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“No, baby, no. The next time I cum inside you, you’re going to be my wife.”
I exchanged vows with my supernova while the rest of the hovering stars lay witness, enviously blinking before fading into dawn.
“I said this is a dream, and I love it here, but then I noticed you were doing your thing.” “What thing?” “You know, when you blast off into a musical coma at random.” He chuckles. “Sorry.” “Don’t be. I’m not getting in the way of that for anything
“Thinking back now,” he continues, “I think I knew you existed and was waiting.” He kisses me soundly and pulls away. “My wife,” his tone full of wonder. “You found me.”
“Baby, you have no idea how good it feels to know that you love me the same way I love you.” “And how do we love each other?” “Wholly, unconditionally, and definitively.”
“Now we have to figure out your wedding present, and it has to be good. Something special and one of a kind,” I demand as he takes the driver’s seat. Famous last words.
“Look at me, Beauty,” he orders, “watch me take your ass.”
“Yes, Easton, far too much. You don’t have a cock. You have an Amazonian water snake in your pants.”
“Don’t ever hide from me. We’re as close as two people could ever be.”
“Now is the best time for us, just the two of us, and we get to have these kinds of days for as long as we decide to.” He lifts our banded hands, palm to palm, before tethering them together and kissing my wedding band. “I want so many more of these days with you.”
“I do, means the rest of our lives. We’ve got time.”
“The type of love that defies rationality, that trumps all reasoning, that’s uncontrollable.”
“Sometimes, I can get irrational due to my emotions. My mom’s the same way and has been her whole life. Instead of trying to change it, she found someone who accepts and loves her more for it and has thrived because of it.”
“What traits did you inherit from your dad?” “My temper,” he admits, “and that’s where it gets tricky.” “Are you afraid of it?” “On the day-to-day, no, but my dad is. He’s afraid I’ll do something I can’t take back.” He lifts his gaze to mine. “Honestly? I’m a little afraid of it when it comes to you.” He stills my hands. “I would never hurt—” “Jesus, Easton, don’t even finish that.” I press in, ensuring he hears me as he rinses his hair. “Unconditionally,” I remind him. “I love all of you,” I whisper on a shaky breath, “I really, really fucking love you and will continue to, come what may. I
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“Your approval was never coming,” Easton relays in an even tone. “There was no way around that. But I do have respect for you, sir, and it comes from how you raised her, her core beliefs, and the incredible woman she is. Respect aside, the truth of the matter is, we both know you don’t want to know me.” “You knew,” he clips out accusingly. “You both knew, and you did this, knowing.”
“Take another threatening step toward my son, Butler, and I’ll fucking end you.”
“I’m not the man to take the underhanded route, Reid. That’s more your fucking specialty, isn’t it?”
“We aren’t a bunch of lovesick teenagers, and this isn’t some rebellion against you. You both need to check yourselves and your personal issues. Your story is history. She and I, our marriage, are in the here and fucking now.”
“Please, Easton, please don’t touch my daughter.”
“Is this my fucking life, Reid? Is a Crowne man destined to swoop in and take everything that’s precious to me?”
“but I’ve observed enough to know that woman in there, who’s wearing your ring, who just took our last name, loves and respects her father. And she is crumbling fast because she’s being put in a situation to choose between Crowne and Butler. Sound fucking familiar?”
“I love you,” she burrows further into me. “I love you. I belong to you. I meant every word I said.” “Then remain my wife,” I plea, unable to help myself. “Keep your promises, your vows to me.” “Don’t do that,” she whispers. “Okay.” I relent easily and pull her to me, and we cling to each other, her tears coming freely as she cries into my shoulder.
“If you’re lucky enough, you get a few chances at love in your life, but you don’t really get to decide which loves get the best and worst of you…at
“So now, sweetheart, I guess the question you couldn’t bring yourself to ask me is, if I ever feel like your father settled for me? Never. But if the one person who has lain witness to our marriage day-to-day isn’t convinced, why should I be?”
“I’m not changing my mind. I’m not divorcing her. You can’t just snap my happiness away like it’s a toy I’m no longer allowed to play with.”
“We reacted and overreacted the way we did because it was warranted. We never asked you to end your marriage. And where is she, son? This woman you chose to give yourself to, knowing the damage it would do to your family and hers?”
Thirty years ago, Nate rivaled my father for the affection of the woman he held most dear. History is repeating itself now, and he’s doing it again, but this time he’s winning.
