“Fucking crazy girl, I’m going to miss you like crazy. Who is going to film Drake pissing on me or film me falling out of a damn pineapple tree? Who’s going to catch all those moments?” I sigh into the camera as she holds it up, capturing both of us.
“I will,” she says. “I will when I come back in three months.” She turns away from the camera and I do the same. We sit and stare at one another.
“I love you like crazy,” my voice whispers across the T.V.
“I love you too, just like I love my camera.” She giggles right before I kiss her nice and slow in front of that silly camera.
“You see that folks? Love exists when you are this young. You just got to find it.” She sighs sweetly while looking into my eyes. Then the camera shuts off.
“Wow, we were something else,” she murmurs.
Yeah, you could say that.
“Thanksgiving is even better. You talked Drake into helping you act like you weren’t coming. You wanted to catch my surprise at you being there on film, that is.” I frown, remembering that one because it hurt like hell thinking she wasn’t coming.
“You want to clean up and take a break for a bit?” I nod to her bag.
“Yes please!” She jumps up.
“Oh hey, what do you want for lunch? Does Chinese sound okay?” She used to love Chinese.
“That sounds delicious,” she sighs out, grabbing her bag.
“Okay, I’ll order it. It should be here by the time you get out.” I walk to the drawer, pulling out the menu and picking up my cell phone. I have a dozen missed calls and twenty missed texts messages. I really need to change my number, especially if Ev is back. Sighing, I dial and order our Chinese.
Twenty minutes later, Ev comes down in Juicy sweats, looking fresh and beautiful as always. “Nice shower?” I ask.
“Yes it was.” She smiles sweetly.
I take my silver chain bracelets off my right hand and my black cuff off the left hand so I can wash up.
“Hey! Where did you get that?” she questions as she grabs left my wrist, turning it over. My eyes go wide as she touches the tattoo.
“Uh, we got them together,” I say quietly, my voice barely above a damn whisper. I can’t help it; her touch brings back all these memories, and stirs all those feelings back to life again.
What is wrong with me? Man, pull it together!
“I have one on my shoulder blade. What does it mean?” She pulls down her sweater.
I gulp.
Do not show me bare skin Ev.
“It means infinity.” I run my finger over hers, causing her to shiver, and I bite back a grin.
Oh yeah, it’s definitely still there.
The air around us shifts just when the doorbell rings.
“Can you get that babe? I have to wash my hands. It’s probably just our food, so go ahead and let them in.” I turn on the faucet.
“Sure.” She bounces to the front door. I love how happy she seems.
My hands are washed, but she still isn’t back. What is taking so long? I walk towards the hall to find Jenelle and Evelyn talking.
“Jenelle, what the hell are you doing here?” I ask with a pissed off tone.
“You weren’t answering your phone or texts. Who is this?” She points to Evelyn.
How can I phrase this so that she will get it the first time?
Ah! That’s it!
“This is ‘Love Lost’,” I answer back, crossing my arms. Evelyn gasps.
“This is her?” Jenelle asks and sneers at Ev.
“Yes,” I hiss.
“So she heard you were getting famous and came crawling back?” Jenelle smirks, pointing her long finger at Ev.
“Excuse me?” Ev says, taken aback by Jenelle’s catty tone. “Seriously? Tristan,” she looks at me, “is this what I’m going to have to deal with while I’m trying to get to know you again and get my memories back?”
“I’m sorry,” is all I can manage to say.
Evelyn unzips her sweater and peels it off, throwing it to the floor. She is standing there in just a sports bra.
I have to gulp again. This time it was silent.
Damn it, she is going to kill me.
“What in the hell are you doing?” Jenelle screeches.
“You see this tattoo right here?” Ev turns and points. Then she walks over to me, flipping my wrist over.
“And you see his? Do you see how they match? It means infinity. Do you know what infinity means? It means I could be dead right now and this,” she places her hand over my heart, “would still belong to me.” She turns and smirks at Jenelle.
“So you see, whatever you had, it’s not what we had, so off you go.” She pushes Jenelle out the door. Evelyn shuts the door behind Jenelle, turning around and leaning against it. Her chest is rising and falling with each breath.
“I’m sorry, that was very rude of me. I can go apologize if you like, but she was being very nasty,” she sighs.
“No, it’s fine. She started it, and the sixteen-year-old Evelyn I knew made an appearance. It was refreshing,” I croak, running my fingers through my hair.
Please put your sweater back on Ev, please!
Just when I think it can’t get any worse, the doorbell rings again.
“I’ll get it. Who knows, maybe it’s someone else I can scare away,” she laughs, opening the door.
“Hello. I have a—,” the delivery guy stumbles on his words.
“Thank you, we’re famished.” Ev takes the food, walking away with the delivery guy’s eyes on her ass the entire time. I walk over and pay, giving him a warning.
“Close your mouth buddy. She’s not on the market.” I whisper, but not as quietly as I assumed because Ev starts giggling.
“I heard that.” She giggles even more.
I slam the door in the dudes face after barely giving him a tip.
“You enjoy walking around like that?” I smirk and internally groan.
She looks down and shrugs. “What? I’m guessing you’ve seen me naked countless times, right?”
I nod. “Yeah, but we were teenagers then. You woman, me man now.” I point for emphasis.
She just laughs, shaking her head.
“I’ve seen you naked more than countless times…I’m just saying.” I grab two drinks out of the fridge and walk over to the table where she is laying out the food.
“This feels normal,” she says.
I am stunned with her confession. I want her to feel normal, to know that she is normal. I want her comfortable here with me.
“Does it?” I ask.
