My brother was a beer and whiskey guy, always had been, so imagine my surprise when I stumbled upon a ridiculously large wine cooler while ransacking the kitchen in his stupidly gorgeous and perfect home. There had to be no less than fifty bottles filling the ceiling-high cooler, which took up an entire wall of the pantry. A pantry that was about the same size as my bedroom back home. I didn't know much about wine but I knew enough to tell which ones I was safe to open and the ones that were never meant to be enjoyed. I grabbed two bottles of chardonnay that had a familiar label, figuring it would pair okay with the grilled cheese I threw together.
Was Noah a wine guy? That didn't seem right, either. Remembering back to some of the parties we had gone to in high school, Noah had always been drinking beer. But, that's probably because it was high school and keggers usually didn't have a wine bar set up. If the jerk was around, I could have asked him.
Noah had unceremoniously dumped me at the garage entrance to this immaculate three-story brownstone my brother called home. He muttered something about an appointment and left me standing in the lower-level laundry room with my luggage. Obviously, I immediately started my self-guided tour of the multi-million dollar house that was now mine.
I loved it.
I found it completely overwhelming.
It terrified me.
The lower level held a laundry room, an impressive home gym, and a small guest suite with a full bathroom and kitchenette. There was no evidence that any of the guys stayed down there. I had hesitated for a few minutes, considering the possibility of hiding out in the guest suite and avoiding the rest of the house. Then the need to see, to touch, things that were my brother's took over and I hurriedly took the steps to the main level.
The place was gorgeous. Open floor plan, simple and elegant white and grey styling, massive kitchen - all things I may have paid more attention to under different circumstances. The study near the front door caught my eye and I did slow my walk as I went past but it wasn't enough to stop me completely.
I had to find Riley's room.
The third level was much more of what I would expect of Riley. A worn and very comfy-looking sectional framed in a huge television and wall full of gaming systems. A small bar was set up on the opposite wall with a variety of memorabilia decorating the walls. Some I recognized, a lot of it I didn't. The old door sign from Noah's family hardware store caught my eye, my fingers trailing lightly along the edges. Right next to it was a road sign from the waterpark.
"Blue Lagoon Falls" it originally read. Someone had used a black marker to color in the "F" so now it said "Balls".
Chuckling, I glanced down the hall and saw the double doors at the very end.
It was Riley's room. I just knew.
I ran towards it and burst into tears when I flung open the doors.
It was such a mess. Clothes were everywhere - on the bed, on the floor, piled on top of an old bean bag chair he had had since college. The bed wasn't made. The comforter hung almost all the way off, a corner of it waterlogged from the glass it rested in.
My knees gave out and I curled into a ball on the floor, hugging one of his shirts to me, desperate to absorb his scent into me so I'd never forget. Minutes, probably hours, passed while I hid in his room among the discarded remnants of him. When my tears had finally dried, the urge to tidy up became too strong to ignore. Until the discovery of his walk-in closet. Everything was hung in such an order that an infant could have picked out an outfit and dressed himself with no issue. His suits outnumbered my collection of clothes, which plunged me into another crying fit.
We used to love shopping together.
So I found wine and drank a bottle.
I ended up flopping down on the closet floor, on my back, staring at the ceiling to think or try not to think. Counting his suits was amusing before losing my place within all the different shades of gray, black, and navy somewhere around twenty. I'd have to look up if there was a donation limit for the number of suits I could drop off at Goodwill. Noah was taller and a little more muscular than Riley so he wouldn't be able to take any of them. No question they wouldn't fit Mark. Joshua didn't strike me as a suit guy. And what about all of his other clothes? I hadn't even opened any of the drawers yet.
There was so much stuff here. So much stuff I had no idea what to do with or what Riley would have wanted me to do with it. Plus, all his old stuff was still at the house. The drowning sensation I had become all too familiar with this year was bubbling up within me. Fighting the urge to cry, I grabbed my other bottle of wine and opened it, taking a huge gulp and not bothering with the glass that was somewhere on the floor next to me. Being alone was hard for me. Alone was when I felt the burden of enormous loss the most. Alone was when I had my harshest breakdowns.
"Where are they?"
A hug from Joshua would go a long way right now. Even a gruff, slightly pissy comment from Mark would be better than this.
I needed Noah.
No, not him. His help. I needed his help.
Except he wasn't there.
"He sure is good at leaving when times get tough," I whined at the shoes next to my head.
Is that entirely fair?
Totally fair.
I felt the tears spill and I drank more wine, hoping I could just numb the pain. As I went to take another drink, Joshua's shout startled me, and some wine spilled from the bottle.
