14
Elise
We get back to the house almost too soon. Suddenly the twenty-minute drive from town to the Hayes House doesn’t feel like it’s just on the edge of being too long, but terribly short.
He puts the car in park and turns off the engine, but neither of us move to get out.
We’re both staring at the house casting a shadow over us, probably both contemplating what more tonight has in store.
“Can’t say I had ever pictured bringing you to my family under these specific circumstances,” he starts to say, his tone light and playful. “I mean, I know we’ve both been inside with them already, but it’s weird every time.”
“Yeah, I never pictured meeting them, period,” I say, blatant lie that it is. I had really wanted to meet his family when we had started dating. He’d told me so much about them, and it had all just sounded so perfect. I’d always wanted to be a part of a big family.
Out of habit, I pull out my phone and open up my texts with my mom in case I accidentally swiped away the new message notification away before I saw it, but there’s nothing new since last year there.
I let out a slow sigh, deflating a little and leaning forward over my knees. My forehead touches the passenger-side airbag compartment. Maybe I should have just accepted the offer for one of them to drop me off at home. Maybe this is just another in a long line of bad decisions I’ve been making.
I called her last night too; she still didn’t answer. She’s always been terrible at getting back to me, I remind myself. I can probably expect a text from her later tonight telling me she’s been out of the house all day and left her phone at home, that it’s been lost in the couch cushions for days. None of it true, probably.
I’m contemplating the crumbs and paper straw wrappers and crumpled up receipts that are strewn across the floor of Laura’s car when I feel Shawn’s hand graze against my back. For several moments, he traces gentle patterns back and forth between my shoulder blades.
I can’t help but hum a wistful note. It feels good, and it makes the tension in my jaw ease.
I turn my head against my knees enough to look at him. Shawn gives me a little half-smile, and raises an eyebrow, like he’s trying to convince me it won’t be so bad.
His eyes dip towards my phone screen, a tense line touching his mouth. “I thought you’d gone no-contact with her.”
I shrug and put it away. “Not on purpose. That was just a really long experiment to see if she’d ever reach out first.”
He doesn’t ask if she did, he can probably guess how that went. I’m sure he remembers forwarding me her card, finally congratulating us on getting married a couple weeks after I’d moved out.
He rolls his eyes in a less than subtle way, and I briefly imagine him turning that memory over in his hands as well, when he starts to say, “That’s a dangerous game to play—”
“I missed this,” I confess, cutting him off, if only to make him stop talking about uncomfortable things.
Shawn looks surprised, pausing his scratching for a second. His face softens then, and he nods. “The back scratches?”
If there was one perfect thing about our relationship, something he did just because it made me happy, it was the scratches. I never had to ask, he always just started doing them. Nothing else ever made me feel so easily wrapped up in someone else’s care.
“Well, if we’re going to be specific about it, the leg scratches. You could do magic to the back of my thighs,” I murmur, like I’m sharing a secret with him. I lean back in the seat and raise my knee for effect, but he takes the motion as an invitation to scratch more of my leg. I close my eyes and let it take me back for a moment.
It’s an unexpected memory; one I haven’t thought about in ages; one I never really let myself reminisce over. We used to lay in bed on Saturday mornings, doing nothing but chatting and joking, talking about what we wanted to do for breakfast until noon wandered past. He’d be scratching my legs the whole time.
I miss those mornings, what it was like to bask in the whole of his attention for hours.
Shawn coaxes my leg up over the car’s center console, and it’s all too easy to just let him take my ankle in his hand, to massage the back of my heel.
Despite myself, I giggle. “You cannot be out here grabbing random ladies’ ankles.”
“Just the ladies I know, gotcha,” he replies with a wink, and I cannot contain the laugh that little gesture evokes in me. I wince my way through it because I know, I know, I know, I’m not supposed to laugh with him anymore. I can’t resist it, it’s just so easy.
Shawn leans across the center console and threads an arm under my knees, pulling them up to my chest. It’s all to create access to the back of my thighs, and he begins drawing long trails of pleasure up and down.
