Everly After (7 page)

A sleepy smile pulls at her lips, and I can’t help the laugh that escapes through mine. I settle into the chair opposite and spend the night waking her up until I know she’s okay. When the sky begins to lighten with morning, I go to my bedroom. For reasons I don’t understand, I lock the door and crash face-first onto my bed, letting exhaustion get the best of me for once, ignoring the bottle of sleeping pills on my nightstand.

Everly

I remember panic attacks and Otis Redding. Blue eyes and a gentle touch. And then I feel the rest of the damage.

I suck in a breath, bringing my fingers to the giant bump above my temple. It feels as if I took a cue from the Kool-Aid Man and crashed through a brick wall. My throat burns, my stomach is sour, and my body aches. Everything feels like it’s falling apart, and I remember that it sort of did last night.

In front of Beckett.

My eyes snap open once I piece together that I’m still at his apartment. I can’t remember if I have to work today. I think I did yesterday, except I never made it in because… I stop my thoughts there, blocking out the other night. I can’t go into work like this, like a half-dressed hooker. Well, I could, but if Nadine didn’t appreciate Gucci, she wasn’t going to appreciate this fashion statement, either.

I wrap the quilt around me and slowly push off the couch, testing my legs before I rush off and knock my teeth out.

His apartment is like a time capsule from the ‘70s. The furniture is mid-century, the walls a whitish-gray, and the few furnishings around—like an upholstered chair and curtains—are olive and gold. There’re stacks of books overflowing onto the floor from a wall-length bookcase. It’s just as impressive as the record collection I found last night, piled high on a puke-green curio. There aren’t any pictures, nothing revealing that Beckett actually lives here, which I think is weird.

His door is closed, so I slip into the kitchen and get a glass of water. One glass isn’t enough, so I keep refilling it until my stomach is full and my mouth doesn’t feel like the Sahara.

I should leave, but I don’t have much of anything to leave in. I guess I wasn’t thinking ahead. As usual.

I tread into the bathroom and flick on the light, stopping short when I notice a washcloth on the counter, stained with blood. My blood. The bathroom smells like bleach, and I think I sort of remember why. I remember Beckett holding back my hair and his hands cupping my face. I remember the smell of soap, the warmth of his fingers against my clammy skin. I remember him looking down at me as if I was broken, his shirt pressed against my head. The head I split open because I needed to get away from myself so badly that I had another panic attack.

I think I should at least say goodbye after ruining his night. I should, but I hesitate with my hand above his doorknob like a moron because I’m suddenly afraid to see him. It would be easier to sneak away, but he’s not a guy I can leave behind since I’ll probably run into him at work. Because it’s just my luck to have him live above the place, for him to be sleeping with my boss.

I can do this. I can act like an adult for two seconds. I hold my breath and knock on his door. He doesn’t answer. I feel lightheaded, holding my breath as if I’m driving through a long tunnel. The only difference is that, in a tunnel, you eventually come through the other side and breathe again, but Beckett isn’t opening his door. I rattle his doorknob, growing angrier that I can’t get in, that he won’t open the door so I can say goodbye. I need to say goodbye. It’s a compulsion now. I know I messed up, and I don’t want him to think of me this way, this cliché of a messed-up girl. I need to thank him for not leaving me out on his doorstep like any other person would have done. No one likes a sloppy drunk. I don’t think anyone likes a drunk girl suffering from panic attacks, either. Or people who split their heads open and bleed over everything. Apparently, Beckett has a higher tolerance than most.

His door whips open, and he’s wrestling on a worn shirt, his jeans slung low around his hips, and I’m left staring, forgetting what I was so obsessed with a moment ago. He pokes his head through the top before the fabric slides down and covers his abs. His very perfect abs.

“Bloody hell. Your face…”

I force myself to look at him. His eyes are sleepy, but his voice is rough like he never slept. I tilt my head, puzzling together the difference, but as soon as I do, I understand what he means. My fucking head is going to explode. I pull the quilt tighter around me, a shiver chasing up my bare legs.

“Do you need something?” he asks.

I had something to tell him, but I’m too caught up in his eyes to figure out what I needed to say. It’s not just because he’s hot. It’s something else entirely. There’s concern on his face, and it’s a look I’m not used to. My chest tightens.

