Present day -
He swallowed hard. No matter how much water he drank on that flight, it wasn’t enough. His mouth felt like sandpaper.
Drake Walker of Cordonia had left home over three years ago and never looked back, until today. He supposed he could maybe be called Drake Walker of Massachusetts now, but it didn’t quite have the same ring to it.
Truth be told, when he left Cordonia, he didn’t really expect to come back. Ever.
But what was that old saying? You could take the man out of Cordonia, but…. he shook his head.
As much as he hated it, there he was again. In the same small, clean airport he had been in dozens of times before. Drake darted quickly into the men’s restroom, hoping not to run into anyone he knew. He sauntered towards the sinks, his legs sore from the 12 hour flight, and washed some of the stale sweat off of his face. He was uncertain what part of the discomfort he felt during the flight was due to travel versus the anxiety of coming home. He waited in the bathroom for a few minutes, wondering several times if he should just grab a flight back immediately, before deciding he needed to stay.
As he walked to the luggage carousel, memories he had tried to bury came rushing back to the surface. He cursed inwardly. If only he could have had one drink of whiskey to calm his nerves. Just a little to dull the ache inside his chest. His eyes scanned the room until they found an airport bar, just a few feet away from him. He looked at it intently, pausing for a few seconds.
No, his hands clenched into fists. He wasn’t going to waste a solid 6 months of sobriety on this. He picked up his pace and continued to move forward.
As much as he hated the feelings that coursed through his body as he took in the all too familiar sights and smells of his home country, he was back because he loved his sister more. He’d do anything to give her away for her wedding, even though she was marrying that old fogey Bertrand Beaumont. After all, she was the only other Walker left.
His walking slowed as that realization hit him.
The last Walker. What did that even mean?
Back when their father was alive, being a Walker meant something. Not that the name was noble or anything, but when the four of them walked into a room they were the Walkers. Here come the Walkers, people would say. Then Drake’s mom, Bianca, would smile warmly at his father, pride seeping out of every pore of her body. The thought almost made him smile. They had really been best friends, Drake’s mom and dad. The Walkers.
His heart twisted a little when he thought about his own best friend, now the King of Cordonia, Liam Rys. He sighed. They hadn’t spoken in over 3 years. Were they even friends anymore? Could they be? Could 3 years really wipe out their years of friendship through the darkest times of Drake’s childhood? An odd array of memories jumbled through his unwilling mind. Drake sighed again. Things used to be so easy with Liam, before he was the king, before…things got complicated.
Before they fell for the same girl.
Drake shook his head, willing the influx of memories to stop flowing. He knew where his thoughts were headed and he wasn’t ready. Seeing his bag approach on luggage carousel, he grabbed it and heaved it onto the ground.
His mind turned back to the Walkers. He never thought about it, but after his dad died during an assassination attempt and their mom abandoned them in grief, Savannah really was the only other Walker left.
For now.
Soon, Savannah wouldn’t be Savannah Walker anymore, she’d be Savannah Beaumont.
Then it’d be just him.
He inhaled sharply, running his fingers through his long, dark hair.
Breathe, he told himself. It’s what Sylvia would tell you. His heart felt a little lighter thinking about Sylvia. Back in his new home town in the states, she was his AA sponsor, an older lady with dyed red curls, far too much perfume, and a heart of gold.
He hated admitting it, but Sylvia was kind of like the mother he had never had. Or, at least the mother he hadn’t had in a very long time.
Sylvia was convinced that the less alone he felt, the more successful he’d be. She kept telling him that he needed to stop pushing people away. How could he tell her, honestly, that this is what he wanted? That there was something cathartic about turning deeper into the solitude, like listening to a sad song when you’re already hurting?
His sister already had a son, and hell, would have a whole new family in a few days after she got married. Bittersweet as it was, he knew that this meant he wouldn’t need to look out for her the same way anymore. Now, Bertrand would look out for her, and she’d look out for him.
Maybe Walker used to be a reminder of family, but now it was just a reminder of how alone he truly was.
With that thought, and a final wayward glance towards the airport bar, Drake Walker walked out of the airport and hailed a cab.
***
It was a summer evening three and a half years ago.
It was their last night in New York. Drake inhaled shakily, knowing that a lot of his questions would be answered soon, whether the result was good or bad. There she was. Looking otherworldly in her white sun dress, her freckled skin and auburn hair practically glowing in the faltering sunlight on the balcony. Drake felt his breathing hitch as he looked her face, heat reddening his cheeks as he walked towards her.
