Page 31 of Salvaged Heart

31

ANDERS

“ M y apologies for being late. The roads through the mountains were worse than expected.”

I tried to keep my tone even and cold, but it was almost impossible with my heart beating a frenzy inside my chest. I hadn’t expected Beck to be here when I finally gave in to my mother’s begs about joining them for the Christmas holidays. She had whined on and on about family obligations and how almost losing me had shown her the importance of fixing our severed relationship. I was happy to let things continue on much the way they always had, but my newly appointed therapist had drilled into me over the last few weeks the importance of reforming bonds I’d broken during my addiction.

So, here I was, back in Nashville for the first time in almost eight years, sitting opposite a man who still held my entire heart whether he knew it or not.

What in the world was he doing here?

Laurel’s gaze flicked between us as if she anticipated some impending disruption. Her hand lay on the table next to Beck’s, not touching, but so close the slightest move of either of their pinkies, and they would have been. He sat ramrod straight, staring at the table like he was suddenly very interested in my mother’s centerpiece.

“Don’t tell me you rode that deathtrap all the way from North Carolina.” My stepfather’s voice cut through the haze.

“No, the person I have been staying with has an extra car she let me borrow.”

I hadn’t been on my bike in months. As far as I knew, it still sat in the driveway of Arbor Ct. I shuddered at the thought of it sitting outside in the elements, uncared for. It was already a rusted piece of shit. I doubted it would even start now.

“This Kara, woman?”

“Yes, sir.”

He hummed, leaning back slightly to allow Paulina better access to his plate as she began serving him. “I’d like to speak with her. I am very curious as to why she might take someone like yourself in, given your…condition. I presume she will be wanting some sort of compensation?”

It seemed my stepfather hadn’t changed in the eight years since I last saw him.

“She runs an unofficial halfway house of sorts. She was an addict herself years ago and now helps people transitioning from rehab to get settled back into a normal routine. I help with her business, and she’s giving me free room and board in return.”

I had felt guilty for not taking the time to get to know her during AA, especially with what a support she had been to Beck while he was dealing with me. I had to hold back my surprise when she appeared in my hospital room the day after I’d ended things with him. Though I should have figured he would call her. It was hard for me to trust people, but when she offered to let me move in with her after I got out of rehab, I’d promised I would at least think about it. Other than a few scattered phone calls with Laurel and the singular forced conversation with my mother, she had been the only contact with the outside world while I was there. We had grown closer, and I’d finally relented to her constant asking to move in with her.

The truth was, my options were limited to returning here, which would have driven me back to drugs, or taking the chance her offers were genuine. So far, it was working out. She attended AA with me, let me tag along with her friends, and I helped her with her insurance business. It was mostly keeping track of the calendar, sorting mail, and making appointments. But having a routine was good, healthy. Plus, it counted as some solid work experience, which, as a twenty-six-year-old guy, was well past the time I started to gain.

“And you’re sure there is nothing else going on between the two of you? Something romantic, perhaps?”

I bit into my tongue to stop it from spitting the words circulating in my brain at him and settled for a milder answer. “I’m still gay, sir.”

Alexander sighed. “Well, that is a pity.”

I hadn’t thought Beck could get any tenser than he was, but one look at him now proved otherwise. He was breathing deeply, his nostrils flaring as he ground his teeth. I pressed the toe of my boot into his ankle to get his attention before trying to silently communicate with him to leave it be. I was more than used to my stepfather’s judgment, and in the grand scheme of things, my sexuality was probably the thing he was least embarrassed about on my long list of transgressions. If he was choosing to focus on this flaw, then I was getting off relatively easy.

Paulina, bless her heart, hurried around the table, serving food as quickly as she could, and we soon became lost in our meals. I took large forkfuls, trying to clear my plate as quickly as possible, hoping that the sooner it was empty, the sooner I could fake exhaustion from the long drive and excuse myself to bed. I wasn’t sure what I had been thinking when I agreed to spend three nights here. It would probably be the biggest test to my sobriety since I left rehab, but it wasn’t lost on me that Alexander’s usually overflowing bar cart that had lived in the corner of this room was now absent. The cart had been a significant contributing factor to my alcoholism to begin with. Perhaps my parents were finally understanding that my addictions were more than ‘party boy refusing to grow up’ behavior. If so, I was proud of their growth.