I can’t even snap at him for encroaching on my personal space; it’s exactly the way we used to be, and it feels too good. This asshole and his magic fingers know all of my weaknesses.
“Ugh, yes, just like that,” I nearly moan, my head tipping back and closing my eyes just to enjoy it. When I open my eyes again to glance at him, I realize in just that moment how close his face is to mine.
There is such warmth and depth in his dark-brown eyes. I sigh, and it feels like an admission that maybe I am shallow enough that I’ll let a pretty face fool me. I had let it convince me it was worth being hurt for. But it wasn’t just Shawn’s features, it was how he made me feel, how he took care of me. It was the many evenings we fell asleep on the couch in front of the TV, my cheek pressed against his collarbone and his arm around me, drawing lazy circles on my thigh.
He reaches out and tucks a lock of hair behind my ear, and his fingers trace down from my jaw to my chin, where he runs his thumb over my lower lip.
I don’t know if the feeling building in my chest is the need for him or for closure, but this is neither.
“Elise, I don’t want to leave things like we left them all those years ago when you didn’t give me a choice,” he admits. Every word he reaches for feels deliberate. “I don’t want it to be how we remember everything we had.”
I can’t breathe or swallow or think. I know the ache he’s talking about, how the way we ended eclipsed everything good that we once had. For ages, I couldn’t even let myself remember the good things fondly, only the pain of how much I ached to have a taste of that again.
The words come out of me quietly. “How do you want to remember us?”
His hand on my leg tightens as he holds my gaze, and for the briefest of flickers, his eyes dip to my mouth. It feels like permission to shift towards him, to nose my way into his space and graze my lips to his.
I want to. I will. I’ll let myself have this.
But his hand catches hold of the side of my face, keeping me in place. He doesn’t pull back, but keeps our foreheads pressed together, our noses just a hair apart.
Even though his grip is strong it feels shaky, like he’s holding himself back. He takes in a deep breath, letting it out slowly. I let myself sink into that moment with him, the memory of what it meant to be held like this, to feel utterly safe and protected from whatever else the world could bring.
For several moments, all I can hear is my heart in my ears when he breaks the quiet. “Like this.”
He presses a kiss to my forehead, and for a second, I feel whole. In a matter of seconds it’s over, the moment is gone as soon as it happened. He opens the driver’s side door and the cool rush of air from outside brings me back to the present.
I push back into the passenger seat, and as I’m figuring out how to bend my knees the right way to get my legs over the center console, I’m wondering how he was able to get my legs over there so easily. I’m not thinking about that kiss. I swear to god this better not have gotten me wet. I try not to wonder, would Shawn . . . no. I shouldn’t even consider it, really.
Maybe it’s a good thing we don’t desecrate Laura’s car. But also maybe she deserves it for enabling this.
That wasn’t really a kiss, that was barely anything, and yet, it was like plunging into an intimacy so deep I couldn’t see the end of it. It doesn’t make sense that it could just vanish into thin air again so quickly.
Shawn gets out of the car and stretches, and maybe I enjoy watching a little too much. God, he always had amazing arms. And he’s got this litheness to him, like all his joints are just a little bit detached.
He looks like every guy that was just out of reach, that was just a little too good to spare a glance at me. But he was mine, for a little while.
Or at least I thought he was, before I realized he never really would be.
I stare a little too long, and he’s rounded to my side of Laura’s car. He opens the door and offers me a hand to help me stand up. The way he leans against the open door makes it seem like such a simple, casual gesture. I blink a couple times and take it. Not that I need it, but maybe there’s closure in feeling his hand envelope mine.
And if I hold on a few seconds longer than I should, it’s still definitely for closure.
We walk inside the Hayes House, and I can see his brothers in the dining room already, dividing up the pizza. Laura’s commandeered half a white-sauce pie, Logan and Aiden have already taken all the pepperoni slices.
I can hear Deanna just inside the dining room, “Laura, will you tell Aunt Jenny she still has yet to send me her RSVP card. She hasn’t answered any of my texts.”
