Chapter 25
The metal of my keys cut into my hand as I race out of the kitchen with Riley hissing my name behind me.
He’s able to keep quiet with Lucas sleeping upstairs. But me? I want to scream. That’s why I have to get out of here.
Flinging open the door, I scamper out, my bare feet scratching the floor of the back porch, but I don’t care that I’m not wearing shoes yet again. I only care about being anywhere else than home.
It’s when I nearly trip on the first stair that I grab onto the railing to keep myself from falling. But I do fall. Right back into my dream where I could feel the smooth metal of the guardrail of the bridge I’m eager to grab right now with my hands, desperate to lean over and scream into the abyss that is the dark water below.
In my dream, I felt more, like the way the air rushed out of me as I jumped off the bridge and after the car, following Nate and Riley. In the pitch black of the bay water at night, I could see nothing, even though I felt it all, like the burst, rubber tire against my foot. The sharp, broken glass that managed to still frame the window didn’t cut or scratch me, and even if it did, nothing would’ve stopped me from getting to Nate. I felt him even in darkness. I clutched his large hand with neatly trimmed nails and callous-padded fingertips. They are hands I’d know in dreams because, in reality, I’ve known them in my heart and soul.
But in my dream, they didn’t hold onto me. They pushed me away.
And when I turned in my confusion, I found I finally could see underwater.
I saw Riley.
I saw Riley, as if he could glow in the dark, some sort of underwater beacon of light I’m drawn to as I drown while asleep.
And I’m drawn to him awake, breathing at full capacity.
The door opening behind me is enough to snap me out of it. I jump down the rest of the stairs and head to my car.
“Harper.”
His voice steals my breath.
“Where are you going?”
“Where I need to be.” I make it to my car in the driveway. “Stay with Lucas.”
When I grab the handle to open the door, Riley presses his hand from behind me against it, forcing it shut. In my struggle, I drop my keys and dip down in the small space between him and my car, but he beats me to them.
“What are you doing!” I watch with anger as he hurls my keys over the fence and into the neighbors’ yard. But I don’t wait for his answer. I eye his Jeep, his apartment where his keys are and abruptly step to the side to go get them.
But Riley grabs my shoulders, pressing me against the car door.
He breathes heavily. “You’re not going there. Not now. It’s not safe to go to the bridge at night.”
I struggle in his hold. “What does it matter to you?”
There’s enough light fanning across us from the back porch that I see the flash of anger in Riley’s eyes .
“ You . You matter to me.”
His words threaten to buckle my knees and bring me to the ground where I know I’ll end up in a puddle of confusion that seeps out of me. Because I believe I matter to Riley. I want to matter to Riley, but in a way that makes sense where he wants that too.
“It’s not safe to go up on the bridge at night. And not when you’re upset.” He squeezes my arms. “Think about Lucas.”
I go from drowning in confusion to enraged in a split second, fueled by rejection, by heartbreak, by the bone-aching loneliness that has swept me up for months.
I’ve only been thinking about Lucas. If I didn’t think about Lucas, I would’ve told Riley to go jump off that bridge after he left.
“Screw you,” I snarl. “All I do is think about Lucas. All I do is work to put the smallest smile on his face. But you wouldn’t know anything about that. You just walk in and he lights up. That’s why after the dog bite I asked you to come back.”
I don’t know if I’ve grown stronger because of my words or if Riley has gone weaker but when I shove him this time, he steps back and I need the space even though I don’t want it.
I asked you to come back for him but I want you to stay for me .
“Can you just get me your keys? I’m allowed to be sad for just a minute. That doesn’t mean I’m going to…” I shake my head at the inconceivable thought. “Please…please, Riley, let me have a fucking minute here.”
Riley doesn’t budge and I grow angrier.
“You got your minute! You got everything with him,” I snarl. “Firsts…lasts… all of it. Just let me go to the last place he breathed and laughed and lived and pretend that Nate was my husband instead of only your friend.”
Riley says words are hard. I just never knew how hard my own words could be, how they could make Riley flinch, like I struck him right in the chest .