My mother, sensing the tension, took the opportunity to clear her throat. “It is so nice to have all my children around the table again.”

All was an odd word choice, considering she only had one and a half in total.

“I know, Beckham, you’re not technically family yet, but I’m sure it’s just a matter of time.” I flicked my gaze back to him, but he was smiling back at my mother as she spoke. “I can’t believe you and Laurel have been together almost seven years now. Time truly flies.”

Did they not know Laurel and Beck had broken up?

It would explain why he was here, faking appearances for her sake, I was sure. But I couldn’t help the new anxiety bubbling in my chest. Had they gotten back together? I couldn’t blame him if they had. He only ended things with her because of me—one summer of experimentation, and then right back into the arms of my perfect sister.

That wasn’t fair . I ended things with him. He had every right to have happiness with someone else… but that didn’t stop it hurting.

“To seven years.” Alexander lifted his glass, which appeared filled with Sprite, in a toast.

My mother joined him eagerly, followed by a reluctant Laurel and a bright red Beck. My sister opened her mouth to say something, but Beck placed his palm over the back of her hand and shot her a look I couldn’t read. The sight of his hand on hers was suddenly too much for me. The air in the room felt too thin. I needed to do my breathing exercises, but there was no way I could without attracting the attention of the entire table.

Somehow, I managed to stand slowly and excuse myself. “My apologies, Mother.” I looked at her with a smile. “Long drive, I’ll just be a minute.”

I tried very hard to keep my steps slow, and even as I left the room, the last thing I needed was someone thinking something was wrong with me and following me out. But once I was far enough down the hall that they couldn’t hear my change in pace, I broke into a jog and leaped up the stairs two at a time, trying to put as much distance between myself and my broken heart as possible.

I didn’t have a right to feel this way. Beck could be with Laurel if that is what made him happy. I’d pushed him away and told him we couldn’t be together. I didn’t have ownership over his heart any longer. I wasn’t even sure I had ownership over it, to begin with. It was just one summer. A few short weeks passing the time by getting lost in each other. He had helped me when I needed it the most, and, like I always did, I took that kindness and spun it into something more than it was.

No, that wasn’t the truth.

He had looked me in the eyes at the hospital and begged me to stay. He had told me he loved me, and the expression on his face, that look in those gorgeous blue eyes, made me feel like I was his entire world. It had scared the shit out of me. Hell, it still did.

But now I was stronger.

Now, I could do this with him.

But I was too late.

I had to pull myself together. It wouldn’t be long before my mother sent my sister or Paulina to find me and drag me back down the stairs. I paced up and down the upstairs hall, breathing in deeply, one, two, three, four. Holding, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven. Breathe out, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. I allowed the memory of Beck coaching me through my last panic attack to soothe me. The phantom feeling of his hand rubbing up and down my spine, the way he circled his finger on the back of my hand.

I shut my eyes and leaned into the wall, pressing my forehead to the cool paint. It must have been recently redone because there was a soft lingering smell there, and it took me back to the house on the lake. Beck grinning at me, with paint smudged on his cheeks and into his hair.

If only I could turn back time.

“Anders.”

Oh, God, I had been so lost inside my head that I hadn’t even heard Beck approach. Either that or the ache in my heart had been so great, and my need for him so intense, that I’d managed to summon him out of thin air. I twisted my head to the side to look at him, standing just a few feet away. He was just as gorgeous in person as he had been in my memories.

“Did you get back together with Laurel?” My throat felt so dry, but I had to know before I did something truly embarrassing.

Confusion and something that looked a lot like hurt flashed across his face. I didn’t think he would answer me, but that would have been confirmation in itself. I braced myself, going to turn back away from him, but he swallowed hard and took another step closer.