He tried to steady his breathing as he faced her, his stomach twisting with worry as he saw her eyebrows scrunched together in concern. “Brooks,” he whispered.
As she turned towards him her face broke out into a timid smile, “Drake,” she breathed.
He felt the briefest pang of guilt. For their entire lives, it seemed like nothing could get in the way of the friendship Drake and Liam had. They had made sacrifices for each other, seen loss, seen joy, seen pain. But everything was solid until she showed up.
She had come to Cordonia for Liam, it was true. She was there to fight for Liam’s hand, to see if she could marry a prince. But no matter how much he fought it, Drake felt himself falling deeper and deeper in love with Riley Brooks.
Every moment she spent with Liam was painful, every kiss, every night with him, he drowned out with whiskey and solitude. But the more time Drake and Riley spent together while Liam was busy, the more evident it became that maybe for the first time in his life, whiskey and solitude weren’t enough. They fought it for as long as they could, Riley spending every moment she could with Liam, until one night, about a week before they flew to New York.
It was deep in the middle of the Cordonian summer, cicadas chirping, the box fan whirring away by his bed. That night she came to his door, threw herself into his arms, and spent the night in wanton abandon, wrapped up in each other, using their bodies to say the things their voices couldn’t.
They didn’t tell Liam. Not then. They left each other’s arms the next morning, a silent agreement not to talk about what last night had meant. It wasn’t until now, In New York, Drake walked out to the balcony to finally, finally talk about their future.
“I said no, Drake,” her voice was soft but her eyes were hard, making piercing contact with his. “Liam asked me to marry him, but I said no.” Her gaze was filled with a confusing mixture of things: guilt, exhaustion, and overwhelming resolve.
He shuddered, almost incapable of comprehending what that meant. “So…?” his voice was surprisingly thick with emotion.
“So I want you, Drake. Only you.”
He closed the distance between them, wrapping her in his arms, never wanting to let her go.
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And so it was, for a while. For weeks after that wonderful admission of love on the balcony, they only saw each other. They made love, they cooked, they talked about moving away from the city and finding a small house in the mountains to call their own. For the first time in his life, Drake Walker felt like he was really, truly happy.
Then everything stopped.
He could remember that day like it was yesterday. The memories of it came to him in the lonely afternoons, the grim hours of early morning, and the sweat drenched nights.
Riley hadn’t been feeling well, so Hana had dropped off a few things from the pharmacy. She had locked herself in the bathroom for about an hour or so before Drake went to the door and knocked timidly. “Brooks? Can I get you anything?”
A pause.
“Brooks?” he repeated.
“Come in, Drake.”
Drake didn’t know what he had expected to find when he opened the door, but it wasn’t this. Riley was sitting on top of the lid of the toilet seat, her posture oddly straight and her fists clamped to her sides.
“Riley?”
She looked up at him, her eyes red. He walked closer, leaning down on the cold tile in front of her, cupping her face with his hand, “Are you….okay?”
Her eyes searched his for a few minutes before she spoke. Why was she looking at him that way? His heart raced.
“Drake,” she moved her hand towards him, her fist loosening. It took him a second before he saw that she was holding something. He reached down and pulled out a hard piece of plastic from her grasp.
His eyes widened when he realized he was holding a pregnancy test with a very distinct “+” on it. He couldn’t stop himself from putting his arms around her waist and leaning in to kiss her, hard. “Brooks, I can’t even begin to… I mean….” his smile widening by the second.
“Wait,” she whispered. His heart was beating so fast with happiness he could hardly hear her. “Wait, Drake.”
She put her hands on his shoulders and pushed him away. “It’s not yours.”
He felt a jolt in his stomach. “What do you mean? I mean, we’ve been pretty active, Riley. It wouldn’t be surprising, I mean…”
“Drake,” her eyes were filling with tears, “I remember every single time we’ve made love. Every single time. And believe me, over the last 5 weeks, its’ been a lot.” She took a moment to smile sadly to herself.
“Exactly Brooks, so—"
“So what I’m saying is that I remember every single time. I… remember the night I told you I chose you. I remember the times on the beach, under the stars. I remember that day when we snuck away from the apple orchard…..” She paused for a second, visibly straining to hold back tears. “What I know, without a doubt, is that since we became a couple, every single time we’ve been together the last 5 weeks, we’ve used protection. But before that…”
Drake closed his eyes, realization hitting him as he moved away, sitting down directly on the tile. “Before that, you were with Liam.”
