“Take a shower with me,” I whispered.

His lips gave way to a small smile. “Are you sure?”

“Yes. I need you tonight.”

His lips brushed softly against mine for a moment before he stripped out of his clothes. He took my hand, and we stepped into the shower as the warm water ran down us and our lips tightly locked together.

****

As I let out a yawn, I looked over at the clock and saw the time was ten. When I looked to my side, the only sight I saw was the crumpled sheets and the empty pillow where Alex lay and held me last night. I climbed out of bed, slipped my robe on, and followed the smell of fresh brewed coffee to the kitchen, where I found Alex over the stove, making eggs.

“What’s this?” I smiled.

He turned his head and looked at me. “Good morning. I was just about to wake your lazy ass up.” He snickered.

Pouring a cup of coffee, I smacked him on the arm.

“Umm. Something’s burning.”

“Shit. The toast!” He turned to the toaster and popped it up.

I laughed as I grabbed a butter knife. “We can always just scrape off the burnt part and then spread thick layers of jelly across it.”

“Very funny. I’ll just make new.”

“It’s fine, Alex.” I placed my hand on his arm.

Walking into the dining room, I stopped and took note of the pink rose petals scattered all over the table with a beautiful arrangement of different flowers in a crystal vase.

“What’s all this?”

“Nothing. Doesn’t everyone eat breakfast on a table filled with rose petals?”

“You don’t do rose petals. Remember?”

“Why are you making a big deal about it? Just sit down and eat your scrambled eggs and burnt toast.” He smirked.

Sitting down with a smile on my face, I began to eat the eggs Alex so graciously prepared for me.

Crunch.

Crunch.

“What the hell, Parker?” Laughing, I spit the eggs back onto the plate.

“What? That was really gross, Emerson.”

“Eggs aren’t supposed to be crunchy.” I dug through the eggs with my fork. “Oh my God, there’s shells in here.” I looked up at him.

“Oh. I thought I got all those out. Sorry about that.” He pushed his plate away. “Go get dressed. We’re going out somewhere.”

“Where?”

“For a drive.”

“Where?”

“I’m not telling you. You’ll see when we get there.”

“I really don’t feel like going anywhere.”

He sighed and got up from his seat. Pulling my chair out, he picked me up and threw me over his shoulder.

“What are you doing?! Put me down.”

“I told you to go get dressed and you didn’t listen, so I’m dressing you myself.”

“The hell you are. Put me down.” I pounded on his tight ass.

When we reached the bedroom, he walked into my closet, with me still over his shoulder, and pulled a black sundress from the hanger.

“This will do.” He set me down and untied my robe. After sliding it off my shoulders, he pulled the sundress over my head. “There. Now do you need me to do your hair and makeup as well?”

“You’re such a douchebag, Parker.” I smiled as I walked into the bathroom.

“At least I’m not a fucker. You have fifteen minutes, Emerson. I’ll be downstairs waiting.”

“Did you take your pill?” I yelled before he walked out.

“Yes.”

“Good boy.”

****

As we were driving, Alex still wouldn’t tell me where we were going, but the route was all too familiar to me. Panic started to settle inside me as he made a left turn into a subdivision.

“Alex, what are you doing?” I asked nervously.

He looked over at me and took hold of my hand but didn’t say a word.

“Parker. I’m speaking to you. I don’t like this. Turn around!”

“Stop, Emerson,” he spoke as he pulled into the driveway of my childhood home.

I gulped as I stared at it from the car window. “I will ask you nicely one last time to please take me back to your house. Because if you don’t, I swear to God, I’ll break your balls.”

“There you go again.”

“Alex, I’m serious. This isn’t funny and I want to leave.”

He grabbed both of my hands and stared at me. “Listen to me. I want you to calm down. This was your childhood home and you had wonderful memories here. We’re going to go inside and you’re going to tell me about those memories. Okay?”

“How the hell are we going to get inside?”

“The realtor will be here shortly. The house is up for sale and I made an appointment to look at it.”

I rolled my eyes and sighed. “How did you even know about this house?”

“I talked to Adam this morning.”

“Of course you did. Fuck you, Parker. I’m not going inside that house.” I opened the car door and ran straight to the backyard. Why? It was a place of comfort.

As I stopped in the middle of the grass, I looked straight ahead by the oak tree that was still there and at the empty spot where the little house used to be that my dad had built for us. He called it “Twins Cottage.”

Alex walked up from behind and clasped my shoulders. “What are you staring at?”

“Over there by the oak tree, Emily and I always played in the cottage my dad built for us. It was our own little house. We would have tea parties when we were really little and then, as we grew, we used it as a place to escape from our parents for a while. Emily and I would sit in there for hours and listen to music and talk about the things we were going to do. We had some amazing times in there. I even got my first kiss in there by a boy named Sam. What happened in that cottage, stayed in that cottage.” I smiled.

I walked over to the tree and examined the trunk, finding the arrow that I had carved into it. “See this spot right here?”

“Yeah.”

“This is where we buried Muffin, our dog. I carved this arrow in the trunk of the tree pointing down so I’d always remember exactly where she was buried.”

Alex put his arms around my waist and kissed my head.

“Excuse me,” a woman spoke from behind us. “You must be Alex Parker?”

“Yes, and this is Emerson James.”

“Nice to meet you both. Come with me and I’ll show you around inside.”

I took in the deepest breath I ever took in my life before walking through the back door of the house I grew up in. Stepping inside, memories of my parents, Adam, and Emily flooded my mind. Tears started to spring to my eyes.

“As you can see—” the realtor started to speak.

“Excuse me, ma’am, but I just want to look around myself. If I have any questions, I’ll let you know.”

“Oh,” she spoke with an offended tone. “Well then, I’ll be sitting in the kitchen.”

“Thank you.” Alex smiled gently at her.

Chapter 30

Alex

Maybe bringing Emerson back to her childhood home wasn’t the brightest idea I’d ever had, but she needed to be reminded of the good times she’d had here. Was it my place to remind her of them? Yes. I felt it was because I loved her and I wanted her pain to stop. She walked up the stairs and I followed her. Opening one of the doors in the hallway, she walked inside the room.

“This was my and Emily’s room. My bed sat in that corner over there and Emily’s sat in that corner across from me.”

“Why did you two share a room? This is a five-bedroom house.”

“Because we couldn’t stand to be separated.”

Jesus. It was all making sense to me now.

“We used to sit on our beds, do our homework, and talk for hours about everything. This wall over here.” She pointed. “This is where our map hung and there was a dresser right underneath it where we always kept a black marker sitting on top. My mom would come in our room to put our laundry away and she’d look at the map. She would smile every time she saw another black circle.”

She was smiling and her tone of voice was lighter. She was remembering the good times here and I prayed to God this was enough to make her stay in California.