“I left,” he said with more calm than I ever could’ve imagined him saying those words. “They were probably sick of my drunk ass constantly fucking up anyway.” He laughed, but it lacked humor and conviction. He took my hand, voice quiet. “It’s time to quit running, Clover.”
I pulled back. “So you decide to do that here?”
He tipped a broad shoulder, gaze hesitant but sincere. “You’re my home. Being with you and sharing that with you over Christmas… Well, it was many things. The main one, the most important one, being that it reminded me of that, yet again.” His lashes lowered, then rose with his lips. “And if you’re my home, where else would I go?”
I was tempted to pinch myself. Perhaps even punch myself. This had to be a dream, but I could smell him. Was it possible to smell people in your dreams? I couldn’t remember.
“I’m with Aiden,” I croaked out, not even knowing if that was true but wanting it to be.
Everett stared down at me, my words chasing that unfamiliar softness away and replacing it with the usual granite. “I know.”
“I love him.” I started walking backward, pointing an accusing finger at him. “You fucked me up, and then I met him, and I love him, Everett.”
A green eye narrowed. “Who are you trying to convince, Clover?” The words weren’t malicious, but his steps were filled with intent as I turned down the street, and he followed me.
My pace picked up as I rounded street corner after street corner, feeling him there behind me. When we reached the sidewalk leading to my place, I stopped and whirled on him. “Oh, my God, stop. Just go, please. I’m happy you’ve decided to better yourself, but that can’t be with me. I’m happy now,” I said, my voice cracking.
He kept walking until the toes of his boots nipped at my own, his hand reaching for my hair and tucking it behind my ear as his eyes studied mine. “Then why don’t you look happy? Sound happy?”
“Because you’ll no doubt mess everything up for me.” I went to back up, but his arm looped around my waist.
His words were heated and resolute. “I’m not here to mess shit up for you. I swear. I’m here because I fucking love you. I’ve loved you for years, and there’s nowhere else I want to be.” He shook his head, and shocked, feeling as if lightning had struck my veins, my resistance collapsed, and I turned to mush in his embrace. His forehead lowered to mine. “Not anymore. I’ve tried to be anywhere and everywhere else, and it didn’t fucking work, Clover.”
Stunned, I didn’t move until he kissed me, soft and gentle and full of the kind of promise that, once upon a time, I’d be desperate enough to believe.
But once upon a times were for dreams, and he was only capable of nightmares.
I shoved him off me, my voice a seething rasp. “Go to hell, Everett.”
He grinned, undeterred, even as he retreated a step. “Been there all my life. So I guess I’ll just make myself comfortable until you might want my company again.” He winked, then passed a familiar black Audi before disappearing.
With my heart slamming against my rib cage, I forced my eyes to the apartment, then raced up the path.
All the air I’d been struggling to inhale since seeing Everett turned to ice, crusting my tongue and slicing into my throat when I saw Aiden.
Sitting atop the three steps outside my front door with his knees apart, he gazed down at a tiny velvet box between his hands.
After a minute that stretched into eternity, he sighed and snapped the box closed. “I’ve been drafted.” Hollow words for something of that caliber. “I was going to tell you over Christmas, but I thought I’d buy this first.” He chewed his bottom lip, still staring down at the box, then he enclosed it inside a fist. “Thought there was a good chance you’d want to come with me.”
“I will, yes,” I said without any thought at all and shifted forward. “Just let me…”
Rising from the steps, he refused to look at me as he passed, his cologne mingling with my fear as he stalked to his car. “I don’t think so, Petal.”
“Aiden, don’t. Stop.”
He didn’t; he climbed into his car, and the sound of the engine starting unglued my feet.
Blind with terror, I ran to it as he backed up and waited to turn out