by Peiri Ann
“Good. So when he comes back, tell him you don’t want to be with him and you’ll go to a hotel or something.”
“Okay, Janet. I want us to remain friends.”
“How could I be your friend? You used me!”
“I did not! I had no idea you and Kyle were friends. And mainly that was your fault. You hid you all’s friendship from me, calling him Lewin, remember? Had I known you two were friends, I wouldn’t have been your friend.”
“Oh, so he and I being friends made it so we can’t be.”
“I do not become involved in any type of relationship with people who are associated with my target. For obvious reasons.” Her hand flew up and I caught her wrist. “Highly trained.” I pointed at myself. “Don’t do it.”
“Val, let me slap you one time. Then it’ll all be out of my system.”
“What the hell, Janet?” I threw her arm to the side. “I’ve done nothing wrong to you. I get why you’re mad with Kyle. But seriously, you should not have an attitude with me.”
“You both are backstabbers.”
“God, Janet, whatever. When Kyle gets back, I’ll leave. I’m not dealing with this. I’ve been a friend to you, been there for you, and you’ve been a good friend to me. You’re really going to let this come between us?”
“Hey.” Rick came up behind her. “You two can actually go find a completely different guy to fight over because Kyle’s mine. Sorry to break it to you, ladies.”
“Valerie and Janet,” came Ron’s voice, “start looking in the living room. Big Papa Ron is one hundred percent available.”
“Janet.” Anna, Kyle’s sister, walked into the hall, which was getting crowded. “Don’t make Val feel uncomfortable.” She placed her hand on my shoulder. “Val, you don’t have to leave. My brother wants you here. And Janet will do whatever Kyle wants to do. They both can have your friendship. Just don’t break my brother’s heart like all the other girls did. Janet, Kyle needs you as a friend. You wanting more than that will destroy your friendship and you know that.” Anna was shorter than me and her hair was short and dirty blonde. She wore it brushed to the back of her neck.
The front door opened.
“And in walks the man of the hour,” Ron announced.
“Why the crowd in the hall?” Kyle asked coming in, a tall, caramel-skinned guy right behind him. Kyle’s eyes locked on mine and a small smile flitted across his face, seeing me still here. He played it cool. “What happened, Anna?”
“Nothing; talking some sense into Janet. I was about to talk some sense into Rick, but that seems like a dead topic.”
Rick pinched her arm. She was incredibly skinny and looked like the pinch hurt more than it should have.
Kyle came down the hall and the guy behind him went into the living room. It was the last of my business, but I intended to ask about him later.
“Should the three of us talk?” Kyle asked Janet and me.
Janet looked around him to Anna, who threw her hands on her hips and hitched her brows. “No, Kyle,” Janet said glumly. “I’m not happy about it but… I’m here as your friend and plan to remain as your friend. And after Val drops you, I’ll still be here and when you finally realize I’m the—”
“Janet!” Anna cut her off.
“All I’m saying, Anna”—Janet hugged Kyle—“is that I’m sorry.”
He hugged her back. “Thanks, Janet.”
I watched them, realizing I did not want to be the one to break up that friendship.
Kyle grabbed my hand after letting go of Janet. “Thought you were locked away.”
I shook my head.
“We need to talk. Rick, I’ll come by in a couple hours; you and Ron have to go.”
Rick stomped his foot. “Kyle, I am so tired of you blowing me off for these women.”
Kyle laughed.
“I will never understand their relationship,” Anna said.
Rick stormed to the door. “Ron, it appears we are no longer welcome here. Kyle, I thought we had something real, something long and lasting. But apparently I was wrong. You were just using me for my lovely lady lumps, you jerk!” he shouted, slamming the door behind him.
Everyone stared at Kyle.
“He’s not serious,” he said, walking away, pulling me with him.
“Spirit, this is my brother Nixon. I figured he may be the only relative you haven’t seen.”
I nodded. “That pretty girl, Chrissy—you’re her father?” I asked Nixon.
“Yes,” he stated strongly. He didn’t look at me and it appeared he was pissed I was addressing him.
Kyle sat down on the other couch and I sat beside him.
He whispered in my ear, “You’re on his list.”
That was unexpected. I nodded.
“Janet and Anna. Come in here. We need to talk,” Kyle said.
They both came in and sat on either side of Nixon.
“Kyle, it’s not worth it,” Janet blurted.
Nixon sat forward. “Don’t tell him it’s not worth it. It is. With me and Kyle together on this, there is no way we can fail. It’s a win-win.”
