39. Storm
Idon’t get out of bed until past nine and drag my feet to the washroom. It smells like her perfume in here. Since Leah, a girl has never made me feel this way. I’ve never wanted to spend more time with someone other than my nephew. And even then, Auden trumps that. She’s my angel and seeing her words on my mirror hurts like fucking hell.
Too many things are left unsaid.
With such little time to say them.
Yours forever,
Audenxoxo
Well, we all know what I’m doing tonight. There’s a bottle of tequila with my name on it. A bottle that’s still sitting on my vanity. But I’m saving that for later in a drunken bath with bubbles.
I toss on a t-shirt of mine she wore yesterday and get into a pair of sports shorts. I don’t care what time it is; I need a fucking drink and I just so happen to live above a bar. I’ll save my tequila for later.
I start out of my room and stop, squeezing my eyes shut. Her smile is all I see. It’s all I’ll ever see.
So I don’t go for a drink. I head to my Jeep and go for a drive, finding myself going right to Rick’s house. My leg taps restlessly, impatiently waiting to speak to someone who has seen my love for Auden. Because I love that woman and I let her go. I let her fucking go.
I sit in my car for a few minutes until I see movement inside and get out, dragging my feet to the front door and knocking. My hands shake at my sides, the severity of my wellbeing depends entirely on how he’s going to react to me. Will he tell me to nut up and be a man, or will he hug me and be my big brother?
Rick answers in nothing but a pair of boxer briefs, arching a brow at me. “What’re you doing here? I thought you were going to New York?”
I can’t help it; I sob, falling into him. Rick wraps his arms around me and sighs, rubbing his hand up and down my back. “It’s okay, Storm. Girls come and go, you know this.”
“No one will ever be like her,” I say through a shaky breath.
Maddison walks toward us, drying her hands on a dishcloth. “Storm?”
Rick kisses my cheek. “What happened?”
I tell them, trying my best to get the words out through sobs. “I can’t deal with this. Living a life in a town where everyone thinks I’ll amount to nothing. It makes me fucking sick. I was leaving to better myself for her, but now, I’m stuck here. I’m fucking stuck—”
“No, you’re not Storm,” Rick says, holding my shoulders as he looks up at me. “You’ve made up your mind to be with her, then go be with her. Don’t stay here because of my kid. Yeah, he’s awesome, but we can always come visit.” He smiles, nudging my jaw with his fist. “Plus, they have this thing that’s called FaceTime that comes in handy. Pizza nights don’t have to end, they’ll just be the two of you staring at a screen in two different states.”
I release a breath, sniffling. Maybe I can do this. I can make this work. If I have everything planned down to a T, she’ll be on board again. Oh, baby, I’m coming home. “Where is he?”
Maddison points upstairs, giving me a lopsided grin. “We’re here for you, Storm. We’ll always be here no matter where you live.”
I climb the steps two at a time and find Heath sitting on the floor of his room playing with his dragons and soldiers. Every year on his birthday I make sure to find the rarest dragon toy and buy it for him. Rick gets upset because they’re running out of room in his toy room, but dragons have been our thing since he was a baby. I can’t wait to find more dragons in New York to send him.
“Uncle Storm.” Heath smiles as I step into his room and plop on his bed, tucking a pillow under my head. “Where’s the pretty lady?”
I sniff, a tear rolling down my nose. “She went home.”
Heath hands me a gray dragon, placing it on the bed by my chest. “Are you going, too?”
“I want to so badly, big guy.”
He looks at me but doesn’t say anything. I don’t know if he knows that I stayed for him. I don’t think he’s old enough to understand that.
“You wanna play with me?” he says instead, walking over to his toys and sitting on the floor.
I watch him for a minute, grinning as he makes exaggerated dragon noises, swooping his toy down and knocking the soldiers that were placed in a neat row. I’m going to miss the shit out of this. But like Auden said, whenever you close your eyes, you’ll see me. And when you see me, pretend I’m right here with you. I close my eyes and see her, that beautiful smile that pops out her dimple. I squeeze my eyes tighter and add Heath to that image. His giggle, his big hugs, and the excitement on his face whenever I’m around.
I’ll close my eyes and see him just like Auden said.
“Heath?” I clear my cracking voice, opening my eyes. “Hey, bud, can we talk a minute? Real talk?”
He looks up at me and gives me a quick grin. “Daddy told me you left with the pretty lady this morning. Are you here to say goodbye to me?”
A sob leaves me with a chuckle, wiping my eyes as I sit up in his bed and take the toy in my hands. “No, big guy, I’m not here to say goodbye. But I do need you to know that you mean everything to me, okay? That I would go to the ends of the earth for you. But I would also do that for my angel.” I sniff, sliding to the floor and opening my legs as I place the toy dragon on the floor between them. “Did you know she saved me? Auden saved my life. She’s my angel and I let her go so that I can stay here and see you grow up. So I’d never miss a pizza night. That’s how much I love you, Heath.”
“I love you, too, Uncle Storm.”
I sniff, wiping my nose. “I know you do.”
“Auden said you were leaving for the wedding, and you’ll be back after that, right?” he asks, coming to sit between my legs.
I don’t answer him. I kiss his head and inhale. I love this kid so damn much. But before I decide what I’m doing, I have to talk to Ross. I have to tell him that if I leave, then I don’t want him to have a job ready for me. I don’t want a fallback. If I leave, I’m gone.
“If I leave, I’ll only come back when you need me,” I say, wrapping my arms around Heath.
He looks at me, those big eyes welling with tears. “I don’t want you to go.”
