I give him the finger, which of course causes my mother to gasp in outrage, and I stride down the hall to the bathroom, shutting myself in. I take a long, deep breath. My heart is racing, and I don’t know why. Everything is going so well, but all it does is make me worry. There’s this space behind my heart, a little hole, and it’s slowly getting bigger.
I run a washcloth under the cold water and dab my face. I’m still blushing, much like the way I look after sex. Perhaps that’s why Lachlan wants me to be embarrassed.
When I leave the bathroom, Lachlan is sitting in the living room and my mom is trying to make some tea.
“Here, go sit down,” I tell her, taking the kettle from her hands.
She places her hand over mine. For a moment I stare at it—pale, wrinkled beautifully, speckled with age spots. My mother’s hands, hands that have seen me through my whole life, are shaking slightly. When did that start to happen? The shakes?
But I don’t ask her because she’s looking up at me adoringly.
“You shouldn’t let him leave,” she tells me quietly. Her grip on my hand strengthens, the shakes abating slightly. “He is such the man for you.”
I give her a quick smile and gently pull the kettle away from her. “I honestly don’t know him well enough to think that.” I swallow and look out at the living room where he’s watching TV. “I wish I did though.”
“Sometimes you don’t need to know someone to know them,” she says. “And when he looks at you, you can tell. He knows you.” Then she pads her way out of the kitchen to join him. I shiver, suddenly cold, and get the tea ready. We drink cups and cups of it, watching an episode of my mother’s other favorite show, NCIS, until it starts getting late, and I know Lachlan has to check on Emily.
For some reason it’s hard to say goodbye to my mom this time. Maybe because I’ve been extra emotional all night. I hug her longer than I normally do and tell her I’ll be by next week. Maybe I can drag Toshio with me.
Lachlan bends down and envelops my tiny mother in a bear hug. Every inch of me dissolves at the sight.
I have completely melted.
“Your mother is lovely,” Lachlan says to me quietly during the car ride back into the city.
“That she is,” I say, glad he was so charmed by her. And equally as glad she was so charmed by him.
“You said before that she was sick,” he says, putting his hand behind my neck and rubbing his thumb against my skin. “What’s wrong with her?”
My grip on the steering wheel tightens. “I’m not really sure.” I lick my lips, trying to remember. “It started after my father died. She was a wreck for a long time. We all were. She was severely depressed, and I guess all that pain inside started making its way outside. Some doctors say its chronic fatigue syndrome, others say it’s still depression and anxiety. She doesn’t sleep well and her blood pressure is always through the roof. Her muscles ache all the time. I don’t know what to think. But it’s been going on for years.”
And her shaking hands, well I hope that’s just because she was overexcited about Lachlan and me being there.
“Do you have good doctors here in America?” he asks.
I shake my head. “No. Well, yeah. If you can pay for them. She never worked, so she doesn’t have benefits that a lot of people her age would. But my brothers and I, we pay for it. We try and get the best for her, a whole bunch of different opinions. Honestly,” I say, eyeing him briefly. “I think she’s still suffering from a broken heart.”
He gives me a tight smile. “There are big risks to falling in love.”
I nod and look back to the road. “Big risks.”
When we get back to his apartment, Lachlan invites me up. I hesitate. I want to go, I want to be with him every way I can. But there’s something heavy on my chest, and if I sleep with him tonight, I feel it will get even worse. I need to be alone to process it. I need to build back my strength by myself. For such a strong man, he only makes me weaker.
That night, alone in bed, I stare at the empty pillow beside me and wonder what it would be like to always have someone there.
Then I wonder what it would be like to never have someone there again.
How far can you fall for someone until you have to call it love?
I hope I never find out.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Kayla
At work on Friday, the time passes by like molasses. I stare at the clock on my computer monitor, counting down the minutes, the seconds, until I can go home, get my bags, get Lachlan, and head to Napa.
But when the proverbial whistle blows and I’m all ready and waiting outside his apartment, whatever excitement I had all day has been replaced by acute fear. This is the last time I’ll be here, picking him up. After Sunday, he’s gone.
Even though I didn’t sleep with him after my mother’s on Wednesday night, yesterday was a different story. I went right over to his apartment after work, strode inside, and fucked his brains out. In his bedroom, of course, away from the judgemental eyes of Emily. Whatever strange melancholy that had gripped me at my mother’s house wasn’t present. I lost myself to his body in every way that I could, literally screwing him sideways until two in the morning, when I finally pried myself away and went back home to sleep.
But now, now that I’m waiting for him, now that we’re about to embark on our last few days together, that melancholy is back, humming in my soul like a tune you can’t forget.
It gets a little better though, as things often do, when I finally see Lachlan.
He takes hulking strides toward the car, duffle bag on one shoulder, pet crate in hand. He’s wearing his hiking boots, blue jeans with rips in them, a white t-shirt that perfectly showcases those traps, those shoulders, the swirl of tattoos down his arms. My breath hitches, my legs clench, the heat inside burns and burns. His effect on me will never be duplicated.
He opens the back door and puts the crate inside. I look behind me at Emily. Her scruffy little face is at the gate. I’m prepared for her to growl or at least show some teeth, but she just eyes me for a moment before her gaze goes back to Lachlan. It’s obvious the dog adores him; she can barely look away. I wonder if that’s how I appear.
“Hello, love,” he says to me as he gets in the front seat. He leans forward, cups my jaw in his hand, and gives me a long, slow kiss that makes my heart skip a few beats.
I grin at him, wiggling in my seat from excitement, and then jerk my thumb at the back seat. “She seems to be warming up to me.”
“I told you she’d come around,” he says, putting his large hand on my bare thigh as we drive off.
The journey to Napa is a gorgeous one. I opt for the longer route, heading over the Golden Gate Bridge, purely because it’s more scenic and it gives me more time alone with him before I have to share him with everyone else. The temperature climbs as we head inland. Soon, the sun is baking us, our windows are down, and we are blasting down two-lane highways, the smell of vineyards and warmed fields blowing through the car.
“What if we keep driving forever?” I ask him dreamily, the soulful lament of Lana Del Rey’s “Honeymoon” pouring from the speakers.
“What if we do?” he asks, playing along.
“Where would we go?”
“Does it matter?” His voice is so beautifully hopeful that I have to look at him. He gives me a quick smile and props his elbow on the open window, running his fingers over his chin and staring off at the dry hills.
No. It wouldn’t matter. We could find a field, a cabin, a mountain stream. We could go north or south or east. We could pull down the next country road and set up camp around the car, just him, me, and Emily. We could take time and stretch it between our fingers and spend an eternity in each other’s arms.
But reality doesn’t work like that. Not that reality has handed us such a bum deal today. When we reach Napa and I pull the car into the massive parking lot of the Meritage Hotel, I’m incredibly grateful that Bram organized this whole thing—a way for him to see his cousin before he goes and a way for me to do the same.