As the miles tick down, I get more anxious. I purposefully refuse to think about what I'll say because it'll just cause doubt, and I need all the confidence I can muster. I emailed Kip last night to let him know I'd be gone for a day or two, and he emailed me back to make sure I bring a spare tire. I've been keeping him up to date since he only lets me visit once a month. The good thing about federal prison is the email access. I moved closer to him so that I wouldn't be making a long drive to visit, and now he won't even let me see him. He apparently thinks my life is more interesting than it is, considering my Saturdays are jam packed with reruns of Family Feud, cooking, and procrastinating on doing laundry.
The road leading to Justin's house is longer than I remember, and with every bend my heart grows in size. Every inch I get closer, the higher my heart rate picks up. It’s like it knows he’s so close. The house comes into view, and I let out a breath as I park, dust flying up around the windows and settling onto the windshield. Jacob appears from behind the screen door, his face masked in shadow until he pushes it open and steps out into the light. There's no smile or welcoming, a mask of indifference clouding his eyes, and it eerily reminds me of Justin.
It does nothing to calm my nerves. We're in a standoff, so I speak first, “Hey, Jacob.”
He scrubs his jaw with the palm of his hand, giving me nothing in return.
“Justin wouldn't possibly be here, would he?”
Tess appears in the doorway behind him, a smile lighting up her face, at complete odds with her son's reaction. “Lilly,” she says, walking onto the porch. “I was starting to worry that you were dumber than I thought.”
I weigh my head. “I feel dumb.”
Her smile grows. “That's good,” she says. “Justin's in the orchard with Bruce. They've been working on a down harvester all day, but I can take you on the buggy.”
“I’d like that.”
“No,” Jacob says, taking the steps toward me. “I'll take her.”
Intimidating was never an adjective I'd have used when thinking of Jacob, until he walks straight past me with his head down. I give Tess a look and she shrugs, absolutely unrepentant about dumping me with her seemingly peeved son. Gearing myself up, I follow Jacob to the barn, his back to me the entire time. He slides himself into what appears to be an off-road go-kart, and I get in, thinking I'd normally be much more excited about riding if it weren’t for the circumstance.
“Are you going to do it again?” Jacob says, looking at me.
“I can't make any promises. I'm a mess, Jake,” I say, not wanting to lie to him. “All I can tell you is that the past four months have been the most miserable learning experience of my life.”
He lets that sink in for a moment and nods.
I stop his hand from turning the key. “And I love him.”
This does a little better of a job convincing him, his smile cracking the hard exterior he's fronted. “You're not very good at words, are you?”
I laugh. “No, I don't think so.”
He starts the buggy and we zoom through the line of lemon trees. He takes a left turn, and I'm confused as to how he knows how to navigate where we're going, turning again at a gap in the foliage. The trees change into vines of grapes, going as far as the eye can see, the slope of the land dropping.
“This is the first year we've cultivated them,” Jacobs says, his voice raised above the howl of the engine. “That's why Dad and Justin have been busting ass to fix the harvester. If we want to see a profit, we need a good picking.” He makes one last turn and they come into view.
A large tractor straddles the row of grapevines. Justin and his father high-five, huge smiles across their faces, proud as the engine kicks into gear. He looks so happy. Tess lied. He's doing perfectly fine. Can I turn around and go home?
Jacob's smile is sweet when drops me off, and I'm pretty sure I grimace, making him laugh. The buggy whips up dust as Jacob swings it around, flying in the direction we came from. The sound of the retreating engine must garner their attention, because they look up at the same time.
Justin's smile falls from his face.
He straightens from his position over the machine, his feet balanced on the wheel as he turns around. He's shirtless, and tan, and much leaner than I remember. His face is more defined, with a deeper skin tone that people only get after spending copious amounts of time in the sun.
Bruce says something, and Justin nods a reply before hopping off the massive tire, his body taut as he lands. He wipes his hands on the legs of his jeans as we he walks toward me, stopping within arm’s reach.
“You cut your hair.”
