Revive Me, Part Two: The Affair (New Haven, #3)

by J.L. Seegars

“Hey, big head. Sorry for calling you so early, I know you’re busy at the realtor’s office. I just needed to talk. Sloane and I….we, uh, we got into a fight, and I think I might have overreacted a little. I won’t go into detail because all you’ll do is take her side.” He sighs and huffs out a laugh. “Anyway, I’ll talk to you later. Can’t wait to see the place and hear about all the work you’re going to make me do for free. Love you.”

“What are you going to do, Dominic? Stand there all night?” He crosses his arms over his chest. “If I have to.” Another wave of shock washes over me. I’ve never seen Nic be so protective of Sloane. Maybe taking care of her is one of the many things he’s added to his list of obligations now that Eric’s gone.

Mallory and I weren’t good together. We were great. We were a collision of destiny and inevitability. We were fate personified. We were everything.

Everywhere I looked, I saw her. Us.

but the rush of pure satisfaction I get from just being in the same room as her, keeps me rooted to my spot.

The sharp breath I pull in is meant to brace myself against the sudden onslaught of emotion I know I’m going to feel when I hear her speak, but it ends up serving another purpose completely when amber eyes begin scanning the crowd and land, almost instantly, on me. In a span of a heartbeat, the stalled air in my lungs becomes the only thing holding me to Earth because the rest of me is weightless, stunned, suspended in the liquid honey of her gaze.

“Chris.” I don’t miss the way his nostrils flare or the way his eyes glow when I say his name. He almost looks like he wants to let his lids fall shut, to savor the moment. The very second I inhaled air and breathed him out.

“You already know who I am,” Chris says, a tortured expression tugging the corners of his mouth down. “You’re the only person who’s ever known me.”

“I never knew you, Chris. Most days, I wish I never even met you.”

“I don’t know how to let you go.” The statement is a half whisper, half laugh, but there’s nothing amusing about the way his jaw clenches after he says it.

The question makes me want to laugh because Mal has everything to do with it. She has everything to do with everything. There’s not one aspect of my life, one single inch of my soul, that has been left untouched by my knowing her, loving her, losing her.

“Does Sloane know you’re still in love with her?”

But it’s Chris. Logically, that makes no sense because this Chris isn’t my Chris. He’s not the goofy guy with soft and serious eyes that are all for me. He’s not the man who traced my scars with his fingertips, painting them in acceptance and love. That was my Chris.

There’s something inherently sad about that statement. It tugs on my heartstrings, awakening parts of me that exist only for him. Dark, long dormant, corners of my heart and mind that are overflowing with the kind of open-ended empathy and compassion you can only give a person you love.

no good can come from admitting that I still love this man. That I’ve probably loved every version of him that’s existed in this lifetime and every other one too.

A variety of unchecked emotion crosses his face, but the one that’s most distinguishable is uncertainty. It dances in the shadows of his eyes and tugs his lips down into a grim line. “Mal.” My name on his lips is a spell and a curse wrapped up in one. It takes me from slightly tipsy and emotional to reckless in less than a second. I clap my hands together and give him my best, flirty smile.

For some reason, probably the timbre of his voice or a sudden influx in common sense, my pulse kicks up a notch. No one says my name like he does, like every syllable is unique, special. Its own incantation in a book of ancient magic.

It’s changed since the last time I knew her. There are still notes of jasmine and citrus, but there’s something else too. Something new that reminds me she belonged to me once, but doesn’t anymore.

She’s what matters. Only her.

I’m walking the jagged edge of madness when she finally cracks, her forehead crumpling and her lips transforming into a brilliant smile that somehow still pales in comparison to the melody of the laughter pouring from her throat. Laughter. She’s laughing at me. And I might have been upset about it if I wasn’t so enthralled by the sight of her joy.

She’s probably spent the days since, thinking Giselle was my prize, but it’s always been her. Her safety. Her peace of mind. Her well-being. Her joy.

Because it means I’m the only person in the world she’s comfortable asking to take care of her, even if it’s just for a moment, even if it’s just in this way.

