All of Me (21 page)

He dropped his hands to her thighs and stroked. She kissed every inch of skin, touched him with all the emotion trapped inside. And when she took him inside her, they both gasped.

She kissed him softly, on his forehead, his cheeks, his mouth. “I wouldn’t change one minute of this day, Alec. Not one minute.”

He looked in her eyes and swallowed. “Neither would I.”

When they’d both been satisfied, he kissed her hair and tucked her against his side. In time, his breathing evened out, his chest rising and falling in sleep.

But her eyes didn’t close until near sunrise.

Because things had been going so well between him and Faith, Alec figured he’d fuck it all up and accept his mother’s dinner invitation. She’d wanted to have Lacey and Jake over before the wedding, and when she found out from Jake that Alec was seeing Faith, she’d jumped all over it until he relented. Faith being Faith, she was thrilled by the idea and surprised to be included. He hoped that happy little bubble of hers wasn’t popped by his father’s lack of tact.

Things had . . . evolved since the night of her birthday a few weeks ago. They’d slipped into a comfortable routine. Domestic, even. She worked with Ginny during the day, and he dragged himself out of bed before noon to work on the manuscript. They had dinner at his place, walked the surf, and slept at her house. Sometimes, she cooked. Other times, he’d grill something. On the weekends, they hung out with Cole and Mia, and Lacey and Jake, either on the back deck or on the beach. Drinks. Good conversation.

He and Faith made love nightly. Talked endlessly. He
couldn’t wait for her to get off work to tell her what he’d written that day, and he enjoyed when she’d relay some cute thing she and Ginny had done together.

Christ. They’d turned into a sappy movie of the week. And he liked it.

He didn’t know how he was going to leave town in one piece. He was starting to realize it wasn’t just the wide-open expanse of Wilmington, of home, that finally gave him peace—it was her. Here, and with Faith, he could breathe. There was fresh air and sun. New York had been his own form of torture. The city had beauty and qualities he loved, but the air was recycled, the buildings a trap. There was no room, no one who gave a damn about him. He hadn’t known he’d been holding his breath for almost ten years. No wonder his writing had stalled.

He glanced at Faith in the passenger seat next to him, her brown waves caught in the wind as his convertible hugged the highway. She had her face tilted toward the sun and a smile wide enough to encompass the state.

Turning back to the road, he gripped the wheel with more force than necessary. He didn’t know if he could write without her. The book had been turned in to his editor, and Cole had agreed to represent him as his agent, so things were back on track.

Except, what happened if he returned to his apartment and the words were gone? She wouldn’t be there every night to work out the plot. No muse. No fix.

Hell. That was only half the problem. The rest was Faith herself. Ten years and no woman had made him question the guilt, the decision to live with what he’d done. Ten minutes and Faith had him wanting to move past it as if none of it mattered, as if it hadn’t happened.

It did matter. It had happened. Laura’s life was gone. And all because he couldn’t take care of what was his, couldn’t love what was in front of him enough.

“It’s a pretty house.”

Faith’s voice snapped him out of his head. He looked at his parents’ cozy ranch and wondered how they’d gotten there. Jake’s car was in the driveway in front of his and the smell of barbeque wafted in the humid air.

His gut turned to ice. “No matter what crazy-ass thing my father says, just remember you like me and I’m good in bed.”

She laughed, the sound filling the holes in his chest. “Come on.”

The next hour went by in a blur. Faith fit right in with his family as if born into it. She helped his mom make a pasta salad, set the picnic table with Lacey and Jake, quipped with his dad about baseball. It was all so ordinary. So normal. Even Dad was unusually well behaved. Not a stupid, tactless thing spilled from his lips.

By the time the food was gone and the sun was setting, his parents had tortured Lacey and Faith with countless stories of their youth. All he could think was, did Faith’s parents have any stories like these? Had they looked at her, noticed her enough to see the true gem?

His dad got up to head inside and grab another beer from the fridge.

Alec leaned back in his lawn chair and stretched his legs out. At least his knee had stopped bouncing. He hadn’t realized how nervous he was bringing Faith here until the muscles in his shoulders unknotted. Taking each other to meet the parents was something serious couples did. And they were serious. That much was certain. Except serious didn’t equal permanent.

“I’m going to run to the ladies’ room real quick.” Faith patted his hand.

He nodded. Watched her go.

“I really like her.”

