Page 20

20

EVERY CLOUD HAS A SILVER LINING

FULTON

“ A nother,” I demand, slamming my glass down on the hardwood and wiping the back of my hand across my lips.

“Dude, are you sure? You’ve had like?—”

There’s a primordial kind of anger inside me, swimming in the acid in my stomach. I don’t know what’s going on with me. I’m mad, I’m sad, I’m hopeless. None of my teammates deserve to bear the brunt of my bad mood, but I can’t help lashing out at anyone who gets within five feet of me—or anyone who isn’t Shiloh.

I’m such an idiot. She was trying to vent to me about her problems, and I just invalidated her feelings by throwing money at her. I was truly trying to help…but I was so insensitive. Not everyone’s lucky enough to be as financially stable as I am. How am I supposed to help her when she doesn’t want my help? How am I supposed to just sit by and watch her family’s business go under when I know I could’ve done something to save it?

I’m not doing it because I get my pickle tickled whenever I play hero; I’m doing it because I lo… like Shiloh. I like her a lot .

I’ll be lucky if I even see her before the wedding tomorrow. This wasn’t how I wanted our trip to end, but it seems like she’s already decided that for us. Shiloh said it herself—we’re not together. She never saw us being together. She never gave us a chance. She never wanted to give us a chance.

The sensible part of my brain is still working—a miracle, really, given the amount of alcohol I’ve consumed—and it bellows a warning through my entire body like the faraway chime of a death knell. I’m on my way to getting shit-faced, but it’s better than having to feel the aching pain in my chest.

I full-on growl at Gage, spearing him with an icy look as the last of my patience bleeds dry. He doesn’t say anything to de-escalate the situation, but he does flinch a little. I’m unstable, and if I’m not cut off soon, I’m not above crashing Aeris’ bachelorette party and begging Shiloh to speak to me.

This night should be all about Hayes. Hayes is a great guy—he’s always been there for me when I needed him, and he’s a team player at heart. Sure, he has some anger issues and was once forwarded an opposing player’s hospital bill for breaking his ribs in three different places, but that’s beside the point. Hayes plays every game like it could be his last. He’s the perfect teammate, but he’s an even better friend.

Come on, Fulton. Just put on a happy face for the evening. You’re always bringing down the party, whether it’s a game you don’t want to play or your weird-ass aura or turning in for the night way earlier than everyone else.

When Gage hesitantly places another glass of whiskey in front of me, it barely even touches the table before I’m chugging it and deliberately scorching the lining of my throat. I’m not drunk enough. I can’t stop thinking about the way she grabbed my hand and refused to let go on our flight, the way she told me that I shouldn’t be ashamed of my eccentric behavior and that I don’t need to change for anyone, the way we kissed on the beach after our Jet Ski date, the way she looked at me when I was detangling her hair.

Fuck, I miss her.

A frown resides on Gage’s lips, and his arm twitches like he wants to reach out and give me the good ol’ pat, pat on the shoulder. But he doesn’t. Probably for fear of getting his arm ripped out of its socket.

“Do you want to talk about what’s bothering you?” he asks, gesturing to the invisible storm cloud hanging over my head.

Apparently, the hit of adrenaline I was hoping for has been permanently delayed because now my heart’s sadly ker-thumping like I’ve been drugged with heroin. “Not really.”

She’s just a girl. It wasn’t even that big of a fight. You’re overreacting.

She’s not just a girl. She’s my girl. And it was a big fight in terms of our relationship. I’m not overreacting. God, can’t you shut up for once and stop making me feel worse than I already do? You’re always in my head dictating how to act, what to say.

I’m just trying to help you fit in.

Shiloh says I don’t need to fit in.

Shiloh doesn’t care about you as much as you care about her. Why are you chasing after a girl who always planned on leaving in the first place?

“Do you want to get your fortune read by Gonzo?” Gage follows up, tentatively reaching out for my empty glass so he can confiscate it.

Confusion whittles a trench between my brows. “Who?”

Gage nods to something over my shoulder. “The capuchin monkey. He costs three hundred an hour. He can read your future. Does bachelor parties, birthdays, bar mitzvahs, weddings, even funerals.”

I must be drunker than I thought, because lo and behold, when I turn around in my seat, the rest of the guys are oohing and aahing as a furry little primate dressed in a business suit picks at Kit’s palms. Baby Eda is more than ecstatic as she gently pets our apparently well-renowned fortune teller.