“Yes. I haven’t felt normal for a long time. Thank you.” She smiles at me, and that smile forces me to close my eyes. I cannot look at her smile when she is barely wearing anything to cover up those gorgeous tits of hers. There is a fire building inside of me and I need her to extinguish it.
“You’re welcome.” I force myself to say as I take a bite of teriyaki chicken on a skewer.
“So when I was in the shower I was deciding on something,” she says, taking a breath and sighing before her next words. “I want to ask you something.” She takes a bite of her egg roll.
“Oh yeah, what’s that?” I cannot stop smiling at her. I fucking love this girl.
“Where do you see this heading? Like, are you trying to win me back using our trip down memory lane or just trying to get me back as a friend? I’m just trying to understand.” She shrugs it off as if this is no big deal.
I know my eyes widen to the size of the Grand Canyon and my breath hitches in my throat.
I drop my food. “Evelyn Beaumont, my heart was ripped to fucking shreds when you didn’t come back for Thanksgiving that year. When I saw you again last night, all the pieces came flying back together. Do you understand?”
“So you’re saying you still love me?”
Her question isn’t hesitant at all. She has always been straightforward.
I flip over my wrist. “Infinity.” I nod.
“Infinity,” she repeats. “Can we recreate all our firsts?” She whispers.
All of them? Even the sandy-ass beach sex? She is crazy, my fucking crazy girl!
“Even the sandy beach sex?” I laugh, trying to play it off, but damn if I don’t want to.
“Yes, even that. Was it important to us back then, to me?”
“Very. That’s where 'Before and After' came from, you know?” I shrug. “Would you like to watch that video next? We can always back track.”
“Can we?” She smiles.
“Yeah we can. Hurry and eat.” I motion to her food.
“Okay.” We eat the rest of our food in silence. I am beyond elated right now. We haven’t talked about it, but she knows I am not going anywhere, and that means a lot.
“Baby, do you want some wine?” I yell from the kitchen.
“Yes please!” She hollers back.
I pour us some wine and shuffle back to the living room with the bottle under my arm. I can't help but smile at the sight of her sprawled out on the couch. Again, I am thankful she feels comfortable here.
“Here, let me help.” She sits up, grabbing the bottle from under my arm.
“Thanks.” I sit our glasses down.
“I already loaded ‘first time’ in the DVD player.” She grins.
“In a hurry are you?” I tease her.
“Yes. If you hadn’t had sex since you were sixteen and you couldn’t remember your first time, you would feel the same,” she whispers.
Now I get it. I am such a dumbass. This is extremely important to her. I am important to her. She wants to remember.
“Well, push play babe.” I hand her the remote.
She smiles and pushes play, snuggling into my chest. That right there, that small movement, causes my heart to start beating rapidly.
Her sweet voice fills the room.
“So we’re calling this before and after. Tristan and I are going to talk separately about how we feel before and after our first time together. He doesn’t want to do this, but he would do anything for me. I told him that one day this might be extremely important; that one day I might need this.”
We both gasp as she pauses the home video.
“I swear I didn’t remember you saying that babe.” I hold up my hands in a surrender stance.
“Oh my god, it’s like I knew or something.” She sits up, curling into my lap more securely. I pray to the heavens she does not feel my raging hard on.
She presses play for the video as she settles in.
“So needless to say, I just batted my girly eyelashes and got my way.”
Boy did she ever!
“So here are my before thoughts before I turn you over to the love of my life. First thought; I’m not scared. He would never hurt me because he cherishes me. Second thought; no, I am not too young to have sex. I love him and he loves me. And third thought; he wouldn’t ever hurt me, so why wouldn’t I give the one guy I know that loves me unconditionally the one piece of me he can have for infinity?” She turns around and points to her infinity tattoo. “See? Infinity! So baby, here are my before thoughts. I love you so fucking much, to infinity!”
The camera shuts off, and comes back on and I appear on the screen.
“Okay, so my fucking crazy-ass girl that I love so much is making me do this before and after shit. But, seeing as that I love her more than my own life, I am doing it. So here it goes. Crazy-ass girl of mine, I love you. I will love you to infinity. I will cherish every minute we spend together to infinity. We are infinity. And that my beautiful, sexy, smart, crazy-ass fucking girl is why I love you to infinity. That is my before, babe!”
She pauses the video again. “We were deep for being teenagers. We got those tattoos very young,” she laughs and starts the video.
“My after: oh my God. Okay, so Tristan was wonderful. I am not going to lie. It hurt like fucking hell, but my friends said it would. My Tristan made it better. Since we met on the beach, we chose the beach to have our first time together. NEVER AGAIN! Baby, sorry, but I am still digging sand out of places it is not supposed to be. It is the best memory of our first meeting, our first ‘I love you’, our first kiss, our first time all on the beach. So thank you baby!, Thank you for making it perfect and thank you for loving me like you do. Yours to infinity. I love you.”
When the video cuts off, for a few seconds I study her, waiting for my after to come on. She has tears in her eyes, happy ones. I look back on the screen as the static goes away.
“My crazy-ass beautiful girl, God, I didn’t think it was possible for me to love you anymore but I do. God I do. I so fucking love you more. All our firsts on the beach baby, all of them. I want to thank you for so many things babe, First one, for catching me ogling you last year. Second one, for giving me your heart. I promise to guard it with all that I am. Third, for giving me the gift of you.” I run my fingers through my hair. “This tattoo baby, the one we got that matches? Infinity. Always remember that no matter what we are infinity. And that, my crazy-ass beautiful girl is my after. I love you!”
The video cuts out and we sit in silence.