by L. D. Davis
“Who was behind you, Emmy?” I asked slowly. I don’t know why I bothered to ask. I already knew the answer to the question. It took him all of five minutes to find her. I wondered if he could sniff her out like a hound dog.
“Kyle,” she said and then blundered on, unaware that she was talking herself into a hole. “We talked about the bar and he asked me if we could have lunch and I said I’d have to think about it and then he left. Last night I was sitting in my hotel room. Lucas was asleep, everyone else was busy with their own lives and I was curious. I called him. I don’t know why—I mean, not really. But the moment he answered Tabitha of all people showed up at my hotel door. I hung up with Kyle and Tabitha came in. You know, she finally told me why she has hated me all of these years? And I understand now—I get it. I’ll have to tell you about it another time. I’m just glad we made up. I called Kyle back. I just wanted to talk I guess, but he offered to bring me some food from the diner and just talk. I accepted, which was stupid, because I really wasn’t ready to talk about what needed to be talked about I guess. You know how I am with talking.”
Funny, because she was doing an awful lot of it at the moment.
“He came over with food like he said, but he also brought a bottle of vodka. He tried really hard to get me to drink that vodka, and I really, really needed it, but I didn’t. We didn’t talk about anything very important and then I showed him some pictures of Lucas, because Lucas was sleeping in the other room. I sat down next to him so I could explain some of the pictures and of course he tried to…kiss me…but I pushed him away. He left and then I just felt really stupid. I don’t understand why I even asked him over. It was like my curiosity really got the best of me and I couldn’t just leave well enough alone. But I won’t call him again,” she said firmly. “I didn’t come here for him. I have to take care of this bar mess and hit the beach with Lucas and hopefully you will join us.”
I was fucking flabbergasted, and I couldn’t ignore the pain tearing through my chest. My fists clenched at my sides and I closed my eyes because I was literally seeing red. I knew Kyle would search her out, but then she invited him in—with my son in the same few feet! I knew it in my bones that Kyle had beaten Emmy. How could she just invite him over for some damn diner food with Lucas sleeping in the next room? Furthermore, this was the man that ultimately broke us apart. No, I take that back. Emmy ultimately broke us apart, but he played a very, very significant part, and she just casually invited him in as if everything would play out perfectly, like they would just be able to forget about their torrent past.
I felt like Emmy and I had really come a long way since she first moved to Chicago. I really believed there had been a chance for us and she just totally obliterated it in the name of curiosity.
“Hello?” she tested after I had been silent for too long.
“I'm here,” I said, forcing my eyes open. I still saw red. “I don't know what to say. I guess I'm fucking blown away.”
“Nothing happened,” she insisted. “I told you every detail.”
“I don't doubt your honesty, Emmy. I doubt your decision making.”
Because inviting Kyle Sterling over was a piss poor decision.
She was quiet, but I could almost hear her biting her bottom lip in distress. She would have had to been extremely dense to not feel my anger and hurt through the phone line.
“Look,” I said. “You made it pretty clear where we stand, so you do whatever you want, but you keep that asshole away from my son.”
I ended the phone call with such fury I was surprised I didn’t break the screen. I was tempted to send the phone flying across the cement, but it probably wouldn’t have gone over too well in front of security standing guard outside. I turned it off and shoved it in my pocket before storming into the courthouse.
***
The gavel was slamming, echoing throughout the courtroom as Judge Marsen yelled that I was in contempt. I sure the hell was in contempt, standing in Vivian’s face, yelling at her.
My day had gone from bad to worse. My open shut case wasn’t so open and shut, not with Vivian on the opposing counsel. I felt like she had pushed every button I had, including the ones that Emmy had already pounded the hell out of. I was always a professional in court, even when I found myself raising hell in my head as steam poured out of my ears, I never lost my cool as I did this time.
