CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
CONNECTICUT, PRESENT DAY
In the passenger seat, I kept my eyes on the painted lines zipping by, never on the passing road signs, and tried to remember the last time I'd celebrated Thanksgiving … or any holiday for that matter.
I spoke out loud, rambling needlessly to Stormy about childhood celebrations and how Melanie had tried to keep things special in the years after my parents died. It was all I could do to keep my brain from fixating on how close we were to crossing the state line.
And Stormy listened to every word, never once changing the subject. Only asking the occasional question to keep me talking, distracted and focused.
“Wasn't Melanie, like, your brother's age?”
I nodded, running my finger along the window ledge. “Three years older than me, yeah.”
“And how old were you when your parents passed away?”
“Fifteen.” Twenty-three years ago. God. How had I managed to survive a day without them, let alone over two fucking decades?
“So, this eighteen-year-old girl moved into your house, cooked, cleaned, cared for you guys, and made sure you continued to celebrate holidays?” Her voice hung on an astonishment I'd felt steadily ever since I'd let go of my stupid teenage angst and distaste toward my brother's former girlfriend and fiancée.
I nodded slowly, easily allowing the ache of missing Melanie to cloud my vision of the dashes painted onto the road. “Yep.”
“What the hell was she trying to do, apply for sainthood?”
“Something like that,” I muttered, then chuckled and lifted my hand in a flippant shrug. “I don't know. I never understood it. She always said it was because she loved Luke so damn much, but I don't know. Sometimes, I thought she just liked having a project, and with us, she had two of them—three if you count the house. But … I don't know. Maybe she just felt bad for us.”
“Or maybe she really did love you guys,” Stormy offered softly, “and she knew she could care for you better than you'd manage on your own.”
My gaze lifted to the blurred trees lining the side of the road, topped by a cloudy gray November sky. Melanie had passed my mind often over the years—that went without saying—but it'd been a long time since her memory had brought a twinge of a smile to my lips, a lump in my throat, and more gratitude in my heart than sadness.
“You're probably right.”
“I wish I could meet her.”
That brought a laugh rumbling past the rock lodged in my throat. “Yeah, well, unfortunately …” I shook my head as the sadness overcame the gratitude.
“You think they would've gotten married if things had been different?”
My lungs filled with air and held it tight. “I do.”
Stormy swallowed audibly, and I chanced a glance in her direction to find the same pain in my heart reflected in her eyes. “It's so sad that they could never work it out. I mean, I get it. I was really fucked up back in the day, and I know there was no way I could have had a decent, healthy relationship. But … it just sucks . Like, you have to think, how different would everything have been if it had worked out between them?”
“I don't like to,” I answered, brusque and gruff. “Not anymore.”
She pressed her lips together and held the wheel tight within her grip. Her emerald eyes volleyed toward mine quickly.
“Oh, no?” she asked, her voice hovering below the nothing-but-white-noise music.
I gave my head a small shake, but unable to say that, if anything had been different, I wouldn't have run from Connecticut and my ever-persistent demons. That, if Luke and Melanie had never broken up, it was unlikely I would've found myself in Salem. That, if any of the tragedies in my life hadn't occurred, it was unlikely that Stormy ever would've been mine.
I never would've been hers.
Somehow, I managed to reach a point where that thought was more devastating than the nightmares that still haunted the otherwise wonderful and dreamless sleep I only ever achieved when I was with her. In the month that I'd known her, she had taken this shattered soul, this broken shadow of a man, and by some miracle, she’d put him back together. And, okay, maybe what was left more resembled Frankenstein's monster than what he had once been at the hour of his birth, but he was whole . Me! Whole. Happy.
I chuckled at the thought, but wasn't it true?
“Why are you laughing?” Stormy asked, eyeing me suspiciously from across the car.
My gaze landed on hers as my lips stretched in a smile that all at once felt awkward and weird and right and amazing. “I don't know. I'm just …” I shrugged one shoulder, tipping my head back to rest against the seat. Still staring at her. Still amazed. “I'm happy.”
Her black lips lifted in an easy smile that looked so much more natural than mine felt. “Do I make you happy?”
