Chapter Twenty-Seven
Graham
Why is it always raining on the nights I decide to make desperately heartfelt confessions to this woman? I sit in my truck for way too long, waiting for the rain to die down, thinking through what I’m going to say. How I’m going to say it without her laughing in my fucking face.
We haven’t spoken all summer.
She’s avoided El Rincón.
I’ve avoided Sunday dinners.
On the rare occasion we did end up in the same room- her friends dragged her out or Elias threatened to bring all of them to my shitty apartment- we didn’t speak.
It’s been awkward as fuck, but what else could I do?
She doesn’t want my help. I tried, several times after she kicked me out that night.
I tried being soft. I tried being calm. I tried pleading to her sense of guilt.
What would your friends say if they knew? How do you think they’d feel if something happened to you? How would you feel if you caused something to happen to one of them? Don’t you want to be better for them?
All the kinds of questions Elias had once posed to me.
I should have known it wouldn’t work on her.
It didn’t work on me either, but I had to try.
I kept telling myself that so long as she remained close, I could monitor her.
If things got too bad, at least I was right here to catch her when she hit rock bottom whether she wanted me to or not.
Except now she’s leaving. For D.C. and then Boston.
I am very obviously not in Boston. No one is in Boston.
Her dad is sometimes in D.C., but he’s married to his work.
If he hasn’t noticed his daughter has a problem by now I doubt he ever will.
It took me longer than I want to admit, and I can’t be the asshole who outs her to her friends. Can I? Should I?
“Cono,” I groan miserably into my hands. This shouldn’t be this hard? I’m almost forty fucking years old and I’m falling to shit over whether a twenty-two-year-old woman is mad at me?!
A twenty-two-year-old you are stupidly in love with, my brain chooses that moment to supply. Thanks, brain. Go back to sleep, please?
Something heavier than rain taps against my car window and I jump so hard I ram my elbow into the center console. “Mierda!”
An attractive Korean man with slicked back black hair in a button-down navy shirt is standing outside with an umbrella. He points to the window and then down much too calmly. I comply, recognizing exactly who this is from all the times I’ve seen him across the room at The Cellar.
“My dad wants to know if you plan to sit out here all day or if your waiting to rob us or…?”
“Who robs people when they’re home?”
He smirks. “Really shitty thieves? Or murderers.” I pale slightly but he looks me over, slowly. Appreciatively. “You must be the guy my sister’s been fucking.”
I raise a brow. “You make it a habit of knowing who your sister fucks?”
“Almost exclusively,” Nathan Mychal confirms. “She’s far less bitchy when she’s getting laid.” He glances at the house. “I’m guessing you’re here to see her?”
I suck at my teeth. “Yeah…”
“Look.” Nathan sighs heavily. “I don’t want to ruin whatever grand proposal of love you plan on making, and you seem like a nice guy but my sister…
She’s going to break your heart. If you come in now and you tell her you love her and beg her to stay, beg her to choose you,” can this guy read my fucking mind. “She’s going to say no.
“Don’t get me wrong,” he continues. “I love my sister to death. But Naomi will never choose anyone before she chooses herself. That includes Nelly and Clara. Naomi is her own number one. No matter how many flowers you give her, or money you spend, or how fantastic your dick may be- She will never choose you.”
For several long seconds I just watch him, then I glance at the house.
I can see her dad standing in the window to their front room, watching us with his arms crossed in his perfectly tailored shirt and tie, still dressed from work.
Somewhere upstairs I can feel Naomi watching too, even if she makes it far less obvious.
I’m trained now to recognize the feel of her gaze, the way it heats my skin familiar and heady.
Her brother could tell me she’ll spit in my face, slap me, scream me out of the house and none of it would change the need I have to at least try.
“Fuck…” Nathan mutters.
“Anyone ever tell you that you’re really bad at pep talks?” I ask him with a smirk.