“Everly?” He braces his hand against the doorframe. I notice a tattoo on the underside of his bicep, but I can’t make it out entirely. “Do you have amnesia?”

I burst out laughing, feeling foolish. I drop my forehead into my hand, forgetting the giant slash over my temple, and hiss at the pain. “No,” I choke out. I look up at him, my eyes burning from the throbbing, and sigh, dropping my shoulders in a small shrug. “Sorry.”

He yawns and opens his eyes wide as if he’s forcing himself to not fall back asleep. “That’s…good then.”

“Thank you,” I rush out. The awkward between us is rising to unbearable levels. It’s time I leave before I mess up this guy’s life any more. “You know, for…” I wave my hand at my face and then around, as if that sums up my visit.

“You want some ice?” He points to my head, ignoring my thanks. I suppose I deserve that, too. Maybe I’m not convincing enough. I’ve never needed to apologize for much before now.

For the first time ever, my go-to response fails, and I swallow back:
I’m fine
.

“You don’t talk much, do you?”

I search for something to say, anything to fill the space between us, because I sort of want to walk closer until his arms wrap around me, and that can’t happen. I’m not sure why I want it to happen, but at least I know that it can’t. It won’t.

“It’s just a bruise.”

Beckett ruffles his hair, and in the morning light, it glows gold instead of its usual ashy brown. His eyes narrow, studying me the way he did that first night. The skin around them crinkles, crowding his face with laugh lines. You can’t have laugh lines unless you’re happy, and his face is as etched as any I’ve encountered before. Maybe because I don’t know many happy people. Maybe because the ones I do know have fillers injected in their face to erase the lines, even if it makes them look empty.

Beckett drops his hand from the door and straightens. I’m not sure what to say, but I should say something. “I’m leaving. I think. I just—”

“Not yet.”

I can’t figure this guy out. He seems to hate me most of the time, but the rest of the time…

Beckett backs into his room, holding up his hand for me to wait. I pull the quilt tighter until I realize I might start ripping out the fragile seams. I stand in the doorway, sure that he doesn’t want me in his bedroom, but it grabs my attention because it’s not like the rest of the apartment. There are books and papers everywhere. Pictures are taped to the wall, and a calendar is full of red marker. Old cameras are stuffed wherever there’s space. But it’s the words—the ink. There’s so much it that it’s as if I’ve fallen into the pages of a worn paperback. Printed pages are stacked high; others are taped to the wall and scattered on the floor. Beckett lives in a dictionary.

He picks up a big backpack from the corner, the kind you see college kids hauling across Europe when they’re finding themselves. He tosses out more books with dog-eared pages and stuffs a red pen in his mouth as he throws collared shirts over his shoulder and fishes to the bottom.

“I remembered I have this.” Beckett holds a small bag up in the air. “It’s a first aid kit.”

I back up a step and shake my head, the panic pooling in the pit of my stomach. I can deal with my own mess. I don’t need him. I only want to say goodbye.

“I’m fine.”

“Whatever you say, Everly.” Beckett doesn’t let me retreat. He steers me into the bathroom. My protest dies away when his hands grip my waist, warm and steady. He hauls me up onto the bathroom sink, never stepping away. “I’m not asking you to marry me, so keep your wig on.”

I can’t help it then. I smile.

Beckett

Everly likes the word
just
.

It’s
just
a scratch,
just
a split head. I’m sure she thinks she’s
just
a girl who
just
lives, and it pisses me off. In writing, that word is filler, something you search for and destroy when revising. It’s unnecessary and clogs up pacing. I think that’s the only reason I don’t listen. I know she doesn’t mean it.

I drag her into the bathroom instead. If she can come crashing into my life, then I can make sure she doesn’t leave with a cracked skull. Seems like a fair trade.

She’s smiling back at me, even with a bruise as purple as a fucking grape across the left side of her face. It’s yellow toward the edges, and there’s a bloody gash above her temple a few inches long.

I hate that she brushes it off like it’s not a problem—and she doesn’t want to be one, either. I mean, it’s not her fault I don’t want to get involved with anyone. It’s not her fault I feel this strange connection to her whenever we’re in the same room. Hell, I was fucking dreaming about her when she knocked on my door like the world was ending. It’s not her fault. It’s mine.

