Well Written

12. Chapter Twelve

Chapter Twelve

Marcus

T he taste of pineapple and coconut on Kane's lips has fainted, and all I taste is him. It's everything I wanted, everything I remembered. As my tongue slides gently between his teeth, it traces that small scar against the inside of his cheek. It feels just as it did all those years ago. Deep, and ridged. Permanent.

"Marcus," he groans desperately, tugging at the collar of my shirt. I don't know what to do with his plea. On one hand, I know how this will end. I'm well aware that the dent inside his cheek isn't his only scar. That should be enough for me to stop this. Enough to remind me that all I do is disappoint people. Hurt them. But I can't stop myself from pulling Kane further into my body. From praying I'll get to desperately devour every inch of him.

"Kane," I mumble, running my hands through his hair. It's so thick, and so grabbable, but I don't have the urge to twirl it around my fingers and pull. I want to touch him gently. Carefully. Lovingly. Like I've missed doing for all these years. My fingers slide down the softness of his stomach until they reach the hem of his shirt. They journey underneath the fabric, grazing the coarse hairs around his navel. I want him desperately. All of him.

"This is a bad idea," he groans, his head falling back as my lips attach to the sensitive spot along the underside of his jaw. I pull back slightly, letting my breath hover over the area I've bruised.

Fuck .

It's like I'm a teenager all over again.

"Do you want to stop?" I ask, the wind around us picking up. Kane shakes his head.

"No," he answers, his finger tracing the outline of my jaw. But as I go to press myself back against him, I'm greeted with outstretched hands. "I'm sorry, Marc. I really am. I didn't mean to— I just can't do this."

Kane steps back, tears welling in his eyes, and he takes one last shaky breath before pulling the balcony door open, and quickly disappearing inside.

Time is a fickle beast. When you want it to stop, everything transforms into an unmemorable blur. And when all you desire is that blur, so that you can move on to the next point, it decides to move so slowly, you feel as if you're frozen. Stuck in one place, every minute a growing torture.

I roll over to peer at the clock on the bedside table.

3:07

"Jesus," I groan, running my hand down my face. I've been laying here, staring at the ceiling for five hours . Only, it hasn't felt like I've been staring at the ceiling. I've been picturing Kane the entire time. His dimpled smile, his desperate pleas. His shuddered breath, and those beautiful brown eyes looking up at me. I shouldn't have let it happen, I know that. But it's hard to deny yourself something you want so desperately. And now, I'm laying in bed, wondering if Kane, too, is staring at his ceiling.

I wonder if he's thinking of me. I wonder if he's regretting it all.

I fumble around for my glasses, blindly feeling the thin wire and thick lenses between my fingers as I put them on. Then, I pull my laptop off the nightstand, and into my lap, the screen illuminating the room as I open it.

Immediately, a blank white page stares back at me, the cursor blinking in a steady rhythm. Lately, I've been finding it taunting. A repetitive reminder of how empty my mind has been lately. Of how much I despise the project I'm working on.

Now, I find it relieving. Comforting. Every second that it blinks, words flood to the front of my mind, begging for their turn on the page. I don't know where it all came from, the ideas, the excitement. But I have a sneaking suspicion that it has to do with Kane.

I never had writer's block when I was with Kane. Every time my pencil paused, I'd look over at him, and feel inspiration. From his aura, and his eyes, and the stupid way his body moves as he laughs. Every time I thought that I was out of words, he'd give me new ones without even speaking.

My hands hover over the keyboard, and the second my fingertip touches the first letter, they all begin a fast-paced dance across my lap. Words fill the screen before I even have the chance to process what they mean. But they must mean something, because they're demanding to be said.

Sentences pour out of me in a way they haven't for years. Every few minutes, a new page is created, filled with the thoughts consuming me. It's taken me three months to write ninety words, but it's taken me four hours to write five chapters. Long ones.

I wonder how I could be so disconnected from this story for so long. It's such a beautiful one, full of love, and family, and ambition. It's magnificent, and sad, and it's coming to life before my dry, bloodshot eyes.

"Marcus?" A soft knock rings through the door. "Do you still want to go to La Luna?"

Fuck.

I forgot I promised Janelle we would go to the cafe this morning and work on her novel. Novels , actually, and though the series really is coming along great, I don't want to go. I want to see Kane, and apologize. But even more, I want to kiss him again, and tell him that there is room for him in this life, because I saved him a seat next to me all this time.

But I can't cancel on her. Nellie puts up with everything , all my back-and-forth, my forgetfulness, my tardiness , with the promise that I will help her with her goals. Well, that, and the fat paycheck. But I know which is more important to her, which is why she is going to be even more successful than I am.

