Song above- Ivy by Frank Ocean
⚠️ mature content ⚠️
Sophia's P.O.V.
"I won't bring it up." I was becoming exhausted with how closed off and standoffish Bryce was when it was regarding his past, but I wasn't going to lecture him about it. "Let's go to bed."
Sleep seemed like a blissful alternative than having the argument that was facing us in the horizon. "I can see this is a sensitive topic. We don't have to discuss this any further."
Dubiously, he stared at me. "You want to know. I can tell you do."
"No, I don't." My palms on his jacket slid off and returned to my sides. "Bringing it up is making you unhappy. We've gone through enough in the past couple of hours. Opening up to me about your past can wait."
When the time comes, he would tell me. I was sure of it. Dragging the truth out of him now, like this, didn't feel right.
I wanted Bryce to one day be expressive and transparent as possible. I was hoping that day wasn't years away, but I could wait however long he needed me to.
Bryce puffed up his cheeks, exhaling while studiously focusing on a speck on his Leon couches. Muttering not a single word to me, he took my hand and guided me into the hallway. "If I'm going to tell you, I should start from the beginning."
"Bryce...you don't have to."
"I need to."
Astound at how urgent he sounded, I became compliant in his sudden need that wasn't there minutes ago.
Bryce jammed his right hand into his pocket. A pair of keys jingled, looped on his finger, as he inspected each one, searching for the correct key.
In the hallway, the room he had taken us to was the one I had tried to open during my second visit here. "What room is this?"
"When I moved into this apartment, I only owned this apartment number. I didn't own the top two floors. Julia and I had enough money put aside to get this place." He took a beat whilst twisting the doorknob and pushing it open. With one flick of the switch, the room became illuminated in warm lighting, brushing across surfaces that looked like they hadn't been touched in years. Dust coated the dresser by the window and a lamp near a closet. "The first room we decorated was the baby's room."
The room was painted in a neutral color and the few toys scattered underneath the window seat looked virtually unused yet it wasn't covered in dust, making me wonder if the child was born at all. I pondered if Bryce was in here this week. It wasn't entirely untouched. It was obviously recently cleaned.
One rocking chair, set next to the wooden baby crib, had a children's book on the seat. I couldn't tell if it was my allergies acting up because of the dust or the sheer pain I felt, rattling me to my bone at the sight of this.
"We didn't know if it was going to be a boy or a girl," Bryce spoke up, seeming to read my eyes. "Julia didn't want to know. I still don't know. I sometimes like pretending like I do and think of what they would be doing now and if they'd be anything like me or like their mother. It's all a part of my imagination though because I never got the chance to see them."
"Did you have names planned out?" I croaked, despising the crack in my voice.
"Kathrine if it they were a girl. It's my grandmother's name," he replied, "and Dawson if they were a boy."
"Oh, why that name?"
"That was her older brother's name. He died in Vietnam. I never met him. He sounded like a nice guy though from what she told me about him." He vaguely gestured to the dresser. "She used to always wear his military dog tags. They're somewhere in those drawers."
I swallowed a lump in my throat. "Was there...some kind miscarriage?"
"It's more complicated than that," he responded and we both went to the window seat. It was wide enough for us to sit on together without it feeling cramped. I didn't let go of his hand as he began explaining. "For any of this to make sense, I have to tell you about the issue we had with my parents – my dad in particular. He was raised in Hell's Kitchen in Manhattan, which when he was growing up was a predominantly Irish-American neighborhood."
"You're Irish?" I questioned.
"Yeah, from my dad's side."
"Your last name isn't Irish though. Shouldn't it have an O with an apostrophe in it? Like O'Brien, O'Conner, O'Hara—"
"Well aren't you feeling stereotypical today."
"I'm kidding," I teased. "What was the issue with your dad?"
"For starters, he's always been a traditionally kind of person. Even their fucking marriage was traditional and stiff to the final vow. In the twenty years my parents were married, I don't think my mother loved him - not even a single day from those twenty years. She married him for status, and I could see how much she detested him. Despite that, she remarried him."
"Wait, I'm confused. Go back a bit."
"My parents were married and around the time I was middle school, they separated. They started seeing other people, and when I say they, I mean only my father. Nearly every guy in New York was aware of the number of threats they'd receive if they were spotted with my mom on a date. At his prime, my dad was one of the best contract killers on the east coast. He had ties with both the Irish and Italian mob," Bryce informed. "Anyway, this split led to my dad having his daughter Willow, my half-sister. Her mother and my dad didn't work out. Only two years after, my parents got remarried."
"Why would she go back to him if she was unpleased with their marriage? Maybe she loved him."