“There are monkeys in Cabo?”

“Gonzo does his own thing. When we were walking downtown the other night, he and his manager were giving out free readings on the boardwalk. Hayes pretty much shit his pants—said he’d never seen a monkey in person before. It came out that we were visiting Cabo for Hayes’ wedding, and the manager told us that Gonzo is a hit at bachelor parties, so we said fuck it.”

I snort. “And you expect me to believe that a monkey can read my future?”

Gage cocks his head, actually contemplates the logistics for a second, then shrugs. “He predicted that Casen was going to ‘come to a crossroads very shortly,’ and he did. He had already made his mind up about ordering rocky road for dessert, but then the creamery ended up having triple fudge brownie, and he couldn’t decide.”

“Psh, that’s just a coincidence.”

“Oh, and Gonzo did predict that Gertrude was going to be murdered in her sleep by one of her coworkers over the last vacation slot, and it actually happened. Just got the call from my meddlesome grandmother.”

First off, I have no idea who Gertrude is. Second off, I’m not sure how he predicted all of that by looking at someone’s palms. He doesn’t even speak human. He’s a monkey! I don’t need a psychic to tell me that my future’s going to consist of sad, lonely nights where I eat my feelings in frozen Salisbury steaks because I drove away the only woman I’ve ever wanted. Though, hearing it come from a monkey may be less…humiliating, somehow?

Before I can argue with Gage over how preposterous that is, the man of the hour careens into our private conversation, reeking of liquor and looking like he just snorted a line of ketamine in the bathroom.

“Guys, Gonzo just predicted that Kit’s going to get a ‘ big —yet costly—surprise’ in the next few months,” he relays.

My jaw almost hits the counter. “Another baby?!”

Hayes just laughs hysterically, that one vein in his forehead bulging like crazy. “Who knows!”

Alright, noted: no baby talk. Ever. Unless I want to give Hayes a stroke. Gonzo doesn’t know what the hell he’s talking about, okay?

I bet Shiloh would make a good mother. She’s so patient and understanding, and she’s so attentive. She’d know exactly what to babyproof and which stroller would be the most ideal because she loves to research and learn and…oh, God, I miss her. I’m a mess without her. If I wasn’t working so hard on holding my tears back, I’d probably be a full-blown faucet by now.

Without even meaning to take away from the conversation, I kind of just face-plant into the wood top with a sigh, ignoring the lance of pain that shoots up the bridge of my nose.

“What’s his problem?” Hayes asks from above me.

“Trouble in paradise,” Gage replies matter-of-factly, as if they’re two hardened cops discussing the cause of death over a corpse on a mortuary table.

They’re talking about me like I’m not even here! And a part of me wishes I wasn’t. I wish I was rotting somewhere six feet under so my heart could finally rest. A little melodramatic, but I don’t care.

I’m not expecting a motivational speech—or anything, really—but Hayes yanks me up by the collar of my shirt, gets right up in my face, and scares the living bejesus out of me. I don’t think we’ve ever been this close before.

“Fulton,” he slurs, shaking me slightly, and his grip is surprisingly strong for someone who has a BAC over 0.08. “I don’t know what happened, but you have to go after that girl. Don’t let something stupid drive you guys apart. I almost lost Aeris because of a mistake I made, and if I hadn’t fought for her as hard as I did, I don’t think we’d be getting married tomorrow.”

I remember. Oh, we all remember. Hayes was inconsolable after their breakup. Then he went all out to get her back—thousands of roses all over her front yard, a public apology on live television, even buying her an orchard in South Africa because her favorite fruit is nectarines.

A formidable kind of guilt shipwrecks against the outcrop of my mind. “I miss her so much. Everything was perfect, you know? We spent the night together, and?—”

Hayes interrupts me with dewy-eyed curiosity. “Wait a second. As in…?”

Shit. That’s right. I forgot to tell my teammates that I lost my V-card. I mean, now’s as good a time as ever, I guess.

“Yeah.”

Hayes’ fists fall away so he can slam a hand on the countertop, and the force is so loud and jarring that it jettisons any of my self-confidence. “Fully! Oh my God. I know right now probably isn’t the best time to celebrate, but holy shit, dude. I’m so proud of you.”

