12. Morgan
TWELVE
Morgan
PRESENT DAY
Streetlights glitter on rain puddles. Cars splash water from the gutters. Drizzle provides a decent cover, but I stick to the shadows of the building across from our loft, back grazing the brick wall.
Seattle is a small town of a city. The commercial fishing circle is even smaller.
All the bars Cole and I used to frequent know us.
The barman at Midaft called to warn me that Cole caught a ride home with a stranger he drank with.
I should have told him Cole and I are no longer together, but I didn’t.
Cole refuses to talk, doesn’t leave the loft, even orders his groceries in. The last month has been the longest we’ve ever gone without talking, and I’m desperate.
In a family of addicts, I thought I was an outlier, somehow able to avoid the cycle of misery, but I’m as afflicted as the rest of them. Instead of heroin, Cole is my addiction. I’m in withdrawal and I’ll die if I don’t get my fix. I’ll do anything. Break the law. Risk my life. My sanity.
What if he doesn’t come home? What if he stays out all night? What if he invites him inside? What if he’s moved on?
A black car pulls up at the corner of the bookstore across the street from our building. Cole gets out, looking so fucking cuddly in a dark blue Bering Sea hoodie with a fishing boat beneath a night sky full of stars on the front.
I hold my breath. Will the other man join him?
Cole plants his palm on the roof of the car and bends to speak through the open window. Then he steps back, and the car pulls away, leaving him looking straight at me like he knew I was there all along.
“Really, Morgan?”
He shakes his head and crosses the street. He’s limping more than the last time I saw him. Maybe the drop in temperature? Navigating the icy deck and spending hours in the captain’s seat on rough seas is going to set his recovery back.
“Go home, Morgan.”
“You’re right. Let’s go.”
I wait for a gap in traffic and follow him around the corner of our building to the back stairs.
Cole ambushes me and shoves me against the brick wall.
We’re both breathing fast like we just had a marathon fuck, but there’s no pleasure here, no satisfying release.
Just raindrops lashing my bare skin, saturating my clothes, sinking sadness into my bones.
“You’re stalking me now?” Cole asks. “What would Dr. Evans think?”
I know exactly how unhealthy Dr. Evans would say my behavior is because I never stopped going to marriage counseling.
“Who the fuck were you with?” I ask.
He laughs. “That’s what you’re worried about?”
The fraying rope of my control snaps, and I swap our positions so fast he looks lost, like he doesn’t know how we got here. I don’t know how we got here either.
“Fuck that. You’re my husband.” I graze my thumb over the pulse point in his neck, blending our heartbeats.
“Mine.” I capture his chin, forcing his gaze on me.
“I don’t give a fuck how bad things are between us, you don’t kiss anyone else.
You don’t touch anyone else. You don’t fuck anyone else.
If you need to get off, you call me. Only I take care of you. ”
I should leave him alone, leave before I break us more than we’re already broken, but I’m feening for my fix. I’ll do whatever it takes, even this.
“I don’t want you to take care of me,” Cole says, stubble on his cheek glittering as his jaw clenches beneath my fingertips. “I don’t want you to save me. I don’t want you.”
“Bullshit, Sunshine. I’ve known you my entire life. I know when you’re lying. I know you.”
His eyes harden. His chin lifts in defiance. “People change. I’m not the person you knew. I’m not the person you loved. I’m not the person who loved you.”
Rejection burns through me like acid injected into my veins.
“I’m so fucking sick of fighting for us, for fighting for you when you won’t fight for me at all.
Fucking fight for me!” I flatten my palm over his heart and press him against the wall, scanning his face as his heart thumps like a countdown to the end of us.
But there’s nothing there, only the emotions he couldn’t hide before, now locked behind a wall. “Maybe you’re a stranger after all.”
“Glad you finally figured it out.”
Fear burns bright, so bright it engulfs me. Fear of the death of our relationship, fear of what happens next because I believe him. He finally crushed my remaining hope.
“I guess we’re done then,” I say.
He nods. “I guess so.”
I shake my head, disgusted with him, with myself. Fuck this. I need to focus on being the man Finn needs me to be, instead of chasing someone who hurts me. I need to quit Cole cold turkey, and resist his siren’s call.
“I quit.” I throw my hands out at my sides as if I’m physically washing my hands of him. “I’m done fighting for you.”
With numb acceptance, I walk away, leaving behind the part of my soul I promised to him. I’ll cauterize him out of my heart, let him find himself, or not. I’ll break my promise to Seb. I’ll break my vows.
Agony sweeps over me, along with a wave of despair that nearly knocks me off my feet.
I’ve lost a shit ton of my hearing working around heavy machinery, but I always hear Cole, whether he’s shouting at me over high seas and howling wind, or telling me he doesn’t want to die before he’s swept overboard, or right now, when blood roars in my ears, and he says a single word.
“Wait.”
