I pull back to look at him. “You’re crazy and I love your crazy, because I was thinking the same thing. Well, about me.”
“If we weren’t addicted we might never have met.”
“So maybe there’s a purpose to everything, even the shitty stuff in life,” I say. “Even Miranda.” Then, in a low worried voice. “I haven’t heard from her in a while.”
“But you’re not supposed to, right? I mean, it’s over?”
“Yeah, it’s over. But the book will come out, and what if someone recognizes themselves in it?”
Because some days it’s hard to believe our debts are really paid off. Are scores ever truly settled? Can we ever stop looking over our shoulders? I wonder if I’ll always sleep with one eye open, always watch my back to see who’s going to try to trip me up next. God knows, there are so many more people who could surface, who could emerge like a mirage in the desert made real, and demand something from me. More blood, more words, more ink.
“Then we’ll deal with it then. Together. Trust me, there is nothing, not a thing on this fucking planet, that we cannot get through. I promise you,” he says, and he taps my arrow. “Staying.”
“Staying,” I repeat.
The arrow is staying.
Now I know. Now I get it. I understand. This is love. It’s not a game. It’s not a razor’s edge. It’s not a transaction.
The poets are right. The dreamers are right. The lovers are right. This isn’t nothing. This is everything.
* * *
Four weeks later…
Joanne knits another row on a hot pink pair of socks as she begins the meeting. We go round and do the introductions at the girls-only meeting. Chloe, Ainsley, a new gal named Katrina.
They say their hellos and we say hi back. Then it’s my turn.
“I’m Harley, and I’m a sex and love addict,” I say and Joanne beams at me. It’s been a few weeks now since I started using my real name here. It still feels weird and clunky after having the mask of Layla for so many months.
“Hi Harley,” the other gals say to me.
Then we talk and we share, and look, I’m not going to say I am sunshine and unicorns and the girl who overshares. I am still mostly a closed book, and I don’t know that healing means being open about everything.
Sometimes, I just practice the words in my head. I like the way they sound as I rewrite my story.
I’m Harley, I’m a sex and love addict. I’m in recovery. I was a virgin, I was a call girl, I was my mother’s daughter. Now I am a friend, I am a girlfriend, I am trying. I am twenty, and I don’t care how many guys I’ve kissed. There is only one guy I am kissing and will kiss. Now and always.
And that has to count for something.
When the meeting ends, I chat with Joanne for a few minutes, then say goodbye, because it’s my birthday and I’m having cake and watching a movie with Trey, Kristen and Jordan.
I rush up the steps and out onto the street, heading to my apartment. For a brief moment, my stomach cramps as if I’ve run too far and I have a stitch in my side. It reminds me of field hockey practice when we’d do laps.
But the feeling fades quickly, and I’m grateful for its exit because it’s time for cake when I unlock the door to my apartment.
Kristen’s in the kitchen lining up twenty pink and yellow birthday candles in a circle on the chocolate cake. “Can’t promise it’ll be any good. I’m not really known for my mad kitchen skills,” Kristen says with a shrug.
“I bet it’s fabulous,” I say and squeeze her arm.
Trey and Jordan join us in the kitchen as Kristen lights the candles and they all start singing. I don’t even pretend to act humble, or like it’s no big deal. It is a big deal. I’m celebrating my birthday the way I want – with my friends, and my boyfriend, with a cake that’s not made by my mom, and my life is finally starting to feel like my own. Moment by moment. Like I belong to myself.
So I sing along, and the four us are loud as loud can be.
“Now make a wish,” Kristen says, gesturing to the candles.
Leaning close, I gather my breath, and blow the flames out at once. I wish for more moments like this.
“What did you wish for?” Trey asks as he reaches for my hand, laces his fingers through mine. I love that we hold hands, that we held hands as friends, and now as more.
“I can’t tell you, or it won’t come true.”
He sticks out his tongue at me as Kristen serves the cake on small plates for each of us.
“Mmm. Delicious,” Jordan declares after a bite.
Kristen rolls her eyes. “You’re just saying that to score points.”
“No. This really is good cake,” Trey says after he takes a forkful.
“Now you’re just backing up your buddy,” she says.
“Kristen, you are going to have to accept that you actually made a delicious cake in a tiny New York kitchen,” I tell her after I finish another bite.
