Everly After (9 page)

“I’m returning your quilt.” I point to it as if to prove I’m not lying, but I am. “But I’m leaving,” I add on a rushed breath. I start down the stairs, looking past him into the alley so I can walk away with my head held high.

“You weren’t going to knock?”

I stop two stairs above him, my hand gripping the railing to hide my surprise. Before I say something stupid, I jump down the remaining stairs, shove the quilt hard into his chest, and walk away. He doesn’t want me around, and I shouldn’t want to be here with him. He can have his stupid quilt back, and I don’t need to see him. I’m pretty sure Nadine fired me after I decided not to show up for almost two weeks. I should go back to my apartment, figure out where I’m going next, and leave with the little I have saved up before it’s too late. Before Hudson drags me back down with him.

He was a mistake. And I’m exhausted from mistakes.

“You want to get some coffee then?” Beckett asks.

I can’t get five steps without him drawing me back. I whirl around, my eyes narrowed hard on his impassive face.

“Good.” He starts up the stairs and stops halfway. “Are you coming?”

I don’t remember agreeing. I only see the bright blue of his eyes over his shoulder. I blink, feeling as if I know nothing about life right now. I came to return his quilt, and even if that’s a lie, I’m not here to follow him inside. I’m not here to have coffee with him and stare at his lips and wish he’d kissed me, regret that I didn’t kiss him.

“I have to change,” he says.

I notice he has dress shoes on. I want to ask where he was, but it’s not really my business, so I follow instead. Sometimes it’s easier to be quiet and let things happen.

He shuts the door behind us and stays close. “Your face looks better.”

I nod and lick my lips. It can look better without me feeling better. It’s not a complete lie.

“Good.”

Beckett always seems so solid, but this afternoon he seems like only half of himself. As though he’s both here with me and somewhere else entirely. I can see it in his eyes. They’re unfocused and distracted. I reach my hand up to smooth back his hair and pause. I have no business touching him, pretending I know the first thing about bringing comfort to someone. He catches my hesitance and swallows, nervously unbuttoning the top button of his shirt. Then, before I can make this awkward moment between us right, he steps away and rushes into his bedroom.

The door slams shut, and I wince. He was the one who invited me inside, and now he runs away. Maybe I should leave.

I notice the cameras on the table—some old, others new. It looks as though he’s been taking them apart. My fingers dance over the parts, until suddenly I can’t fight the urge to pick one up. I flick the top button, and it chimes and turns on.

I look through the viewfinder, searching for something to take a picture of, when I hear his door open. I whirl around and snap a picture. I laugh at his surprise, his eyebrows quirked.

“Got you.” I lower the camera and rest back against the table. I cross my ankles, smiling as he pulls himself back together.

“Yeah,” Beckett says finally. He ruffles his hand through his hair, pushes out of the doorway, and heads straight for me. But he doesn’t stop in front of me like I expect. He crowds me against the table until I smell his cologne and feel the heat of him wrap around me. His eyes dart to mine and then away as he pries the camera out of my hand. He does something with the settings so the picture I took is displayed on the back.

His brows knit together as he stares down at it. I think he misses what I see, so I stop his hand from hitting delete. “Don’t get rid of it.”

“Why?” His breath is warm against my face, and I lean a little closer because I’m a masochist apparently. I want to be near him without touching. I want to be with him without having to deal with the mess hookups bring. I want to stand here, staring at him, because he’s beautiful to look at. And I really, really want to kiss him.

I don’t want to get rid of you yet.

I twist out from around him and amble into the small living room.

Beckett

I had to sit on that quack’s couch again and tell him shit, and he won’t be satisfied with evasive answers. I know because I had to do the same when I was younger after my mother’s death. I’m smart enough not to drag it out longer than necessary, so I tell him what he needs to hear so I can return to work. That’s all I want right now.

That, and to hear her voice.

I needed a beer like I need air when I reached my place. Then I see her standing there, her back to me, pausing with her hand poised over my door. I wait for her to knock. At least I know that if she knocks, she wants to see me again as much as I want to see her. I’ve avoided the café, but Nadine said Everly never came in, anyway.

And now she’s here and I don’t know what to do.

“Coffee?” I ask again.

She’s going through my aunt’s record collection, pulling out LPs and then dropping them back into the stack. I never would’ve pegged her for an Otis Redding fan, so I’m curious what she’s going to play next. Finally she looks up, hugging one to her chest before dropping it on the player.

I’m expecting to hear something old. They were my aunt’s when she lived here and managed the café. The collection is hardly up to date. It’s mostly artists that are better left to old movies or forgotten. I should look into selling them now that she won’t be back.

Instead
The Color and the Shape
comes on, and it shakes up my nerves more. I haven’t listened to that record since I worked at the café during my summers off from boarding school.

Everly sways slightly, her lips moving to
Everlong’s
lyrics without singing. Then she slowly sinks onto her knees, down onto her back, the light from the windows washing over her. I can’t breathe. I can’t fucking breathe because I’ve never seen anything so beautiful.

I step closer, the camera still clutched in my hand. I kneel down and take a picture of her, expecting her to jump up and run out of my flat, but she stays, smiling as she rolls her head over the worn carpet to look at me.

“Now we’re even,” she says.

I move closer and zoom in to take a picture of her lips. They’re pale pink in the sun. She doesn’t have any makeup on. I like her better this way than with smudged raccoon eyes and hot pink lips. I take a picture of the valley where her neck meets her shoulder and the small freckle there. Then I take another of her hands above her head, her palms turned out to the dust motes floating around her. She’s lost to the music, opening up to me. I know it’s fleeting, so I rush to take in the small details because I’m afraid I’ll miss everything if she shuts me out.