Tears started streaming down her eyes as she clamped them shut and nodded. “I’ve always been so good about things like this, Drake. But when I was starting to realize I l-loved you and not Liam I… I started drinking to ignore my true feelings.” She wiped her nose with the back of her hand and exhaled.
After a long pause, she looked up at him at last. “I know there were times Liam and I forgot. After those nights, drinking shot after shot of whiskey with you, falling for you. But I came here, to Cordonia, for him and the guilt would eat me up. So I’d drink more and go back to his room and—”
He held his hand up. He was quiet for a minute, reeling in his thoughts and trying to figure out how to say what he needed to.
“Hell, Riley,” he sighed, running his fingers through his hair, “It’s a lot to process. I know it’s a strange situation. I felt the guilt with Liam, too.”
She looked at him, not breaking her gaze as he drummed his fingers against his knee, struggling in thought.
“But, I love you, and if,” he paused, looking up at her and grabbing her hand, “-if this is what you want, I’m ready to step up and—”
She held her hand up this time. Tears streamed down her face, but the resolve in her eyes was unmistakable. “I need you to go.”
“What? I—”
“I need you to go, Drake. It’s obvious I made the wrong choice.”
Drake wondered if the pain he felt in his chest was his heart literally breaking in half. No, that would mean he’d die. That’d be too easy.
“Riley?” he barely breathed, almost unable to look at her, but he did. Her warm blue eyes had been replaced by cold steel.
“I mean it,” she breathed, “don’t talk to me, don’t call me, don’t reach out to me again.”
He stood up, not breaking eye contact with her, waiting in vain for her to waver. He stood there for maybe minutes, maybe hours. “Go,” she whispered, with unshakeable finality.
Nearly catatonic with grief, Drake couldn’t remember exactly how he packed a few of his belongings and left, buying a ticket to as far as he could go, as soon as possible.
She told him to go, so he went. And he didn’t look back.
***
The Present
He took a long shower in the bathroom attached to his guest quarters in the palace. He wished he could wash off the things he was feeling, being back at this place.
The palace, all so mundane a few years ago, now painfully drenched with uninvited flashbacks.
Wrapping a towel around his waist, he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror.
When he left Cordonia and…her, it took him months before he could look at himself. Every part of him was too inundated with memories of her to seem normal.
The way she’d keep her face inches from his in bed and talk about how his brown eyes were deep “like chocolate” except for that little fleck of green in the left one. The way she’d rake her fingers through his thick, dark hair and pull if things were getting particularly exciting. The kisses against his square jaw, running her hands over his stubble…. He had given so much of himself to her that he could barely see his own body in the mirror anymore, just memories of her.
It had taken him months to see himself again. Resting his face in his hands, he wondered if returning to Cordonia was a big mistake. His phone buzzed loudly.
Savannah.
He unlocked the phone. She was asking him where he was. He sighed and walked to the bedroom to pull out a pair of dress pants.
He would do it for her. Just this once, he would visit the graveyard of his old life for Savannah. Then he would never be back again.
***
Three years ago
When he bought his flight, he didn’t care where he went, he needed the fastest flight out. Fate had brought him to Boston. He spent his first few months there in a motel right next to a pub, spending his days buying shot after shot of whiskey and his nights in restless slumber.
At first, everywhere he went, women of all ages and types would approach him. Unwanted reminders of what he had left behind, they would stroke his broad shoulders, ooh and aah at his light accent, and deep voice, and stroke his defined stomach, unprompted.
The mixture of too much whiskey and his bad self-esteem was a strange one, and he constantly wondered what exactly they wanted from him. Would they still be as interested if Liam was around, with his princely good looks, blonde hair and bright blue eyes, to compete with him? No, he thought bitterly, no one in their right mind would choose you over Liam.
For months, he stayed in that grimy hotel, his life a mixture of alcohol and spurning any sort of human interaction. It wasn’t until Savannah visited that he realized how bad it had become.
He took a cab to the airport to meet her, and the look in her eyes told him everything he refused to see for himself. That was the first day he walked to a mirror and saw himself. His face was a strange mixture of gaunt and puffy from the lack of food and the abundance of alcohol, his eyes were dull and glassy, and the lumber-carrying physique he had just a few months ago had been replaced with a sort of squalid, boney frame. She begged him to try harder, to get help for her, and he couldn’t refuse.
The day after Savannah left for Cordonia, Drake joined Alcoholics Anonymous. If Savannah was the impetus for his change, his sponsor Sylvia was his follow-through. She broke through to him in a way that no one since Riley had been able to.