Chris feels it too. It’s evident in his pained expression, in the way his touch goes from tender to urgent, desperate. Fingertips that were once feather-light turn frantic, applying pressure that I remember well. The kind that marks you, that transverses layers of skin and muscle to penetrate your bones.

Pushing up on my elbows, I gaze down at him, watching as he slips the strappy wedges I’ve been wearing all day off of my feet. His palms are warm and rough as he massages my soles with heart-stopping reverence.

It’s the second time he’s called me that tonight, and it doesn’t burn any less now than it did then. For me, that word, and a million other things, will always belong to him.

but I’d stop the world for you. I’d freeze time if it meant I would never run out of opportunities to look at you.”

“You’re so fucking sexy when you say shit like that.”

Chris watches me, watching us, and there’s no hiding the emotion pouring out of his eyes.

If this were any other one-night stand, I would have cut this little foray into aftercare short, but Chris is not just some random guy I met at the club. He’s….well, he’s him. The man I consider my first in all the ways that count. First consensual sex partner. First serious boyfriend. First person to truly break my heart.

“I know,” he sighs, pained acceptance ringing in the two words. “But just let me hold you for a little while, okay?” I can’t remember the last time someone held me. The last time I felt safe in a person’s arms. And for that reason, and that reason only, I relax into his hold.

“I went with your usual from back in the day because…” He trails off, something like shame crossing his features as he grapples with the reality of not knowing such a small thing about me now. I divert my gaze, trying not to let that expression touch me, to let it echo in the places he touched me last night, the ones that are hollow and empty now that he’s not there.

“Because from the second I found out Eric was gone, all I wanted to do was hold you long enough to absorb your grief. To take every ounce of the pain you’ve been holding and carry it for you. When I boarded that plane, I knew I had no right to want any of those things, to want anything from you, but I want this, princess. I want to be here for you. Will you let me?”

A combination that exists for the sole purpose of driving me crazy.

For a moment, I’m at a loss for words. Stunned by the casual, everyday-ness of combing through random, and possibly unnecessary, household items. If I let my brain wander far enough, I can imagine that the bowl she’s holding in her hand is going to go inside the cabinet of a kitchen, in a home that belongs to us. It’d be something cozy. Modest compared to the sprawling estates I grew up in but more than enough for us. Three or four bedrooms with a kitchen she can cook with her mom in. A huge dining and living space, so everyone has room to spread out when they come over for the holiday dinners Mal will insist on hosting.

But for her, I’ll try.

Her laughter touches the same spot in my chest that it did last night. Warming the scarred skin of my heart.

I fiddle with the gold bracelet on my wrist, adjusting it so it blends with the band of my watch.

AHHHHHHH realll

I take the opening she’s made as an invitation, stepping out from behind it and closing the space between us. I loop an arm around her waist, my heart racing at the feel of her plush curves pressed against my side.

The playfulness in his tone sets a thousand butterflies free in my stomach. Their gossamer wings stir up a wildfire of emotion as I realize just how much I’ve missed this. How much I’ve missed him and the way he makes existing feel effortless.

“Let it out, baby,” he murmurs, lips pressed to my hair. “I’m right here.”

“And I wanted you. I needed you. I needed you so badly I wished for you, Chris.”

“I don’t want to hurt you, princess. I never wanted to hurt you.”

I think that destroyed me the most. Hearing her voice break as she talked about needing me. Out of all the things she could have wanted, out of all the people she could have wished for, I was the person she thought of. And knowing that makes the decision to get on that plane worth it.

“Any reality without you in it is misery, princess.”

“Don’t pull away,” she murmurs against my lips, hands still glued to my face to keep me from moving. “Don’t ask me if I’m okay because I’m not. But I don’t want to feel it, Chris. I don’t want to feel any of this. I just want to feel you.” How can I deny her anything? The short answer, the laughably simple response, to that question is: I can’t. The list of things I wouldn’t give her, wouldn’t do for her is nonexistent. She can ask me for anything, and I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I won’t be able to rest until she has it.

“How is it still so good?” “Because it’s you and me, princess.”