Soon, she and Jordan have moved to the living room to pick out a movie on the laptop, while Trey and I wash off the plates. As I rinse the final one, he loops his arms around my waist, rests his chin on my shoulder, and sneaks in a kiss on my neck.
“Mmm. Is that my birthday present?”
He tugs me against him, my back to his front. “I have many presents for you,” he says in a sexy, suggestive voice.
I shut off the faucet and turn around in his arms. “Being with you, like this, is all I want.”
“But I still want to give you more presents,” he says playfully.
I brush my lips against his. “I will gladly accept. But this is already the best birthday ever,” I say, because it is. Because I am living in the moment. In the present. Making the most of it. Taking every day one day at a time.
Then we kiss, one of those sweet, lingering kisses that makes you feel as if you’re floating.
“C’mon. Opening credits starting,” Kristen says, calling out to us.
We head to the living room, and start the movie, all curled up on the couch, like puppies in a litter, Kristen and Jordan tangled together, and Trey and I wrapped up in each other.
But after a half hour, my stomach starts to churn again.
“Excuse me,” I say and head to the bathroom. As soon as I shut the door, I feel the cake rising back up, so I cover my mouth with my hand, then quickly realize that won’t do the trick. I bend over the toilet and say goodbye to my birthday cake.
I cough a few times, flush the toilet, then wash my hands. I reach for my toothbrush, squirt on some toothpaste and brush my teeth to get rid of the yucky taste. I watch myself in the mirror, the repetitive motion lulling away the strange twists in my stomach.
Then it hits me.
Like a bigass wave you didn’t see coming. It slams me to the shore, and I drop my toothbrush into the sink. As it clatters, a speckle of toothpaste ricochets into my eye. It stings momentarily, and I rub it away quickly.
I kneel and open the cupboard below the sink, rummaging for something Kristen once needed several months ago.
My heart is speeding and smashing against the walls of my chest. No way, no way, no way.
But as I count backwards, I’m certain it’s been more than four weeks, and I don’t know how this could have happened. We were safe. Every time. But then, condoms can break. Is it my fault since I always put them on him? Did I slip and nick one with my fingernail? No. I’m just freaking out. I’m being ridiculous like Kristen was when she bought this test. Hers was negative, as I predicted it would be.
She flashed the stick before me, cheering up and down over one pink line.
I reach for the other stick, the one she didn’t need since hers was negative.
I read the instructions, and it’s not morning, it’s night. But hell if I care. I need to know. I need to settle my paranoid heart.
I sit down on the toilet, pee on the stick, and wait all those interminable minutes for an answer.
Trey told me nothing on the planet could come between us, but if anything could, this would be it, right? Nothing would scare him more than this. Nothing in the entire universe.
I close my eyes, lean my head against the wall and pray.
When I open my eyes and hold up the stick, I am seasick, my future is out of focus, and even though my world has gone blurry I can see clearly two pink lines.
I have no idea how the father of the baby is going to take this news.
To be continued….
Stay tuned for book 2 in the No Regrets series, EVERY SECOND WITH YOU, releasing in early 2014. And for more of Harley and Trey and the full story of the night they met, check out the prequel novella, THE START OF US, releasing in early December 2013.
Check out my other contemporary romance novels!
Caught Up In Us, a New York Times and USA Today Bestseller! (Kat and Bryan’s romance!)
Pretending He’s Mine, a Barnes & Noble and iBooks Bestseller! (Reeve & Sutton’s romance)
Trophy Husband, a New York Times and USA Today Bestseller! (Chris & McKenna’s romance)
Playing With Her Heart, a USA Today Bestseller! (Davis and Jill’s romance)
Far Too Tempting, an Amazon romance bestseller! (Matthew and Jane’s romance)
Acknowledgements
Nobody tells you that the acknowledgements is the most terrifying part of writing a novel. I am praying I don’t leave anyone out because I have so very many people to thank. But my first thank you as always, forever and ever, goes to my amazing readers. I have said it before, and I will never grow tired of saying it – I love you all. You are the reason I write. I love hearing from you, I love your notes, emails, tweets, posts, reviews and sweet comments. They fill my heart with so much happiness, and you make me want to write more. You are passionate and vocal and I adore you all. Thank you.