After Ever Happy (After 4)

“I can walk to the shower!” She is laughing now, giggling and screeching like a schoolgirl, and I fucking love it. I love that I can still make her laugh, that she grants me such beautiful sounds.

I finally place her, as gently as possible, on the bathroom floor and turn on the water.

“I’ve missed you.” She stares up at me from the floor.

My chest tightens; I fucking need to spend my life with this woman. I need to tell her everything that I’ve been doing since she left me, but now isn’t the time. Tomorrow, I’ll tell her tomorrow.

Tonight, I will enjoy her sassy remarks, savor her laughs, and try to earn as many forms of affection from her as possible.

Chapter seventy-two

TESSA

When I wake up on Monday morning, Hardin isn’t in my bed. I know he has some sort of interview or meeting, but he hasn’t mentioned exactly what it’s about or which part of the city it’s in. I have no clue if he will return before I have to leave for work.

I roll over, clinging to the sheets that still smell of him, and press my cheek against the mattress. Last night . . . well, last night was amazing. Hardin was amazing; we were amazing. The chemistry, explosive chemistry, between us is still as undeniable as ever, and now we are finally at a place in our lives where we can see our faults, each other’s faults, and accept them and work through them in a way we couldn’t in the past.

We needed this time apart. We needed to be able to stand alone before we could stand together, and I’m so thankful that we made it through the darkness, the fighting, the pain, and emerged hand in hand, stronger than ever.

I love him, Lord knows that I love this man; through all the separations, through all the chaos, he has crawled into my soul and marked it as his, never to be forgotten. I couldn’t have if I tried, and I did try. I tried for months to move along, day by day, keeping myself busy in an attempt to keep my mind from him.

Of course, it didn’t work, and thoughts of him never strayed too far from my mind. Now that I have agreed to work things out, in our own way, I finally feel as though everything could work out for us. We could be what I once wanted more than anything else.

“You had to know that I would always love you. You made me . . . me, Tessa, and I will never forget that,” he’d said while pushing inside me.

He was breathless, gentle, and passionate. I was lost in his touch, in the way his fingers traveled down the length of my spine.

The sound of the front door opening finally brings me out of my daydreaming and remembering last night. I climb out of bed, reach for my shorts from the floor, and pull them up my legs. My hair is a matted mess; letting it air-dry after the shower with Hardin was a terrible idea. It’s tangled and frizzy, but I brush my fingers over it the best I can before pulling it back into a ponytail.

Hardin is standing in the living room, his phone pressed to his ear, when I reach the entrance. He’s dressed in his usual style of all black, and his long hair is a wild mess, like mine, yet it looks perfect on him.

“Yeah, I know. Ben will let you know what I decide,” he says while noticing me standing near the couch. “I’ll call you back.” His tone is short, impatient almost, and he ends the call. The annoyed expression disappears as he takes steps toward me.

“Is everything okay?”

“Yeah.” He nods, looking down at his phone again. His hand runs over his hair, and I wrap my hand around his wrist.

“Are you sure?” I don’t want to be pushy, but he seems off. His phone rings in his hand, and he looks down at the screen.

“I need to take this.” He sighs. “I’ll be right back.” Kissing my forehead, he steps out into the hallway and closes the front door behind him.

My eyes travel to the binder on the table. It’s open, and the edges of a stack of papers are sticking out from the sides. I recognize the binder as the one I bought for him and smile at his still having it.

Curiosity gets the best of me, and I find myself opening the binder. On the first page is printed:

AFTER: BY HARDIN SCOTT

I flip to the second page.

It was the fall when he met her. Most people were obsessing over the way the leaves were turning and the smell of burning wood that always seems to linger in the air during this time of year; not him, he was only worried about one thing. Himself.

What? I brush through page after page, looking for some sort of explanation to calm the chaotic thoughts and confusion. This couldn’t be what I think it is . . .

Her complaining felt overwhelming to him, he didn’t want to hear the worst parts of himself thrown at him. He wanted her to think he was perfect, the way she was to him.

Tears fill my eyes, and I flinch when some of the papers fall to the floor.

In a Darcy-inspired gesture, he funded her father’s funeral the way Darcy covered Lydia’s wedding. In this case, he was attempting to mask a family embarrassment caused by a drug addict, not an underage sister marrying spontaneously, but the ending was the same. If his life would become one from the novels, his kind gesture would bring his Elizabeth back to his arms.

I can feel the room spinning around me. I had no idea that Hardin had paid for my father’s funeral. The small possibility of it crossed my mind back then, but I had assumed that my mother’s church had helped with the expenses.

Even though she was unable to bear children of her own, she couldn’t let go of the dream of them. He knew that, and he loved her even so. He tried his hardest not to be selfish, but he couldn’t help thinking about the little versions of him that she couldn’t give him. He felt for her more than himself, but he couldn’t help but cry over their loss many more nights than he could remember.