“We can’t just assume she’ll be there? Mom’s not going to miss her godson’s wedding.”
“Oh, I suppose,” Deanna sighs, and when her attention turns to us it stops us in our tracks.
“I was wondering where you disappeared to,” she says, her eyes flicking between Shawn and me. The suspicion in her eyes is a little jarring. She’s always been warm towards me, more than business partners needed to be.
But the way she’s looking at us makes me feel like we’re teenagers caught out after curfew.
Even though she’s talking to her son, I feel the need to explain that Laura insisted we take her car, that’s all that happened.
It’s the first real reminder from her that she never approved of us together, for whatever reason. I’d never had to deal with it in person, but I wonder if even after her knowing me and being so friendly, she still would have disapproved of us?
It’s a strange line to draw, mentally.
I don’t know that I like what it says that they all just assume I’m clearly an ex-hookup of his. Or what it says about him. It falls in line with my worst perceptions of him and reaffirms all those old hurts.
“I didn’t think we were that far behind,” I say, putting a few steps of space between me and Shawn, hurrying ahead to the dining room. In my hope to not be alone, I think I’ve just invited myself into a den of wolves. They’re going to keep staring at me and Shawn, watching our every interaction, just like at the bar, but now with Deanna.
Dinner is painfully quiet. We sit around the long dining room table, too much space between each of us.
“I hear you five went to the Thirsty Turtle,” Deanna offers after several minutes of the only sound being chewing.
“Logan’s bachelor party,” Laura explains.
“Oh. That’s nice.” She nods, clearly more occupied with her mental list. “There’s still a lot to do. We should finalize the seating plans. And Aiden, you still need to find something to wear. You can take Shawn with you when you go into town. Logan, I need your opinion on bunting.”
Shawn and I may have undeclared history in her eyes, but we’re all here as part of the wedding planning party. It’s nice that there’s more important things happening than my drama with Shawn.
Logan is quiet. He usually is, I guess.
“We’re going to have a lot of guests here at the house soon,” their mother continues, looking prepared to assign us all additional duties.
“Hopefully the wolf attacks don’t scare them off,” Shawn mutters, interrupting that train of thought.
His mom looks at him. I can see the tightness in her jaw as she works to figure out how to respond to him.
“I’m sure there aren’t any wolves. Probably coyotes. They’re much smaller animals, but they can make a real mess. It’s usually because people aren’t locking their trash properly, it brings them into town,” Deanna goes on.
A week ago, I would have taken her word for it. I don’t know how to begin to tell her that what I saw was too big and savage to be a coyote’s work. The way the deer had been ripped apart in grand, arching slices.
I swallow at nothing, and fidget with my napkin.
“So, Elise went to the bachelor party as well?”
“She is a friend,” Logan shrugs.
“Catching up?” Deanna prompts with a glance to Shawn as she takes a sip from her wine.
“A little,” he says, and once again I can feel them all itching to ask more, but Deanna’s watchful eye seems to be holding her sons from inquiring for details again.
“It’s been a few years since we talked,” I say, trying to thread the line of lying and telling them enough truth to not have to remember details later to uphold our charade.
“Would you say it’s accurate that you ghosted me?” Shawn asks, giving me a little teasing smile. After how quick he was to bring it up earlier, I’m surprised he looks so blasé about it.
Deanna frowns, and glances at Aiden to clarify. I guess he is the youngest in the house. “Ghosted? What does that mean?”
“When you don’t call someone after a date, ever. Vanishing on them,” he tells her in an undertone, though the whole table can hear it.
Eyes flick between me and Shawn, and I can see them trying to imagine us on an unpleasant date. At least Shawn didn’t imply I was a hookup to his mother.
“Some dates are bad enough you’d rather both just forget about it.” I roll my eyes. Ball’s back in Shawn’s court.
“Oh. Well. I am a very bad date,” he informs his brothers, to their bemused looks. “Just in general.”
“Always late,” I add.
“And underdressed.” He nods in agreement.
“Forgets his wallet.”
“Accidentally stepping on your toes.”
