiskey. Last I heard he was back on his feet, working at the restaurant and keeping a low profile. I have no regrets about what I did, but I try not to think about it too much. Taking two lives and almost ending another is a heavy load to carry, no matter how necessary it was.
I search the sea of faces, hoping it was just a trick of the light or my imagination. After all, the guy I saw was thinner than Cole, his hair much shorter. Still, it was a little unnerving. I reach instinctively for Tristan, but he’s over by his parents now, talking animatedly. Lucky’s right beside them, Liam on his shoulders as they watch the Clydesdale horses.
“Are you okay, Evie?” Bria asks. She slides her sunglasses back, peering at me with concern. “Do you need water?”
“No, I’m—” A loud cheer erupts as a new group marches past, their kilts swaying rhythmically with each stride.
“You look flushed,” she insists. “I saw a guy selling water bottles right over there. I’ll go grab us some.”
She hurries off as my phone vibrates with a series of texts. Pulling it from the pocket of my shorts, I study the kaleidoscope of faces around me once more before glancing at the screen. It’s Maribelle.
Hey
Are you at the parade?
I frown at the randomness. We haven’t spoken in a while, not since the probate for Daddy’s estate wrapped up.
Yes.
Three dots appear as she starts responding.
“Evie!” someone calls, touching my arm. My friend Marcel and his boyfriend are passing by with another big group, but he slows long enough to give me a quick side hug. “Where’ve you been hiding, girl? We need to catch up.”
“Yes! Let’s do lunch.” I squeeze his hand as he’s pulled away by the current of people. “I’ll call you!”
My phone vibrates again with Maribelle’s response, only when I look down, the three dots are still there. Looks like I got a text from someone else, an unknown number.
All I ever did was love you.
Remember that.
Unease prickles over my skin as I read and reread the words. Someone comes up behind me, their body close and warm against my back. “I loved you, but you betrayed me, Evie.”
Startled, I drop my phone. Tristan’s eyes meet mine from where he’s standing, his face morphing into alarm as an arm slides around my neck and tightens. Choking out a terrified, furious scream, I claw at Cole’s arm hard enough to draw blood while jamming my other elbow back. He grunts as it connects with his solar plexus, loosening his grip enough for me to slip away, but not before he punches me below my ribs. I spin around, faltering. Our eyes meet for a split second as he comes at me again, his fist glancing off my bicep as Tristan tackles him.
Someone screams, the sound causing a ripple of panic in the crowd. Out on the street, the music continues, blaring cheerfully as Tristan and Cole beat the shit out of each other. I want to do something, anything , but a wave of lightheadedness smacks into me hard enough that I lower myself to the ground.
Owen appears, kneeling at my side. “Where does it hurt?”
I stare at him, disoriented, not feeling much of anything beyond my pounding heart and the slow spread of a cold numbness. A single gunshot blasts over the noise of the parade. The space around us empties as people start running and screaming. A shadow falls over us, and I look up to find a shirtless Lucky hovering over me, pushing his wadded-up t-shirt into my side.
“Stay awake,” Sloane commands, holding my chin up. “Stay awake, Evie.”
“Okay,” I mumble. Nothing hurts, but I feel weak. So weirdly weak. “Did he stab me?”
“Call 911,” someone yells, but Owen’s already on his phone, relaying the situation in a calm, brisk manner.
Tristan appears, his face a torrent of rage and tears and heartbreak. For a second I think he’s injured, because there’s blood on him, but he’s moving around okay. A moment later, he sits on the ground behind me, his front to my back as he pushes my hair from my face with a trembling hand. “You’ll be okay,” he says, pressing his lips to my temple. “You’ll be okay.”
“Did he stab me?” I ask, registering the wetness on my arm. I don’t know if it’s shock or I really am injured, but it’s hard to move.
“Yeah,” Tristan says. “But you’ll be okay.” He keeps saying that, saying I’ll be okay, and I realize it’s for himself as much as it is for me.
“Stay awake, Evie,” Sloane says soothingly, wrapping something around my arm. “Keep your eyes open.”
I do, but my vision keeps blurring. I blink, and it goes away, only to return a second later. A dull ache begins to pulsate from my side where Lucky’s holding the t-shirt. He stabbed me , I think dully. Cole stabbed me .
