Move the Stars_Something in the Way Read online

  Move the Stars

  Something in the Way, 3

  Jessica Hawkins

  Contents

  Move the Stars (Something in the Way, 3)

  Stay Notified

  Part One

  1. Lake

  2. Lake

  3. Manning

  4. Lake

  5. Lake

  6. Lake

  7. Lake

  8. Manning

  9. Lake

  10. Lake

  11. Lake

  12. Lake

  13. Manning

  14. Manning

  15. Lake

  16. Lake

  17. Manning

  18. Manning

  19. Lake

  Part Two

  1. Lake

  2. Lake

  3. Lake

  4. Manning

  5. Manning

  6. Lake

  7. Lake

  8. Lake

  Afterword

  Acknowledgments

  Titles By Jessica Hawkins

  About the Author

  Connect With Jessica

  Preview: Come Undone by Jessica Hawkins

  Chapter 1

  Move the Stars (Something in the Way, 3)

  Lake

  It was a hot summer day when I met him on the construction site next to my parents’ house. If I’d known then what I do now, would I have kept on walking? Manning was older, darker, experienced—and I’d trusted him when he said the story would only ever be about us. I’d held those words close and challenged fate, but I had lost.

  *

  A part of me is still that sixteen-year-old girl squinting up at Manning, but no matter how far I fall or high I soar, I’ll always be a bird without her bear and nothing without him.

  *

  Manning

  When I close my eyes, I can no longer see her. The decisions I made were to push Lake in the right direction—away from me. But now that she’s gone, would I have made those same choices?

  *

  I’d walked away like I was supposed to. I’d kept my distance. I’d bent over backward to keep Lake pure, but she’s no longer that girl, and I don’t know if I can stay away anymore. I only know I don’t want to. She’s still everything I want and nothing I should ever have, but if anyone can move the stars, it’s her great bear in the sky.

  *

  Move the Stars is the conclusion to the Something in the Way series, a forbidden love saga.

  *

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  © 2017 Jessica Hawkins

  www.jessicahawkins.net

  *

  Something in the Way extras.

  All Jessica Hawkins titles.

  *

  Editing by Elizabeth London Editing

  With help from Underline This Editing (beta) & Tamara Mataya Editing (proofreading)

  Cover Design © R.B.A. Designs

  Cover Photography by Perrywinkle Photography

  Part One

  1

  Lake

  1999

  By New York standards, there was nothing all that strange about my outfit. This city had no shortage of strange. It might’ve been the fashion capital of the world, but pairing Corbin’s extra-large gray sweats with a party clutch wasn’t worth a second glance. The taxi driver didn’t care about my sloppy bun or muddy sheepskin boots. He’d surely witnessed enough cab rides of shame to assume that at eleven in the morning, that was what this was.

  “You can let me out here,” I told him, pointing to a corner so he wouldn’t go around the block. I gathered my handbag and stilettos, then passed over the cash Corbin had insisted on giving me. As I exited, my boot caught under the seat, and I nearly stumbled face first into the snow. Apparently, along with a not-so-fresh-off-the-runway look, I was also sporting a hangover from last night’s holiday party.

  It was early December and fucking freezing, but at the same time, the city’s first snow of the season blanketed everything with pure white. Flurries had started the night before and hadn’t stopped yet, which was why Corbin had suggested I not do my usual walk home. Even though the snowflakes were light and airy, almost nothing, the sidewalks had become fluffy. I stomped through the slush toward my building, unconcerned that it wetted the edges of the UGG boots my mom had sent last Christmas.

  Strung lights adorned the East Village shops. Their windows displayed black and gold party dresses, velvet platforms so high they’d put the Spice Girls to shame, and vintage fur coats. I caught sight of my reflection and almost laughed at the gray-on-gray explosion of sweats and UGGs. I’d looped my hair on top of my head, and a few escaped pieces hung around my face. Mascara darkened my under-eyes, but I didn’t care. Not even a little. I looked like shit and held my chin high.

