56 EVIE
E VIE
Knowing what you do, I imagine you’re beginning to understand a bit better now why I changed so much that year.
Why I cherish those times with you at the end of that summer, and those first months of fall, so much, the simple joys of our life before everything changed and fell apart.
Especially you, Lainey, since you were a bit older.
I’m sorry we didn’t tell you the truth about what happened to me back then and in the months and years that followed.
To all of us. But at least maybe it’s starting to make better sense. I’m sure you used to wonder.
We’d driven together back to the hotel that night, Carter sitting beside me and the others mostly quiet as a light rain began to drizzle on the windows and we passed through the city.
I watched the familiar sights go by as they had thousands of times, but it all looked different with Carter beside me.
“Look at that, Ev. We finally made it to your hometown together,” he whispered.
He ran one finger over the back of my hand, then pulled away.
The gesture took no more than a couple seconds but heightened every nerve.
The driver let us out at a rear entrance of the hotel, safely away from fans who might have discovered the band’s location.
Nonetheless, we were suddenly surrounded by a small mob.
Tommy gave a polite wave, but in an instant, Carter had pulled me into him, shielding me as he maneuvered us to the elevators behind two members of their security staff.
I looked up at him, and he was unfazed, though his lips were pursed in a tight line, and when the doors closed, he separated from me.
“Sorry about that. I should have warned you,” he said.
“It’s fine, really.”
He looked a little sad, I thought. “Thanks.”
He pressed a button. “Do you mind if we take a few minutes so I can shower quickly?” he asked. “I’d like to change. Might be better to give a little time for it to quiet down.”
“No, it’s fine.” As we waited for the elevator to ascend the twenty-six floors to his room, he leaned against one side, his boots crossed at the ankle.
Reaching the top floor, we stepped into his hotel suite, both of us avoiding coming too near to the other.
I followed him into the dim living room and to a wall of windows overlooking the city and the river beyond.
Two sofas flanked a large coffee table, along with a sleek side chair.
The furnishings were sophisticated and stylish, contemporary but not overly so.
An orange glow came from the city streets below and a lone, dim floor lamp illuminated the distant corner.
“No bus tonight, huh? You don’t stay on Miss Penny Lane?” I asked, smiling as I indicated the posh surroundings.
“We retired the old girl a long time ago. No buses these days. We’ve got Lucy now. She flies.”
“Wow, a lot has changed. And you didn’t even like planes.”
“Still don’t.” He smiled a little as he turned, dropping his things. “Can I get you something to drink before we head out?”
“Sure. Anything’s fine.”
“I don’t know what you like anymore.” Such a melancholy statement about such a trivial thing. “Glass of wine, maybe? Water?” he suggested.
“That would be nice, thanks.”
“Which one?”
“Both.”
He busied himself at the room’s bar and handed me a glass of wine, setting the water beside it. My arm warmed from where our fingers brushed for just a scant instant.
“I’ll only be a minute,” he said. “Make yourself at home.”
As he went to shower, I was left alone for the first time all night, suddenly awash in the acute awareness of all that had happened and the unexpected turn of the night.
Hours earlier, I’d been dressing for the evening, checking my hair, turning this way and that in the mirror.
I’d imagined being at home after the show, curled up in my bed in pajamas, crying no doubt.
Instead, I listened to the distant sounds of the running shower as water poured over him.
The thought of that woke me up in ways I thought I’d forgotten.
No one had ever had the effect on me that he had.
I steadied myself on the back of the sofa to keep from running to him. Or away from him. I wasn’t sure which.
The back of my neck prickled, and I turned.
“I didn’t hear you come out.” I wondered how long he’d been watching me at the window.
He’d pulled on a fresh pair of jeans and a T-shirt, his hair still wet from the shower.
He leaned against a wall, arms crossed. He smiled a little as he bit at the side of his lip in a way that stirred the memory of long-ago times and made my breath a little uneven once again.
“We can go now if you’d like. Should be quieter downstairs by now.”
“It’s a nice night,” I said, looking out the window again. “It’s been a while since I’ve been in the city this late. I forget how pretty it can be.”
“I wondered something earlier,” he said.
I turned to face him. “You said before that you hadn’t planned to see me tonight.