"I didn't say they got remarried willingly." He said with cold eyes. "I saw her get pressured into it myself and there's nothing worse in the world than to see your mother emotionally beaten down by a man who claimed to love her. She was afraid of him. Him getting sick in recent years at least stopped him from being as overbearing as he used to be. The way he treated my mother was the perfect handbook on how not to treat a woman I cared for in life."
"I'm getting off course though about my father." Bryce went on. "From day one, he didn't like anything about Julia. When we were friends, he didn't like her and he disliked her more when we began dating. Julia had problems of her own at home. In a sense, we found a way to function within our dysfunctional families. She had a substance abuse problem early on. Anything she could put her hands, she would use it. When money started missing at dad's place, he pointed his finger at her. I reassured him it wasn't – but even I knew that it was her. I paid him back eventually when I got a job."
"In the four month frame she got pregnant during our senior year," Bryce said, "she hadn't used any substances. Yet again, my dad claimed that someone had stolen from him. This time, it wasn't a twenty or fifty-dollar bill. It was a stash of drugs he had stored in the floorboard of the garage. I was one of the few people who knew about it, and naturally, he blamed me and nearly kicked my teeth in. By this time in his dishonorable criminal career, he had opted to leading the organized crime world with his own posy of goons. That same week when I announced a proposal to Julia, I overheard a call in his den. He had said Julia's name and described how he wanted a hit done on Julia and wanted her murder by the end of that month."
"Are you serious?" I gasped, baffled.
"Dead serious," he said gravely. "She was over five months clean and expecting a kid when he made that call. I knew she wouldn't have stolen that from him. When I heard that, I took action. I wasn't going to let him ruin my future because he had damaged my past. That was when I decided on doing something notably stupid." He drew in a long breath. "I stole fifteen grand from my dad. I knew his hiding spots and I knew all of his passcodes. I figured if we got to California and hid long enough, he would forget about us. I was dumb and only eighteen."
Bryce wiped his palm on his denim jeans. "We got married, idiotically thinking we could somehow make it out of this mess alive, and flew to California before the end of that week."
"What about school?"
"This was all done during the summer after our graduation from High School. I made sure to leave after graduation."
"Oh, that makes sense," I nodded. "Why California though, of all places?"
"It was far enough from my father without leaving the country," he scoffed, racking a hand through his unruly hair. "Not far enough though because he found us—Julia in particular."
Bryce lowered his somber gaze to the floor. "He hired a man to do the job he wanted to done in New York. He could've easily ended her life in the matter of one second, but they didn't. They kept her in a far off, unmarked place and called me for two consecutive weeks, having her in the background, screaming while they egged me on for ransom. The ransom was fake though, because they never said a price or where to give it to them. They only said it to give me false hope." His eyes clouded. "This was a trademark move my father did on his enemies. He taunted them with their loved ones. It most likely was a request sent by him."
My fingers went over my mouth, mortified at the imagery of having to hear someone you cared for be tortured, hearing their cries for help when you were unable to do anything to stop the pain.
"She could be alive," I said with optimism. "Someone could've let her go."
"No," he shook his head. "She's not alive. A month after, when the calls had completely stopped, they mailed me evidence of it. Another trademark move from my father. The devil himself. He still says he didn't do it. I don't believe him though."
Oh my God.
"They were photos of her in some dingy, unrecognizable location. In one picture, it was of her hand and over the picture, someone had written 'the hands of a thief' in pen. That image is always engraved into me. Those photos were proof enough that I shouldn't date. And I didn't. I didn't commit to anyone for a solid five years." He glimpsed at me. "Until you."
My mood brightened. "You're committed to me?"
"Of course I am," he beamed, "Why wouldn't I be committed to my girlfriend?"
My heart skipped a beat. "I didn't know we were going by official titles now."
"Too soon?"
"No, it's not too soon." I scooted in closer to him, resting my head on his chest. "Thank you for trust me enough to tell me about all of that stuff. It means a lot."
Bryce encircled his arms around me, settling his chin on my head. We sat calmly on the window seat with my ear listening to his heartbeat and strangely finding it soothing.
The front doorbell ringing caught us by surprise.
"It's almost three am." I said while we left the room. "Who would come over at this time?"
Bryce's bewildered green eyes narrowed at the door as we approached it. He checked through the peephole. "Oh, it's Conner."
He quickly unlocked the door and let his friend in. "Hey, what's up? I thought you were going to stay at the hospital."
"I was, but Kelsey's aunt from Santa Monica drove in and said she'd stay there and call me if any news is brought up. She kept fucking insisting that I need to get some sleep." Conner rubbed the deep bags under his eyes. "I'm not tired."
His looks contradicted that statement.
"Get a bit of shut eye and the three of us can go visit the hospital first thing in the morning," Bryce supplied and started reopening the door for Conner.