  Who did I have to impress anyway? Even if I were to encounter the future love of my life today, I wasn’t ready for him. I wouldn’t be for a while. I’d had over four years to mourn losing Manning, and it seemed I needed more, because I didn’t even feel close to ready for anyone else.

  The flakes fell a little heavier, like someone had shaken up a snow globe in my little corner. When I saw a very tall dark-haired man across the street, my heart squeezed in my chest. I was used to that, seeing Manning in the crowds of Union Square or leaning on orange traffic cones to peer into a manhole or paging through the Times on a park bench.

  Through the snowy haze, this man bore an uncanny resemblance to Manning—except for a tailored coat, dress shoes, and suit and tie. Definitely not Manning. Yet he stared at me the way Manning did. Tightened my stomach the way only Manning could. And as I got closer, it was Manning’s molten brown eyes that stopped me dead in my snow-soaked boots.

  I hadn’t seen him in over four years, but of course I’d know him anywhere. Impossible as it was, Manning stood across the street, watching me.

  People passed between us, but we might as well have been alone in the city. Everything else fell away. He looked both ways and stepped off the curb. The sleet would ruin his nice shoes. It was all I could think, such a little thing in such a big moment.

  One of my strappy, black stilettos slid out of my hand. By the time I’d picked it up and brushed off the ice, he was there, standing in front of my apartment building—and me.

  His eyes traveled from the tangled mess on top of my head, down my oversized sweats, to my boots, and back up. It wasn’t my finest moment.

  “Lake,” he said.

  My name from his mouth took me back four years and four months. One word had the power to reverse all the work I’d done since the night I’d left California. The countless mornings I’d had to force myself out of bed when I’d wanted to cry myself back to sleep. All the times Val had dragged me out to meet people when I would’ve preferred to be alone with my pain. Four years’ worth of holidays I’d spent without my family. One word turned me from an independent college graduate, making her own way, to a stupidly naïve eighteen-year-old girl witnessing the love of her life’s wedding to another woman.

  I had to swallow before I could speak, my throat dry from shock and the wintry day. “What are you doing here?”

  He squinted over my head, toward the fifth floor, directly at my window. “Technically, I’m here for work.”

  “Work?” I glanced at his tie. “What work?”

  “It’s been months since anyone’s heard from you.” He sounded strangled as well. Maybe his knot was too tight. “Years since we’ve seen you.”

  “That’s on purpose,” I said. My heartrate kicked up, leaving me flustered. All the emotions of the night of the wedding rus
hed over me. My world shattering as Manning had said “I do.” My eyes leaking while Val and Corbin hid me in their arms. My shame when wedding guests had rubbed my back, commenting on how sweet it was that I was so emotional over my sister’s big day. Inconsolable was the word they’d been looking for. Embarrassed would’ve worked, too. I’d had to deliver a maid of honor speech, a passage I’d plagiarized from Chicken Soup for the Soul, the only way I could manage wishing my sister and her new husband “all the happiness in the world.”

  “I didn’t say you could come here,” I said. What gave him the right to ruin what had been a perfectly good morning? To stir memories I’d fought hard to bury? My jaw ached; I’d been clenching my teeth. “You can’t just show up like this.”

  “I’ve been worried, Lake.”

  Worried. He was worried. Good. I hoped it kept him up at night, his worrying. That he replayed over and over in his head my silent sobs as I’d stood by the altar and kept my mouth shut.

  Manning and I stared at each other, the sky gray, snowflakes falling between us. Val would say it was the perfect setting to film a New York romance.

  Manning shifted on his feet, loosening his tie a little. He looked so very out of place, and so uncomfortable. Different. But with his eyes on mine, we were us again, an unlikely pair—the Young Girl smitten with the Worst Possible Man.