She helped him realize that if people were paying attention to him, it was because he was attractive. She helped him get a job out in Ipswich, Massachussetts picking and hauling apples, something he’d done many times back in Cordonia. Slowly, his face and body returned to their former state.
He rented a small apartment in a wooded area in Ipswich, sipping (non-alcoholic) cider from the orchard in the evenings, and even started doing some woodworking again.
His emotional scars still made it hard to trust people, to be around people, to get people. Sylvia urged him to make lasting relationships – drake tried but just ended up with a long slew of one-night stands. The sex didn’t help. He realized it was just making him worse and he was hurting people so he stopped, and Sylvia accepted that he wasn’t ready yet.
His life was simple but uncomplicated. Sylvia never asked him about his past. Drake got the feeling she knew there was a woman involved, but she didn’t pry. He cut himself off from TV, internet, and news, wanting to know nothing about Cordonia and its’ new queen. Even Savannah knew, in their weekly calls, that talking about anything to do with Cordonia was off limits.
She would tell him about Bartie, of course, and about how things were going with Bertrand. But nothing else. The day Savannah called and excitedly told him about her engagement, he was conflicted. He was glad for his sister, finally getting a chance at the happily ever after she deserved.
But for him – this would mean a wedding in Cordonia. Savannah told him she’d understand, of course, if he couldn’t come. But how could he deny her, his one remaining piece of family on this giant earth, when she so quietly asked him if he could give her away?
So he bought his ticket, spent a lot of days thinking and walking along the cold, stony beaches, and resolved to go.
***
Present Day
Drake hated the hollow sound of his dress shoes hitting the marble floors of the palace. He exhaled slowly, closing his eyes, wishing he could hear his work boots crushing dried leaves in the crisp fall air back home instead.
He was walking to Savannah’s rehearsal dinner. He had to face at least some people, he wasn’t exactly sure who would be there. They’d be eating a “simple” meal prepared by the palace staff in the ballroom. He was expecting the entirety of the Beaumont family, the Walkers (him and Savannah), and a plethora of family and friends: a large guest list befitting a noble wedding.
As he hesitated by the open doors to the ballroom, he caught a sight of Savannah first. Her face was flushed with happiness and she threw her head back and laughed while talking to Maxwell, Bertrand behind her trying to keep Bartie from hiding under a table. For just a moment as he took the scene in, he felt home again. Savannah laughing, Maxwell doing some sort of weird break dance, and the old ballroom looking the same as it always had.
A familiar chuckle caught him off guard. There he was: Liam. He looked the same and yet utterly different. While his blue eyes still shone with familiar kindness, he was the King now, and everything about his stance reflected the weight of that responsibility. Liam’s eyes locked with Drakes and faltered for just a split second. He excused himself, walking towards Drake quickly.
There were so many things to ask. How was he? How was it being King? Were they still… friends?
Drake gulped, pain coursing through his mind as a few other questions came to mind.
….How was it being married to Riley? Did he realize how incredibly lucky he was to have her? Was their kid ok?
“Drake,” Liam smiled, finally face to face, just feet apart. His eyes looked a little sad. “There’s so much to tell you, my friend, I…”
“Sorry I didn’t call,” Drake blurted out. He felt a little silly, so he added, “It was just…hard, you know? Knowing that you were with …. her.”
Liam’s eyebrows furrowed, “Drake, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about….” he squeezed Drake’s shoulder. “Let’s take a moment to get some privacy so we can discuss some important matters.”
Drake nodded, turning to go out the door when the wind was knocked out of him. A familiar smell, like orange blossoms, invaded his senses. He heard her heels clack before his brown eyes met her blue.
Riley.
His heart seemed to beat so fast it was like it was whirring.
Her eyes were wide in surprise as they took each other in. Like Liam, she looked the same yet different. Gone were the wild curls and casual clothes she used to wear, replaced by a loose chignon bun and a fitted blue gown. No matter how much time he had spent working to forget her for the past three years, all of it dissolved when he looked into those eyes again.
He was just about to say something when he heard a soft giggle and a saw a blur run into Riley’s legs. It was a little girl with long, dark hair – curly like Riley’s. She looked up at Drake, and he found himself staring back at a pair of brown eyes with a fleck of green in the left one.
His eyes.
They were his eyes. He stumbled backwards.
Riley didn’t break eye contact with Drake, her voice wavering a little, “Sweetheart, I want you to meet an old friend of mine, his name is Drake,” she paused for just a second, exhaling slowly, “Drake, I’d like you to meet my daughter, Bianca Walker.”
***
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Thanks for reading guys!
Just one more chapter, expect somse mature themes.
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