It might be five minutes, it might be thirty, but the paramedics finally show up. A man and a woman. Their faces run together, their calm but urgent voices muffled as my hearing warps their words. I register the cold touch of metal against my skin as they check my vitals. The feel of Tristan’s body curved around mine anchors me in the present, his quiet assurances keeping me tethered to consciousness as the female paramedic cuts through my shirt. A bandage is placed tightly around my torso, the pressure both painful and oddly comforting, like it’s holding me together.
“Weak pulse …”
“Hospital ...”
“Please stand back.”
“I’m coming with you.”
“Evie …”
The world tilts as they lift me onto a stretcher. Tristan refuses to let go, grasping my hand tightly as they wheel me through the crowd toward the ambulance. So many people, all staring at me, their faces frightened and sympathetic. There’s a shuffle behind me, and suddenly Tristan’s gone, yelling something I can’t make out as Sloane takes his place. The trees overhead open into a bright, blue sky dotted with happy clouds as the paramedics hurry out of the square and onto the street.
I realize suddenly that the music has stopped. The whole parade has stopped. The ambulance is in the middle of the route with a group of police cars, lights flashing silently. Sloane climbs into the ambulance beside me, into a cold, sterile environment where the metallic smell of my blood mingles with her perfume.
The paramedics relay a bunch of numbers I don’t understand, and then we’re moving, the sway of the ambulance finally, blessedly, pulling me under.
I don’t die. I don’t even need surgery. But I come pretty close … my arm’s slashed up and so is my right side. I’m moved from the ER to a room of my own so they can keep an eye on me and make sure that the wound in my side, so close to being deadly, heals.
Maribelle comes to see me at the hospital a few hours after I’m treated. Tristan’s elsewhere, dealing with the cops and a couple of injuries of his own, so it’s just Bria and me when my sister shows up looking more torn up than I’ve ever seen her, even worse than Daddy’s funeral.
“Oh, my God, Evie,” she croaks, walking toward me with halting steps. Her belly’s so big now. She must be due any day .
Bria knows about my relationship with Maribelle because I’ve confided in her. She looks between the two of us now and stands from the chair beside my bed. “I’ll give you two some time,” she says, slipping out of the room before I can protest.
Maribelle stares down at me with puffy, red eyes. I think I’ve seen her cry more over the past six months than I did over the entirety of our relationship. Suddenly the texts she sent while I was at the parade flash through my Vicodin-addled mind. “You knew, didn’t you?”
She sinks into the chair, pressing her fingers to her eyes. “I’d just found out when I texted you.”
I stay silent, waiting for her to go on. I have neither the desire nor the energy to keep up my end of any dialogue.
“You were right,” she says soberly, staring at her lap. “About everything. I’ve been with Cole on and off for nearly five years, but somehow you knew him better than I did.”
“Sorry,” I mumble, though I’m not sure why.
“No, I’m sorry,” she says. “I don’t even know what to think anymore. Was he using me, all this time?”
“It’s his baby, right?” I ask, my voice brittle. I already know it is, but I need her to finally fucking admit it.
And she does, with a slow nod. “He hasn’t been the same since his dad died and he got sick. I mean obviously. He almost died, himself.” Her breath hitches, and she pauses, gathering herself. I close my eyes briefly, grateful for the narcotic fog I’m in. “Anyway, I went to see him today. DJ and Fabien were there, and he was acting really weird with me. Like he didn’t want me there. We had a fight, and they went outside to smoke … so I went through his phone. I could tell he’d been hiding stuff from me, and I wondered if he was seeing someone else.”
I don’t bother to point out the irony of this. Maribelle’s not stupid—she knows. She drags her watery gaze to mine, and the misery I see touches my anger, pain, and fear. “I found a bunch of old pictures, Evie, of y’all back in high school, and some of just you. A couple of them were …” Her eyes harden, and she looks away. “Inappropriate.”
Swallowing, I reach for the water beside the bed. I feel like I might be sick.
Maribelle grabs the cup, bringing it to my lips with a trembling hand. “I trusted him, Evie. I knew he had a dark side, but I never thought he’d go this far.”