  He glanced up at the building again and then down the street. I knew what he was going to say before he even opened his mouth. A layer of pretty white innocence couldn’t hide the trash lining the curb, graffitied steel doors, or the sleeping homeless man bundled in a storefront.

  “This neighborhood isn’t safe,” he said.

  The old me might’ve blushed at his concern or teased him for his overprotectiveness, but I’d changed that night I’d lost him for good. This neighborhood was all I could afford, but aside from a couple breakins on the block and a mugging one street over, I’d never personally had a problem. In fact, Frank, the man in the sleeping bag, acted as a sort of lookout for us. I brought him coffee, food, and warm clothes on occasion. But Manning hadn’t earned the right for me to put him at ease. I’d suffered, and I wanted the same for him. I lifted a shoulder. “It’s not exactly Park Avenue, I admit, but that’s not your concern.”

  “If your dad knew—”

  “Stop.” I refused to go down that path. Seeing Manning again was enough to reopen wounds for who knew how long. I didn’t need him to remind me my dad couldn’t be bothered to look out for me anymore. “I can take care of myself, as you can see.”

  Manning put his hands in his pockets and broke our gaze to look at my seemingly fascinating fifth-floor window. How he knew it was mine, I wasn’t sure. “You just … disappeared,” he said with what sounded like a mix of pain and confusion, maybe even wonder. Well, four years was a long time to wonder. I’d left before he’d even returned from his honeymoon. It’d been the only way forward. I couldn’t live in the same state as them a moment longer, much less see them together one last time.

  “I had to.”

  “But why New York?” He scanned the area, shaking his head. “Why this city, with the highest crime rate in the nation, with its pushy people and cold, ugly skyscrapers?”

  That was Manning’s problem. He couldn’t recognize beauty where it wasn’t obvious. He didn’t feel the energy that propelled this city. He’d turned down real love because others would judge it. He refused to accept what he deserved unless it was bad. “Actually, crime has fallen off significantly since Mayor Giuliani took office. You don’t know anything about this city or me so maybe you should …” Go. I needed to say it. I owed it to myself to kick him to the curb. How many times had I imagined seeing him again? Envisioned him falling to his knees, as broken as I was, telling me he’d made a mistake? It was the only thing I wanted to hear, and for that reason, I didn’t trust myself.

  “I do know about this city,” he said, his eyes drifting back to mine. “This avenue in particular is known for drugs and prostitution.”

  Taken aback that Manning had even heard of my tiny corner of the East Village, my guard dropped a little. “How do you know that?”

  “Because I looked it up. Does that surprise you?” He ran a hand through his neat hair, his forehead wrinkling. “I’ve tried to picture you here,” he said. “I can’t. Not knowing where you live, how you are—it makes me …”

  I looked away. He didn’t have to finish. Had I known when I’d made the decision years ago that leaving suddenly would frustrate Manning? Of course I had. At USC, he could place me. Imagine me doing all the things everyone wanted for me. When he wasn’t keeping tabs on me through my parents, he would’ve seen me on a semi-regular basis. Los Angeles wasn’t much of a step beyond Orange County—which was how he’d wanted it. And I relished that I’d been able to take that away from him.

  “It makes you what?” I prompted, knowing he wouldn’t finish his sentence. If Manning couldn’t tell me what I’d wanted to hear back then, he certainly wouldn’t now that he was a married man. “Are you happy I left?” I asked. “Does having me gone bring joy to your life?”

  His nostrils flared as I provoked him. “You know it drives me fucking insane, Lake.”

  My breath caught. Manning didn’t swear in front of me, not ever. It was exactly what I wanted to hear—that after all these years, I was still making him crazy—but his confession brought neither relief nor satisfaction. The truth was, it scared me that I wanted him to suffer, because it meant I wanted him to care. I’d come too far to let him unravel me. He was too much, his black hair trimmed, jaw smooth, face bronzed even though the suit made it seem as though he didn’t work in the sun anymore. I couldn’t tell if he was slightly leaner or slightly taller, but he was as handsome as ever.