“Crownes don’t know how to love halfway, do they?” I shake my head. “God, baby. What if she breaks your heart?”
“This is Natalie Butler. Leave a message.” The line beeps. “It’s Crowne. Your name is Natalie Crowne,” I snap as the accumulating acid starts to pour out of me, “or did you fucking forget?”
“You’re exhausted because you’re living two lives. But while you’re fixing your place with him, we’re breaking. You’re breaking me. Come to me, right now.” “I can’t.” Another long damning silence. “Then I know my place. Nowhere.”
“You came to Seattle for me. You found me, married me, you meant it,” he utters brokenly as I crack wide open.
“It seems like you’ve made your decision, Natalie, so stick to it. He made his decision the day you met, and he can’t comprehend, even after this shitshow, how it wasn’t the right one. He chose you, and he’ll never call it a mistake. It’s the hill he’ll die on. I know that much is fucking fact, so if you can’t choose him now, that’s your decision, and make it final. Don’t lead him on any longer, don’t answer his fucking calls, you stop existing for him. I have to go.”
Sitting at the intersection of ‘Fuck My Life Avenue’ and ‘Devastation Road’ sits the Crownes and the Butlers, who have been the butt of the galaxy’s jokes for three decades…but why?
“Maybe you fuck him for the first time tonight, and while you do, you think of me the whole time. You’ll smile as he pulls out and make your way to the bathroom, feeling sick because you believed for a few minutes you could do it, you could escape me. While you scrub his cum from your body, maybe you resign yourself and entertain his idea of what you could be like as a couple because you need something, anything. So, you’ll play along because you don’t have a choice. Months will go by as you drown in delusion. Maybe you’ll adopt a puppy together and pose for the cameras to keep it going. They
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“Well then, I guess I feel sorry for the women you bed.” “Don’t. You know how generous I can be.”
“You see, you got the vows twisted, my beautiful wife. You were supposed to forsake all others for me,”
“Thirty years ago… A Latina grenade stomped her way into my life and saved me seven minutes, so I promised her I would make the best of them.”
“She’s the reason we’re here tonight, so I think it’s only fair we give our last seven minutes to her.”
“You were there,” I whisper hoarsely, eyes filling as he keeps his focus trained on the field, on the stage. “You were there. You were there when he sang for her, that’s why—” “Don’t let go,” he replies hoarsely, his grip on my hand tightening as I realize he’s being forced to relive one of the most painful moments of his life. “Never,”
In these seconds, I become a firm believer that music is timeless. The proof of that almost tangible as years evaporate while my father and I are mutually bruised by a melody, in a front-row seat with a clear view, with history painfully repeating itself.
My own eyes burn and sting with the knowledge my father’s career has just ended. The finality is sealed with a kiss by the woman who jumpstarted it and spent her life watching it unfold by his side.
I can now say that I loved a woman with every fiber of my being, heart and soul, and always will. I can claim that. I wonder how many souls can’t. Knowing that—the gift and rarity of it—all I want right now is the ability to stop the oxygen flow, to cease the reminder pumping in my chest, because the beat feels unnatural now.
“I know you’re upset, but it can’t be tonight. This night is monumental for him.” “Jesus Christ,” I breathe, knuckling my chest, fully absorbing the depth of her plea to me the night we split. Nothing could have kept me away from being here for my parents tonight. Nothing.
“It’s been months, and you’re still bleeding out. I told you not to go after her that amped up. What did you do, Easton?” “What any man would do when he sees his wife put her lips on another man…I behaved badly.”
“Doesn’t matter who filed,” I lift the phone for Benji to see. “She just signed the papers.” Turning it back toward me, it’s when I note the witness signature, signed by Nate himself, that I allow the darkness to consume me.
Broken I may be for the moment, I would do it all over again, just to feel what I did when I had that time to love her. As disastrously as it’s ending, I know without a doubt that I would do it all over again.
Screw Easton Crowne and the awareness that loving him brought me. Screw men in general, aside from the one man I’ve almost always been able to count on.
“If that’s not a sign of something fucking real, something worth fighting for, something worth keeping, then I don’t know fucking anything at all.”
“If you ever…need me,” he utters softly, “I’ll be right where you left me, okay?”
“Do I want to meet your girlfriend?” I force myself to choke out. “No, thank you, Easton. Honestly, I’d rather go for a slow dive to the bottom of the fucking sea.”
