Ever After Drake (15 page)

“
Thanks,” I say with a
sniff. My nose always tries to run when I get emotional. I take the
clothes from him and head into the bathroom.

The light is dim, but the space is
clean and fairly organized. I lock the door behind me and observe
so much of Drake that surrounds me. His shampoo in the shower. His
razor and shaving cream on the shelf. His towel on the hook. A blue
toothbrush in its holder.

I brace my hands on the counter and
stare at myself in the mirror.

This night here will break me. I’ve
been going through life the past four weeks as a broken mirror,
with tape holding me together. I splinter and grate as I move, but
I’ve been moving. I’ve been learning how to be a person existing
like that.

Tonight may undo it all.

I pull the zipper and slip out of the
dress. The cold air hits my bare breasts and goosebumps flash over
my exposed skin. I kick off my heels and inspect what Drake gave me
to wear.

There’s a pair of
well-worn sweat pants and a
The
Frey
t-shirt.

I recall the second day we
met, when we listened to music in the library. We listened to that
song
Happiness
.
It said that “happiness damn near destroys you,” and ain’t that the
truth.

I pull on the shirt and it has to be
too big for Drake as well because I am swimming in it. It hangs
clear down to my knees and the sleeves go to my elbows.

I scrub at my teeth with my finger and
a bit of toothpaste. I use his bathroom and then walk back
out.

Drake looks at me. Some men’s eyes
might automatically drift down and sweep over my legs, or search
for certain places on a woman who isn’t wearing a bra. But Drake
just stares into my eyes and there are a billion unspoken words
that pass between us.

The moment passes slowly and
irrevocably. And the space between us renders me unbelievably
lonely.

The ping of rain on a metal roof
sounds loud and quick. A storm rolls in, the wind picking up and
whistling through the windows.

Like all the most painful moments do,
this one comes to an end when Drake walks past me and goes into the
bathroom. He locks the door and I faintly hear him
swear.

He turned down the bed, an invitation
to know I am welcome to sleep there. I climb on in, noisy springs
squeaking as I adjust positions to get comfortable.

The sheets smell like Drake and that
nearly undoes me. How I keep it together and don’t melt down to
that blubbery, numb mess I was just after we found out we could no
longer be together, I have no idea.

Three minutes later, the door to the
bathroom opens and Drake steps out and turns out the light. I watch
him as he crosses toward the door and flips the switch that turns
off every light in the apartment. A faint orange glow comes through
the window from the streetlights below.

While in the bathroom he changed into
a t-shirt and the sweatpants I decided to forgo. His shoulders are
stiff and tight as he walks back across the apartment toward the
couch. I hear him settle into it, tossing and turning to get
comfortable. And finally, he’s quiet.

“
Drake?” I say through the
dark.

“
Hm?” he
responds.

“
Thank you for giving me
somewhere to stay tonight,” I say.

“
Of course.”

We’re quiet on the outside, but oh so
loud in unspoken feelings. My breathing picks up and keeps catching
in my throat. Electricity starts waking in my veins, fireworks
begging to be lit.

I listen to the sound of the rain, the
howl of the wind. The storm raging outside matches the one going on
inside of me. Every fiber of my being knows I shouldn’t be here. My
presence here is only making things harder, more complicated. I
think of Diana and the baby and how in just about four weeks
they’re going to find out if they’re having a boy or a girl. It’s
pathetic, but I’ve been keeping track of roughly how far along she
is.

But being here ignites something in me
again. Knowing Drake is only inches away makes me feel warm for the
first time in so long, like my blood and heart haven’t really been
turned to the frigid tundra of Antarctica. I don’t feel quite so
dead anymore.

I can’t be here.

I shouldn’t be here.

Something bad will happen if I stay
here.

I scramble from the bed, nearly
tripping as I do. I grab my things I set on the nightstand and
start for the door as my eyes well and I feel as if I am going to
suffocate.

“
Hey,” Drake says and I
hear him get up from the bed. “Where are you going?”

“
I shouldn’t be here,” I
say as I stub my toe on something, trying to make my way through
the extremely dim light. The crack of thunder sounds outside. A
single tear makes its way past my lashes onto my cheek.

“
Wait, stop,” he says as I
finally make it to the door. He crosses the space without trouble
and grabs my wrist. “Where are you going to go?”

“
I don’t know,” I say as I
shake my head. My hand grips the doorknob with everything I’ve got.
“But I don’t belong here.”

Drake tugs on my wrist gently, pulling
me away from the door. His other hand rests lightly on my hip. The
distance between us closes and I feel my chilled form warm with the
heat coming off of him.

“
You always belonged
here,” he says quietly. His hand lets go of my wrist and comes up
to my cheek. His breath brushes across my face, warm and sweet. My
eyes slide closed and my heart betrays me by breaking into a
soaring sprint.

“
You always belonged
here,” he breathes again as a bolt of lightning flashes across the
night sky outside. His words brush across my lips, he’s so close.
The hand on my hip slides around to my back and he pulls me closer.
My breath hitches slightly when my stomach touches his.

Drake brushes a thumb over my cheek,
his other fingers tangling in my hair. He touches his forehead to
mine and two more tears push out onto my face.

I feel him breathing, fast and
quick.

“
Drake,” I get out. My
voice is strangled and rough. “This hurts so much.”

“
I’d say you have no idea,
but I think you know exactly how damn much this hurts.” I barely
feel his lips moving against mine as he speaks. I’m sure I’ll melt
from the heat and intensity between us.

I nod slightly.

