Chapter 25
Chapter Twenty-Five
Tess
Today is a happy day. So why do I feel so sad?
I wake with emotion coating my throat like cough syrup. All those years jumping up at the crack of dawn with my dad have finally shown their hand. I lie in the quiet cradle of the morning, watching Kit sleep while grieving a loss that hasn’t happened yet.
I may not love him now, but I could, probably a lot sooner than I’d like to admit. The mere possibility terrifies me. I know better than anyone where all that love goes when the object of it is no longer around to receive it. It festers in your heart like infection in an open wound. The kind that never really heals, instead becoming a burden that weighs you down for the rest of your life.
Last night was incredible. It’s everything I didn’t know I was missing and then some. And my God, do I wish I were the type of person who could let that be it. Let myself be happy with what I was given without yearning for something beyond it. But I’m a woman whose bankroll lies in wishes for more: more years with my parents. More time to be a kid. More of an idea of what the hell I’m supposed to do with a life that could end at any second.
That’s the crux of it. The part I don’t tell anyone. When your parents, the people you look to for your own sense of self, die young, logic tells you that you will too. I can’t imagine myself outliving my mother. Can’t fathom anything beyond a fortieth birthday candle to blow out.
It’s why I’ve never quite gotten around to really growing my own roots, beyond those I inherited from my family. Why bother, when they’ll be ripped up soon enough?
As I trace the crooked bridge of Kit’s nose with my fingertip, noting the freshly bronzed skin from our time together in the sun, I can’t help the longing that overwhelms my every nerve ending, every cell. I’m transformed by the want. It’s in my tightly squeezed lungs that cling to a breath of his warm, weathered-wood scent. It’s in the kiss I press to his sleep-ruffled hair, grown long enough to now brush his ears when it’s not gelled properly.
It’s in my prayer, silent and pleading, as I beg the universe not to take him from me, too.
I hadn’t realized the tears were falling, nor that my eyes had drifted closed. Not until Kit’s thumb scrapes the peak of my cheekbone, coming away damp, and he whispers, “Tess, are you all right? Did you have a nightmare?”
I peel my lids apart with some effort, after they’d been glued by my tears. “Something like that.”
A waking nightmare. Story of my life.
“I’m so sorry.” He leans forward to kiss me, but I dodge him, covering my mouth in a flash.
“I haven’t brushed my teeth yet.”
“Convenient, because neither have I.” Then he plucks my hand easily from in front of my mouth and fuses his lips to mine. Suddenly I don’t give a shit about morning breath. In fact, I’m able to bury every negative thought, every deep-seated fear, in the ever-tightening space behind my sternum, allowing happiness to float up in its place.
Because I’m here now. I’m happy today. And since that’s all any one of us is guaranteed, I decide it’s enough for me.
After he’s effectively stolen my breath away, he relents, shifting instead to tuck my head into the curve of his throat before wrapping his arms around my shoulders. Neither of us is clothed, and why would we be? Every moment one of us finally started to drift off in the night, the other would stroke a soft patch of skin or whisper a confession made possible by the scant moonlight, and soon we’d be entangled once more, exploring new and newly favorite parts of one another till just a couple hours before dawn.
“What would you like to do today?”
I catch sight of the rings glinting on my finger and smile. Tilting my head up slightly, I make my request to the hard edge of his jaw. “Permission to stray from the list, sir?” I murmur, savoring the sting of his stubble against my lips.
An exasperated groan rumbles in his chest. “Permission granted.”
I push up onto my elbows so that we’re face-to-face, ignoring the grunt earned from a misplaced appendage to his chest. “There’s a market my mother loved. All different vendor stalls with everything from jewelry to fresh vegetables to a hot dog stand that serves the best devil dogs this far from LA.”
“What do you know about devil dogs? Or LA?” he asks, quirking a brow. His hazel eyes are framed by sleep-darkened lashes, making them stand out in stark relief. So beautiful. And currently, so confused.
“I worked briefly as a personal stylist for a B-list singer from Foley. Spent many a weekend trip with her in LA.”
His expression is momentarily unreadable, followed by a mesmerized smile. “What haven’t you done?”
“Hmm.” I tap a finger to my lips, pretending to contemplate the question far longer than I truly need to. “Never been to space.”
“We’ll work on that, then.”
“Adding it to the list?” I ask, both brows raised.
He taps my nose and grins. “Look who’s coming around to the list.”
I roll my eyes. When I move to shift my weight off his chest, he stops me with a vise grip around my midsection and snarls a kiss into the bend of my shoulder. I shriek and try to push away, but he only squeezes me tighter, play-nibbling at the sensitive skin of my throat.
When laughter saps me of my strength to resist, Kit takes the opportunity to steal a kiss. His head flops back onto the pillow, and he gazes up at me adoringly. “Fine, we shall abandon our list. But only for today, because we have dinner plans tomorrow night at the Ortiz household.”
My mouth pops open. “You did that?”
He shakes his head. “I’m pretty sure I barely got the words ‘dinner’ and ‘with you’ out before Jenna was running with it. If anyone deserves your gratitude, it’s her. I’m merely a vessel.”