"I'm coming!" I call out, watching the little circular arrow spin until I'm sure my progress has saved. I shut the laptop, and slide out of bed, quickly getting ready for the day.

La Luna is a dockside cafe, overlooking the gorgeous ocean. You can feel the waves beneath you as you dine, and while some may find that it makes it hard to focus, I experience the opposite. It's like a baby, being rocked to sleep. Except instead, it's my work, coming to life. It was my favorite place to write in college, besides Well Written of course.

"Sorry," I mumble, wiping the crust from my eyes as I open the door. Nellie's head tilts as she analyzes me, her shiny, sculpted brow lifted slightly.

"You look like shit." She smiles teasingly. "Rough night?"

I frown. "Thanks."

"I'm kidding, Marc," she giggles, nudging me with her elbow. "But really, did you sleep at all?"

I shake my head. "Better. I wrote ."

With espresso running through my veins, and a half-empty bottle of eyedrops beside me, I settle further into the suede couch at the cafe.

"This is good stuff," I tell Janelle, refusing to take my eyes off the screen. Janelle writes fantasy, a genre I don't particularly partake in, neither writing nor reading. Yet, she's created something so captivating, I'm reconsidering my choices.

"Tell me what you really think," she says, glancing up from her laptop. I raise my brows at her, and a smile breaks across my face as I remember the night before. Kane, confirming that even now, he hasn't forgotten me. But this is different, of course, because Janelle's third book is everything Heartless Heights isn't. It's genius, and passionate, and captivating.

"I'm serious, Nellie. It's-" I pause, thinking of the proper verbiage. If I use the wrong words, Janelle is going to think I'm simply being kind. "It's original, but palatable. The plot is really different from the first and second books, but it works, because of the character development you've accomplished. I think— Well, I think you're ready to query."

Janelle gives me an unamused expression, her chin tilted down and her brow quirked to display just how unconvinced she is by my compliments. But when I don't laugh, or contort my face in any way, her expression slowly transforms into subtle excitement.

"Do you really think so?" she asks quietly. I nod.

"I think any agent who rejects it, is going to seriously regret their decisions when it gets turned into a movie series."

Now, Janelle can't hide her joy. She beams proudly, her cheeks glowing red and her dark eyes sparkling. She's proud of herself, and it's amazing. It's hard to be proud of yourself sometimes. Especially when the world around you is always finding reasons why you shouldn't be. But Janelle has experience in this industry. She knows what she's getting herself into.

And yet, she is proud anyway.

"How's it looking over there? ' I ask nervously, wincing as my eyes land onto her laptop. The worst part of writing at night, is waking up in the morning and deleting it all, because in your sleep-deprived delirium, you thought it was a grand idea to go completely off the rails.

I mean, what is plot if not a series of poor decisions made by the main character, right?

Her forehead wrinkles as her eyes scan the screen again, and she looks back up at me.

"It's a mess," she admits, but a sweet smile settles into the groove of her mouth. "But it's something. It's a lot of something, actually, and I can see where it's going. If you keep at this rate—" She pretends to look at an invisible watch on her wrist. "You'll have a completed novel, a good one, in four weeks." The pads of her index and middle fingers drag across the touchpad, the document scrolling down to reveal page after page. "Where was all of this the last three months?"

My palm runs across the back of my sweating neck.

"Oh, I don't know…" I divert, but Nellie doesn't buy my feigned oblivion.

"Oh really?" Her tone is high and taunting. "So, it has nothing to do with your meetup with Kane last night?"

Heat creeps across my face, and I know from the burning sensation, that my cheeks have to be some deep shade of pink. But I shake my head, pretending the facade is still in play.

"Nope."

Nellie nods skeptically. "So it's a complete coincidence that you've written nothing for three months, yet the night you happen to be with him for hours, you write a tenth of a book?"

I suck my lips inward, pinching them between my teeth. If there's one thing to know about Janelle, it's that she will always see through you. "So weird, right?"

"See you back at the hotel!" Nellie calls out from across the street. I wave at her, and watch as she disappears into a painted pink clothing shop with sales racks along the sidewalk.

Coral Beach undeniably has one of the best downtown areas I've ever been to. All the shops stare out at the ocean, the walls boasting colorful, pastel shades. And even though it's a somewhat small town, you can buy anything you'd ever want by just walking along the strip. Clothes, shoes, cell phones, food, the list is truly endless. It's not like Phoenix.

Giant shopping malls don't block the gorgeous views, and every business is small and local. I have to admit that I miss the intimacy of it. I visit the same cafe in Arizona weekly, and could only tell you one of the employee's names. But here? I used to know everyone.