“They grow up so fast,” Gage sniffs, wiping an invisible tear away.

“Tell me everything. Actually, don’t. Actually, do. Fuck, man. We’ve been waiting eons for this to happen,” Hayes exclaims, more ecstatic than I am at the news of getting my dick wet—which is a tad bit concerning. Also, it didn’t take me eons . It took me a reasonably appropriate amount of time to lose my virginity.

Gage, surprisingly, is the last one to overwhelm me with a terribly invasive interrogation. “How was it?”

“It was incredible…but it was only incredible because of her . And then I had to go and ruin everything. I don’t think she even wants to talk to me right now.” My heart is still on a slow recovery to its full working extent, that little tumor of guilt pulsing in the abysmal pit of my stomach.

The groom-to-be puts a pin in my brooding. “But you don’t know that. You’ve given her space, right?”

I nod.

“Then what if she’s waiting for you? What if she wants to talk to you, but she thinks that you don’t want to talk to her?”

That’s ridiculous. I always want to talk to Shiloh, even about the not-so-good stuff. Could I really live with myself if I just give up ? I’m not going to lie and say that I’m not a coward, because there’ve been many times when I have been, but this can’t be one of those times. It can’t. I have to fight for her—for us. Just because she’s uncertain about the future doesn’t mean that I have to reaffirm her doubts.

Be brave, Fulton, for once in your life.

I don’t know how, but I practically sober on the spot, and I rise to a stance. When moisture threatens to fog my vision, I blink it away, figuratively holding on to the last-standing fixture amidst a hurricane of grief. It devastates everything around me, reduces houses to debris, floods the streets until they’re unrecognizable, and yet I continue to cling to hope. I continue to wait for the storm clouds to herald the thinnest sliver of light—of redemption.

I need to go to her.

I don’t even manage to get a word out before I’m sprinting to the front door. And the minute I open that partition to traverse the entire resort, my heart tap-dances against my ribs—a light patter that would’ve been overlooked if it wasn’t for the complementary blip of love that followed in its wake.

Because Shiloh Nguyen is standing outside, waiting for me.

Something breaks in my throat, and I can’t speak. She looks so small in her dark blue cocktail dress, and the sight of the semi-dried mascara tracks tainting her skin is like a fucking hockey stick to the gut. I hate that I made her cry. And I know I have no right to be thinking this, but even in spite of her tears, she’s still so breathtakingly beautiful.

All my stupid, Neanderthal mouth manages is “Wha?—”

“Can we talk?”

Don’t blow this, Fulton.

Shiloh shivers, and I fumble for the nonexistent jacket on my shoulders before realizing I didn’t bring one with me. I don’t really think she wants to talk in the middle of Hayes’ bachelor party, but I don’t want her to freeze to death either.

“Yeah, of course. One sec,” I say, darting back inside the madhouse to grab a throw blanket from off the couch, narrowly missing what I think is supposed to be Tipsy Twister but instead looks more like a disturbing recreation of The Human Centipede .

I shut the door as quietly as I can without attracting attention, then I sling the thin, fleece blanket over her shoulders, biting back a smile when she actually accepts my warm and fuzzy olive branch.

“Thank you. I didn’t realize it got so chilly.” She huddles further into the cold-resistant covering, and there’s a spasm in my bicep that oh-so desperately wants to pull her into an embrace.

“Did you walk here? All the way from the event room?”

Hayes got to use their hotel room for his party, while Aeris booked one of the event rooms for hers, and there’s enough distance between the two so they wouldn’t accidentally cross paths before the wedding. So, in short, Shiloh walked across the resort, by herself, at night, in nothing but a tiny scrap of fabric. There’re about a hundred things wrong with that picture, but Overprotective Fulton needs to take a chill pill while Guilty and Remorseful Fulton wins his girl back .

“Yeah, it wasn’t a big deal though,” she dismisses. “I wasn’t thinking and should’ve brought a jacket.”

A growl stirs in my chest. “I should’ve come to you.”

Seeing as the night has been nothing but back-to-back surprises, I shouldn’t be shocked when Shiloh breaks our unofficial no-contact rule and touches my arm, lifting the lid off all my emotions that have been pressure-cooking since our argument.