I smile back, then look down at the kit in my hands to avoid her eyes. She’s so quiet, so watchful. There’s no hiding with her. It makes me uncomfortable. I clear my throat and unzip the bag, shuffling through until I locate the alcohol wipes and liquid stitches.

“Are you a doctor or something?” Her breath is hot my neck. I back up a step, not sure how I ended up so close.

Even bruised, she has the most beautiful face I’ve ever seen. I fight back the urge to run my fingers over her skin, to wipe away the pain. “Want me to be?”

“Smooth.” Everly laughs, and I’m back standing between her legs, as if she has an invisible tether around my waist, always drawing me back in.

I think about telling her the truth, but keep quiet and rip open the alcohol packet instead. Its assaulting smell mixes with the bleach I used earlier to clean the bathroom. It feels and smells sterile in here, as empty as the smile she’s fighting to keep on her face for me.

“This might hurt.”

She nods, her hands wrapping tight around my middle. The quilt slips down onto the sink counter, pooling around her waist. She’s sitting in front of me in that shirt, revealing her hot pink bra, the plane of her flat stomach. Her legs brush against my jeans, and I have to make myself think of something ugly or cold—anything to focus me. She’s wrapping herself around me, half-naked, gazing up at me as if we’re strangers who’ve known each other forever.

I feel it, too. I know her without knowing anything about her at all.

I swallow and dab the alcohol wipe over her skin, cradling her head in my hand. She leans into my palm because she’s set on fucking undoing me. She doesn’t even know she’s doing it, but bit by slow bit, I’m unraveling before her. I don’t want her to be like this. I don’t like the way she trusts me so blindly right now. It leaves a bad taste in my mouth because it’s the same attitude that landed her here in my bathroom, half dressed with a gash in her head.

Before she leaves my flat, I’m going to have a list a fucking mile long of all the things that piss me off about Everly.

She grimaces as I wipe away more blood, and our eyes connect. “Sorry,” I say.

“It’s fine.”

I make a noncommittal noise in the back of my throat and keep cleaning up her face until I’m certain it won’t get infected when I close the gash up.

“Are you a nurse?” she asks, attempting to be cheeky.

“No.”

“I bet you’d look good in the uniform.” She sighs again before adding, “I was just trying to make you laugh. You look so serious right now.”

I crack a smile, but I’m annoyed. I can’t figure her out. She’s sun and shadow, evasive and familiar all at once. “I’m a journalist,” I confess.

Was
a journalist.

I didn’t want to tell her because of what she’s doing now—drawing back, stiffening up. “A war correspondent,” I clarify and stop there. She doesn’t need to know the rest, and that’s the last fucking thing I want to think about right now.

Her fingers tug and twist in my shirt in anxious fists. “Do you know who I am?”

Everly Tallis Monteith—heiress to an oil fortune, socialite, accident waiting to happen.

I nod. I don’t really care, but I guess she thinks it’ll change everything. Everything? It’s nothing. It’s nothing, right?

“Breathe, Everly.”

She looks up at me, her blue eyes still bloodshot. They must be gorgeous when they’re clear. I bet they’re dark and deep, exactly like Everly.

“You know all about me, I bet.”

“Nadine told me.” I lean over to throw the alcohol wipe in the trash, careful not to back away so she can’t stand up and dash out. I can sense the tension in her limbs without even touching her. “I know nothing about you.”

She’s quiet again, so I rip open the liquid stitches packet with my teeth and push the raw skin of her gash together. Carefully, I lay the seal and keep my fingers there, softly blowing over her wound while it sets. Her pulse is racing beneath my fingertips. If my touch hurts, she gives no hint that she’s in pain.

I feel her studying me again and keep my eyes focused on the drying glue. “I’ll leave it to you, Everly. To tell me who you are. I don’t care about the stories.”

My fingers slip down her face tenderly, as if my touch can soak up the bruised skin and make it disappear, make her whole. I can’t, though, so I swallow and tip her chin up so we’re looking at each other. I mean to say something, to tell her she can go and to be careful, but the words stick in my dry throat. My eyes are pinned on my thumb running over her full, bottom lip.