Page 89 of My Rose

I was in love.Reallove. The kind you only think you’re going to find but never actually do. The kind that takes control of all your senses and drives you crazy, yet also makes you feel whole, complete in ways nothing and no one else could ever make you feel again.

I loved Briggs Andrews, and whether he wanted to know it or not I’d never been more terrified while also wholly exhilarated in all my life.

Briggs’ fingers brushed my shoulder as we sat on the couch, covered only from the waist down by the throw blanket we now shared. My body was beginning to feel sticky, if not from the amount of times I’d been covered in bodily fluids, then definitely by the strawberry topping he spread all over me. I felt less-than-pretty, but he still couldn’t stop touching at least some part of me.

“Where are we?” I finally asked, setting my empty plate and fork down on the coffee table and turning to face him. If I was not only going to be with him but be in love with him and possibly have a life-long future with him, then there were a lot of things we had to air out. And since he didn’t want to hear me tell him that I loved him, he’d have to indulge whatever else came from my mouth.

“Remember that picture you saw with me and Beck and my parents?”

“Yeah, the one with your dimple.” The one he decided to pop at my remark. It should be illegal to look as good as he did after a night of hardly any sleep—no bags under his eyes, no creases from how he slept up against me plastered to his face or toned arms, and hell, even the still-growing five o’clock shadow looked incredible on him.

“That’s the one. This is that house—the vacation home. Only, I had it renovated recently.”

“Oh, was something broken?”

He shuffled forward and put his half-empty plate down on the table. “I guess you could say that.”

“Briggs.” I rubbed my palms over my face, trying not to start withI love youas a lead into what I was going to say. He wouldn’t want to hear it anyway. “Can you just tell me why without making me want to ask more questions? You’re doing the vague thing again.”

He smirked. “Alright. Only if you promise not to run out the door.”

I glanced at the stained-black wooden door, and when I moved my gaze back to Briggs, his brow arched. “Now you’re scaring me.”

“Come. I’ll show you what I mean.” He stood from the couch, slipping on his sweatpants before holding out his hand for me to go with him. I wasn’t sure where my clothes were—probably still in the car—so I walked hand-in-hand with him while my other hand held the blanket around my chest. The house was large, but not anywhere close to the size of his estate back in Shuster, which I was assuming we weren’t in judging by the size of the lake you could see through any room along the back of the house—each room exposed to the lake with floor-to-ceiling windows. We passed an open sitting area with bookcases covering three walls stuffed full of books, the remaining wall with the same floor-to-ceiling windows complete with French doors in the middle that led out to a balcony.

“I didn’t renovate every room. I figured you’d like that one as it was.” He grabbed my elbow and pulled me to a room across from the sitting area as I blinked back at the bookshelves, wondering why it would matter if I liked it or not, but the fact that I could picture Briggs in the chair by the door, reading Ovid, made my heart start to flutter in my chest.

When I turned back around, I had to blink several times to understand what I was seeing. “This…this was your room?”

“Yeah.” He turned on the lights, though the two windows beside both twin beds let in enough light from the front of the house, the morning sun pooling along the warm, wooden floors. “Mine and Beck’s.”

Briggs leaned against the doorframe, crossing a leg casually over the other as I walked around the room. It was smaller than his bedroom at the estate and looked like young boys still occupied it on their vacations—one half of the room covered with airplane memorabilia and the other full of worn books and plain navy colors, complete with a small writing desk beside the bed.

I reached for one of the broken-in journals on his desk. “Yours?”

He nodded, remaining still as I flipped through the words of a young boy leading into his teen years, all poetic in nature. “These words are beautiful, Briggs.”

“I had a lot to let out,” he said simply like anyone could write as well as him.

The inspiration from Ovid wasn’t as clear as I would have thought. “When did you start writing?”

His eyes grew heavy as they glazed over the journals on the desk. “Ever since I could. Probably five or so?”

The one I’d picked up must’ve been from a later time. His penmanship was spectacular, and the words flowed almost harmonically. “Would you let me sing one of these for you one day? You can say no ifyou—”

“No.” He shook his head, and I frowned until he continued, “Of course, I’d really like that. Truly, Rose.”

I set the journal back down and glanced around the room. “You two were so…different.”

“In more ways than you’d think.”

I walked up to the airplane figurine resting on what was once Beck’s nightstand, picturing the line of differences between the two. I wondered if he also believed he was a monster or if he liked the life he would have had. “He really did love planes, didn’t he?”

Briggs chuckled. “Yeah. Too much. You can touch whatever you want in here, by the way, if that wasn’t already obvious. The whole house, really. All yours.”

I blushed and hesitantly picked up the metal plane. Underneath was the nameBeckett carved into the paint, making it chip as I rubbed my thumb gently over it. “I’m sorry, I should know better.” I set it down, seeing Briggs tense up, but he wasn’t watching what I was doing. “Are you okay?” I whispered, following where his attention fell with light steps.

In the corner of the room, beside the bed that must’ve once been Briggs’ as a young boy, sat a small picture frame. I squinted and got closer, feeling the room turn icy as I bent down and picked it up.