"Found her!"
I sat up just as Noah appeared in the doorway of the closet. Joshua was holding the door open for him.
Christ. Did he have some kind of radar that alerted him when I was thinking of him? Concern wrinkled his features when he spotted me on the floor, a sobbing, drunk mess.
"Reggie?"
Glaring at him, I tilted the bottle back and started gulping down the wine. Maybe if I was drunk enough I could numb myself to him, too. I didn't get to find out as he took the bottle away from me, concern becoming mild irritation.
"You ruin everything," I muttered.
"Why are you drinking in the closet?" He set the bottle on a shelf next to him, ignoring my comment.
"It's as good a place as any."
"I suppose."
"And I don't need your permission."
"You don't."
His short answers and indifference were pissing me off. It took me a second but I got to my feet, swaying a little bit and when he didn't even offer to help, I got even more pissed.
"Why are you here?" I demanded, shoving past him into the room, and wiping at my tear-streaked cheeks.
Joshua switched off the closet light and shut the door behind me. He was concerned. It was obvious by the look he was giving me.
"I live here, remember?"
"I mean, here." I jabbed my finger toward the floor and stomped my foot. "In Riley's room."
"Finding you. Drunk again"
I wondered if the bottle would fit up his ass. "You guys left me here all alone. Alone in my dead brother's house. What'd you think I was going to do?"
Joshua visibly flinched. "We didn't think -"
"You were just doing what you're best at." My jab struck its mark and for a second, I felt bad for including Joshua in my attack. Except, then I remembered he and Mark left me, too.
Noah didn't like my comment and crossed his arms over his chest. "It couldn't be avoided."
Do not get distracted by his biceps.
He had changed clothes at some point, switching his henley for a threadbare t-shirt with some kind of faded band logo on the front. His strong, defined arms were on display to me, the first glimpse of them since he had reinserted himself into my life. My body was betraying me, growing hot as I tried to pry my eyes away. Wine had been a horrible choice. It made me so horny. That usually wasn't a problem since my trusty vibrating BFF would always take care of me. But the combo of wine and Noah was getting to be a little much.
"Reggie," he snapped at me as I stood there, practically drooling.
I forced my eyes to look at something other than his gorgeously muscled arms. "Where'd you go?"
He shrugged like it was no big deal. "Just a regular standing appointment that can't be broken."
I gave him a humph noise and turned from him, looking for my wine. I know I just had it a second ago. Maybe if I had more of it, I'd be too drunk to remember how horny I was. "What'd you do with my wine?"
"I don't think you need any more."
"I don't care what you think and I can have as much as I want."
"You used to be a happy drunk." Disappointment laced his tone.
I swiped my hair out of my face and turned back toward him. "That was before everyone in my life decided to die and leave me here by myself."
He uncrossed those glorious arms and took a step in my direction, slowly, like he was approaching a wild animal. "You're not by yourself. We're here. I'm here."
"For now." I waved him away, suddenly remembering that he had put the wine on a shelf in the closet. I stomped over to the door, slammed it open, and grabbed the bottle. Part of me wanted to close the door behind me but there wasn't a lock so he'd just come back in like he did before.
"Forever," he corrected, his irritation with me growing.
"Don't you say that. Don't you dare say that to me!." I stalked toward him, bottle in one hand, finger poking at his chest.
If I wasn't so angry I may have started laughing as Joshua tried to quietly back out of the room and then dashed away as soon as his feet hit the hallway. Mark walked by at the same time and Joshua grabbed his arm to haul him along.
Noah also ignored them. "I meant it then and I mean it even more now."
I refrained from throwing the bottle at him. "How can you even say that with a straight face?"
"Easily, apparently," he quipped, drawing even more anger from me.
"Fuck you, Noah. Get off your high horse for two goddamn seconds and just admit you're an asshole for leaving me."
"I've already admitted that to you. But I'll say it as many times as you need to hear it." He closed the distance between us and I sucked in a short breath, his closeness making me react in ways that weren't appropriate for the moment. His hands closed around both of my shoulders. "I'm an asshole for leaving you. I'm an asshole for not coming back."
For a few seconds, I got lost in his earnest gaze. Then I came to my senses and jerked out of his grasp. "You're an asshole for not fighting for me!" I yelled, surprising even myself. It felt amazing to let it out. "I was supposed to be the most important thing to you. You said I was your world, your reason for living and you just gave up!"
"I never stopped fighting for you." He tried to come close again and I backed further away.