Her eyes are the color of burnished copper in the hallway’s light, and her lips part to permit a hollow sound. “Fulton…”

Not that I had a lot of composure to begin with, but the rest of it shatters, and a jumbled apology is the next thing to come out of my fat mouth—to console her more than to absolve me. I can’t waste another second without her knowing how sorry I am.

“I’m so sorry, Shiloh. I’m sorry if it seemed like I was trying to buy your affection—that wasn’t my intention at all. I should’ve listened to you instead of throwing money at your problem and expecting it to magically go away. I was an insensitive asshole, and it breaks my fucking heart that I hurt you.”

I thought that the truth would lift the crushing weight off my chest, but it doesn’t. No, if anything, it weaponizes my pain against me, and my heart thrashes like a hummingbird in a gilded cage. Her expression is inscrutable. The only piece of evidence that confirms she even heard my apology in the first place is the parched plot of lip she chooses to gnaw on.

I don’t think I could live with the possibility of never earning her forgiveness.

Time crawls by slowly while she ponders a response, and the longer she leaves me in dreary silence, the harder my stomach works to eject itself out of my goddamn mouth. The apparent cold is doing nothing for the sheet of sweat sticking my shirt to my body. It’s hard to breathe. It’s hard to focus on anything other than the anxiety swarming me like white blood cells to a newly opened wound.

“You don’t need to apologize, Fulton,” she says, shaking her irresistibly soft hair. “I overreacted. You were just trying to help, and I blew up at you. I put words in your mouth that I know you’d never say—or think.”

“You didn’t overreact. I hurt your feelings. You needed someone to listen, and I just lectured you. If I was in your position, I would’ve been upset too. And my offer had absolutely nothing to do with thinking that you’re not capable of solving this problem on your own, because I know you’d do a better job than me, but…”

She stares at me expectantly, the shape of her mouth hard to place—somewhere between a frown and an indifferent line. Her grip on the blanket tightens as she braces herself for the deathblow of my admission.

“But…?”

“But you shouldn’t have to.”

I saw the damage prioritizing work over his family did to my dad, and I’ll be damned if I let Shiloh go down the same path. What I do know is what it feels like to be a prisoner in your own body, to constantly be haunted by the belief that you’re not good enough…and Shiloh is more than fucking good enough. If I can get her to see that, even for a split second, then I’ve finally done something worthy in my twenty-four years on this big, stupid, floating rock.

As if she’s just uncorked a well of sadness, tears gloss over her eyes, threatening to race toward an invisible finish line in never-ending tributaries. “I can’t just take your money. I can’t stop…I have to keep working…I…”

“Breathe, Sunshine. Please ,” I beg.

Screw the distance. I need to hold her right now. I need it so badly that I think I’ll die if I don’t. So I do—I wrap her in my arms to shield her from all the hurt, and my own chest shakes with each reverberation of her sobs. She’s so small against me, so feeble, a broken girl refusing to let herself heal because all she knows is discipline and sacrifice. The thought of allowing change to happen scares her more than suffering silently for the rest of her life.

The space behind my eyes starts to burn, my diaphragm heaving with a breath not yet ready to egress from my lungs. It feels like there’s a goddamn noose tied around my neck, and each time she furls her fists in my shirt or howls in agony, the rope tightens.

“I can’t a-accept your offer,” she wails, guilt tearing through her last pillar of defense, the break in her voice rising above the whitewater in my ears. “I don’t want to take your money. I did that before with my parents, and it r-ruined them financially. If I take money from you, it could ruin more than just your finances…it could ruin our relationship .”

I rub her back with one soothing stroke after another, holding her so closely that I can feel her heart thundering against my ribs, and the way she hangs on me unbalances the apparent unsteadiness of my feet.

“You won’t ruin anything, Sunshine. I’ll help you figure this out. If you need time off, I’ll cover your shift. It doesn’t matter if it’s for a day, a week, a month—I’ll do it. I’ll do whatever it takes to carry some of this pressure,” I promise.

Shiloh reels back so she can look me in the eyes, and I have to work twice as hard to suppress my laughter when an objection flourishes over her lips. “You play hockey for a living, Ful. You can’t work two jobs.”

“I don’t care. You’re more important than hockey. You’re always going to be the most important thing in my life. You do get that, don’t you?”

I don’t think she could ever comprehend the space she takes up in my heart. She hung my moon and stars, she gave me oxygen on an uninhabitable planet, she inspired vegetative growth after years of adapting to a scorched earth.