  I shouldn’t have been thinking any of that about him, the man who’d broken my heart—my sister’s husband. “Well, you’ve seen me.” I stuck my shoes under my arm to get the key from my purse. “So, bye.”

  I turned and let myself into my building, trying not to let him see how I fumbled with the lock. Once inside, I let the door shut behind me and hurried up the stairs. I lived on the fifth floor of a pre-war walk-up with intricately carved banisters and crown moldings. Even with Manning’s eye for architecture, I knew all he’d see were the dusty corners, sagging doorjambs, and loose steps. My boots pounded the old, creaky wood. It didn’t matter how many times I’d made this hike, I was still out of breath by the time I reached my floor. The effort shook me and my confidence. I leaned my forehead against the door of my apartment as Manning grew bigger in my mind. For years, I’d imagined how it would feel to see him again, and now that I had, I realized I hadn’t gotten a single thing I’d wanted out of it. No apology, no begging or pleading. It was already over. Not even ten minutes. How could I want to give him any more of my time? He’d had more than he deserved already.

  Lost in my thoughts, I didn’t hear the footsteps until they reached the landing of my apartment. With a deep inhale to steel myself, I looked back at Manning. I should’ve known a locked door wouldn’t stop him from coming up here. I should’ve known when it came to me and my safety, he’d push until he got what he wanted. Back then, I’d thought I’d known how to stand up to him. I’d begged him on a breezy beach one night not to marry her. I’d told him I’d wanted him in the truck, no matter the cost. I’d asked him to choose me. He’d always done what he’d wanted, though.

  Manning wasn’t out of breath, just a little stuffy in his suit.

  “You look like you have somewhere to be,” I said.

  “I came from a breakfast meeting.”

  “At eleven on a Sunday?” I jammed my key in the lock, jiggled until it gave, and lifted the door by its handle to get it to open.

  “Is it broken?” he asked.

  “No, just old.”

  “It’s broken. Get the landlord to replace it.”

  “It’s not broken,” I said, closing the door on him too hard. My heart raced, desperate for a li
ttle more time. A few more words, a few more moments to get to know the man in the hall who looked a bit older, a bit more tired, and still everything I dreamed of on a regular basis. I forced myself to lock the door and step away so I wouldn’t change my mind. He had no right. None. I shouldn’t have even given him the last few minutes.

  The handle turned, and with a loud snap, the door creaked opened. Manning filled the doorway. “See?” he said. “Broken.”

  I frowned. “Well, now it is.”

  We stared at each other, the air between us growing thick. Manning took over the shadowed hallway of my tiny apartment. If I wanted to leave, I’d have to go through him. Touch him. Smell him. Let the foreign wool of his expensive-looking suit scrape against me as I squeezed by him. I recognized the warmth pooling in his chocolate eyes. He looked me over, too, but the restraint he usually had wasn’t there. “It’s freezing in here,” he said. “Don’t you have a heater?”

  “It’s a crapshoot. Sometimes the radiator works, other times it doesn’t.”

  “I can fix that,” he said.

  Fix it, I thought. Fix me. Tape my paper heart back together. My resolve cracked a little. Letting him in didn’t mean I forgave him. Maybe spending time with me would remind him of what he’d given up and of all the pain I’d hopefully stuck him with when he’d returned from his honeymoon to find me almost three thousand miles gone.

  “Do you have tools?” he asked.

  I was used to the cold. I had blankets and sweatshirts and earmuffs and mittens but the truth was, nothing kept out the chill like the radiator. I moved back a few steps, an invitation. “In the closet.”

  While Manning jimmied the front door shut, I put my heels and purse in my room. As I stepped out, he came down the gray hall toward me, his shoes echoing on the hardwood floors. I didn’t stop him. I didn’t say a thing as he removed his coat and folded it over the back of a brown leather loveseat Corbin had found and carried upstairs for Val and me.