It’s a little too easy to smile, to fall into this rhythm that used to be second nature to us. I catch myself and realize that this little ping-pong we used to do is not the best idea right now. I stop myself from adding anything else.
“So, uh, who’s on the guest list?” Shawn asks, directing his attention to Logan.
This whole dinner has been one awkward moment after another.
Logan fails to answer. He shrugs a little.
“Mostly just family,” Deanna answers for him.
“Very traditional,” Aiden puts in as he catches my eye, making eyebrows. Maybe he thought that needed clarification, except I don’t know that he’s explained anything.
Shawn shrugs at Logan. “Can’t say I’m one for tradition.”
“You’ve always had to be a contrarian,” Deanna says dryly.
Shawn doesn’t respond, and dinner falls silent again. The sound of chewing dominates the big, well-decorated room.
“Are you still married?” his mother asks, cutting through the silence. Clearly Aiden’s impatience for subtlety comes from her side. I’m just glad I don’t choke on my food.
I exchange glances with Shawn. Does his family not know we got divorced years ago? Do they think he’s been living with me this whole time, and that he just came up alone?
Shawn doesn’t answer but holds up his unadorned hand.
Deanna rolls her eyes, and glances at me. “These boys always think they can lie to their mom. Darling, I saw you take it off earlier.”
Pizza crust clatters loudly against a plate, but it’s nothing against the way my heart startles at the thought of Shawn keeping his ring.
“Mom,” Shawn says, his tone warning, but I’m too stunned by the revelation.
He still wears the ring. Or he has it on him, at least. I left mine at that little apartment years ago.
I’m too stunned to think; it’s all I can do to make sure my face doesn’t show what I’m feeling when Shawn makes careful eye contact with me. I’m sure I shouldn’t hold his stare, that Deanna is watching the two of us, gauging my reaction, but I can’t help it. The thought of him holding onto it sits strangely in my chest. Fills my chest with goddamn butterflies, and I can’t decide whether they’re a parasite or not.
It aches for me to want to relish in the feeling, how much I miss what being loved by him felt like.
But I can’t just let myself enjoy the feeling. Not after the way we ended. I can’t bring myself to believe that he ever cared so much for me.
Deanna doesn’t seem to get what she wants from her provocation, or maybe she does and she’s just better at concealing her intentions. “Well. You should make time to call her and let her know how you are. We wouldn’t want you to neglect her.”
I can see how she must think that would sound normal to an outsider, if a little passive aggressive. But I can’t imagine why she would think of herself as the neglected party. She was the one who told Shawn he had to choose between me and his family.
I still honestly can’t believe they hated the idea of me so much, that they can’t even remember my name, just that I was a grudge worth holding all this time.
“Can you tell we like you better?” Aiden says to me with a smirk.
Deanna gives her son a sharp look. “We’re not going to embarrass Elise this evening.”
I’m not sure what Aiden is implying, that they would take me over this stranger they’ve never met; they somehow prefer the me they met versus the one they refused to meet.
They would have never bothered to get to know me.
Here we were with this great relationship, genuine warmth, and they would have chosen to never know me. No, what’s worse—we could have had this. We could have had an even closer and warmer version of this, but they chose not to by never meeting me. They never deserved it.
Deanna breaks me out of my thoughts, glancing to me sidelong. “Did you not know?”
So, that’s what she wanted to learn. There’s a faint sense of relief, at least, that she hasn’t figured us out yet.
I don’t know how to voice that I didn’t even know there was a third brother, let alone that it was him. It’s actually strange, now that I think about it, that there was no trace of him here. I haven’t seen any pictures of him in the family photos downstairs before, though there are plenty of his brothers playing together as children.
“Mom, don’t,” Shawn’s voice warns before I can answer, redirecting her attention.
I can feel the intensity of their matched glares burning through the air. I wish I knew what was going through his head.
Then he gives a little shrug and pushes back from the table. “I think I’m done. Can I take anyone else’s plates up?”
I swallow and look at him. It was getting harder to exist in the same house as these people.