“Yes,” he admitted. “Yes they have. Come inside then, before my dad calls the cops.”
I kill the engine and climb out of the cab, graciously walking beneath the protection of Nathan’s umbrella up to her front door.
I stomp my sneakers clean of the rain just as Senator Mychal comes into the hall.
Tall, fit for a man his age- which is admittedly only about ten years older than myself- and not very happy to see me darkening his doorway in a fútbol jersey and ripped jeans.
“Nathan?” He asks his son. “Who is this?”
Nathan opens his mouth as he sets the umbrella aside and then closes it, looking my way. “I actually didn’t catch your name.”
“I’m sorry, sir, about just sitting out there. I’m—”
“Graham.”
My spine snaps straight at her tone, eyes finding her standing at the top of the stairs. She’s dressed in expensive leggings and a sports bra, showing off more skin than I should reasonably be allowed to look at with her father watching.
“What are you doing here?”
I swallow, hard. Too hard. Noticeably. “I wanted to talk to you—”
“I’m sorry,” her father holds up a hand, asking again, “Who are you?”
I hold out my hand to the senator. “Graham Rosales, Sir. I’m a friend of Naomi’s.”
Her brother snorts behind me, but the senator ignores him.
“A friend? Of Naomi?” He looks me over, from the Miami jersey to the jeans I’ve owned much too long, to the sneakers tied lazily.
“Aren’t you a little…” He appears to think hard about which word to use, finally settling on, “Old, to be friends with my daughter?”
“God,” Naomi rolls her eyes, coming down the stairs. “He’s a friend of Eli and Rowan, Dad. Calm down.” She turns to me. “This couldn’t have been a phone call?”
I resist the urge to glare at her. You haven’t been answering my phone calls, I want to remind her. I refrain, simply saying, “No, it couldn’t.”
She bites the inside of her cheek. “Fine,” then turns to her father and brother. “Excuse us.”
Naomi leads me down the hall, pushing open the door to an office as lavish as I imagine the White House might be, closing the door behind her.
Suddenly my hands are sweating much more than they were when faced with her dad in the hall.
Especially when she rounds on me, shoving me in the chest hard enough to make me stumble.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?!” She snaps. “Showing up at my house? When my dad is home?! Are you trying to earn a beating?!”
“Please- I mean, no,” I immediately correct. “I just.. Poppy told me you were leaving tomorrow and I couldn’t…”
Naomi crosses her arms, shrugging pointedly. “Couldn’t what?”
“I couldn’t just let you leave!”
I don’t mean to shout. I definitely don’t mean to shout at her, but the thought of her not even being in the same state anymore must be getting to me more than I thought because I can no longer regulate the volume of my voice.
“You didn’t even tell me, Naomi! I had to find out from your fucking friends! I had to find out from Poppy that you’re moving to the other side of the fucking country—”
“You always knew I was going to attend Harvard—”
“Eventually! Not now! Not immediately—”
“I’m not starting at Harvard until next Fall—”
“But you’re leaving for D.C. tomorrow! For the next year—”
“I have an important internship. Networking. Making connections—”
“And what about me?!” She blinks, taken aback.
Her shock that I even considered myself a factor in her life hurts more than I’m willing to admit.
“You were just going to leave and not even tell me you were going. Am I such an afterthought to you?! All the fucking time we’ve spent together, and you couldn’t even give me the courtesy of a goodbye—”
“I expected you would show up tomorrow—”
“Oh,” I release a hollow laugh. “To say goodbye to you with all of your other friends?!”
“Yes—”
“I’m not your fucking friend, Naomi!” I close the distance between us. “I’ve never been just your friend, and you fucking know that!”
“Graham—”
I cut her off with a bruising kiss, snaking my arm around her waist, holding her to me until there is nothing between us except the fabric of my shirt bunching against her toned belly.
I kiss her with all the anguish I’ve been bottling up these past several weeks.
I kiss her like I can physically anchor her to this very spot for the rest of eternity through sheer willpower alone.