I don't know what I was expecting him to say, but that wasn't it. Shy, I reach up and pull a strand into view. It took me a while to get used to not being able to put it into a ponytail, and now I’ve completely forgotten about it.
“Do you like it?”
I can't stop my smile. “No.”
A hint of a smile appears before he snuffs it out. His eyes trail up my legs and over my body, quickly but not overtly. “You look good,” he says, squinting against the sun.
“You too,” I say, sure I sound out of breath.
He wipes his hands again, turning to check on his dad before turning back around. “What are you doing here, Lilly?”
My name is stern on his lips and it guts me. “I don't know.”
I need him to read me. I need him to see what I'm feeling so I don't have to voice it. I need him to know how sorry I am. Of all the times I have turned away from his ability to perceive what I’m feeling, I’m begging for it now.
“We can walk to my place from here.”
He picks up a water bottle and a t-shirt, tossing the shirt over his shoulders and taking a sip. His eyes stay locked on mine as he swallows, and he holds the bottle out to me in offering. I decline. There's so much between us that it feels empty.
“This is the edge of the property. I live in a studio apartment right down the hill.” He points, and I can vaguely make out a small structure on the other side of the fence line.
After a few paces, I speak. “You and your dad look like you’re getting along.”
“Yeah,” he says with an ounce of uncertainty. “As long as we keep things superficial, we're fine. It's the past we can't agree on.”
I swallow. “You haven't forgiven him?”
“It's not forgiveness that's the problem,” he says, looking at me. “It's like being in remission. It takes time and a few slips before you finally feel like you’re standing on steady ground.”
We walk the rest of the way in silence, and I mimic Justin as he toes off his shoes at the door of his apartment. Once I’m inside, it’s equivalent to being transported to another universe. Where his apartment and childhood bedroom was void of any personality, his apartment is overflowing with it. A bed sits in the far right corner with a headboard covered in books. The kitchenette on the other side has copper pots and pans hanging from the ceiling, the cabinets stained a rustic color, and strange granite covering the counters. Nothing matches, but everything somehow fits. If there’s one thing similar to the apartment, it’s the flat screen hung up on the opposite wall, able to be viewed from the bed and the threaded couch nestled in the middle of the room.
I walk to his bed, looking over all the paperbacks and textbooks stacked in the shelving outlets. On top, there’s a tin box with metal toy soldiers stationed across the lid, all in varying positions. I go to pick one up when Justin stops me.
“They have lead in them,” he says, still standing by the door, watching me take in his tiny apartment.
“This is nice,” I say, looking around. “Different.”
“It used to be a storage shed,” he says, shrugging. “When I came back from training, the owners let me convert it.”
“Training?”
“Yeah. It’s similar to basic training that the military go through, except more competitive.”
I’m disjointed, being in his surroundings and it looking nothing like the person I thought I knew. He has everything from Stephen King and Dean Koontz novels to a textbook on Modern Art. A gaming station sits under the flat screen with popular football games stacked on top. A pile of dirty clothes litters the floor at the foot of his bed, completely opposite the state of the apartment.
I need something to ground me, to remind me that he’s still Justin, and there’s only one way I know how. I walk toward him, and his eyes hold mine as I shakily place the tip of my fingers against the fabric of his shirt. Maybe if I just touch him, I can gain traction. He breathes deep as I run my fingers over the expanse of his chest, up to his shoulder, and trailing down. I reach the skin of his bicep and he swallows. Not thinking, I stand on my toes and place a kiss on the arch of his neck. It’s a brave move on my part.
Justin pulls away, gripping my hand and trapping it between his fingers. “What are you doing here, Lilly?”
I choke down the hurt from his rejection. “I, um...”
I can’t look at him as I try to find words for something I don’t even understand myself. I feel more than see the coldness rolling off of him, but he wavers as he watches me struggle. Letting out a breath, he takes a seat on the couch, bracing his forearms against his knees.
“Lilly.” He says my name again. “I’m only going to ask you one more time.”
