He continues to chuckle and I try to be irritated that he’s getting so much enjoyment out of this, but it’s impossible to be mad at him when I’m cozied up in his arms by the fire, nearly boneless from my earlier orgasm.
“The team dumped one of those huge buckets of ice water over my head. Stanford didn’t like the whole wet t-shirt contest look and made a dig about the inappropriate shorts I was wearing,” I explain. “He also said something about me needing to be a proper Southern lady once we’re married and I lost it. I hadn’t even told him that I would marry him, and he was already planning my wardrobe and telling me how to behave. So, I stripped off my wet shirt and threw it at his face and did the same with the ring.”
Fisher laughs even harder and I elbow him in the ribs. “It’s not funny!”
“It’s ABSOLUTELY funny! Especially because I can practically see the look on Stan-Weasel-Ford’s face when you did that. His delicate sensibilities must have been mortally offended. Also, fuck him. I couldn’t stop staring at your ass all day in those shorts. They were a thing of beauty.”
Fisher’s laugh is once again contagious and I giggle, thinking about the horrified look on Stanford’s face when I stripped in front of everyone, my body warming even more knowing that Fisher had been looking at my ass during the game.
Our laughter slowly fades after a few minutes and the only sound in the room is the crackle of the fire and our breathing.
“I never slept with him,” I say softly, breaking the silence.
I feel Fisher’s body go rigid behind me and his arms tighten around my waist.
“It’s none of my business,” he mutters.
I scoff at him. “Oh, please. You’ve acted like a caveman every time you’ve seen us together and I know that’s one of the reasons.”
He lets out a deep sigh behind me. “You have no fucking idea how good it is to hear that. I wanted you to be happy, but I hated that someone else was giving that happiness to you. The idea that he got to have you when it’s all I’ve ever wanted almost killed me.”
“I couldn’t do it, though Lord knows I tried,” I tell him with an uncomfortable laugh. “All I could think about was you. All I could feel were your hands on me and your lips kissing me and I just couldn’t do it. It’s always been you, Fisher, I just… need you to know that. There’s never been anyone else for me.”
He lets out another heavy breath and kisses the top of my head. “I’m so sorry, Lucy. For everything. You have no idea how sorry I am. You were right earlier, I shouldn’t have run away. I just didn’t know what else to do. I was losing my mind and nothing made sense anymore.”
I stay completely still and don’t say a word. This is the first time Fisher has spoken of the things that happened between us, and I don’t want him to stop. I want to know what was going on in his heart and his mind and why he did the things he did.
“You need to know that I was never, not once, confused about how much I love you. I was afraid of hurting you, worse than I already had. I was having the worst flashbacks of my life and I thought I was going crazy. It was getting harder and harder to separate being in the war from being back here on the island with you,” he explains in a voice filled with emotion. “I know I shouldn’t have pushed you away. I should have talked to you and told you what was going on, but I didn’t want to put that on you. You had already done so much for me, supported me and my need to go off and leave you year after year, stuck by my side through it all without a single complaint, and I couldn’t stand the thought of giving you one more thing to worry about. I hated myself and I didn’t know how to get out of the darkness.”
I squeeze my eyes closed to keep the tears from falling. I knew, deep down inside, that he never really wanted to shut down and pull away from me and I should be happy that he’s finally admitting it, but it just makes everything hurt worse. It makes me sad for the time we lost and it breaks my heart that he wouldn’t let me help him when he needed me the most.
“You were my whole life, Fisher. Everything I was, everything I did was wrapped up in loving you. We took vows – for better or for worse. Why did you think that I couldn’t handle the worse? Or that I wouldn’t want to?” I ask him softly. “I stuck by your side and I supported your decisions because there was nothing else for me to do. Loving you meant loving every part of you, the good and the bad, the easy and the hard. I married a Marine and I knew from day one what that would entail. I didn’t go into it blindly thinking it would all be rainbows and roses. I knew we’d have our challenges, but I always thought we were strong enough to get through them. I thought you would trust me enough to talk to me when things got bad and believed in our love enough to know that it would get us through anything. I never would’ve left, Fisher. Ever. I would’ve stuck by you because that’s what I pledged to do for the rest of my life.”
I hear him sniff behind me, but I refuse to turn my head to look at him. If I see tears in his eyes, I will completely break down and I can’t do that right now. He needs to know that I’m stronger than I was a year ago. He needs to know I can handle anything and, although I know he’s sorry for what he did, he needs to know how much it hurt me.
“Even when you kicked me out of the house, I still wasn’t ready to give up. I was so angry with you for pushing me away when I knew you were hurting, but I refused to let go. The things you said to me, they were nothing compared to walking into Barney’s and seeing you with Melanie,” I tell him, trying to keep my voice from cracking. “I knew you were drunk and I knew something was seriously wrong with you, but I still believed, even after that crap you fed me about other women, that you wouldn’t go that far to push me away. You shattered my heart into a thousand little pieces that night. Seeing your hands on her and your mouth on hers… that’s the only reason I gave up. The only reason I walked away.”