“Neither did I,” I admit. But that’s not quite true, is it? Cole and Danny offed our father, so I should’ve known he was capable of anything.
I never did tell Maribelle about that, and I don’t know that I ever will.
“I started looking through his texts. No other girls, but there were all these creepy conversations with DJ, talking about burning the distillery to the ground and finding you and gutting you like a fish. All kinds of sick shit.”
Tears run down the sides of my cheek, dripping onto the pillow. “He used to stalk me.”
“I don’t know that he ever really stopped,” she says, wiping her own tears. “He’s been obsessed with you for all this time, and I’d had no idea.”
“What made you text me today?” I whisper. “How’d you know he was gonna go to the parade?”
“Because he came back inside and said he had to go. When I asked where, he said he was meeting someone downtown,” she says. “I got this really bad feeling, and something told me I needed to warn you.”
“Then why didn’t you?” I ask, confused. The last message I got was her asking if I was at the parade. Not that it mattered. Cole attacked me seconds later.
“What d’you mean?” She frowns, shaking her head. “I told you I thought he might be looking for you.”
Maybe her message came too late, then. We’re quiet for a long, long time. I don’t know what to say, and even if I did, I’m just so damn tired. Eventually Maribelle gets up, rubbing her lower back. “I gotta go. Blythe and Dylan are downstairs, waiting for me.”
“All right,” I say on a sleepy exhale.
“I don’t know what to say. I’m just … I’m sorry this happened,” she says, her voice thick. “I need you to know that. I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault,” I tell her, and I mean it.
“Even so,” she says, turning to go.
“What are you going to do now?” I ask. “Are you going to stay with Dylan? ”
She pauses at the door, leveling a long look at me over her shoulder. “Of course I am, Evie. That’ll never change.”
“Good Lord, any deeper and this would’ve been a whole ‘nother situation altogether,” my home nurse, Jamila, clucks as she checks my bandages. “God was watching over you!”
I love Nurse Jamila, but after two long days in the hospital and now another couple at home, if I hear one more time how lucky I am, I might just stab someone myself. All right, all right, that’s not funny. I am lucky to be alive. I suffered several gashes to my right forearm, which required sutures, and a stab wound to my abdomen which almost—but didn’t—penetrate my peritoneum. Good thing, because that’s the membrane inside my abdomen that covers my organs and had Cole’s knife gone any further, I could’ve lost part of my small intestines. And that would’ve been just the beginning of my issues.
I didn’t need surgery, thankfully, so my hospital stay was brief. Normally they don’t even keep people overnight for injuries as “minor” as mine, but the wound to my abdomen was in a tricky place, so they kept under observation a little longer.
Jamila brushes by a sensitive spot and I wince, sucking in a sharp breath.
“Sorry, honey,” she murmurs, patting my arm. “You want some more acetaminophen before I head out?”
“That the best we can do?” I ask with a pleading smile.
“Yes, ma’am,” she says, raising an eyebrow. “You’re not due for your next dose of the good stuff for another hour.”
“Tylenol it is, then.” I give her a tight smile. “Thanks.”
“Okay. Be right back.” She disappears out into the hallway, leaving behind a faint trail of honeysuckle.
Tristan yawns loudly from the loveseat and puts down his latest origami project. So far, he’s made me flowers, hearts, and an orange cat named Poppy. Judging by the blue-gray paper he’s folding, he might be working on Juniper. “How ya feeling, Evie Knievel?”
“Tired. Sore.” I sigh irritably. “Like I got stabbed. How are you feeling? ”
“Sleepy. Itchy.” He scratches at his arm, which is also bandaged. “Like I got stabbed.”
Besides a mess of cuts and bruises, Tristan sustained a couple of lacerations from Cole’s switchblade when they were rolling around the ground fighting. That hadn’t stopped him from gaining control of the knife and plunging it into Cole’s neck, though. He was questioned extensively by the cops about this after being treated at the hospital, but there were so many witnesses around at the time of Cole’s attack that ultimately, he was let go.
“You should get some fresh air,” I encourage, knowing how hard it is for him to sit still. I’m not totally bedridden, but I’ve had to take it easy for the past few days and origami aside, he’s got to be bored out of his mind. “Bria said she and Lucky were taking Liam for ice cream. Why don’t you go? You love Leopold’s.”