That you were just going to the show and then leaving.
” I nodded. “I was wondering—have you been to any others? It’s so strange to think of you in the crowd and me having no idea. ”
“No. This was the first time.”
He nodded and inhaled, letting the breath out slowly. “I used to look for you in the audience sometimes. A little ridiculous, I suppose, but I couldn’t help it.” He shrugged. “Why this one? Why tonight?” He seemed to be having as hard a time as I was believing that we were both there.
“After we were over, I had to figure out a way to go on without you, and the only way I could do it was to bottle it all up and put it in the past. I didn’t listen to the music. I turned off the TV anytime you came on.”
I walked over to the table where he’d set his glass of scotch a moment earlier. I picked it up, taking a sip, letting the alcohol’s heat and the idea of sharing his glass slide down my throat.
He raised a brow. “You always did have a habit of nicking my drinks.”
“Sorry.” I laughed. “I think I need something a little stronger.” He smiled at the intimacy of the gesture, and I swallowed again before continuing.
“And I was different. My life was different. Everything about who I was back then disappeared.” It occurred to me at that moment that I felt more myself tonight than I had in a very long time.
“What changed? What was different about tonight?”
“I know it sounds silly. It’s been a long time, after all.
I know that your life went amazing places.
I’m so happy for you.” He looked up, and I saw a glint in his eye that I couldn’t quite place.
“I just thought that maybe, if I came here tonight, if I could just see you, even from far away, I could finally make myself say goodbye.”
He nodded. “Did it help?”
“What?”
“This.” He motioned to the two of us. “Seeing me. Ready to say goodbye?” His mouth curved up a little at the corner, and he bit his cheek after he said it. The temperature in the room raised a degree.
“Mm, not quite.”
A few long seconds passed; then he turned serious and distant once again.
He walked slowly over to the other side of the room and took a seat on the edge of a long, modern dining table.
He looked up into the distance, as if replaying a movie in his mind.
“I knew I’d messed up during the weeks before the tour.
Gotten too caught up in everything. It was crazy back then.
We didn’t know what the hell we were doing, and it was all happening so fast. I wanted to take you with me in it.
To make you feel okay with it all, but I couldn’t. I didn’t know how.”
“It wasn’t that, Carter.”
“I’d been worried about you. You’d been acting strangely.
Everything was different after you left London.
I couldn’t get a minute to myself, being shuffled this way and that.
And that last weekend, I knew something was wrong.
I was just desperate to get out of New York.
I kept telling myself it would get better once we had some time together.
I shouldn’t have gotten in that car. I should’ve stopped.
I should’ve taken the time to talk to you and made you tell me what was wrong.
Maybe things would’ve turned out differently.
Maybe not. Who knows.” He looked at me. “But no matter what, I’m still grateful for it all. ”
“I am too.”
We both were swimming in the loss of what might have been.
I realized then that the life I’d been living—the life I’d tried and failed to build in his absence—had been built on a foundation of quicksand.
I thought I’d been doing what was best—for him, for all of us—but no matter my intention, it had never stood a chance against the love I’d had for him and the futile efforts I’d made to escape it all.
He walked toward me, each step erasing the years. He stood mere inches from me, electricity firing between us. “So you got married. Moved on, did you?” It wasn’t a question. It wasn’t a statement. It was a challenge. A declaration of what he knew wasn’t true.
“I didn’t move on nearly as easily as you think I did, Carter.”
“No?” He took a step closer. Looked down at me.
“I’ve never loved anyone the way I loved you back then,” I whispered. Hearing the words jarred me. They’d come out without warning, unbidden, as if from another person.
“I tried everything to let you go. I tried hating you—do you know that? I tried forgetting you,” he said, and his gaze seared everything inside me.
His eyes were liquid dark in a way that my body remembered, bidding me to come nearer.
He took a step closer. “So tell me. What about now? How do you feel now, Evie?”
Again, another challenge. It felt like he’d opened my chest and was watching my beating heart. Then, a flicker. Something changed in his eyes, and he ran a finger across my cheek, down my neck. The next moment, his mouth was against mine. Everything about him fit perfectly, felt like a part of me.
“It’s always been you, Ev,” he whispered, holding me closer, kissing me. “Always.”