"No!" I hissed, shoving him, my tears coming back. "You never started."
He opened his hands, palms up, and waved his fingers in a "bring it" motion. "You want to do this now? Fine. Let's do this."
My shoulders sagged as I sighed. "What are you talking about it?"
"This fight. We need to have it. So lay it on me. All ten years of it."
He's not serious – is he?
As I gaped at him, it became apparent he was. His were feet planted shoulder width apart as if he was bracing for an attack, verbal or otherwise, his arms at his sides, fists clenched and ready to take whatever I threw at him.
Okay, fine then. We're doing this.
"I was never the most important thing in your life, no matter how much you've convinced yourself I was." Good start. We could roll from that.
"What else?" he prompted with a tilt of his chin.
"You're not going to deny it?" That hurt even more than the memory of being cast aside. "Not even argue it?"
"Oh, I'll argue," he assured me. "But later. This is your time to get everything you've ever wanted to say, yell, or curse at me off your chest."
I raised my chin, feigning confidence in my ability to unload everything that I'd been keeping deep inside. "I was just a second thought, maybe even lower than that as soon as you went off to college. You slept with another girl the first chance you got and then forgot about me!"
Noah's eyes narrowed and he grabbed the bottle from my hand, setting it on the dresser. "Wrong, but go on."
"Not wrong!" I yelled, gaining angry momentum. "You were my first love, Noah, and to have you throw me away so easily – do you even realize how long it took me to even get the confidence to date another guy after you? Years. I've only slept with two other guys. How pathetic is that? Two! And with both of them, I was worried I'd do something wrong and they'd leave me just like you did."
His harsh look softened into one of regret and sadness. "You didn't do anything wrong."
"Right," I scoffed, running the back of a hand across my cheeks to try and wipe away my never-ending tears. "The old 'it's not you, it's me' excuse."
"That's not –" he started toward me then stopped when I held up a warning hand.
"Abandoned. Ruined. Damaged. Only eighteen years old and destroyed. That's how you left me. That's what you did to me."
"If I could go back and fix it, I would do it. I would do anything to return to that night and stay with you."
I rolled my eyes. "Easy to say. Impossible to do."
"I know you don't believe me but I choose you, Regan. Every day of my life I've chosen you."
"No," I shook my head. He took another step closer.
"Yes," he countered. "Always."
"You chose Riley over me every time!" It came out as a sobbing, shrieking exclamation, the back of my hand covering my mouth as soon as I spat the words out. Not once had I ever voiced that hurt out loud, not even to Beth. All these years later the truth was finally out. He had made promises and broken them all. He had loved me and left me wrecked and wondering what I could have done differently to make him want to come back to me. Above all, he had chosen the friendship of my brother over his love for me.
Noah snapped his mouth shut, shocked at my outburst but he didn't rush to deny it.
"You chose him that night he found us! You chose Riley by letting him keep you away from me this whole time. You chose him again when you became friends and didn't tell me."
He knew I was right.
With the admission finally out, I completely gave in to my emotions, crying freely and not bothering to hide it from him. Sobbing, really loud, ugly, sobs. An audio-visual presentation of how shattered I was for this man.
Noah came to a stop right in front of me and let me cry it out for a while, putting his hand under my chin when I tried to turn my head away. Instead, he forced me to look up at him. His full lips were pulled into an irritated line, eyes searching my face, jaw clenched.
"Done?"
I nodded.
"Good, my turn." He released my chin and took a step back. "First, you have always been the most important thing in my life and I never forgot you. My one and only goal was to get you back, from the second I ran away from you that night to this second, right here and now. Secondly, I've been fighting to do exactly that, fighting in ways you can't even imagine to make me the man you deserve." He ran his hands back through his hair and looked at the ground then found my eyes with his again. "It was all a means to an end. I was never choosing him over you."
I fought to hide any reaction I had to his words. Did I like hearing them? Sure. But that didn't make me believe any of it.
Noah was so intense, that the determination in his words almost caused a shiver to work its way down my spine. I decided to blame that on the wine. Although I was quickly sobering up which helped me hang on to my resolve to not let his confessions sway me. It was all way too little, way too late.
"I can't believe any of that."
"That's why I'm going to prove it to you."
"Prove it by telling me the truth. You keep saying you wanted to come back. Other than fucking that girl, what's your reason for leaving me?"
He turned from me, bracing himself on the dresser, arms extended and he dropped his head between them. I heard him click his teeth in aggravation. He finally turned back to me, seething with anger, every muscle in his body tensed but his deep voice came out quiet and steady.
"I was in jail for seven years."