“I tried,” he whispers. Leaning forward, he presses his hands to his knees. “I tried .”
I swallow. “Tried what?”
Riley explodes up when he straightens, and outwards at me with his own words. But while mine were fueled by anger, his are packed with sorrow.
“I tried to give you more than a god damn minute with him!”
The surprise of Riley raising his voice makes me take a step back and immediately his face softens, souring in regret.
“Fuck, Harper, I’d do anything to get him back. For Lucas. For you. I would’ve given up being his friend so you could be his wife. Right now, if I could do it, I would. Even if that means you’d never be mine.” His voice cracks. “Even if that means I’d never be yours to miss.”
A sob bursts from my chest.
“It should’ve been me stuck in the car, not Nate. Never Nate. And here’s your proof.” He holds out his hand and I look at his permanently crooked finger. “He broke it to make me let go. That son of a bitch…I tried to get him out of that car because he had something— you. And he didn’t even fight. Didn’t flinch. He wasn’t fucking scared. All he was thinking about was you and making sure you’d be okay without him.”
My shoulders shake and I watch Riley’s face tighten. I know how he wants to hold me. But instead he grimaces and fists his hands, holding himself back.
He lowers his head. “He made me promise to look after you and I’m trying to do that. I’m trying —”
“You came back because you felt guilty .” I don’t know how I’m getting these words out. I feel sick. “There’s no need for you to stay because of that too.”
It’s another blow, but apparently I only know rapid fire.
“I don’t need hugs and almost kisses because you pity me.”
Riley’s face twists in anger. “Pity? You think me holding you like my life depends on it is because of pity? I’ll tell you something, Harper. When Nate made me promise to look after you, I’ll bet you everything I have he didn’t mean the way I want to. I’m trying to figure out how to do the right thing and ignore everything else, like how beautiful you are, or the way you smell like the sweetest flowers. I’m trying to put blinders on around you so I don’t go back to that”—Riley points to the garage—“apartment and fall asleep dreaming of waking up with you. Because he doesn’t get to . And that’s not fair.”
I open my mouth but Riley continues.
“You’re so busy thinking I won the beginning and the end that you forgot about the most important part. The middle is where the magic happens.” Riley dips at his knees so we are eye level but I can hardly see his face through the tears. “I didn’t get it until after he died. You’re the magic, Harper.”
My heart swells in one breath and deflates in the next, and with it my body sobs begin to quietly pour out of me. Because Riley’s words are followed with no action. He doesn’t step closer, doesn’t reach out and hold me, even after what I say next.
“Maybe we’re magic together.”
Riley shakes his head. “Whatever is happening here…” he trails off like it’s too hard to say the words.
It’s not right .
But some things are more powerful unsaid.
I’m cloaked in shame and fold my arms across my chest, as if I can hide this sort of scarlet letter I’ve branded myself with surrendering to feelings I have no control over. Because if Riley feels whatever is happening between us isn’t right for him—the friend—it can’t possibly be right for me—the widow.
“If it’s so not right, maybe we should think about you moving out,” I counter. “Maybe all this stuff with the surfing and Tides and the lawsuit…you know, maybe we’ll only end up hurting Lucas. And there’s no reason for us to tie you down. You should be…doing what you used to do. You know, dating and whatever.”
I’m not sure whatever Riley did before can be defined by dating . But the idea of him being intimate with someone else, being close enough to share the same pocket of air the way we just did, is another level of heartbreak I regret speaking into the universe.
Riley puts his hands on his hips. “Is that something you’re interested in? Dating?”
“Maybe.” I swear I hear the grinding of his teeth.
“Yeah, well, maybe the hell not.”
I throw my hands in the air, wishing I could toss away the frustration that has invaded my body. “What do you want from me, Riley? Because I want you, alright? And I thought I’d sooner die than ever say that. But here I am.”
I want you to want me , I nearly cry. I want you to tell me that it’s okay to want and need you that way.
His mouth opens but closes, his jaw shaking.