“I’m not good with words,” I rush out, fear settling in. “If you would just let me show you—”
“What?” he says, derision suffocating his voice. “Like you showed me that day in the car?” It’s a slap to the face and he knows it. He looks away. “It took a whole week for you to even acknowledge me after that, and the entire time I was asking myself what I did wrong. I had convinced myself that you just needed time to cope, get used to the idea of being with me on top of everything. But really, you had already decided that you wouldn’t.”
“No, that’s not it at all,” I say, scooting closer to him. “I didn’t know how I felt, I just knew I felt too much. I was scared. I was terrified that you deserved better and that I would never be someone who could stand next to you. All the while, I was trying to figure out what decision was right for me.”
“It’s not about what’s right for you, Lilly. It’s about what you want, and no one can tell you that but you. I probably played my hand a little unfairly, but I never pushed you. You made every decision on your own. You just needed to be confident in them.”
I process what he says before replying. “You remember when you told me that I didn’t know how to trust myself?”
He looks at me, nodding perceptively.
“I realized you were right, and I hated it. Not that you were right, but that I never gave myself the chance. I think, in a way, I crippled myself trying to better myself. The truth is, I have no idea who I am, but now I know who I don’t want to be…and I think that’s more important.”
Slowly, his face transforms, and he says, “Why are you so fucking—”
“Difficult?”
“Beautiful.” He smiles, and if my heart could, it would melt. “And difficult,” he adds. I laugh, and he wraps a hand around the back of my neck, drawing my mouth up to his. “And smart.” He kisses me. “And sexy.” Another kiss. “And in so much trouble with my mom.”
I break away, laughing. “I think I can handle her.”
“What happened to being intimidated by her?”
I place an open-mouth kiss along his throat and feel his grasp tighten. “I proved that I make a better peach cobbler than her. Did I ever tell you how attractive I think your neck is?”
“What?” He laughs.
“I’ve probably spent way too much time fantasizing about your neck.”
He pulls back, looking down at me. “That’s so weird,” he says. “Of all my amazingness, you think my neck is the best?”
“Of course not,” I say, reaching for the button of his pants. “You have decent arms.”
He gazes down at me. “God, I missed you.”
I don’t wait, loving the adoration in his eyes, feeling the need to give the same in return. “I love you. And I know I’ve got a lot of making up to do, but we’ll work on it, together. Like remission.”
He swallows. “You can start by repeating that.”
“I love you,” I say, running my fingers over his jaw.
“I love you, too,” he says, placing a feather-light kiss on my forehead.
We kiss slowly, gradually increasing pressure in the process. I sit up, and he peels my shirt off before doing the same to his. Leaning over, he kisses along the curve of my shoulder, down my chest. It’s slow, and careful, but it’s exactly what we need. He unbuttons my shorts and drags them down my legs, trailing his mouth over my exposed skin. I run my hands through his hair as his mouth lands on the part of me that seemingly needs him most. He gives everything to me, and it reminds me of the night before everything fell apart. This is a do-over, our do-over.
He disposes of his jeans and repositions himself above me, hiking my knee up to his hip as he slowly enters me. We don’t speak, our eyes locked on one another as we collectively let out shaky breaths. It’s amazing, and I don’t need to second-guess whether this is what I want or what I need, but it’s just right.
Afterwards we lie on the couch, unmoving, half his body still on top of mine. Neither one of us makes an effort to move, comfortable with every inch of our skin touching.
My words come out raspy when I say, “How are we going to commute?”
He leans up on his forearm. “We won’t. I’ll move to Brighton.”
“How do you know where I live?” He gives me a look. “You’re right, dumb question. But what about your job? How does that work?”
His lips thin, and I’m scared of what he’s about to say, a trickle of uncertainty. How often does he go on jobs? Who’s to say how long he’ll be gone?
“I no longer work for the department,” he says.
“What, since when?”
“Since I pulled the trigger on the investigation. The case was aiming to get Lance to the higher-ups, who John Monroe was working for, so they could pinpoint when the drugs were entering the country. When Kip’s and my plan fell through, and with what happened to Dan, it kind of forced my boss’s hand.”
“I’m confused. When were you let go?”
“Right after you were released.”
I sit up, forcing him to do the same. “Did you know you would be fired?”