Her tone is dipped in uncertainty. “Why would you risk your whole future for someone you’re not even with?”

“I’d never force you to be with me, Shi. Ever. But my heart belongs to you. There’s nothing you can say or do that will change that. You stole it the moment I met you—the moment you blessed me with the biggest smile even though I was a fucking mess when I was trying to order.”

“I just thought it was nerves,” she admits bashfully.

Not even close.

“It was you.”

And like a pebble plinking into a stagnant pool of brackish water, a ripple effect occurs, the rest of her emotions seeping out of her through overtaxed tear ducts. “I don’t deserve you,” she cries, keeping me at a distance while her fingers are still pretzeled in my shirt.

I grab her hand as my belly lurches with a newborn warmth that’s never existed before. “Sunshine, you deserve everything in this godforsaken world, and I won’t rest until I’m the only person who can give it to you.”

Despite my seemingly redundant efforts to pacify her, she only sobs harder, squeezing my palm back with a desperate kind of urgency that turns my knuckles the color of snowdrifts. It reminds me of the way she relied on me during our flight here.

“Thank you for not giving up on me, even when you should have. Even with all my emotional baggage and my control issues.”

I can’t believe I’m going to say this—well, I can, but I didn’t expect it to be so soon—but I’m in love with Shiloh. I’ve been falling in love with her. It’s a first kind of love, as pure as the driven snow. She’s my better half; she’s my best friend; she’s my soulmate . And I know that sounds crazy considering I thought I’d die alone and my decomposing corpse would become an all-you-can-eat buffet for the neighborhood stray cats, but I think I knew we were meant to be together all along.

“It’s okay. I should be the one thanking you. You’ve given my life so much purpose, and you don’t even realize it. I…I fucking love you, Shiloh Nguyen. I love you with everything that I am, and it’s not possible for me to ever stop loving you. I know it’s only been three weeks, and you probably think I’m insane, but it’s true,” I confess, and the monstrous creation of negative feelings that have been terrorizing me all these years are suddenly…exorcised from my body. Just like that.

All the anxiety and the overthinking and the tiny voice of self-loathing in my head are gone. It’s taken me four years to chase peace, but I finally caught it after running for so long, and I’ll never, ever accept a life again where I’m not deserving of love. My father’s absence doesn’t define me. The way women have used me doesn’t define me.

Shiloh cups the side of my face with her other hand, and her thumb smooths over my cheekbone as if she’s wiping away all the intangible pain that’s stained my very soul. “No, it’s been four years, Fulton. Because I was addicted to you from the moment you walked into my tiny, off-the-map coffee shop. And if you hadn’t asked me out, I don’t think I would’ve ever found my soulmate. I’ve been tricking myself this entire time into thinking we could never have a relationship outside of Cabo, but that’s not what I want. It’s never been what I wanted. I’ve just been too scared to accept that my life will never be the same after you.”

She wants the real thing. Oh my God. She’s willing to venture out of her comfort zone for me. She’s willing to face all her fears…for me . And I know how much strength that takes, especially for someone as routine driven as her.

This is the best day of my fucking life…aside from the day I first met her. And the day she let me pleasure her. And the day we had sex. Okay, so a lot of my best days have been with her. Hell, even the day she accidentally fed me dairy was nothing short of incredible.

“Trust me, I’m just as scared as you are. I don’t know how to do this whole relationship thing.” My chuckle falls flat, and it feels like someone’s poured wet cement into my chest, the very real, very warranted fear of failure revisiting me in a cold flash.

“You’re pretty perfect at it, actually. Annoyingly so,” she says. “I’m so head over heels in love with you, Fulton Cazzarelli. So much so that change doesn’t scare me nearly as much as living my life without you does.”

I’ve never had the best timing, but I think I’ll regret not seizing the moment while my confidence is still hot. Stomach rolling, a love song composed by the fickle beats of my heart, there’s no precursor before I sign my soul over to Shiloh on that imaginary dotted line.

Nirvana is just a single question away, and for the first time in my life, I refuse to let my insecurities get the better of me. “I know this probably isn’t the best time to ask, but would you be my girlfriend?”

For someone who’s a straight-A student in overthinking, Shiloh doesn’t even hesitate. “I’d be honored.”