“More than anything.”
A small, acknowledging sound rose from her throat as she nodded, glancing at the road before looking back at me. “You make me happy too.”
Then, marry me .
The thought came out of nowhere, an echo running through my head, yet it didn't freak me out the way it probably should've. No, I knew without a fraction of a doubt that I would make her my wife if I only found the courage to ask. Luke might consider that insane; others probably would too. But I never pretended to be sane, and I didn't care.
She was the one who would never run, and with a glance at the side of the road, I found she was also the one who could take me across the Connecticut state line without my body revolting with panic. I was going to do this. I was going to be okay. And I knew that was only because I was safe.
I knew it was because I was hers .
***
Stormy had grown up far enough away from where I had for my familiarity with the area to have blurred over time. It was my favorite thing about her childhood home.
That and the cemetery across the street.
When we pulled onto her street and my eyes landed on the hallowed ground, Stormy smiled and nudged my wrist with her knuckles.
“Makes you feel more at home, right?”
I huffed a chuckle. “A little, yeah. I'm wondering why you're so creeped out now when you grew up across the street from a graveyard.”
“Are you kidding me?” She threw her arm across me and pointed out the passenger window. “This shit gave me fucking nightmares. My friends used to dare me to sneak in there at night—”
“Oh, you were one of those ,” I cut in with a snicker.
“Come on. You know I was,” she tossed back. “And for the record, I only did it once and actually pissed in my pants after a rabbit scared the hell out of me. My friends never let me live that down.”
I hummed a short, contemplative sound. Wondering where those friends were now. Wondering if she still knew them. But I didn't bother asking because just as I was about to open my mouth, we pulled into the driveway of a narrow, two-story farmhouse-style home with a pretty porch, painted a sunshiny yellow. Not my style, but it was welcoming, friendly, and I hoped the people inside matched their home's facade.
Stormy killed the engine and turned to face me. “You ready?”
“Nope,” I answered with an incredulous huff-laugh.
“They won't bite.”
But you ran , I wanted to say. How gentle could they be if you didn't want to stay?
But, I reminded myself, she had left home over ten years ago. Surely, things had changed, and maybe if she hadn't found a second family with Blake and Cee, she would've returned home. Maybe she still would one day, but I hoped she wouldn't.
Would I come with her if she did?
My stomach cramped at the thought.
“My sister and her kids aren't going to be here until tomorrow,” Stormy reminded me. “Tonight, it's just my parents. One step at a time, okay? You let me know if it becomes too much, and we'll get some air.”
I sucked in a deep breath and nodded. “Okay,” I said, followed by an exhale.
We left the car together and climbed the creaking porch steps as Stormy informed me that she had lived in one of the nicer neighborhoods in town. Just a few blocks over was the high school, where she'd watched her old friend take his last breath. I had a difficult time understanding how she could so easily call that guy—Billy—her friend when he had gotten her involved in the dangerous, scary things a real friend should've protected her from. But then I remembered how important it had been for Luke to watch me to consume the vile taste of beer on my twenty-first birthday, and I kept my mouth shut.
Stormy rapped her fist loudly against the door. “I’m learning to knock louder,” she said with a hint of pride.
“Smart.”
“We used to have a doorbell, back when I was a kid. But then the thing kicked the bucket, and my dad never got around to fixing it for whatever reason,” she explained quietly, like she didn't want to talk over the anticipated footsteps on the other side of the door.
I was reminded of the disrepair my childhood home had succumbed to in the years after my parents died.
Those footsteps came moments later. I stood up straighter, unblinking, unsure if I should put my hands in my pockets or rest one at the small of Stormy's back and did neither. They flexed at my sides instead. I clamped my bottom lip between my teeth and worried it, the patches of dry, peeling skin a futile distraction from the jittering in my veins and the inability to pull in a deep breath of air. The lock was undone, and the door swung open to unveil a man on the other side, sporting dark hair abundantly peppered with gray. Before his eyes could land on his daughter, they roved over me with a curious suspicion that teetered dangerously toward distrust. I swallowed hard, instantly sure that every one of my fears had been warranted.
