Before & After - Nazarea Andrews Page 0,60
but happy, and falls into bed to fuck me until we’re both exhausted.
Lindsay spends all morning in her bedroom, bitching when Scott drags her to physical therapy. When he retreats to practice with his band, her mood improves and she sits quietly reading or working from her computer while I sketch and write.
And I drift, absorbing everything silently. Every night, Rike watches me with those bright blue eyes, quietly, hopefully, and every day, I have to admit that nothing is changing.
“I think,” I say on the third night, while we’re lying on the chaise in my studio, catching our breath after sex, “that if I don’t remember what we were, it would be ok. That we would be ok. I don’t have to remember everything to know that I could be happy with you.”
His face softens, and he leans down, brushing a kiss over my lips before he rolls to curl against my back, holding me tight to him. “I want you to remember, sweetheart. I want you to know what we had. But if you don’t—you’re right. We will be happy. It doesn’t change the way I love you.”
“Do you think it’s easier for us because I wear my scars inside?” I ask.
He sighs and shrugs. Kisses my shoulder. “We can’t fight that one, Fish. They’ll stand or they won’t, and we can only do what we’ve always done—love them as much as we can, and be there for them.”
“What if she leaves? How can I be there for her when I have to be there for Scott?”
“Scott is my best friend. My brother. But Lindsay is yours. And I won’t ever stand between that. Neither would he. It might be awkward and uncomfortable, but you’ll do what you need to do, to be there for her.”
I nod and pull his hand up to brush a kiss over it.
“Does it bother you?” he asks.
I don’t need to ask what. “Yes. I wish I knew everything. That I could remember the first time I told you I loved you, or when you said it to me. Our first fight, and when you made love to me, or why we moved here, or—everything. I wish I could remember everything. But that’s the past. And the girl I was chose you. The girl I am today is choosing you. So in the end, does it really matter?”
He rolls me and slips into me, easy and effortless. I gasp a little. It never fails to surprise me, how ready he always is. Slow, lazy thrusts have me arching silently against him, and he leans down. I tilt my head for a kiss, but he murmurs into my ear. “In my shitty apartment, after a gig at Barrie’s. That’s the first time I took you to bed. We had been fighting about the secrets you were keeping, and that night everything changed.” He twists, taking me with him as he rolls to his back and I gasp, bracing my hands on his chest as I settle on top of him. “And in the rain. We were camping, and it was raining. And you were dancing in it, like a little girl. We made love in a field, with the rain all around us, and you riding me, and I told you then, because I couldn’t stand another minute without you knowing that I loved you. That I will always love you. You’re it for me, Fish. The sea and the air I breathe and every fucking thing that matters.”
I shatter, gasping his name as the orgasm reaches up and pulls me under, a crashing wave of sensation that begins and ends in him and the steady push and pull of him.
He keeps thrusting, and I lean down, kissing him, grinding against him until he pants my name, his body shaking as he comes.
We lie still for a long moment, wrapped around each other, breathing with each other. “I love you, Fish,” he whispers. “Always have. Always will. You remembering that won’t change a damn thing for me.”
***
Lindsay is in the living room when I come downstairs the next day, and her gaze when it lands on me is miserable. It dims the quiet glow that I’ve been feeling since last night.
I make two cups of coffee, dumping too much sugar and milk into hers. Grab a Pop-Tart and go back to the living room. I put her coffee in front of her, and curl on the other edge of the couch. Tear open the