The tears start to fall, no matter how hard I squeeze my eyes closed to stop them. Fisher moves his arm from around my waist and presses his palm to my cheek, turning my face around towards his.
He kisses away my tears, even though his own are falling just as quickly down his face and mingling with mine.
“I’m so sorry. I’m so fucking sorry,” he whispers brokenly. “Nothing happened with Melanie, I swear to God, Lucy. I know you probably won’t believe me, but I was having a fucking hallucination and I swear I thought she was you. I knew she felt wrong and she smelled wrong, but I wanted it to be you so badly that I didn’t even care. I was beating myself up for pushing you away and I just wanted it to be you. I wanted you in my arms, telling me everything would be okay, and I kept drinking and falling deeper down that fucking black hole until nothing made sense and I just didn’t care.”
My heart stutters back to life at his words and I sob through my tears. The worst part about losing him was believing he’d found someone else to ease his pain. Someone more experienced than me, someone prettier than me and someone he wanted more than me. Someone who didn’t remind him of his pain and his past like I did.
Fisher wipes away more of my tears with his thumb and stares into my eyes. “I should have trusted you and I never should’ve left you. I’m so sorry for not seeing how strong you were. I’m sorry for being weak and letting the darkness take over when I should’ve known you were the light and you would always make everything better.”
I turn my body between his legs and hold his face in my hands. “You were NOT weak. Don’t you dare say that! You went through so much and you shouldered all of that on your own. You are the strongest person I’ve ever met, Fisher. I’m so proud of you for what you’ve done. I’m proud of you for getting help and I’m proud of you for finding your way back here.”
He lets out a shuddering breath and presses his forehead to mine. “I hated it. Every second I was away from you, I hated it. I was so fucked up in the head, Lucy. But I was so afraid of screwing up your life that I knew I had to stay away until I could think clearly, until I could stop imagining things that weren’t there and stop being so angry all
of the time.”
Fisher runs his hand through my hair and kisses my lips gently.
“I can practically hear your brain working,” he smiles against my lips as he pulls back to look at me. “Talk to me. You can ask me anything. I’m not going to keep things from you anymore.”
I look down and nervously pick a few pieces of lint from the towel off of the skirt of my dress.
“That night at Barney’s, when you first got back to town, you told me you were just drinking sparkling water. Have you…are you…”
I trail off, suddenly feeling completely uncomfortable with this conversation, but I know it has to happen. His drinking was one of the catalysts that eventually broke us.
“I’ve been sober since the night Bobby dropped me off at the VA hospital,” he tells me softly. “It sucked and it’s been hell, but every day gets a little bit easier. It helps that I have a really good man to talk to if I ever feel tempted to drink. He kicked my ass the whole time I was at the hospital, but he’s a good guy. He served in Vietnam and he understands the struggles vets go through. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to have a beer again without being tempted to overindulge and for right now, I’m not going to test it. I’m taking it one day at a time like I’ve been taught and it’s working so far.”
I look up at him, staring into the clear, brown eyes that haven’t been bloodshot a single time since he came back and trailing down over the face that hasn’t been flushed and bloated from alcohol at any point over the last two months and I’m certain he’s telling the truth. I run my hands over the stubble on his face and my heart stutters when he smiles at me and I see his dimples peeking through the facial hair.
“I’m proud of you,” I tell him honestly.
He shrugs. “I’m kind of proud of me, too. It’s nice not having a cloudy brain all the time and being able to see what’s right in front of me and how important it is that I stay sober.”
Leaning forward, I press my lips to his.
“Are you thinking clearly right now?” I whisper against his lips.
His smile widens and he closes his eyes. “The thing I’ve NEVER been more clear about is how much I love you, how much I need you and how I don’t ever want to be anywhere else but right here with you.”
I hear voices outside and footsteps on the porch. Fisher and I break apart and scoot a little away from each other as guests start filing into the inn, laughing and talking about how much fun they had down at the beach. They wave at us as they walk past and head towards their rooms.
“I should probably head back to Trip’s,” Fisher says quietly. “You probably have a lot of stuff you need to do around here.”
Pushing myself up from the floor, I hold my hands out to him and help him up.
“It can wait until tomorrow. Stay,” I tell him.
Now that I have him back, now that we’ve battled most of the demons living inside of our heads and our hearts, I don’t want to let him go.
He leans down and kisses me quickly before pulling back. “There’s nowhere else I’d rather be.”
I turn and pull him through the sitting room and towards my living quarters. Tugging him into the small bathroom, I turn on the water in the shower to get it warmed up. We undress each other slowly and step under the spray of the hot water together. Fisher takes his time running a bar of soap over my body and I sigh in pleasure when he turns me around and massages my scalp with shampoo. After he rinses it out, he drops to his knees on the porcelain and gently turns my hips, sinking his mouth between my legs. He takes his time licking me and tasting me until I clutch onto his hair and beg for more, my hips thrusting quickly against his mouth. His fingers immediately join his lips and his tongue, pushing inside of me and rocking slowly in and out of my body. After so many years of pleasuring me and learning my body, he knows exactly what to do, where to touch and how to move his hands and his tongue to drive me insane. I’ve missed this so much that I almost start to cry when I feel my orgasm rushing through my body. I’ve missed having someone who knows me so completely and loves me so fully. I come quickly with a shout, my head thumping back against the tile wall as the water beats down against us and Fisher hums his pleasure against my sex.