Told you so , I wanted to say to Stormy, but didn't. Instead, I said nothing at all.
“Hey, Dad,” Stormy said, stepping into his line of sight, her arms outstretched.
A switch was flipped, and his scowl transformed into a smile. “Ah, there's my little black rain cloud.” He wrapped her in an embrace, resting his chin on her shoulder. “How was the drive down?”
“Uneventful.”
“That's what I like to hear.”
A hot rush of envy smacked my heart. My gaze dropped to the bleached wooden planks beneath my feet as my mind tried desperately to conjure up the memory of what it had been like to hug my dad. Tiny fragments of moments attempted to fuse together, but I was unsure if any had happened at all, and I hated that I'd allowed time to steal them away. I hadn't known it was happening, hadn't fought to keep those memories I'd thought were so important. How important could they have been if I hadn't even tried to hold on to them?
My chest puffed up with an angry breath; I was so mad that I couldn't drive down that damn highway and knock on my own father's door. So fucking mad that it'd been over two decades since I'd last hugged him. So completely and utterly mad and swept up in grief that would never fully go away that I nearly forgot where I was and barely heard Stormy making the introductions between her father and me.
“… Charlie Corbin.”
I came back to the moment as she placed her hand on my arm and turned to look up at me, her smile wide and proud.
Shit . I quickly extended my hand and said, “Hello, sir. It's nice to meet you.”
“Please, call me Chris.” The nicety didn't quite reach his tone though, even as he clasped my hand in his.
We shook, and I looked right into his skeptical glare.
Does he know?
A trickle of ice slithered down my spine. It was possible. Stormy might not have been around when Luke had murdered Ritchie, but her parents had. They'd never left Connecticut. They'd been here, paying attention to the news and talking to the locals. Maybe he recognized my face and knew my name, and he was now wondering how the hell to save his daughter from the Corbin curse.
He dropped my hand, then gestured into the house. “Come on in. Take your coats off, make yourselves at home. Mom's about to pull some cookies out of the oven. Miles has been going on and on and on about these peanut butter ones he had last time he was here. You should've seen him. He …” His voice trailed off as he wandered through the door and disappeared quickly into the house, as if assuming we were on his tail.
But we stopped inside the door, shedding our jackets and hanging them on a coatrack.
“Should we …” I waved toward the doorway he'd wandered through, and Stormy brushed me off with a flippant gesture of her hand.
“Nah, it's fine. He's just babbling about my nephew, my sister's youngest. My dad is obsessed with that kid. Like, I mean, obsessed .”
I huffed a laugh I didn't quite feel as I stuffed my hands into my jeans pockets. “Well, I don't think he likes me very much,” I commented. My voice sounded bitter. I regretted that immediately. “I mean, it's fine. I just—”
“It's nothing personal,” she was quick to say, regret blanketing her features. “You gotta understand, the last guy I brought home to meet my parents was strung out on drugs. Granted, that was, like, fifteen years ago, but they know about as much about my love life as they do my career. Which is next to nothing. And, yeah, I guess that's my own fault, but …” She sucked in a deep breath and shook her head. “Anyway, don't take it personally. They're going to like you, I swear. The bar was already set pretty low. As long as you don't describe our sex life in explicit detail before passing out on the couch, you're as good as golden.”
I raised one brow at her. “Sounds like a real winner.”
“Yeah, well.” She offered a half smile while a spark of sadness struck her gaze before spinning on her heel and leading the way through the foyer. Then, looking over her shoulder, she added, “Just remember, you're the one standing here, and he's buried across the street.”
“Well, now, I feel like an asshole,” I muttered regretfully, following close behind.
“I'm just saying, I chose the path that brought me to you, not him. So, as far as I'm concerned, you're the real winner here. Because I'm a fucking prize.”
She grinned like it was a joke, like maybe she was poking fun at the woman she used to be. The woman who'd brought home a guy she got wasted with. But that wasn’t who she was, not at her core. She'd gotten out of that life and into the one that brought her to me, as she'd said, and for that, I had to agree with her.
She was a prize. The greatest of them all. And somehow, for once, I could consider myself a winner because I could call her mine.