Page 6 of Only and Forever
Leaving me with the last person I want to be alone with, standing just a few feet away.
TWO
Tallulah
Playlist: “Tempt My Trouble,” Bishop Briggs
This is my worst nightmare—I have stepped into a goddamn den of lovey-doveyness. The air is practically saturated with happily ever afters and romance and all that mushy shit that makes me antsy just thinking about it. I stand right inside the door, reeling from the warm welcome, watching the beaming, close-knit Bergman family and their equally beaming, close-knit partners drift out onto their back deck.
Except for Viggo.
He doesn’t seem to have anyone around, no one taking him by the hand, walking him outside. But maybe they’re here. Somewhere. Maybe they’re in the bathroom. Or lying down, taking a nap. They could be anywhere in this massive place, which, Charlie’s told me, like the family itself, began small and has since grown big and beautiful, brimming with memories and history, photos crammed on walls, candles flickering on counters and end tables and window ledges, spring’s first flowers bursting from mismatched vases.
“Tallulah Clarke.”
My head tips up reflexively as I hear Viggo’s voice. I process how different he sounds, how different he looks.
Viggo is all grown up.
Gone are those long, lanky limbs. No more boyish bare face. He’s even taller than he was freshman year, still lean but moremuscular, radiating barely restrained energy like a tightly coiled spring. His face is obscured by a thick, unkempt chocolate-brown beard speckled with auburn, and locks of that same chocolate-brown hair flip out around a beat-up navy blue ball cap. Beneath its brim, bright even in shadow, are those eyes. Those damn lovely Bergman eyes. So deceptively cold for such warm people. They’re the pale blue-gray of a winter sky heavy with the promise of snow, yet they throw heat like a fire that could thaw you on the most frigid of days, right to your bones.
Staring at him, I feel a foolish pang of desire. He turned my crank when we were freshmen, and he turns my crank now, somehow even more. But, I remind myself, I’m only standing in front of an attractive guy; this is the hormones talking; it’s just biology. I’m ovulating. I’m a horny animal, designed to be horny right now. That’s it.
I remind myself that this man in front of me is simply the grown-up version of the guy who read Austen novels and bodice rippers during lecture and talked nonstop during recitation. Whose bouncing legs wiggled our table and who annoyingly smelled like Christmastime—pine trees and the faintest hint of sweet vanilla spiced with cinnamon. The guy I ignored because he scared the hell out of me. He was gregarious and cute and endearingly awkward, and all I could think was,Once upon a time my mom probably felt these ridiculous butterflies for my dad, too, and look where the hell that got them.
“Viggo Bergman,” I reply.
His eyebrows lift. “So you’re acknowledging me now?”
“I’d be rude not to.”
“Didn’t stop you freshman year of college.”
A sigh leaves me. Of course he’s going to bring this up. And I probably deserve it, but it’s not like I can tell him the truth about why I acted the way I did.
I was taken by you. And terrified of you. Keeping my mouth shut was the only option.
He smiles wider, seemingly pleased, watching me squirm even without earning my explanation. “At any rate,” he says, “welcome to the A-frame. Looking forward to some rest and relaxation?”
I shift on my feet, feeling every bit of my soles and toes pressed to the cool wood floors, grounding myself. “I’m just here for Charlie.”
Viggo tips his head, curious. “How so?”
I stare at him, silent, thinking through my response. I’m not telling him why I’m actually here, because that’s not my truth to tell. I’m not telling him that my baby sister blurted to me in the bathroom of the restaurant over lunch that she’s scared shitless to propose to her partner but she can’t wait a damn second longer, either, and she needs me as moral support, and I can’t say no to her because it’s our pattern. For as long as I can remember, it’s been this: my parents are a toxic mess whom I put up with more than I should; my younger brother is destructive chaos that I try to manage; and my sister, the youngest, gets scared and needs me, and needs me to be okay so I’m there for her, and I am.
Waiting me out, Viggo drums his fingers on the chair he just nearly fell out of and barely managed to catch, not unlike the first time I walked into our classroom, when his chair teetered dangerously before it slammed back down on the ground, right as my heart thudded against my ribs.
I was nervous, walking into my very first college class. That was the only reason it happened, back then. It wasn’t because the first thing I saw was an adorable guy watching me, smiling curiously.
Not unlike how he’s watching me, smiling curiously, now.
God, I need an escape. I feel that hum beneath my skin like I did the first day I sat by him. And his scent hasn’t changed. Woodsy and warm, a pine tree trimmed trunk to tippy-top and fresh baked Christmas cookies.
I can’t take this.
I’ve got enough on my plate. I’ve got a horribly long editorial letter that I’m too scared to read, and an accompanying Word doc version of my proposal and the first ten chapters of my new manuscript, which, judging by the brief, terrifying scroll through its comments and Track Changes, is filled with ego-slashing edits. I’ve got parents who are back at each other’s throats, trying to drag me into it. A brother who’s sulking even after getting away with a mere slap on the wrist for his latest misdemeanor. And I’ve got a sister who’s about to propose to her partner once she takes her on some “romantic” hike, who’s begged me to come along and support her, as if my being here could somehow make this nonsense she’s gotten herself into—a long-term romantic partnership—work out.
“Charlie and I haven’t seen each other in a while,” I finally tell him. “She... wanted us to have longer to catch up.”