“Nah, I’m good,” he says stubbornly. “I found your edibles and took one a little while ago.”
“Ah.” A smile bubbles up through the haze of my painkillers and sleep-deprivation. “That’s why you’re so mellow.”
“Want one?” he asks, kissing my forehead.
“Maybe when Jamila leaves.” Our room is quiet except for the faint sound of music coming from the backyard. I close my eyes, inhaling Tristan’s clean-laundry and lemongrass scent. “You’ve been using my soap again,” I say with a smile.
He returns my smile, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. I can see how tired he is, how wrung out, but he refuses to leave my side. I guess I don’t blame him. If the situation were reversed, I wouldn’t leave his either. “Every time I smell it, it reminds me that you’re still alive.”
My heart pangs. “I love you,” I whisper, stroking his beard. It’s getting long again. “We’re gonna be okay.”
Jamila pops back into the room with my Tylenol, and Tristan straightens up as I swallow the pill with a glass of water. “Okay?” she asks with a kind smile.
I nod. “Thanks.”
“Get some rest, and I’ll see you tomorrow.” Her kind, brown eyes find Tristan, who’s still lingering close by. “You keep on taking good care of her, hear?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he says .
She leaves, closing the door behind her, and Tristan pulls the chair beside the bed closer before dropping into it.
“Maribelle texted again,” I murmur. “Earlier, when you were in the shower.”
“How’s she doing?” he asks neutrally.
“I don’t really know.” I lean back against my propped-up pillows, closing my eyes. “I think she still has a lot of guilt.”
“She should,” he says. “But about how she’s treated you for the past twenty years, not what happened at the parade.”
I bite my lip, nodding.
“I keep thinking about it,” he says after a minute. “I can barely sleep, and when I do, I dream about it.”
“Me, too,” I admit. It’s awful. The feeling of Cole’s arm choking me, the weird non-sensation of being stabbed, the wooziness, fear and confusion. Tristan and Cole, fighting. The gunshot, which I later found out was from DJ’s gun. He’d been aiming for Tristan but had, by the grace of God, missed. A random group of guys heroically took him down, holding him until the cops arrived.
Tristan nods, threading his fingers through mine on the bed. “Bria keeps pushing me to go to therapy. I never told you this, but the day Cole and his boys took me, I almost had a panic attack in their truck. Having a gun pointed at me like that brought back all these memories from the day I got shot.”
My heart aches, hearing this, and I tighten my hand around his.
“I didn’t realize how much fear I still had inside me.” He raises my hand to his mouth, dropping a kiss onto it. “I used to be so fearless, Evie. Nothing fazed me.”
“I know. I used to envy that about you,” I whisper. “But you’ve been through some horrible things, and fear’s a pretty normal byproduct.”
“Seeing Cole hurt you …” His eyes redden, and he closes them. “It was worse than every bad dream coming true. Like every fear I’ve ever had, multiplied.”
“But you were there for me,” I say softly, feeling the sting of tears in my own eyes. “You saved me, and you saved yourself.”
“It was a joint effort. Cole was easy to take out because he was weak, and he was weak because you poisoned him. ”
“But he attacked me because I poisoned him,” I say unevenly, remembering with chilling clarity Cole’s text and the things he said to me seconds before the stabbing.
“He was gonna attack, regardless, Evie,” Tristan says. “He was a rabid dog who needed to be put down.”
We’re quiet for a moment, the weight of our shared trauma hanging over us like a noxious cloud. I still have no regrets in how I chose to deal with Danny and Cole Deschamps, but it’s not something I’m proud of. It came down to choosing the lesser of two evils.
“Hey.” He taps the blanket near my arm.
I look up.
“You did what you had to do,” he says, like he knows exactly what I’ve been thinking about.
“And I’d do it again.”
“I know you would.” A slow smile, a real one this time, spreads over his face. “Is it fucked-up that I love that about you?”
“Probably.”
Standing up, he leans over and kisses me, the first real kiss we’ve shared in days. “Then I’m fucked-up.”
“We both are.” I grab the collar of his shirt when he begins to straighten up, pulling him back down for another kiss. “I think therapy would be a good idea,” I say as we drift apart. “For both of us.”