Chapter Thirty One
Monday night
After Milo and Emily ate dinner at her apartment, he carried the dishes to the sink.
She was watching his every move: the way his muscles tensed and flexed, the way his mouth curved into smiles, the way his eyes would skim over her body and make her feel like a live wire.
He leaned against the counter, crossed his arms over his chest and just studied her.
She was dying for him to touch her, just dying for it. Aching for him.
Milo said, "Do you know what you mean to me?"
She let out a shaky breath.
He added, "I've been in love before, Emily, and I know you have, too. But I have never been here before. There is not a moment of the day when you leave my mind, when I don't care about how you are doing or if you are happy and safe. There is not a day in the future when I don't want to be with you. And before I touch you tonight I want you to be sure where my heart is, Em. It's with you. I'm giving it to you and I hope... I hope... you don't ever decide to give it back."
Slowly she crossed the room to him. Her hands cupped his face. "Milo...oh...you..."
This time words failed her.
"It's okay, baby," he whispered "Just know that I love you."
"I need you to kiss me now, Milo."
With a tenderness that she had never known before he started to kiss her, and didn't stop for hours.
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Over the next week
PETE started sending things to Elizabeth in the mail. He never signed a card or put a return address on the packages. But she knew they were from him.
She asked him about them and he said, "Well, someone must love you Elizabeth."
That sentence alone sent all sort of crazy shivers through her.
The first thing he sent was a Chia Pet. Liz laughed for five minutes straight. Now she was growing a plant in the shape of a head. Cameron called it Chucky, named to honor his favorite character on Rugrats.
Next Pete sent a leather bound copy of Great Expectations, with a dried yellow rose pressed between the pages.
After that she got a key chain with Clay Aiken's face on it. Every time she looked at it she remembered the Charity Ball and how she had gotten her life all tangled up, in the best way, with Pete's.
Each day there was something else waiting on her doorstep when she got home.
The best thing he sent her, the thing Liz treasured most and kept with her always now, was a letter. The words in it were so unlike his everyday speech. It was almost poetic and made her long to read his novel even more.
My dearest Elizabeth,
How did we get to this place in our lives? How did you become you and I become I?
If we looked back at all our mistakes and triumphs, if we could walk our twisted paths backwards block by block, turn by turn, would we find a single moment where either of us imagined being these people we are today?
How did it become that my whole world boils down to the expression on the face of a beautiful brown eyed woman who is, still and thankfully, not overly impressed by me?
When you are happy, I am. When you are not, I can not be either.
I don't know how it came to be. But it is.
And I like it.
Yours.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Lucky went back to open mic night the next Friday. He sang the Counting Crows song Round here. He was thinking of himself and of a mouthy woman that was drop dead gorgeous but seemed to hate herself. He sang, his voice low in his throat,
"Round here
we're carving out our names
Round here
we all look the same
Round here we talk just like lions
But we sacrifice like lambs
Round here she's slipping through my hands
Sleeping children better run like the wind
out of the lightning dream
Mama's little baby better get herself in
out of the lightning
She says 'It's only in my head'
She says 'Shhh I know it's only in my head'
But the girl in car in the parking lot
says 'Man you should try to take a shot
can't you see my walls are crumbling?'
Then she looks up at the building
and says she's thinking of jumping
She says she's tired of life
she must be tired of something
Round here
she's always on my mind
Round here
hey man we got lots of time
Round here
we're never sent to bed early
And nobody makes us wait
Round here we stay up very, very, very, very late..."
Melana was at the bar. Though she hadn't seen Lucky in a week, he didn't call and she began to wonder what made her think he might, she couldn't stay away.
Maybe he would talk to her, she figured. Or maybe he would be the next guy who just didn't care.
Melana had nothing better to do on her Friday night than come here and see if this cop wanted to get into some trouble with her. And if not, The Outback at least had good whiskey that would make her forget for a little while the fact that she spent every long lonely night alone.
She was slugging back her drink when Lucky walked over and said "That is not the way you drink Jack."
"That's the only way to drink Jack," she told him with a grin. "Sounded good tonight, Officer Spencer."
"We've spent the night together. Don't you think you should call me Lucky?"
"Okay, Lucky... buy me a drink." It was an order, not a question. When she was drunk, her sad eyes became combative.
"You really want to get all wasted and out of it again tonight?" he asked her
"Yes tonight and every night that I feel like this."
"Not tonight."
"You got a better offer?" Melana asked
Lucky knew this woman could be a heartbreaker. She looked like one, for sure. But that was okay with him.
His heart couldn't break anymore than it already was.