My arms were being yanked behind me and silver was being locked onto my wrists as I continued to yell at Vivian. When I called her a heart eating bitch, even she lost what little composure she had left and whipped her hand across my face so hard I saw stars.
“Twenty-four hours in a jail cell should cool you down, Mr. Kessler,” the judge said. “No bail. I don’t want to see your face outside of that jailhouse until you have served a full twenty-four hours! Court is in recess until Thursday morning at nine a.m.”
I was escorted via police cruiser to a holding cell generally used for city, state, or even federal officials that find themselves in a little bit of trouble. Judge Marsen was being very generous because she could have thrown me in with the general population.
“Dude,” Officer Harris said, shaking his head after he locked me in.
“I know,” I growled, pulling my fingers through my hair.
“Must be a woman.”
My look of disdain was answer enough for him. I turned my back on him and walked the few feet to the back of the cell, looking for something to punch or kick.
“Look, I’m not an authority on women or anything,” Harris said. “But if she’s got you this crazy, you need to fix it.”
“Kind of hard to do locked in a cell,” I yelled.
“When you get out, go fix it.”
“Can’t,” I growled.
“Can’t? Or won’t?”
“Did Oprah give you a show and stamp a Doctor title to your name, Harris?” I snapped at him.
He grinned. “Nah man, but I have a wife and I fought my ass off to get her.”
I stood in the middle of the small cell looking at him with my hands fisted at my sides.
“Did you have to fight another man for her?” I asked cynically.
“Brother, I had to fight off two exes and the general male population that even glanced at her,” he said.
The radio on his shoulder came to life. He had a brief conversation with someone.
“Gotta go. Fix that shit,” he said, pointing at me before disappearing down the corridor.
A little more than twenty-four hours later I was rushing through my apartment packing an overnight bag. I hadn’t even showered yet after sitting in the dirty cell all night, but the moment I was released, I only cared about getting home and getting my shit together. I called Lena as I stuffed the last of my items in the bag.
“Hey, jailbird,” she said when she answered.
“How did you know?” I asked.
“Steve called me. What happened, Luke?”
“A lot,” I said quickly. “But I’m just calling to check on Mom.”
“She’s fine. We didn’t tell her you went to jail, though. She’s getting released today. For right now she’s going home and Sam is going to stay with her for a few days, but she wants to move into that assisted living place. Her mind is made up.”
“I think that’s best,” I said in a rush. “Listen, I’m going out of town for…I don’t know how long. Call me if you need anything.”
“Where are you going?” she asked alarmed. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
“I’m going to get my family and bring them back home where they belong,” I said.
“Umm?”
I sighed in exasperation. I didn’t have time for this. “She spent a couple of hours with him, out of ‘curiosity.’ I’m not letting him take my fucking family away.”
“Luke,” Lena said my name softly. “You can’t go out there and drag her back here by her hair. You need to trust her.”
“I want to trust her,” I said.
“D
id Emmy tell you herself that she saw Kyle?”
“Yes,” I said and quickly explained to her what Emmy had told me.
“So…she could have said nothing. She could have let you find out on your own. Maybe she thought she was doing the right thing by telling you about it. Maybe she’s really trying to gain your trust.”
“Doing the right thing would have been to stay away from him, Lena!” I snapped.
“Take a minute and remove yourself from the situation.”
“But I—”
“Take a minute and remove yourself from the situation!” she yelled.
“I don’t know how to do that,” I argued.
“Try seeing through her eyes and feeling what she feels.”
“I can’t,” I gritted.
“Yes, you can,” she insisted. “You can because you’ve been there before. You’ve been in her shoes before. Emmy hurt you, Luke. She hurt you bad. You haven’t forgotten how that felt, and I’m sure you haven’t forgotten the things you’ve done…”
Selective memory comes in handy when you want to pretend that you handled life’s bullshit better than you actually did.