I kiss the corner of his mouth. The space between his dark brows that is much less manicured now than it was the day he arrived. The harsh line of his jaw. Finally I lick his earlobe and follow it up with a gentle bite. “Thank you. So, so much, Kit.”
I feel his muscles go limp around and beneath me as his gaze turns somber. “It’s the least I can do after everything with my brother. My parents. The accident…” His voice trails off, suddenly unstable.
“Have you heard from him?” I ask softly.
“No. And I probably won’t until he needs money again. But that’s nothing new.” Kit’s hand trails down my spine and settles at the curve of my ass, which he pats lightly. “Do I have time for a run?”
I pretend to consider it for a moment but quickly nod. “Absolutely. Wouldn’t want to have to report back to Tomas that you’re slacking on your vacation.”
“Mm, don’t worry. He’s already scheduled a sparring match for the day I get back to assess me for any weaknesses.” Kit pokes my side, causing me to roll off him in an effort to escape the sensation. “Imagine his surprise when he finds a you-sized hole in my defenses.”
“Boooooooo!”
The corner of his mouth ticks upward. “I’ll win you over eventually.”
My heart seizes. I can only pray my next words come out sounding casual. “Perhaps. But it won’t be owed to your incredible pickup lines, I can tell you that much.”
He mock-pouts as he shifts my weight fully off his body and sits up in bed. “You’re mean in the morning, you know that?”
“What can I say? I hardly slept last night. I’ll be nicer once I’ve had my coffee.”
“Is that a request?
I shrug. “It certainly can be.”
“Deal.” After a quick kiss, he rises to his feet and pads over to the blonde-wood dresser, where he rifles through the drawers, removing articles of clothing that he dons one by one until he’s fully dressed for a run and I’m just the naked woman in his bed. When he returns from brushing his teeth, his gaze moves slowly over my every curve, and he grins. “Is it too much to hope that you’ll be waiting for me exactly like that when I return?”
I toss a pillow his way, which he easily dodges with a laugh. Never mind that his blatant desire has me heating up from head to toe. “Not a chance, lover boy. I’m going to go shower in my room. I’ll see you in a bit?”
He sighs dramatically, then deposits an earbud in each ear and leans forward to steal a final kiss. “No running this time, okay?”
I’m tempted to turn the mood back toward humor with a quick remark about his intended jog, but there’s a layer of earnest pleading in his tone that stops me in my tracks. He needs reassurance. I know that feeling better than anyone. So who am I to deny him this?
“I’ll be here.” I tip my head toward my room across the hall. “Well, there, but you know what I mean.” I bite my lip, noting the way his gaze darkens when it lands there. “I’m not going anywhere.” Not yet, anyway, I think, though I can’t bring myself to say it aloud and risk hurting him. We both know the ugly truth. No need to discuss it any sooner than required.
He nods and, without another word, heads for the door, leaving me to wonder how on earth I’ll move on when this vacation is over. Or worse, if I even want to.
* * *
“Why, it wouldn’t be my favorite niece interrupting her wild vacation to phone her frumpy uncle, now would it?”
“I’m your only niece,” I gripe into the receiver.
Gary chuckles dryly through the line. “Semantics. How are you? How’s Kit? Keeping his hands to himself?” After a seconds-too-long pause, he adds, “Never mind! I don’t want to know!”
I giggle around a sip of water, swallow, and set the bottle down on my balcony table, next to the coffee cup from my first morning with Kit that I’ve yet to dispose of. It makes me smile even more than I was already. I miss him, and he hasn’t even been gone for thirty minutes.
“I do want to know how you’re doing, for clarity. Just not…the other stuff.”
“Got it.” I laugh again, and it feels good. Like a tight muscle finally being stretched. “I’m doing well. Only a handful of days left in this trip and it’s a bit bittersweet, but I’m trying not to think about it too much right now.”
Gary clicks his tongue. Dishes clang in the background like he’s loading the washer as we speak. “Well, there’s always next year to look forward to. Maybe I could join you then, see the place that meant so much to my sister.”
I bite my lip, reasoning with myself that he isn’t intentionally guilt-tripping me. How could he, when he doesn’t even know that I’ve been considering stopping these trips? Suddenly the idea of telling him fills me with dread. Though I have no clue if it’s from a lack of conviction or simply the fear of letting my uncle down.
He tuts again, growing silent—and I imagine, still—on his end. “Something you wanna talk about, Tess?”
His ability to be observant even through a phone call is unnerving, to say the least.
“I don’t know,” I say honestly. Sucking in a much-needed breath of fresh air, I squeeze my eyes shut, cutting off the familiar image of the blue-green waves lapping at the shore. “You remember how I quit my job?”
He hums his acknowledgment. I know he was confused when I first broke the news right before this trip, asking me what was wrong with Harvey’s and what I planned to do instead. Imagine his surprise when I admitted I had no reasons and, frankly, no clue about next steps. But Gary, being the way that he is, recognized an untouchable topic even from miles away. So instead of prying, he pivoted to floating the option of me moving to Loveless. Even offered up his couch.
