Page 22 of Til Death Do Us Part

Everly

“So…um…I’llcall you later in the week, and we’ll figure out when we can get together.” Leo ran his thumb over my ring, a habit he seemed to have acquired during our short time together. I hooked my pinky with his. “This feels weird, right?”

“My body is saying don’t leave her, but my mind is telling me it’s time to part until next time.”

“And which one is winning?” I knew what was winning in my case. After spending all day yesterday in our hotel room, mostly in bed, the outside world felt strange and wrong at just the thought of being without him.

“It shouldn’t be so hard, but I don’t want to leave you. Maybe as a reward for getting my bedroom unpacked or whichever room has the least number of boxes, I can call you tonight. It’s not the same, but I do have to unpack all my belongings. It’s not much since this is the first time, I’m living on my own in something bigger than a dorm or a studio apartment, but I’ve got a lot of work to do before I have to show up at my actual job in two days.”

“Hey,” I took his hand in both of mine, and smiled up at him, “I get it. You don’t need to explain. I can’t imagine having all my shit moved to another country and being out of town while it happened only to come home from a wedding to end up being married myself. Then you’ve got to unpack and start a new job. It’s crazy and probably overwhelming as well. Please don’t let me be part of the madness.”

“You’re not part of the madness. At least not yet.” He winked at me. “I don’t want you to think I’m ghosting you if you don’t hear from me for a couple of days.”

Canting my head to the side, I smirked up at him. “I thought you were going to call me tonight as your reward for unpacking some.”

“That’s the plan.” He looked over my shoulder and I watched as his shoulders sagged. “That’s my Uber. Are you sure you’ll be okay here until your car comes?”

Leo pulled me into his arms and gave me probably one of the best hugs I’d ever received. My head fit snuggly between his pecs while one arm spanned from the bottom of my back all the way to the top. His other hand cradled my head as if I was something precious.

“I’ll be fine. It’s sweet you’re worried about me, but you really don’t need to,” I muttered into his chest.

He pulled away and my stomach fell in disappointment, thinking he was going to walk away.

Dropping his bag to the ground, Leo swooped in and laid the mother of all kisses on me. The way his lips moved over mine as if he was taking little sips of me until the next time he saw me, had me swaying on my feet when he eventually pulled back and let me go.

“I’ll talk to you soon. If you have any problems, give me a call, okay?”

“I will. Bye, Leo,” I called as he threw his bags into the trunk and then got inside the waiting car.

As the car drove away, he lifted his hand in goodbye. Tears welled up in my eyes, making it difficult to see his retreating form. Somehow, in the last seventy-two hours, Leo had burrowed himself into my heart.

I only hoped he wouldn’t break it.

Forty minutes later, my Uber driver was dropping me off at my apartment building. I was tired after not sleeping much of the weekend, but knew I needed to drop off my suitcase and head to the grocery store since I had no food in the refrigerator and had to work for the next six days straight.

Pulling my suitcase behind me, I walked down the corridor and hit the elevator button only to see the damn thing was out of order.

Even though I only lived on the second floor, I really didn’t want to have to carry my heavy ass suitcase up a flight of stairs and down the long hallway. If it wasn’t almost certain my suitcase would be stolen by the time I came down for it later, I would have left it downstairs. Instead, I slowly hauled my ass and my suitcase up the flight of stairs, panting and sweaty by the time I reached the top. Luckily, it was a weekday and the middle of the afternoon, so most people in my building were gone, and no one saw me looking like someone who just walked off a horror movie set.

Pulling my keys out of my purse, I started to put my key in the lock when I noticed my door was ajar. How much more could go wrong with my building today? Letting out an annoyed sigh, I opened my door and peeked inside. I hoped I’d maybe forgotten to close and lock my door even though I’d never done that before and all would be fine, but as I stepped further into my apartment, I knew that wasn’t the case.

Leaving my suitcase by the door, I silently inspected my tiny apartment in case someone was still inside. With each room, I found the place torn apart more than the last room. The cushions on my couch were ripped open, and the stuffing was thrown all over the living room, the lamp on my end table was smashed on the floor. All the food I did have in my fridge was thrown on the floor with the door left open. The only thing in the bathroom that was trashed was the mirror. I hoped whoever broke it got seven years of bad luck. Hell, I wanted them to have bad luck for the rest of their life for breaking into my place and trashing it.

I’m not sure what I thought my bedroom would look like when I stepped inside, but it wasn’t for my mattress to be against the wall with giant slashes in it, nor did I think there’d be some symbol spray painted on the wall.

Pulling out my phone, I dialed 911 and let them know someone had broken in while I’d been away the last few days. Slumping down on the floor since I had no place to sit, I sat wondering what I was going to do. I was informed the police had been out to my apartment yesterday when someone had noticed my door was left open. They’d informd the landlord who was to then have the maintenance man secure my door, but that obviously hadn’t happened. All I had to do was come down to the station to give a statement and to give a list of anything that was missing.

My gaze swept over my bedroom and seeing all my belongings on the floor was too much for me. All I wanted to do was sleep and instead, I had this insurmountable hurdle in front of me.

With bleary eyes, I pulled Leo’s name up and dialed his number even though I knew he was busy; he was the first person I wanted to talk to. My mom would freak out and tell me to move home with her, but that was never going to happen.

“Everly?” He answered after the first ring.

Instead of being able to speak, I broke down. Full on sobs wracked my body.

Leo continued to call out my name and with each shout he became more and more worried. It wasn’t until he roared my name that I pulled myself together and answered him.

“I’m here. Sorry,” I sniffed. “I didn’t mean to worry you. I’m fine.”

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