“Play it again,” she whispers when the song ends.

I push to my feet and drop the needle, but she’s holding the camera when I turn around. She crawls backward until she hits the couch. I hear it focus. I wonder what she’s taking pictures of because I’m not much to look at.

She points down to the floor, and I obey because I can’t say no to this girl. I’ve tried, and I fucking suck at it. It’s easier if I stop. If I stop lying to myself that I don’t like her, that I don’t want to kiss her, that I don’t want to lose myself inside her until the night turns to day and I forget why I’m stuck here in Paris.

I want to forget everything except for her.

I kneel first, my hands on my knees. She snaps a picture, then waves her hand for me to lie down, so I do. I don’t know if she’s ever had a camera in her hands before, but it doesn’t stop her from crawling over me to snap another. At this point, I couldn’t care less. She’s straddling me, wavy hair framing her face, the sun shining through until it glows gold.

“What are you doing?” I can’t hold back my smile. She does this—mixes me up and confuses me. Her fingers rest over my mouth at my question, and she studies me, then snaps another photo.

The song is playing, but it sounds worlds away. I’m with Everly, and it all disappears and it’s fucking heaven and terrifying all the same. My heart speeds up like I’m riding shotgun with a convoy through Tangi Valley. Adrenaline rushes through my veins, and I realize she’s just as dangerous as a war zone.

“This one,” she says to herself. She checks the display, then lowers the camera. “It’s perfect.”

“What are you doing?” I ask again. When she doesn’t answer, I grab the camera out of her hands and take a picture of the way she’s looking down at me. Then the remaining bruise by her temple, the dark freckle in her left eye. The pieces of Everly I’m not sure I’ll see again. She’s the green flash of a sunset. Real but fleeting. A rare phenomenon. A bright burst of light before dark settles in.

Her eyes are soft. There’s a gentle curve that hugs around her lips with the promise of a smile. I was wrong about her. She’s not reckless. She’s entirely trusting, and that’s why Everly is such a mess.

“Everly,” I say again, but it’s barely a breath.

“Coffee.” She says it as if she’s lost herself, too, and needs to find her place back in reality. She stands and walks over to the record player, staring at the spinning record with her hands on her tiny waist. After a few minutes, she takes the needle off and the room falls into silence.

She spins around as I stand. “Take me someplace new.”

“Whatever you want, pet.”

Everly

We perfect the art of the side glance for most of the subway ride. Beckett hasn’t told me where we’re going, but I trust him. I mean, I must trust him if I let him take those pictures. The last time didn’t work out so great for me. I guess it depends who’s behind the camera—maybe more about who to trust, too.

I settle back against my seat and knock my knee against his, not-so accidently, as the Metro hurtles through the tunnel. Now that I know what it feels like to have his body pressed against mine, I’m not okay with letting that thrill die away because we’re going out for coffee.

His leg bounces up and down, his hands fidgeting. I wish I didn’t make him so nervous. I lean over and rest my head on his shoulder. He tenses up, but I slip my hand around his arm and nestle close. I’m spending the day with him, and I don’t want to let him go. Not yet, anyway.

I can’t think of another reason why I kept that stupid quilt so long, why I slept with it every night. Or why my chest tightened when I saw him standing at the bottom of the stairs earlier. Seeing him then, after missing him and thinking things were over between us before they’d even begun— it felt like when you aced a paper you thought you failed.

“I think my favorite word is
boulangerie
.”

Shut up and look pretty, Everly.

He looks down at me, his eyebrows drawn in confusion. He must think I’m crazy. I’ve given him plenty of reason to believe so.

“Say it,” I urge.

His lips form the word, and the sounds that follow make me melt against him. I can’t help it. The stale tunnel air from the opened subway car window is as warm as my cheeks feel right now.

Beckett elbows me when I refuse to look at him again. But his lips. I want to kiss them so badly. They’re sort of perfect. The type of lips that you could kiss once and forget everything else for. Those sort of lips.

I want them against mine. Him against me. Us, tangled up. His place or mine. I don’t care.

I meet his gaze and flash a quick smile, brushing away images Beckett without his shirt, his hands on my body, his lips at my neck.

I never do this. I mean, never. This isn’t my style—to crush and fall for a guy. Not anymore. I don’t care about guys or feelings or kisses or sex. I don’t care. It was never something to care about it. It happened and I went after it when I wanted it, but I don’t care. I never get caught up in fucking messy complications like this. With a guy who cares about me.

At least, I think he does.

I hate him for that, too. Who gave Beckett permission to be nice, to think it’s his job to look after me? I never had someone who wanted to be nice to me and do nice things for me. I don’t deserve it, and I don’t know what to do with his kindness. It makes me a little desperate for Hudson truthfully. I understand the way he and I work. But me and Beckett?

No idea.

“Everly?” Beckett tugs on my dress, and I realize I’m standing, holding a staring match with the old subway map and the obscene French scrawling over its faded paper. His hands are cages next to my waist, ready to steady me if I stumble over from the swaying car. “Okay?”

I tuck my hair back behind my ear and adjust my sunglasses. At least he can’t see my eyes. It makes the lie a little easier. “Fine.”

“We’re getting off at the next stop.”

He stands up, but I don’t back away. His arm reaches for the bar above, and his tattoo peeks out from beneath his T-shirt. I try to crane my neck without being too obvious, but my forehead knocks into his chest and the two of us chuckle.

“You can ask, you know.”

My hand presses against his chest. I’m a terrible friend. Friends don’t feel friends up. They don’t flirt with each other. They don’t spend entire conversations staring at each other’s lips, praying words will turn into kisses.