My footsteps slow. I almost stop. Almost. But I don’t. I wait for a Subaru to pass, then cross the two-lane street.
“Wait!” Cole shouts.
I swirl around. “What?”
He wraps his arms around himself, and I fight the urge to offer him my jacket, to hold him against me, to keep him warm. Taking care of him is a habit I’ll have to break.
“I’m not seeing that guy. I interviewed him for your position on the boat.”
Relief fills me, but it’s only a brief reprieve before anger smolders inside my chest at the thought of another man taking my job on the Briar. It’s my goddamned spot.
Fuck. I can’t think about this right now, about all the empty spaces we’ll leave in each other’s lives. I don’t want him to see how much pain I’m in, so I force a flimsy attempt at nonchalance and shrug. “Great. I hope he’s a good fit.”
“Morgan Morrissey!” Cole calls.
His last name attached to the end of mine slices a gash from my sternum to my gut. Morrissey won’t be my name anymore.
My pulse pounds. I need to get away before he draws me back in. I fish my keys out of my pocket, click the unlock button on the fob, and search for the blinking lights through a veil of tears and fog. I’m so lost without him I can’t even remember where I parked my truck.
My phone vibrates, and I pull it out of my pocket.
SUNSHINE is calling.
I turn warily. He’s standing across the street with his phone pressed to his ear. Keeping my gaze trained on him, I swipe the screen and answer.
“I’m not seeing anyone,” he says without preamble.
Good. We may be over, but I’m not ready to accept that someday he’ll love someone who isn’t me.
“I have to go,” I say.
“No. Don’t hang up.”
I clench my jaw so tightly my teeth ache, but I stay on the line.
“I don’t want anyone else.” He looks over his shoulder, and back to me. “I don’t want you to stop fighting for me.”
“I’m not sure I have any fight left.”
His sigh snuffles across the line. The streetlight turns red. Finally, he says, “Then I’ll fight for you.”
A bread truck stops at the light, blocking him from view. He’s silent for so long that I check my screen to see if the call dropped. The light turns green and the truck drives away, revealing Cole’s lost gaze searching for me. When his eyes land on me, he looks so relieved.
“You said I should call you if I wanted to kiss someone,” Cole says.
“Yeah.”
“Well, I’m calling.”
The line goes dead. He pockets his phone and jogs across the street, takes my face in his hands, and kisses me gently. But I don’t want gentle. I force my hands down the back of his pants, and use my nails for teeth. I yank him against me, and bite his bottom lip.
“I deserve that.” He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.
“You deserve a lot more.” I squeeze his ass cheeks until he whimpers. “I can’t wait to punish you for making me go so long without you, for reeling me back in when I was finally ready to quit you.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You will be.”
I’m making a mistake. I know. The high won’t be worth the comedown tomorrow. This man will be my downfall. But one kiss broke my sobriety and my resolve. I’m starved for his touch, and I’m going to consume him until I hit rock bottom or oblivion. Fuck the consequences.
With anger and terror and ravenous, reckless abandon, I kiss him again, relishing the metallic glint of blood blooming on my tongue. I kiss him until I erase everything that happened, rolling the calendar back and back and back until the memory of our first kiss.
It was raining then too. We were so young.
He was being a careless asshole, a danger to himself, and almost got crushed by a crab trap.
I stifled my anger, seething through each pot we stacked until Dan called us in for a break.
The deck cleared until it was only me and Cole.
I closed the bulkhead door and shoved him against it.
“You could have killed yourself out there! How am I supposed to keep you safe—keep everyone safe, when you go out of your way to be as dangerous as possible?”
Cole’s blue eyes, so beautiful they rival the ocean, dip to my mouth and back up. “Why do you care so much?”
“Because you’re Seb’s brother.”
“Right,” he says with a smirk so maddening that I can’t help but smash my lips against it.
I’m furious. With him. With myself. I can’t be anywhere alone with him without wanting to fuck him, and I can’t love him.
If it goes wrong, it will ruin my friendship with Seb, and exile me from the only family I’ve ever had.
Even worse than that, if Cole’s recklessness writes a check the Bering Sea won’t cash, I will lose him like I lost my parents.
But I can’t fight this forever. Resisting him is like falling overboard in a storm.
I can try to stay afloat, but in a few minutes, fifteen at the most, the cold will slow my defenses, and I’ll drown in him.
So I bury all my fear and yearning into kissing him, intent on devouring him heart and soul so I can keep him safe inside me, so I can protect him always.
When we part, he’s dazed, and maybe I am too. Maybe I’m hard, if I’m being honest. But I’m still pissed, so I stab my finger in the center of his chest, and shout, “Fuck you for putting me in this position.”
Cole smirks again. “Ask me on a date when we get to port, and I’ll make it up to you.”
We didn’t even make it that long before we found every excuse to be alone, because when you work on the Bering Sea, your days are numbered. You have to make the most of them.