Every store owner, every kid at school. Every sanitation worker, and PTA mom, and even every dog living in the town. I used to hate it. I dreamed of living somewhere new. Somewhere so big that nobody cared what I did, or who I was. I wanted to bury myself in a sea of people, so that maybe, just maybe, I wouldn't have to try as hard to hide. But now that I'm back, now that I'm here, I forgot how nice it feels to be seen. To have people smile at you as you walk past, or hold the door open. To ask you how your day was, and really truly care about your answer. You could go anywhere in Coral Beach and find that. But there's only one place I've ever felt the same acceptance at in Phoenix.

The library.

There isn't anything particularly special about the library in Phoenix. But there is something so spectacular about libraries in general, anywhere you go. They are full of many things: books, dust, weird stains in the darkly-colored carpets. But there is one thing you will never fail to find in any library:

Loving people.

And that's something I learned in this very town.

I walk along the sidewalk, looking out at the ocean as I make my way to the Coral Beach Public Library. I don't know why my feet are moving in that direction, like it's muscle memory. I can't remember deciding it was my destination, but I don't think I could turn around even if I wanted to. The library is where I've always gone when my head is spinning. Something about browsing the shelves makes the entire world around me disappear. All I can focus on is finding the right book, and completely submerging myself in it.

The only problem is this:

That solution doesn't apply to Kane. He follows me into each story, filling the role of the love interest or the best friend. Even, sometimes, the main character. Every time I've tried to escape Kane Ramirez, he ricochets back into the core of my brain, the marrow of my bones, the beat of my heart. I've been running from him for twenty years, and yet, I have been going in circles, because I've been chasing him too.

In every book I've written. In every dream I've had. Kane has been at the center of all of it, and I may not see him ever again.

As I approach the library, embellished with tall windows and vivid memories, I have to wonder why. Why, after all these years, would Kane and I be pulled back together, just to retreat back into our old lives at the end of it. All of this, the party, the apology, the kiss, none of it felt like closure. We were supposed to tie a thread, and yet, it seems it has merely unraveled even further. And I might not know Kane the way I used to, but I know him well enough to say that he feels the same. He has to, because otherwise, he wouldn't have kissed me like it was the middle of a sentence. Like more was to follow, like it was just the beginning.

I stare at the glass doors in front of me, my reflection staring back. But as soon as I recognize myself, it quickly begins to change. My height remains, but my hair grows darker, and my skin smoother. Kane appears next to me, his hair short but just as spectacularly messy. We're blurry, at first, but after a moment, the memory becomes clear, playing out into the glass panes in front of me.

"This is a really bad idea," I whispered, anxiously scanning my surroundings. Kane rolls his eyes, the moonlight bathing over his cheekbones.

"It's fine. It's not like I stole the key, Ms. Georgia gave it to me. I can go in and out of the library whenever I want."

My heart pounded heavily in my chest, and I took a steadying breath.

"This is stupid. C'mon, handsome. Can't we just go to Roberta's?" I whined. Kane's hand twisted, the lock of the door clicking open. He paused.

"If you want to go to Roberta's, we can go to Roberta's." He sighed. "But I'm tired of hiding in a dirty, rusty lighthouse all the time. I want to take you to all my favorite places. I want to go on a date. And I know you aren't ready for that, and it's fine. You don't have to be ready. But I stopped going to The Rainbow Club. I don't hold your hand in public. I've given up my pride, because I know you aren't ready, and I love you anyway. This-" He gestured to the library doors in front of us. "This is a compromise. Break the rules, just once, and be with me. Pretend this is a date, and kiss me against the shelves, and I'll play with your hair while you read me Shakespeare, because I can't fucking do it anymore Marcus. I can't just keep fucking you against a lighthouse wall and act like we're barely coworkers in public. I'm losing it. I'm losing myself. And if you don't give me something, anything, you're going to lose me too."

"Are you going in?"

My head whips around to look at a man standing beside me, his fingers gripping the handle.

"Sorry?" I ask, heat rushing to my cheeks as the memory begins to fleet. The man chuckles, gesturing to the door.

"The library. Are you going in? It's starting to rain."

My gaze flashes back to the door, the memory replaced by my own, aged reflection. I don't know that it's someone I like. But it's someone who isn't afraid. Someone who loves without vigilance of the world around him. Someone who writes about it, and celebrates it, and encourages it. Someone who has come so far to accept his type of love, and will be damned if he doesn't do everything he can to save it.

"No." I step back, small droplets of rain beginning to wash over me. "I actually have to go."