"Let's get out of here," he said
Melana gave him a smile that was all grace, like her shell fell away in that second. And Lucky knew he was about to get in very deep.
But there was no one waiting at home for him- not anymore- and there was nothing to stop him. He wanted to feel better, needed to feel better, needed someone to say "I want you."
And later that night that is exactly what Melana whispered in his ear as he moved against her, and she gasped, Lucky smiled and they both felt...better.
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Kelly and Nikolas were enjoying getting to know each other better. Much better.
They took every chance they got to sneak away and make love in empty rooms at the hospital, in the backseat of his Jag, at a bed and breakfast and one night in the room above Jake's.
She couldn't have been more happy... and more scared that it just couldn't last.
"Daydreaming again, doctor?" Cruz asked Kelly
She turned around on the roof of the hospital. They met here often lately. She would use her coffee breaks to think of Nikolas. He was always here, whenever he was off work, supporting Robin.
"You caught me," Kelly said softly.
Cruz smiled and they started to chat with each other, in that easy way that was becoming so familiar for both of them.
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He wondered what had happened to him. Every single part of him hurt. His eyes slowly drifted open.
"Hey." his word was scratchy.
"Hey." hers was beautiful, soft and happy and drug out to three syllables. "You're back."
"I guess I am."
Robin took Patrick's hand. She kissed it. He stared at her hair, as he head was bent, unable to look away for a second.
Finally, she straightened, with tears on her face and said "I knew you'd be back."
"Do I even want to know the damage?" he asked
Robin said, "Nothing that changes who you are. Nothing you can't beat."
He nodded, still confused about what had landed him in this hospital bed and what exactly was wrong with him but Robin said he would beat it, so that was that as far as he was concerned.
She didn't lie. And he never doubted her, only himself. But that was a whole different problem to deal with on a different day.
Now he just said, "I missed you." Though he wasn't sure how long it had been since he saw her last, it was true. He had missed her terribly.
Robin said "Well then don't leave me and that won't happen again."
She couldn't stop smiling. "I need to call for a doctor and Epiphany and Bobbie and your Dad and Cruz and Pete and Liz and Lainey and Ned and Kelly and my parents and Uncle Mac, of course, and well...a lot of people will be very happy to know you are all right."
Patrick thought he had about three people in his life who cared: Robin, his dad, and Pete. So her list was a little shocking to him.
And one name bothered him most of all. Cruz.
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Lainey never forgot the fact that Ned was working on a song for her. But she forgot nearly everything else. She forgot to be scared, to be careful, to move slow. Because when Ned was kissing her, and telling her , in his soft achingly sensitive voice, "I love you ,sweetie," there was nothing in the world she feared.
One night she found him in his studio. She had slipped from bed and went searching for her like she did every time she woke up and he wasn't there.
Ned was alone in the booth, wearing blue jeans and a white t-shirt. His feet were bare. He sang, "She is the sweetest thing. She is the sweetest..."
He opened his eyes and spotted her on the other side of the glass. Ned waved her in.
The first thing he did was kiss her and then said "You ready to hear my latest song?"
"Sure, babe, I would love to."
"It's called 'Lainey' " he said, looking in her eyes. She couldn't help but smile at that.
He never broke eye contact with her as he stepped behind the microphone. His voice was low, husky and filled with equal parts love and lust, when he sang
"Her eyes are like caramel
her skin is like silk
I can see in her smile
how she looked as a girl
She has a way
of making her dreams
my whole world
And I think
I've come to the end
the end
I think
my search is at the end.
Cause she is the sweetest thing
she is the sweetest
my God, she is the sweetest thing"
Lainey stopped breathing, she placed her hand over her heart, it felt like it might explode. The medical part of her brain searched her memory for the cause of her symptoms. She took a shallow breath as a tingling sensation swept over her skin. And then she knew what this was- of course- she was in love for the first time in her life.
Though there had been others, she hadn't let her whole heart open to them. And now it was, it was completely exposed, and it all belonged to Ned.
He continued, every word making her want him more and more,
"She steals my breaths
and
inspires my words
She's taken my heart
and
made it all hers
I could live in her laugh
till the end
of the world
And I know
I've come to the end
the end
My search has come to
the end
Cause she is the sweetest thing
she is the sweetest
my God, she is the sweetest thing
my love, she is the sweetest thing
god, yes, she is the sweetest
the sweetest thing."
The moment he stopped singing she was flying across the room and kissing him, desperately her lips sought his, needing to show him what he meant to her, needing him to know she was never leaving him.
"This is what love feels like," Lainey whispered to herself
"Yes, sweetie, it is." Ned agreed
And then they slid to the floor and their lips connected once again.