I said no, of course. Mostly because I didn’t know then what I still don’t know now: what I want my future to look like. All I can fathom is that I want one at all—and, I now realize, that I don’t want to spend it alone.
It’s a terrifying feeling, to desire the one thing that’s most painful to lose.
“I’ve been thinking… Well, I’m not planning to come back here. After this year.” I pause, waiting for an objection that never comes. Then I clear my throat. “I’ve been trying to figure out where I go from here. Not the literal here, but the metaphorical one. You know?”
He remains silent, save for a grunt to let me know he’s heard me. Deep down I know he’s not judging. Maybe it’s my inner critic, or perhaps it’s no one at all. Either way, I find myself jumping to my own defense.
“I love the Carmen; don’t get me wrong. My parents are everywhere. Hell, I’m everywhere. This place has been the backdrop of all my favorite memories for as far back as those memories go. I know it seems stupid, wanting to give that up on top of everything else. But it hurts, too, Gary. I see her here. I see them both here. They’re in every room, at every corner. They’re playing in the water and cracking jokes at the bar and slow dancing on the balcony to the sound of the waves. It hurts so goddamn much.
“Every good memory I’ve ever made here is tainted by that one really bad memory. The one where they’re dead, and they’ll never not be dead, and coming here summer after summer without any sort of forward momentum feels a bit like I’m just following in their footsteps, marching toward the inevitable end.”
My chest is heaving with the effort it takes to breathe through the pain. My lungs prickle and sting. Tears burn the backs of my eyes. I don’t know where all these words came from. Only that they’ve been living inside me far longer than I even realized—since long before Gary’s name popped up on that DNA test.
Finally he lets out a somber sigh. “First of all, there’s nothing stupid or foolish or wrong about the way you’re feeling. The only thing wrong with grief is that it has a reason to exist in the first place. If the people we loved hadn’t bothered dying, we wouldn’t be having this conversation at all, now would we?”
I sniffle my agreement. He presses on.
“When Wendy first died, I lived in limbo for an entire year. Couldn’t go forward. Couldn’t go back. It was all I could do to hold completely still and hope another wave wouldn’t knock me down while I was catching my breath.”
That’s how my grandparents’ deaths felt. Like one wave, and then another, crashing over my already bruised and battered soul. Then a swath of relief when I’d finally buried them both, if only because I knew there would be no one else left to lose. I’d never have to endure that type of pain again. I felt horrible guilt afterward, for managing to be relieved that they were gone. Then I quit my job as a stylist and went to work as a server in a food truck for a while, distracting myself with the change of pace.
Always distracting. Pretending. Putting on a smile and swearing I’m fine, when I’m not even sure what fine means anymore.
Gary inhales deeply like he’s steadying himself. “After that year, I took down all the art she’d hung on the walls of our place. I couldn’t bear for it to look the same as it had when she was here. My world had been permanently altered inside. How could it still look the same on the outside?
“But eventually, after years and years of living in that silo of grief, I started letting people in. The patrons at the bar. Zoey and her friends, those heathens. I found people to love and be loved by, and I thought, man, I wish they’d known Wendy. That she could’ve known them. So one day I dug those old pieces of art out of storage and one by one, gave them away. A painting for each of my newfound family. A way for Wendy to know them, and for them to know her. For us to share the burden of my love for her, when it had nowhere else to go for so long.
“It’s okay if this is your last summer there, Tess. Whether that’s forever, or for just a little while, until you find people you love that you want to share your parents with. Or share with your parents.”
Just as he says it, Kit jogs into view. He pauses at the shoreline, hands on hips, and peers out at the horizon with an unnatural stillness that I envy. He looks wholly present. Or perhaps just whole. Not lacking in the ways I’ve always felt I am. Lacking a family. Lacking a future. Simply existing in the present, rowing fast from one buoy to the other because it’s my only guarantee.
“You still there?”
“I am,” I croak. I’m crying in earnest now. The teardrops blend with the damp splotches my freshly washed hair has left on my blouse as they fall, and I’m grateful for the disguise. “I’m just taking it in, that’s all.”
“I’m sorry I made you cry,” he says with a sigh. “I just love you, kiddo. And I want you to be happy more than anything.”
Just like my parents. Such a seemingly simple ask, but one I struggle with so fiercely.
“I love you, too, Gary. Thank you for everything.”
“Oh, I did nothing but wax poetic about my own heartache. You’ll find your way. I promise you that. And whatever it looks like, I’m here for you. You know that, right?”
“Yeah. I do,” I whisper. More to keep my voice from cracking than anything. “Any souvenir requests?”
He chuckles softly. “Surprise me. Something my sister would’ve liked.”
I nod though he can’t see me. Smile, because I hope she can. “You’ve got yourself a deal.”
“Bye, kiddo.”
“Bye, Gary.”
Kit begins his final stroll up the beach toward the wooden walkway that will lead him past the showerheads, a sight that has my heart skipping a beat, and to the Carmen, where he’ll take an elevator back to me.
And, just like I promised, I’ll be here.