Kyle looked uncomfortable, twiddling his thumbs, slumped in the couch. Going after Melor wasn’t something he wanted to do. I was waiting for him to come out with why. He told us about Purcell paying he and Nixon to do it. That they would need to sort a plan over the next month and be out in Berlin thereafter. It was where Melor was last seen; supposedly Purcell was sure he was still there and would be there for a while.
“Just wait until they find out about Purcell putting a hit on Melor. And no one—NO ONE—at Purcell knows how to keep their mouth closed when their ass is on the line. The moment Melor finds out, we’re all dead. Nixon, your ass is so damn selfish!” Janet wasn’t going to stop yelling today.
“Arch, we can either go after Melor or Nixon is going to kill me.”
Janet whipped toward Nixon, balled her hand into a fist, drew back, and rammed it into Nixon’s face.
One thing was for sure, Janet had Kyle’s back.
Kyle leaned over to me and said, low, “He was going to try to kill you if I didn’t do it. He’s the person who broke your window.”
I tore my eyes away from the fight on the other couch. “Kyle, I don’t need you to protect me.”
“I’m not asking for your permission, Spirit.”
I grew frustrated. I felt like he was treating me like a charity case. Like I needed him to help me with everything; a place to live, eating, staying alive…
The back of his fingers grazed my cheek as he asked, “Should we go talk?”
I fought with myself over telling him the truth or just blowing it off. I could’ve just been so used to being independent and not ready for the relationship reliability feature.
“No.”
“They’re going to be a minute. We can leave. Go for coffee. Talk about your boyfriend.”
I held in my laugh, shaking my head at his remark. “Yeah, let’s go talk.”
“Spirit.” Kyle slid into the booth next to me at the local diner.
I scooted over to give him more room. “Hum?”
“This isn’t your thing, is it?” He pointed, moving his index finger back and forth between us.
I pinched my nose. “I don’t know.”
“Then what is?” He grabbed our basket of onion rings and drinks from the waiter. “Thanks.” The waiter nodded.
“I don’t know that either.” I grabbed a heavily battered onion ring and dipped it in the ketchup he squeezed into the basket. “What’s a this? I’ve been working as an agent straight out of high school. I haven’t had the full ‘relationship experience’.” I made quotes in the air with my fingers. “Not as an adult.”
“What’s the difference between being a teen in a relationship to being an adult?”
“You’re more experienced. More doors are open. You’re looking toward your future instead of looking forward to prom and being together after graduation. It gets a lot more realistic.” I shrugged,
biting into the onion ring.
“Realistic…”
“Right.”
“Feelings? Emotions? Actions? What? What’s less realistic?”
“Listen, what are you doing with Melor? You know Janet’s right.”
He dropped the onion ring he’d picked up. “Dammit. Answer the question. Then change the subject.”
I laughed. “I guess I never felt like any of it was truly worth my time and energy.”
“So would I be the first guy you’ve loved?”
I coughed. “Uh… This conversation just got incredibly awkward.”
“Does that mean you aren’t going to answer?”
“No, you’re not the first.”
“The first was the one probably responsible for making you hard as brick?”
“No. I’ve always been hard as bricks.”
“Okay. I’m done. I’m trying to get to know you as well as you know me. You’re making that a little complicated. Cut a guy some slack, Spirit.”
I grinned. “Okay, okay. Shoot.”
He drank from his glass, leaving a lip print on its rim. “Twenty-two?”
“Yes.” I knew Kyle was twenty-four.
“No more family?”
“Uh uh,” I answered coolly, making sure that question didn’t affect me heavily.
“Real college?”
“Nope.” Besides training while he was in the army, this was his “real” college.
“Hometown is Chicago?”
He had a good memory. “Yes.” His was Tucson, Arizona. His mother and father moved here when she was pregnant with Anna.
“A place you’ll visit?”
“Brazil.” I didn’t know the answer to that for him. “What’s yours?”
“Austria. Favorite color?”
“Purple.” His was blue.
“I should’ve figured that,” he murmured. “Favorite food?”
I pointed in front of me to the onion rings. “Those.” His was too.
“Favorite drink?”
“I don’t have one. But orange juice in the morning is pretty refreshing.” He loved morning OJ.
He nodded. “Favorite song?”
“Almost is Never Enough.”
He laughed. “That’s how I feel about everything.”
“It makes sense.”
“How long do you plan to be with me?”
Oh—that caught me off guard. I swallowed hard. “Uh… you lost me.”
“I’ve noticed. You haven’t looked at me since I walked into the house earlier. You seem uncomfortable and tense. Especially when I get a little close to you. I’d say you should have put this heavy wall up before we slept together because now it just seems awkward.”
No… now it seemed awkward. “Kyle…”
“Honestly, Spirit.”
I slouched in the seat, exhaling. “Have you ever thought about falling in love with someone and not having them?”
