He brushed his thumb across my lips, the sensation causing me to close my eyes at the tenderness, the beauty of his touch. “Did he taste you here?” he asked.
“No.” I shook my head and tried to hide my disgust. “Everything that is me belongs to you, Holst.”
“Katherine…”
“Are you listening? Because I think, today, it’s my turn to remind you about the fine print.”
I opened his shirt and yanked it to the side as the cotton tore with my force. I ran my fingers through the dark tendrils of hair and stopped above his heart. I pressed my lips there, soft, gentle in a single kiss, then replaced it with my hand and pushed the emerald cut diamond with its claw setting into his skin as hard as I could.
I looked at the perfect indentation of the engagement ring and said, “The next tattoo you get should be this, the mark this ring has left. Then, when you’re in doubt, you can look at your chest and remember this moment, this day, when I tried to break through your skin to get inside your heart so you would never forget.” I hiccupped. “Never, ever forget, Holst.”
He placed his hand over my own and pushed harder, his dark eyes searing me with a heated intensity I’d never seen before. “No, baby,” he said, his voice gruff, but strong. “I won’t forget.”
“I want to go home, Holst.”
“Then let’s go home, Katherine.”
While the heavens above seemed to open with a deluge of welcomed rain, I observed people running to get out of the sudden flash flood. But not us. We were there together, side by side, in the moment. Things might happen around us, or even to us, but together we could weather anything, and a little rain was nothing more than that—weather.
***
After we went home and took a hot shower—together—we drove to Tori and Cam’s. Tori pulled me upstairs into “the nursery,” and there, I gave her every single detail of what had happened.
“I love a happy ending,” she said, grinning from ear to ear.
But I wasn’t really thinking about myself. I looked around the room and saw it was all ready for their little girl, Lana.
“I can’t wait to meet her, Tor. I can’t wait to sit in this room, decorated like sunshine, and rock-a-bye your little bean.”
“Kath.” Her warm smile and bright eyes said all she needed to say. No words, just the love that two best friends embarking on the next stage of their lives would share together. Tori’s mom had stepped up to the parental plate only recently, and I supposed mine would, too, in time. But for so long, it was just the two of us girls, trying to figure out how to become women, wives, mothers, and friends…the roles often guided by your own mother. But we’d come through.
“You know,” I told her, feeling the heat hit the back of my eyes. “Fucking tears. Dude, I don’t think I have ever cried this much in my entire life. Anyway…” I chuckled. “I was sitting on that bench, waiting for Holst and thinking about how much time I wasted on the idea Max would come back to me. But…even if there hadn’t been Holst, I hope I would’ve been strong enough to see Max for what he is.”
She took my hand, gripped in hers, and asked, “And what is he?”
“When I was talking to my mom earlier…I wanted to think what I had with him was different, but that’s what a child molester wants you to think. It wasn’t like I was a little girl, I was older…so at first, I didn’t think I fell into that…category. Like I should’ve known better since I was older. But Max was a thief. I was…” I looked down at the ring, then out the window of the nursery. “I was like a property he didn’t want anyone else to get their hands on. As beautiful as he made my first time, and every time we were together after that, when he left, he took the pieces of me that would allow anyone else to get in. He took the handles to all the doors, locked all the windows, and after that, I didn’t let anyone in, because I couldn’t get the ghost of him out.”
“I like that analogy, honey.” She hesitated, but only for a moment. “But it’s only been a day.”
“No. It’s been thirteen years,” I told her, sitting straighter as my face morphed into a smile. “But…I had to heal, and I needed closure or whatever, and today, I got it. I would’ve married Holst without that, Tor. I’m in love with him. And like I said before, it’s bigger than the obsessive crush-love of an inexperienced girl. I’m a woman, in love with a man who let me have his heart. I need to take care of that.” I smiled. “But first,” I said. “I couldn’t help but notice Frodo isn’t at your holiday shin-dig. Was he invited?”
“Yeah,” she answered. “But…with Dee…he’s keeping his distance, I think.”
“Damn.” I so hated that. I hated that I couldn’t share that he’d hit her with our friend, and I equally hated that he wasn’t ready to fight for her yet. It was too raw, too fresh…but I suspected he would be.
Eventually.
“Yeah.”
“I’m gonna go down to the tattoo shop and check on him. You good?”
“Yeah…” She looked around the room. “I’m absolutely good.”
We walked arm in arm back downstairs, and I nodded to Holst. He and Cam were talking in front of the Christmas tree.
“Hey,” I interrupted.
“Excuse us a sec,” he said to Cam. He pulled me to the foyer and asked, “Everything okay?”
“Yeah. But…I kinda want to check on Frodo. You okay with that?”
“Yeah, baby. I’m definitely okay with that. See you soon,” he said as he kissed my cheek.
“Love you, H.”
“H.” He grinned.
“You like it,” I confirmed and moved to the front door.
“Yeah, baby. I like it.”
***
All the lights were off in Coastal Ink. I’d heard that Teensy went into early labor, and Zack left that afternoon. This meant Frodo was alone on Christmas Eve. I heard music through the door, so I knocked. I waited for a minute, but no one answered, so I knocked again, and that was when he peeked through the blinds on the door then unlocked it.
I walked inside and was hit with the smell of a distillery.
“Frodo…” I said quietly, looking around the room, and on the floor were at least a dozen empty bottles.
“I emptied them into the sink, not my person.” He grinned and locked the door behind me once I was inside. “All is well?” he asked.
“Why did you pull me away today?”
“Because you hold the power in your relationship, Katherine.”
“And…? I need a little more explanation than that. You pretty much manhandled me.”
“I like Holst. He and I had an enlightening conversation after my incident and subsequent destruction of my relationship with the fair dove, Dee.”
“Speak fucking English, dude,” I asked, my impatience at his riddle-speak growing by the millisecond.
“Have you ever heard the phrase ‘she could drive a man to drink’?”
“Yep.”
“Katherine…the idea for an AA meeting at your coffee shop was not mine. Inspired by my actions, yes. But the idea had been stewing in your partner’s mind for some time. And I asked today what your intentions were because Holst and I have a great deal in common. He left his old life behind and endeavoured to create a new one: new job, new friends, new life. He’s my friend, and if I can save him the pain I’ve caused others and myself…that’s exactly what I’m going to do.”
I flopped down on the green couch in the little waiting area of the tattoo shop and looked around. “You know, I’ve never asked Holst what those tattoos on the backs of his legs mean.”
“Would you like me to tell you?” he asked.
“Nope. You know why?” I turned my attention to him as he leaned against the far wall from me.
“Please,” he prompted.
“Because I have plenty of time to find out. We’ll have a long engagement, not because it’s the smart thing to do, because, I think you know by now, I’m a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants kinda girl. No, the long engagement is for everyone else, because I’m gonna have a big fuckin’ wedding.” I grinned. “I want to get married in the Congregational Church over on St. Ann’s, and I want a golden wedding, with pale pink roses and creamy, froofy pom-poms hanging everywhere, and candles…I want to see a glow of candlelight, and that shit needs to be organized and done right. If I’m going the way of the girl, I’m going all girl.”