He turned his head to look at his mom. “I’m not surprised.”

“She’s so sweet,” Lacey said. “It’s hard not to like her. She’s got a big heart. You should see her with Ginny.”

Jake smiled nauseatingly at Lacey. “Ginny’s got a thing for Alec, too. Eats up everything he says.”

Alec took a sip of beer. “It’s the writer thing. She’s into spooky stories right now.”

“Are you getting serious with Faith?” His mom’s pleading eyes met his. “You haven’t brought anyone home since . . .”

“Laura. Since Laura, you mean. You can say her name. I won’t go up in flames.” Alec drew in a breath. Released it. His mom wasn’t to blame. “And Faith and I can’t be anything more than this. I’m going back to the city after the wedding.”

“Oh. I figured, you know, since . . .” Mom shook her head. “Never mind.”

Jake leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. Anger seethed in his eyes. “Nice, man.”

He shrugged. Let his brother stew. No way would he lie to Mom. That kind of hurt was worse than the pity in her eyes.

Christ. He wanted out of here. This too-cozy little shindig was grinding his very raw nerves to dust, only reminding him of what couldn’t be.

He dug his toes in the grass. In the silence that hung, it dawned on him how long Faith and his father had been gone. Alone in the house. With God knows the kinds of things his father would say . . .

“I’ll be right back.”

He tossed his bottle in the trash and walked through the kitchen to the living room, where their voices rose over the sounds of the Braves game. Worry pinched his gut until Faith laughed. He stopped in the doorway, unseen as of yet.

“What book are you on now?”

“Just finished the last one. Nightmares, I tell you. This is why I stick to baseball memoirs or true crime.” Dad barked out a laugh. “But, hey, my son wrote it.”

The air left his lungs in one fell swoop. The edges of his vision grayed. He pressed a palm to the wall to stay upright.

His dad had read his books? His dad, who joked every chance he got that his son got paid to daydream?

“You must be so proud of them both. Jake’s done an amazing job with Lacey’s property. It’s magical. The wedding will be lovely.”

Dad nodded. “Jake was the easy one. Always getting dirty, digging a hole. Typical boy mischief. He shares my eye for landscaping. Alec was always off in his own head. Couldn’t hear a thing you said or follow a rule to save his life.”

Faith grinned. “I hear the creative types are hard to raise. But you know, he probably got that from you. Gardening is an art, too, just a different form.”

Dad laughed. “Miss Armstrong, are you saying I gave myself this headache?”

“Afraid so.”

Alec had heard enough. He turned and strode through the kitchen, pushed through the back door with shaking hands. He glared at his parents’ postage-stamp yard. The trim grass, strategically placed flowers in varying heights and colors, the mature birches. But the pounding in his head wouldn’t abate.

Jake stood. “Alec?”

He looked at his mom. “He read my books?”

Mom pressed a hand to her chest, her eyes panicked and wary at his tone. “I—”

“Twenty-five bestsellers and all I ever got was laughed at. Don’t you think you could’ve told me? Given me some measure of peace that I wasn’t a total joke to him?”

Faith and his father stepped around the house, coming into the yard from the front.

“What’s this about, son?”

The pounding in his skull amplified, until he couldn’t see through the haze. He never doubted his father’s love. His respect, maybe, but never his love. But over time, the thoughtless things his dad said, over and over, had grated at his patience until fury boiled. “It’s about you telling my girlfriend how goddamn proud you are, when all you’ve ever done is make fun of me.”

Jake stepped forward, his hand extended. “Alec, calm down.”

Calm down.
Calm down?

“What the hell for?” He rounded on Jake. “That’s what I do, right? Get irrational and go off the deep end? Except I’m not the one who went off the deep end that night. Laura did.” A sharp jab pierced his chest. His voice rose, until the shouting in his head matched his tone. “Maybe I should’ve tried to stop her, but I didn’t. How could I have known what would happen? Huh?
She
got in that car drunk and
she
crashed it.
Her
, not me. And I’m the one paying for it. I’m the one living with it.
It wasn’t my fault!
”

His voice raked, until it was like roaring through broken glass. A pulsing, violent vibration ripped through him. Perhaps he was losing his tact gene, too. Like father, like son.

And then he realized what he said.

He froze. Stumbled back into the screen door. Agony clawed his chest. His breath heaved in and out. His hands fisted. Shook. His insides felt torn to shreds.

Who knew? He was alive after all.