“
I wish there’d been no
one else before you, Kaylee Ray,” he says. I can’t fight it when my
arms wrap behind his neck. “You’re the only one I want for there to
ever have been.”

The knife in my heart gets a good
twist and the fire deep down in me gets gasoline poured onto
it.

“
I love you, Kaylee,” he
breathes into me.

I’m a horrible, horrible person.
Because I can’t fight it any longer.

I take his lips with vengeance. My
fingers knot in his hair. His hands come to my hips and he hoists
me up and my legs apart, pinning me to the wall as he presses into
me. He is hard and his want aggressive. My lips part and his tongue
invades my mouth. A panicked and relieved sigh erupts from my chest
and my center pushes into him quickly and franticly.

One of Drake’s hands holds me up at
the hip, the rest of me supported by his body. His other hand comes
to my cheek, sliding down to my neck, my collarbone, and on
downward.

I push us away from the wall, pulling
him with me to the couch. I shove with as much force as I can and
push him down on to it. I straddle him and let my lips take his
again.

There is something grand here.
Something heavy as the earth and as endless as the universe.
Something Ra and Zeus and all the other gods could never have
dreamed up. Drake and Kaylee were always meant to be the greatest
love story ever told. This was meant to shame all other loves
before us.

“
I love you,” I breathe
against his lips. He shifts his focus, sliding down to my neck and
igniting a whole new kind of wonder in my body. “I love you,
Drake.”

Tears slide down my cheeks. Tears of
loss, tears of hope, tears of love, and tears of
uncertainty.

“
I never want to let you
go,” he pants into my skin.

But we both know, that come morning,
when the sun comes up, this storm stops, and reality sinks in
again, that he’s going to have to.

CHAPTER
FIFTEEN

Drake and I have one blissful night
together. We lie wrapped around each other in his bed, legs tangled
tight, my face buried in his neck, his cheek on the top of my head.
Our arms grip each other so hard surely there will be
bruises.

We don’t have sex, no matter how bad
we know each other wants to. Sex is what got us into this ripped
apart mess. There will be no more mistakes, other than the fact
that I am here when I know perfectly well that I am not supposed to
be.

I wake in the morning to the scent of
Drake. He smells like sunshine and fun summer nights. He smells
like home and love. I don’t open my eyes for a long time. I just
lie there, pretending this is the real world. This is the way
things are and always will be.

I hear Drake’s heartbeat, slow and
steady. His chest rises and falls, my head going up and down on it.
He’s dead asleep, most of his body perfectly relaxed. But his arms
hold tight around me, promising to hold me forever.

It’s pure instinct when there’s a
noise from the next apartment down, and my eyes open. And the
reality of what we did last night slaps me across the face. There,
on his nightstand, propped up against a book, is an ultrasound
picture.

Ever, ever so careful, I slip out of
Drake’s arms, somehow not waking him. The morning has dawned a dull
grey, left over from the storm that raged all night. Drake’s
apartment is dimly light and feels cold.

I grab my dress from the floor where I
dropped it by the door and the jacket Drake lent me and go for the
bathroom.

I’m a panicked mess. I’m too scared to
even pee, fearing the sound of the toilet flushing will wake
Drake.

I just want to slip out and not have
to face what we did.

I change back into my dress silently.
I fold his shirt and set it on the counter. I slip back into his
jacket because I know it’s going to be freezing outside and it’s
going to be a long walk, even the few blocks it is to my apartment.
And I still probably won’t be able to get inside. But my car is
there.

The door to the bathroom squeaks just
a little when I slowly open it. I peek around the corner and look
at Drake, still sleeping.

He looks concerned, sad, even in his
sleep. There’s a little line between his eyebrows. His lips are
turned down slightly.

I hate seeing him like this. It’s not
fair that even in sleep he can’t escape the pain of
reality.

Something stings at the back of my
eyes. Something cracks and folds. That tape I’ve been using to hold
myself together the last month is getting tired and it’s
sagging.

I turn, and head for the door. And I’m
only two steps away from it when one of the wood floorboards gives
a terrible creek.

I look back over my shoulder at the
same time Drake jerks awake.

We’ve both got the same expression on
our faces. Surprised and caught. It’s his normal Drake face. But
it’s the first time I’ve ever worn it.

“
Are you leaving?” he
asks, his voice slightly accusatory.

“
I should go,” I say, my
voice nearly a whisper. My heart has jumped up into my throat. “We,
uh…it’s morning and…”

“
You were just going to
leave without saying anything?” His voice is hurt sounding, edged
with anger.

“
What am I supposed to
say, Drake?” I hiss, feeling the temperature of my blood rise.
“What is there to be said after a night like that?”

“
I don’t know,” he says as
he climbs out of the bed and takes a few steps toward me. He
crosses his arms over his chest. “But pretty much anything would be
better than just walking out without a word.”

“
Drake, I don’t know what
you want me to say,” I argue. I wrap my arms around myself, an
emotional defensive move. “Last night was amazing but it was so, so
wrong and you know it. And it just—”

“
Nothing about last night
was wrong,” he defends, his jaw clenching. “You know it, and I know
it. That…that was the way things are supposed to be.”

“
But they aren’t!” I yell.
My hand not clutching my shoes jumps to my hair to fist in it.
“They aren’t Drake, and there’s no use pretending like you didn’t
knock some other woman up and that you don’t have an obligation to
her and that I don’t deserve to be anywhere near that picture. I
mean, what the hell were you thinking, coming to my apartment last
night?”

The Drake look is suddenly back on his
face. He stands there silent and with his mouth hanging slightly
open. His hands shift down to rest on his hips.