But I’m only met with silence and what fight can I put up? We do this together or we don’t do it at all. And if Riley won’t—if he can’t —neither can I.
I step around him toward the house, but he reaches out and keeps me in place. His hand on my wrist, it makes my heart skip a beat. And with his thumb pressed against my pulse, I know Riley feels it.
But he just shakes his head, and I’ve had enough. I twist my arm out of his grasp and continue walking, my eyes focused on the back door I want to lock but won’t.
I tell myself locking Riley out of my heart will have to be enough, and I repeat that with each purposeful step. That is, until Riley grabs me when I least expect it, and this time he doesn’t hold me at a distance. This time he crushes me to him.
“Fuck it.”
Riley steals the breath I don’t have time to finish taking with his mouth. He kisses me so hard and deep I lose all sense of which way is up and down. But it doesn’t matter. Riley holds me in place in a pocket of space and time where our gripping and nipping of each other, our tongues twisting makes total sense.
In this moment, the world stops. The grief that grounded us together doesn’t exist. Who we were before will never be as important as who we are now—two people who don’t just want each other but need each other too.
My back collides with the edge of the banister and Riley makes no apologies. He only presses me against it harder, the warmth and swell of his lap against me pulls a mewl from of my gut and panting satisfaction from Riley.
This first kiss is something of the extraordinary kind, the sort of kiss that makes it impossible to believe it’s the only time our lips have touched, that my fingers have never wound themselves through his hair, loosening his tresses from his bun. We move like it’s natural. And it is natural for us, the way our tongues fight each other before going in for more, streaks of harshness followed by a milder, gentle sweep.
True to form, I can’t stand the way Riley kisses because I can’t stand how good it feels, how with each breath he peels back a layer of myself until he finds the part of me that’s his to claim.
Riley scoops me up and I wrap my legs around his waist. I don’t know where we’re headed or what we’re doing, but I find myself floating safely in Riley’s hands. We move up the stairs before I land in his lap with a bump, but I don’t mind. I’ll take the bump if it means more of a bite—Riley’s bite. I moan when his teeth, tongue and lips trail from my mouth and down my neck and clutch his back when he laps at my racing pulse, nipping at the beat of my heart.
The bites are gentle but still hold a kick. They’re a claim, just like the way his hands over my ass, pulling me closer to him. And even though we both moan when I rock against his hard length, his hands still sweep softly over me, as if I’m a gift he’s vowing to cherish and hold on to.
“Tell me it’s not wrong,” he whispers into my skin, rocking his hips up and into me. The move draws a primal groan from my mouth and the noise must only entice him more because he grinds his arousal into me so hard it now leaves me whimpering. “ Tell me how bad I fucking want you, how bad I need you isn’t wrong.”
I can’t find my voice to answer.
“Harper, tell me...”
Riley’s voice breaks before the rest of his words are lost in my neck just as they should be. Because he’s looking for the kind of approval that will never come. It’s a wasted request meant for someone who exited stage right far too soon, leaving us holding together the plot in the middle of the second act.
I taste the sense of betrayal seeping from Riley’s skin, escaping with every tremble of his body. I let my lips linger against his forehead while his head stays buried in the crook of my neck.
“Maybe this is our middle. We’re the magic,” I whisper and Riley’s anguished breathing slows into a soothing lullaby that nearly brings my eyes shut.
But I’m so happy it doesn’t. I’m so happy my eyes are wide open when Riley lifts his head and looks at me. He cups my cheek again, his touch no longer hurried, rushed and harsh like when our lips first met.
There’s need and desire behind his lips now only muted by a cautious carefulness that leaves me full of a different kind of heat—a soft, hopeful warmth that we’re going to figure it all out.
I move my mouth in a similar dance and I hope my words don’t tell Riley this isn’t wrong , but instead this is so right.
When I feel the flex of his jaw and the widening of his lips into a smile, I know he hears it even though I didn’t say it. Because this kiss isn’t like before.
This kiss feels like we’re starting something new.