The last weekend of September, only a few weeks after I left the east coast, I broke down and got on an early flight to Philly. I hadn’t slept more than a couple of hours a night since the last day I saw Emmy. I had lost weight because I all but stopped eating, and I couldn’t focus on anything. I was supposed to be a support, a rock for my sister Lena who was fighting breast cancer. I should have been a rock for the rest of my family that was watching her fight breast cancer, but I was nothing they needed. Because I didn’t have what I needed. And what I needed was in New Jersey.
I had checked the Sterling building first. I was very clandestine when I went in, keeping a ball cap pulled low on my head and the collar of my jacket up to partially cover my face. I used my badge that had still not been deactivated to get through the building. I only spoke to a couple of people and was confident that they would keep my presence quiet. I was hoping that Kyle would be there and try to interfere so I could beat his face in, but when I got to the office I discovered that Emmy had left for an appointment and Kyle had been gone since earlier in the day also.
I used my rental to drive to Kyle’s place. When Emmy went with him on a ‘business trip’ to California, I had gone out of my way to find out where the guy lived. I didn’t know what I would do with such information at the time, but it made me feel a little better knowing I had it. As I drove over there, I decided I would kick his ass in his own home if I found Emmy there, but when I got there, Kyle wasn’t home.
I took off for Emmy’s next, deciding that I’d use the key hidden under a bush and wait for her inside if I had to. I pulled over several houses back on the other side of the road. If she was home, her car was in the garage and not parked in the circular driveway. My hand was on the door. I was about to go find out if she was home or not, and if she was I was going to take her back. She was mine and not his. I just began to lift the handle to get out when a black Lexus pulled into the driveway. I knew instantly it was Kyle, and that was confirmed when he stepped out of the car. Emmy’s front door opened and she came out carrying a small suitcase and a small duffel bag. She met Kyle at the back of his car where he popped the trunk and helped her put her bags inside. He closed the trunk and then pulled her into his arms. I saw the frown on her face, but she let him kiss her. She didn’t look any happier after he released her, but she held onto the lapels of his jacket and rested her head on his chest.
To this day I don’t know why that small action changed my course. I didn’t get out and claim my woman. I didn’t beat Kyle’s ass. But I sat there in the car, dying inside. Dying outside. Just dying as I watched them drive away. I’m not a crying kind of man. I didn’t cry when my sister got cancer. I didn’t cry when my dad died. But Emmy, Emmy had a way of fucking me up. I sat there in the car like a weak, defeated man and fought back my tears as the only woman I ever really, truly wanted and loved was whisked away by Kyle Fucking Sterling.
I became very bitter after that. I began to train my heart and mind to only hate Emmy, but even with that hatred brewing inside, whenever Sam visited my family in Chicago, I couldn’t stop myself from asking about Emmy. I never wanted too many details, and Sam never offered up too many. I often found myself searching Emmy out on social media networks, never finding her, and even Googling her home and looking at the house from a satellite view. I had gone back to Jersey twice more, once for a wedding and again to help a friend with a legal issue. During both visits I had driven by her house several times, telling myself that I hated her and if I saw her I’d tell her so. One time my own curiosity got the best of me and I stopped in her driveway, got out of the car, and knocked on her door. When no one answered, I wondered if she had seen me through a window and just refused to answer. The idea pissed me off. I found the hidden key and let myself in. It was only a week after New Year’s. The house was dark with the exception of some soft lights that were on timers, and though everything on the first floor looked the same as it did the last time I saw it, it felt different. It felt so empty that I didn’t even have to look upstairs to know that she wasn’t there.
“You know how it feels to want someone who will only cause you more pain,” Lena said in the present. “You knew that you would probably just get hurt even more when you flew out there back then, but you did it anyway. You can’t say you can blame Emmy for talking to Kyle, even though she knows it might not end well. You tried to do it, too. After almost two years, she hasn’t contacted him,” she pointed out. “And if we’re going to be specific, it was Kyle that made first contact.”
I sighed and sat down on the edge of the bed.