"Bryce...is it cool if I stay here for the night?" Conner inquired, dodging direct eye contact, and slumping his shoulders. "I don't want to go in that apartment until Kelsey's back home."
I didn't like Conner –for very decent reasons –but because of how he was with Kelsey, it made me dislike him a pinch less.
He was a jerk to everyone besides her. And that, above all, was what made him only a little bit redeemable.
"Sure, dude, it's cool if you crash in the spare room." Bryce told him, wrapping a arm around my waist. "You know where all the extra sheets and pillows are. We'll be upstairs if you need anything. Alright?"
"Alright," Conner sleepily nodded to Bryce and skirted off to the extra bedrooms. "I'll see you in the morning."
Bryce and I walked up the stairs together, still holding me by the waist. I could tell that the thick tension that was there before was long gone after our talk.
I got into the bed and brought the blanket up to my shoulders. Bryce climbed in after me, wearing only his briefs.
Like I expected and hoped, Bryce came up from behind me and pulled me into his body. I suppressed a laugh and ignored the giddiness coursing through me.
"What are you giggling at?" Bryce's hoarse, raspy undertone hummed into my ear, brushing his lip to my neck. "Is there something funny I'm not aware of?"
"Shh. Go to sleep." My laughter didn't die down. "It's not important."
"It is if you're laughing at me."
I spun around so I was meeting him eye-to-eye. "Maybe you should put on some pants."
Something clicked behind his eyes. "Oooh, that's what you're giggling about? Sophia, putting on pants isn't gonna magically make my dick freeze in place. That's biologically impossible unless I have some kind of disorder."
I gaped at his bluntness. I wasn't going to say it like that. "Plus," he continued, "I'm not about to put pants as pajamas. It's my room, my rules."
"I could gladly sleep in the living room."
"That's not what I meant," his eyes softened, using his fingertip to draw oblong shapes on the exposed skin above my hip bones. "I want you up here. Even though I acted out of hand earlier."
"When?" I had almost forgotten what our first argument was about. "Oh, that. It's okay."
"No, it's not okay for me to lash out like that."
"I get that, but I understand where you're coming from. I'm glad you're able to see the problem there though." Gently, I kissed Bryce on the cheek, and then the lips. I stayed a second longer than I intended, kissing him.
The moment intensified, adoring his hands roaming up my shirt and down to my short-shorts. Continuing the kiss, I got on to my back and felt Bryce move on top.
Placing a hand to my mouth, I muffled a moan when Bryce eased his hands under my clothes, rubbing me.
I didn't want to make too much noise, but neither did I feel compelled to tell Bryce to stop. The stroke of his finger against my sex felt too good for me to voice my opinion on if this was right or not. So instead, I reiterated the obvious.
"Conner's down stairs," I whispered and moved my hand from my face, nervously glancing at the door like I was expecting for it to burst open. "He's going to hear us."
Bryce chuckled, breaking from the path of kisses he made down my neck and withdrew his hands off me. I whined.
"I thought you wanted me to quit it." He said.
"I didn't say that." I eased my arms on to his lean shoulders, locking my hands behind his neck. Bryce used his elbows to hold himself up above me with his legs in between mine. My legs were coiled around his body and I had no interest in lowering them. "He's downstairs right now though. Wouldn't it be awkward?"
I had never been in this kind of situation. Usually no one was around whenever I brought Remy or my other ex in to my room. My mom wasn't home. I was too overwhelmed with the fear of someone walking in.
"That never stopped him and Kelsey from doing anything. I can't tell you the amount of times I've been in the same hallway as them and they went on doing whatever they were doing." He shook his head as if he was erasing a foul recollection. "If you want me to stop—"
"I don't," I interrupted, too eager for him to return his hands back on to me. I shamefully dropped my gaze. I couldn't finish my sentence with Bryce heedful gander, analyzing how I reacted to his touch. "I want you to keep going."
"I will then."
I released a sharp, shaky breath as his hand commenced working their way to where our two bodies met, grazing my exposed, prickled skin. The shorts were off faster than expected.
Bryce's warm, inviting voice moved up to my ear. "I'll continue...On one condition."
"Which is what?" I said in a unwavering tone, clenching the back of his shirt as his index finger hooked the fabric of my panties to one side and gliding his thumb over my wetness. "What do you want me to do?"
My lips quirked, wondering what he'd say next. I didn't try to mask my excitement.
Using his free hand, Bryce circled his hand around my wrist and instructed me to bring my other hand along with it. He held them in place, pinned up the headboard. "It's simple. Don't be quiet and put hands on your mouth again."
Briefly, his attention shifted downwards, tugging my underwear to ankles. I bit the inside of my cheek, but it was no use in holding my emotions at bay. Fluttering my eyelids closed, I tried to keep myself from covering my mouth and stopping from exclaiming out in pleasure.
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