When I pull back, we’re both breathless, her breasts heaving against my chest and all I can manage is, “Stay.”
She tries to pull away but I hold her fast. “Graham—”
“Please, Naomi,” I beg, my hands secure on her hips as I sink to my knees in front of her.
I look pathetic, feel pathetic, but I’ve never cared with her.
She once claimed to be weak to my begging so I’m going to fucking beg.
“Please stay. Stay with me. Choose me. Please… I love you, mi reina, and I need you to stay.”
Nathan warned me. Her fucking brother warned me how this was going to go and maybe I should have just listened to him. But I’ve always been shit at self-preservation. Knowing doesn’t make hope lessen. Knowing doesn’t make the hurt dull.
Her, “No,” still cracks through my chest like a gunshot, bowing my head between my shoulders.
“I have to go, Graham.” Her fingers rake through my hair until she can gather enough to yank my head back, forcing me to look up at her. “I have to.”
“You don’t.” I shake my head. “You could stay. You could go to law school here. You could choose to stay—”
“No, I can’t.”
“Then take me with you—”
“No, Graham.” Her tone is final, her eyes blue as ice. “We had our fun, but it was never meant to last forever. You have to understand that.”
“I love you, Naomi—”
“And I didn’t ask for that.”
She steps far enough away that I’m forced to release her, my hands hitting my knees as my eyes once again find the floor. Her words register, ringing hollow somewhere in my chest that was emptied long ago.
“You need to leave, Graham…”
My jaw locks, but I rigidly rise to my feet.
When I look at her again, she’s standing with the office door open, her eyes fixed somewhere over my shoulder.
As if she could ever hide the tremble of her lip from me.
As if I don’t see the way she’s blinking back tears.
Because Naomi Mychal will never admit it, but she does care about me.
It may not be love, she may not have fallen as hard for me as I did for her, but there is something.
“Naomi—”
“My daughter asked you to leave, Mr. Rosales.” Suddenly the senator is there on the other side of the door, having clearly listened as I spilled my heart out to his daughter and she unceremoniously squashed it like a bug. “Nathan, please show our guest out.”
Nathan Mychal gives me a pitying look as he comes to stand beside his father, gesturing for me to exit the office. I throw Naomi one last look before I do as they say, not wanting to cause any more trouble here than I’m worth.
I pause only briefly enough to whisper to her, “Please call me if you ever need anything. Anything, mi reina, and I’ll be on a plane in minutes.”
She knows exactly what I’m eluding to- the bottles, the way her hands are currently shaking at her sides- but she lifts her chin defiantly anyway. “I can take care of myself.” She nods to the hall. “Goodbye, Graham.”
I don’t say goodbye. I refuse to say goodbye. But I do leave, following Nathan to the front door where he retrieves his umbrella. I allow myself one last look at her standing with her father’s arm around her shoulders before following her brother from their home.
“I did try to warn you,” Nathan mutters, our shoes crunching over the wet gravel. “Heart of stone, that one.”
I don’t disagree with him. I knew who Naomi was when we met. I’ve known exactly who she is for months. It didn’t make falling for her any less inevitable.
“Good to meet you, man,” he pats my shoulder. “Maybe I’ll see you at the club some time.”
“Yeah…” I mutter, unlocking the car with a tap of my knuckle to the handle. The gravel crunches again as he turns to leave. “Nathan,” I say before I can think better of it, rain sluicing down my cheeks.
Her brother turns back.
“Keep an eye on the liquor cabinet,” I warn him. “Maybe check a few. I think you’ll find more often than not that the vodka really is just voda.”
He blinks, glancing back at the house over his shoulder as he slowly processes what I’m hinting at, but I don’t linger.
I climb into my truck, leaving the only thing I ever wanted for my future to either self-destruct or forget me entirely.
Either way, I’ll remain just a chapter in her life, while she will forever be my entire plotline.