“No.”

Every instinct told me to pull away, not let him touch me, but I was unable to move. I knew I missed him. Every night, when I fell asleep in rehab and at Kara’s, it was so I could see him in my dreams. Every morning I woke to the bed cold and empty was like reliving losing him again and again. But now he was here, inches away, it was excruciating.

“We are just keeping up appearances. She didn’t want to tell them with everything going on.”

Me. I was the ‘everything' going on.

“I miss you.”

The words were a knock-out punch to my chest. The look in his eyes was breaking the little resolve I had left. “Please, don’t…”

“I couldn’t stop if I tried.”

“Beck.” My voice was entirely too breathy, his name sounding more like a plea than the warning I’d intended.

“Anders.”

He was now standing right in front of me, barely an inch of space between our two bodies. Like a moth to a flame, I found myself turning into him, desperately seeking the warmth I had been hopelessly missing for months. His hand came up to cup my cheek, his forehead leaning into mine as his other hand snaked around my back. I’d been a fool to think I could resist him, completely delusional to think I could walk away.

But my eyes were wide open now.

“Do you have something you need to tell me, Anders?” His voice was all gravel and thick, heavy emotion.

The sound of it made me whimper like a wounded animal.

“Just tell me, and I’ll wait as long as it takes.”

It was the same thing he had said to me at the hospital, but now I couldn’t lie anymore. The words came stuttering out of my mouth before I could give them further thought. “I love you.” The three words made him practically crumple against me. “I love you so fucking much, Beck. I don’t need you to wait. I should never have let you go.”

That was seemingly all he needed to hear. Beck brought his lips to mine in a bruising kiss, the hand on my cheek moving to the base of my skull, angling me so he could kiss me deeper, harder. It was all teeth and tongue. Fire and electricity. Months of longing and missing and fucking yearning, finally boiling over into an all-out frenzy of need. It was entirely too passionate of a kiss to be having on the second floor of my childhood home, almost directly overhead from where my homophobic stepfather sat with Beck’s ex-girlfriend–my damn sister–eating Christmas dinner. It was a fucked up situation, but I found myself unable to care.

I pulled away from him for the sole reason of desperately needing to replace the oxygen he had emptied from my lungs. My cheeks were damp with tears. I hadn’t realized I was crying, but they streamed down Beck’s face, too.

“I thought I’d lost you forever.” He whispered.

“I know, I’m sorry, I’ll never…”

He silenced me with another softer kiss.

“It’s okay, I forgive you. Can you forgive me?”

“There’s nothing to…”

Our conversation was cut off by the sound of footsteps on the stairs, and we took an instinctive step away from each other. Now would not be the time to be discovered by one of my parents. But instead of either of them, it was Laurel who appeared on the landing a moment later. A sweet, genuine smile on her face as she read our guilty expressions.

“I take it by the completely wrecked look on both your faces that you made up?” Her tone was laced with amusement, but it wasn’t unkind.

Was she smiling at me?

“Go on, make a break for it. I’ll cover for you both.”

“I’d love to hear the excuse you come up with for why me and Beck upped and ran off together.”

“I doubt I will have to come up with a good one. The second you left, your mother produced a bottle of Chardonnay from God knows where, and Dad started on the bourbon. I think they were trying to see who could consume the most before you came back down.” The look on Beck’s face told me Laurel wasn’t exaggerating. “Paulina’s already grabbing both your coats. Get out while you still can.”

She didn’t have to tell us a third time. Beck grabbed my hand, pulling me down the stairs and out the door. He tugged my coat around my shoulders and backed me up against the side of my car. The cold air was biting against the skin on my cheeks, the tip of his nose turning red already as his breath came out in short gusts of steam.

“I need to get you somewhere warm and private so I can strip you down and show you how much I’ve missed you.” He reached into my pocket, tugging out the keys stored there. “Get in the car, Anders.” He pressed a kiss to my lips before reaching around my side to tug open the passenger door and push me inside.