While I pant and calm my racing heart against the wall, Fisher turns off the water and pulls me out of the shower, wrapping us both in towels from the shelf above the toilet. We walk hand-in-hand into my dark bedroom and shed our towels onto the floor before curling up under the covers on my tiny bed. Our bodies are pressed together so tightly that I’m surprised either one of us can breathe. The warmth of his arms and the thump of his heart beating against my own lulls me quickly into the most peaceful sleep I’ve had in over a year.
Chapter 34
Fisher
Present Day
Before I know it, July has flown by, as well as August. I’ve found my place back on this island and with Lucy, but something still feels off. I’m keeping busy with more furniture orders than ever before and I help Lucy out at in inn when she lets me. We’ve been spending as much time together as possible and it feels like we’re dating all over again. We go to dinner, we hold hands and go for long walks on the beach and we curl up and watch movies, just like when we were married. Everything about it feels so right, but something still feels wrong.
We haven’t had a deep, heart-to-heart talk since the night of the Fourth, but we’ve been working our way through our issues and dealing with the hurts of the past one day at a time. I’ve told her I love her countless times, but she never says the words back. I know she doesn’t completely trust me, I can see it in her eyes, but I don’t know what else to do to convince her that I’m not going anywhere and I would rather die than hurt her again. The giant elephant in the room is the yellow cottage at the edge of town that sits there dark and locked, waiting for the happily married couple who used to live there to come home. I spend the night at the inn in her living quarters practically every night, even though there’s nothing I’d rather do than take her home. To our home, to start over and begin a new life together. I don’t want to push her into something she’s not ready for, but I don’t know how much longer I can live my life in standstill without moving forward.
I know there’s something she’s holding back, something she’s not telling me. I see it every time we talk and feel it every time we make love. There’s almost a desperation about her that I’ve never seen before. She clutches onto me tighter, begs me for more and tries to hold back her tears, but I see them every time, even though she does her best to hide them. I don’t know what I’m doing wrong and I don’t know how to fix things. I know things will never be perfect between us, no relationship is, but it’s almost like she’s picking fights with me just for the hell of it. She pushes my buttons and says things that tick me off and it’s like she’s just waiting for me to explode, waiting for me to push her away and say hurtful things to her like I did before. I make sure to keep my anger in check and calmly reason with her about whatever stupid thing she wants to argue about, regardless of whether it’s the fact I left the cap off the shampoo bottle or I forgot to lower the toilet seat. I do everything I can to prove to her that I’m not going to fly off the handle like I’ve done before, but all it seems to do is piss her off more.
“So, when are you kids going to shit or get off the pot?”
Lucy looks over at Trip and I just shake my head at him as I continue to eat.
He invited us over for dinner and we’ve been having a nice, normal conversation about the jobs he’s been working on around the island and the orders I’ve taken the last few weeks.
“Seriously, it’s getting a little annoying watching you two pussy-foot around each other. When are you getting remarried so you can start popping out some great-grandkids for me?” Trip asks casually.
Lucy starts to choke on the mouthful of food she was chewing and my silverware clatters to the plate at Trip’s question. I quickly reach over and pat Lucy on the back, shooting Trip a dirty look. He stic
ks his tongue out at me before grabbing Lucy’s glass and holding it in front of her.
She snatches it from his hand and gulps down half the glass. This old man is getting on my last nerve. He’s been asking that same question every time I’ve stopped by to grab clean clothes, since I’ve practically moved out of his house and into the inn. Each time I’ve told him to mind his own business and that I didn’t want to rush things with Lucy, but clearly he thinks rushing and being nosy is the way to get things done.
“How about we discuss why you’ve never gotten remarried?” I ask, turning the conversation back on him. “Fifty years is a long time to be alone.”
Lucy gently sets her glass down and looks at Trip in wonder, holding her breath and waiting for him to answer. She’s asked me that question a few times over the years and I never gave it much thought until recently. My grandfather, though annoying at times, is a good, hardworking man. He’s handsome for an old guy and I’ve seen him flirt with plenty of women around town, so I know he’s still got some spark left in him. I’ve never understood why he wanted to be alone for all of these years, why he never fell in love again after my grandmother died.
Trip pushes his plate away from him and folds his hands together on the table in front of him.
“Fifty years IS a long time to be alone, but I’d rather be alone with my memories than to try and fake something with another woman,” he tells us.
“Why would you have to fake anything? You don’t think you could love someone else?” Lucy asks him softly.
“I KNOW I couldn’t love someone else,” he informs her, before turning his face to look at me. “Your grandmother, she was an amazing woman. I wish you could’ve met her, Fisher. She was beautiful, smart, kind and she loved me more than I ever deserved. We grew up together, did I ever tell you that?”
I shake my head in silence, not wanting to ruin the moment by speaking. Trip rarely speaks about my grandmother, and it’s amazing to hear about her and their relationship now.