“So, what am I supposed to do, Lena? I don’t want him around Lucas and quite frankly I don’t want him around Emmy. I just want my family back here.”
“You’re not going to get her back by caging her up, Luke. The whole time she’s been out here she hasn’t even gone to Louisiana. She hasn’t gone anywhere, and you know Emmy’s been all over the damn world. You can’t make her come back here like that. It’s only going to backfire.”
“What if I ask her?” I asked through gritted teeth.
“Then she’s going to feel obligated and have the same result. You’re going to have to trust her on this one, Luke. I know after the past it’s hard for you to trust her where Kyle is involved, but you have to let her work this out herself.”
I dragged a hand over my face. “What if she doesn’t want to come back, Lena?”
“Honestly? I don’t think that’s going to happen. There’s so much more to lose besides…well besides you. Sorry, but that’s true. I think she needs to get some closure and she’ll be okay.”
“What if you’re wrong?” I asked tightly.
“I’m not wrong.”
“What if you are?”
“But I’m not.”
“Lena!” I roared. “This is fucking serious!”
“I know it is,” she said soothingly. “And I am serious. I don’t think I am wrong, but in the event that I am, we’ll worry about that then.”
“So, what the hell am I supposed to do until then?”
“Not get arrested for one,” she muttered. “Go on with your life.”
“Emmy and Lucas are my life. I can’t just lie down and die and not fight for them.”
“I’m not telling you not to fight, Luke,” she said in exasperation. “I just want you to fight smarter.”
Only because my sister rarely led me wrong did I not get on the next plane to Philly to drag Emmy back, but I wasn’t sure how long my patience would hold out.
Chapter Nineteen
“Are you sorry for calling me a heart eating bitch?” Vivian asked me. Craig and I were walking into the courthouse Thursday morning when she walked up beside me as if she belonged with us.
“Are you sorry for slapping me?” I asked and sipped on my cup of coffee.
“No,” s
he laughed and looked at me incredulously.
“Then you are what you are,” I said and tipped my cup towards her as if to toast to her heart eating bitchy ways.
“I’m going to take that as a compliment, Luke Kessler,” she said and then snatched my coffee away from me. “Thanks for the coffee.”
She walked ahead of me, drinking my coffee as if it were made just for her.
“Wow,” Craig said, watching her walk away. “If I was straight, that could have given me a hard on. For a woman who eats other attorneys for breakfast, she’s kind of hot.”
“She took my coffee,” I complained.
“Forget your coffee. You better have a good apology for the judge and you better put on your A game because Deluca looks ravenous.”
I nodded in agreement and started to get my head together. My fight with Emmy was still fresh, but I needed to focus. With some effort, I was able to push her out of my mind and prepare myself for battle with Vivian.
“I hope you are in a better state of mind today, Mr. Kessler,” Judge Marsen said a half hour later.
“I am. I apologize for my behavior, your Honor,” I said sincerely, and then added. “Bad hair day.”
A few snickers arose from the few people seated behind me, but the judge was not amused and neither was her bailiff.
I made it through the day without having another temper tantrum. I also made it through the day without checking my phone ten thousand times to see if Emmy called or texted. The only time she had called me since that phone call about Kyle was the night I was in jail. Even then, Lucas left a message for me on voicemail and she had said nothing. Maybe she was angry and hurt, too, not like she had any right to be.
Despite my original plan to drag her caveman style back to Chicago, I was still too angry to talk to her. I talked to Lucas every evening for a couple of minutes, and Emmy made sure that we Skyped every few days and I was thankful for that. I didn’t talk to her, but she was always there in the background holding Lucas. I couldn’t get a read on how she was feeling or what she was thinking, and I had no idea what she was doing or who she was doing it with. Many times I picked up my phone to call her. I wanted to hear her voice. I wanted to hear her reassure me that she wasn’t with Kyle. Hell, I wanted her to forget about the damn piece of shit bar and the beach and to come home.