I nod quickly, nudging his chin just like Rick did to me. “I’ll always be here, you know that. And you know your tablet? Well, Daddy said that whenever you want to talk to me, you can call me on it. Just you and me chatting for as long as you want.”
His lower lip quivers, looking down at the dragons in his hands. “But what about pizza nights?”
“We’ll always have our pizza nights, but we’ll be doing them over FaceTime. And I promise, I’ll come down once a month and we’ll spend an entire weekend pigging out on pizza and candies, and we’ll even watch scary movies. Y’know, the ones that Daddy doesn’t let you watch,” I say, smoothing out his hair. “But I need you to understand why I’m doing this, okay? I’m leaving not because I don’t love you, Heath. You’re my favorite person on this planet.” I sniff, wiping a tear from his cheek. “I’m leaving because Auden left with my heart. And I kinda need that to keep on living, don’t you think?”
Heath wipes his nose on his sleeve. “Why did you give her your heart? That’s just silly.”
I smile, pulling his head to my lips and leaving a gentle kiss on his forehead. “I gave her my heart because I love her, Heath. That’s what you do when you love people.”
His lower lip quivers again and he wraps his arms around me. “Don’t go,” he whispers, thick tears falling onto my shoulder. “I need you, Uncle Storm.”
“I know,” I whisper, rubbing up and down his back as Rick leans on the doorframe, tears in his eyes. “Know that I am here, I’ll always be here, big guy. It’ll just take me a little longer to get here, but I promise, I will always be here for you.”
Heath nods, chin hitting my shoulder. “I don’t like it.”
“I don’t, either. But don’t you want me to be happy?”
Rick comes in and sits on the floor beside us, placing a hand on Heath’s back. “When Uncle Storm is happy, it makes everyone happy, doesn’t it?” Heath nods again. “And when the pretty lady is happy, she smiles so big her cheeks get holes in them, right?”
I chuckle, sniffling as I think of Auden’s little dimples.
“We’re gonna have a big breakfast with Uncle Storm and then we’re going to hug him so big, that he’ll be able to feel it on Mars. Then we’re going to say bye to him and wait for his FaceTime call when he gets to New York.”
Heath sniffs and leans backward, staring right at me. He rubs one of his eyes and looks at his toys. “Daddy bought whipped cream the other day. Will you have pancakes with whipped cream with me?”
I smile, laughing softly. “Yeah, I’ll do anything with you, Heath.”
He gets up, gives me one more glance over his shoulder, and runs out of his room. I let out a sigh, leaning my head back on the bed and staring at the ceiling with glow-in-the-dark stars on it. “Fuck, I need a drink.”
Rick chuckles. “No, you don’t. Plus, it’s a little early to get drunk don’t you think?”
“I don’t care,” I say, closing my eyes and seeing Auden walking through the front door of Creed’s soaking wet.
“Hey,” Rick says soothingly. “Why didn’t you go? You could’ve gone for the weekend and planned this shit out a little better. Don’t tell me you stayed because of Heath?”
“He was devastated when he found out I was leaving. I couldn’t do that to him—no, Auden wouldn’t let me do that to him. We didn’t even talk about the fact that I wasn’t leaving with her anymore, it was a silent agreement that I would stay for him. Fucking bullshit. I love him to death but I think…” I groan, banging my head against the mattress. “I got a job there; did you know that? A real fucking job with benefits and I’ll be a manager of a bar. Fuck, what if she doesn’t want me anymore? What if this thing we had was just puppy love and not real?”
“Do you love her?”
I nod quickly, pinching my eyes shut and seeing that beautiful face.
Rick sputters, leaning his head back beside mine. “Do you still want to leave?”
“Of course, I do, what kinda question is that?” I shake my head. “I couldn’t even say bye to her this morning.” I aggressively wipe at my eye and scoff again. “Fuck.”
Rick nudges my side roughly, causing me to suck my teeth and glance at him. “Well, you better wipe those tears and scarf down breakfast because you got, what? Nine? Ten hours of driving ahead of you,” he says, chuckling. “Because I called Ross and as of this moment, you’ve been fired. And since you’re fired, he needs the apartment vacant so he can rent it to someone.”
I frown, lifting my head. What the hell did he just do? “What the fuck?”
“Making a decision your stupid-ass couldn’t do yourself. Heath will be hurt for a little, but he’ll get over it once he visits you in New York and sees the city. You guys can talk on the phone, but you will not go back into your depression again. So go pack a bag, I’ll pack the rest of your shit and leave it in the garage. Now get up and eat breakfast with my kid, then get the hell outta here.”
I’m speechless. He’s been one of the only people who has been there for me since it all went down. I have no words to express how much this little act means to me.
My eyebrows furrow. “You’re serious?”
“Go get your angel,” he says, smiling.
“Rick—”
“I’m not gonna say it again. Someone has to kick you into high gear so that you’ll finally be happy. Why do you think everyone rats on you in town? They think you’re nothing but a man whore because they don’t know the truth. I do. So, I know this is the best thing for you. Like Ross said, you’re pussy-whipped, but you also deserve happiness again. Leah tore you apart after what she did, and Auden brought you back to life in just a few short days. You’re an idiot not to see it.” He chuckles. “Now, go pack a bag, find a suit, and get the fuck outta here.”
I laugh and nod, bringing Rick into a hug. He’s right. Fuck, is he ever right. I hurt Auden for no reason. I should’ve put my foot down and told her that I couldn’t live without her.
No, I’m coming, baby, we will make our fantasy real.