“It wasn’t my fault,” he said again, a whisper for his ears only, as if trying the words on for size.

“That’s right, Alec. It wasn’t.”

Her mermaid voice washed over him, filled him with a measure of warmth. The sweet scent of her soft skin teased his nose. He looked up into amber eyes. Kind, understanding eyes. Too kind for him.

The images of Laura drifted away. Her broken body. A shell hooked up to tubes and wires. The antiseptic smell he’d always associate with her. With that night.

“I have to get out of here.”

Faith reached out for him, but he brushed her off. He couldn’t have her touch him right now, couldn’t stand it. He’d fucking shatter.

The others stood in the yard, jaws slack and eyes round. Frozen. No one moved. No one spoke.

He shoved off the door and strode away on legs that barely held him upright.

*   *   *

Jake walked up to the base of the deck stairs and rammed his hands in his pockets.

Alec blinked and turned his attention back to the ocean. Stars littered the sky. The water was a black ribbon in the distance, the waves rhythmic against the shore. Only the slight breeze made the humidity bearable after a brief thundershower had swept through an hour before. He’d sat through the downpour and was still soaked through.

“I drove Faith home, in case you were wondering.”

Alec closed his eyes and sighed. Shit. “Thank you.” He didn’t recognize the sound of his own voice. His throat was still raw from screaming. “Is she upset?”

Jake turned and sat next to him on the step. “She took it in stride. You should go check on her yourself.”

He planned to, but he needed to get his head on straight first. Running to her every time he had a problem had to stop. In a couple of weeks, they’d be over. He couldn’t keep depending on her.

“You scared the shit out of me,” Jake said. “And Mom. Dad went into the house and never came back out.”

Alec had scared the shit out of himself, too. “I’m sorry.”

“Me, too. I think I pushed you too hard.”

“You didn’t. It’s just . . .” He ran his hand through his hair. “I can’t do the right thing for both of them, Jake. I can’t leave Laura in the state she’s in, and I can’t give Faith the hope that I will.” Most of all, he couldn’t forgive himself and move forward. His knee bounced, the nervous energy starting anew. “Let’s take a walk.”

Instead of turning left, Alec veered them right, away from the houses and to the abandoned area on the other strip of the shore. There was a half mile between the Covingtons’ private beach and the foreclosed house he’d driven by earlier
in the summer. The sand was dotted with broken shells and seaweed. Eventually, the dunes gave way to rocky bluffs, a dark wall lit by the half-moon.

Alec stopped at the rotted, broken steps of the empty house. Two stories up, the mini-mansion stood dark. He could write a book about the look of the place alone.

“You could buy it.”

He looked at Jake. “I could ride a purple unicorn over the ocean, too.”

Jake crossed his arms. “You have the money. You could hire a team of carpenters to fix the place. Or level it to the ground and start over. The point is, you could.”

Alec rubbed the back of his neck. He’d never tear the house down. It had character, and in this day and age of cookie cutters, that said something. The roof had an A frame–like slant, the exterior a log cabin feel. There was an upper and lower deck for each story, and the entire eastern face was windows. He remembered from when his dad did the landscaping that it had four bedrooms and two baths. The living room was a wide-open floor plan with ceiling beams and a redbrick fireplace. There was a small office of sorts, off the den. The kitchen had needed help, even back then, but it was roomy. Let in a lot of light.

What the hell did it matter? This was just Jake, getting ideas in his head again.

He did an about-face and started walking back the way they came. A topic shift was in order or his brother would be relentless. “Your wedding is two weeks away. Are you getting nervous?”

“Not even a little bit.”

Alec studied his brother as they walked. “You really love her. Good. I’m glad for you.”

Jake sighed and tilted his head toward the stars. “The first time I saw her, after all those years, she stole the wind right out of me. She was just as pretty as she was back then, but she’d finally grown into her smile.” He glanced down at his
feet. “I didn’t think she’d give me the time of day. But she and Cole were always nice to us, nothing like their mother. Dean too, rest his soul.”

They stopped by the stairs of his guesthouse.

Jake glanced at the house, down the beach. “Who’d have thought it, big brother? That one day we’d be a part of their world. Now you’re as rich as them.”

Alec wanted to say that the money didn’t matter, but Jake knew that. It was about finding his particular brand of happy. And Jake had. “Will Lacey be upset if I steal you away for a bachelor party this Friday?”