“I don’t understand.”
“Like loving someone who no longer exists.”
“No.”
“Okay, hear me out.” He nodded in my periphery. “Imagine loving someone and living on a completely different schedule from them. You stay and they are gone or vice versa. That’s you and me.”
“Spirit, I am not an idiot, but I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”
I didn’t know how to say this. “What makes you want to do this?”
“What makes you not?”
“I’ve lost enough people. You have enough people and I don’t want us to be worried about each other.”
“Spirit, we will be worried about each other together or apart. If it’s a light thought or a heavy one. We’ve come far enough, especially you. Think about what you’ve done for me. You’re already worried about me. And think about what I’m doing for you. I’m worried about you too. Why punish ourselves by being apart? That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.” He took a glance at me. “No offense. But think about that action. ‘Oh Kyle, I don’t want to experience a relationship with you out of fear that one day I’ll lose you. So I’m going to beat myself up for the rest of my life because I know deep down I really want this, with you, but I’m too stubborn. So I’m going to push you off and feed you a load of cow shit about us living on different schedules.’ Honestly, for all we know the world could end tomorrow and we die together anyway. Would you prefer to go knowing we at least tried at this? Or would you prefer to go wishing we had tried?”
“Tried?”
“Everyone on the earth lives on a different schedule than someone else. That’s not what you focus on in life. You take a day at a time. Haven’t you ever heard ‘love when you can’?”
“Have you ever thought that that’s how you’ve gotten hurt so many times?”
“That’s a different kind of hurt. I was hurt because I wasn’t appreciated, I wasn’t truly loved. I was used, I was crossed, I was betrayed. I loved, but they didn’t love me in return. And that’s paramount, to love and be loved in return. I’ve never experienced that. But I know how to love. I know how to make one person feel like they can own the world, feel like they can take on death regardless of when it comes because I’ll give them love to live for.”
“Love to live for…”
“The definition of Kyle Benjamin Shultz.”
Kyle Benjamin Shultz, the asshole who forces you to love him. For some reason, I thought about my bag. “Kyle, where did you hide my bag?”
A smile spread across his face. “You couldn’t find it?”
“I searched your room up and down and could not find my bag.”
He leaned back against the seat. “Guess that means you need to stay there tonight and look for it. You’ll probably find it by morning.”
I shook the basket of onion rings, deciding which one I’d grab next “I’m not sleeping at your house.”
He pursed his lips, and with a cunning edge to his voice, he said, “You snooped through all my stuff, didn’t you?”
“Sure did. I found nothing but guns.”
He nodded.
“I got extremely curious and rambled through your drawers, checking for your condom stash, handcuffs, and dirty magazines. To prove you were a perv.”
“I don’t keep that stuff.”
“I’ve noticed. Why not?”
“My condoms are stashed in my truck; I don’t bring women to my house to bone, so I don’t need a stash in my room. There are enough items of clothing on someone’s body to tie them up, so I could use panties and bras in replacement of handcuffs. I’m not into that type of restraint. And who looks at magazines any more when things like the Internet exist? If I wanna see naked women, I have a sixty-inch in the living room and a Mac. But I prefer just making a phone call.”
I winced. “That makes me feel uncomfortable.”
“Don’t let it.” He reached up and grabbed the side of my face, pulling me close. “Say something so I can see if you with onion breath will turn me off.”
I pushed him away from me, laughing. I laughed so hard I held my stomach as I leaned over on the seat.
Kyle pulled me up by my arm, grabbed me again and drew me into his kiss. I could’ve sworn he was sucking the air from my lungs or depriving this restaurant of oxygen. Or maybe I forgot how to breathe… But even with the aftertaste of onion rings and ketchup, the soft scent of Sprite on his light mustache, the light over our heads that seemed like it was causing everyone to look at us… the feel of his lips, his hand lightly resting on the side of my face, his free hand searching the seat for mine, and him… just him… had me there. Where I finally had Kyle and all my insecurities didn’t exist.
“Ahem. Excuse me.” The waiter came and shoved them back in my face. “Would you like the bill?”
Kyle leaned away from me and stared. His green eyes had intensified and began unraveling me. I became open and willing to unwrap myself for him, down to the bare bones of my body.
Happiness settled in his gaze. “Look u
p,” he said. I did. “Now a little to the right.” I smiled and did that too. “That’s Val…” I dropped my eyes back to his and he winced. “And that’s Spirit. That brick wall shot back up no sooner than it fell.”
I bit my lip, fighting my grin. “Our waiter wants to know if we’re ready to go.”
He looked at the waiter. “Yes, leave the bill.” The young man walked away and Kyle reverted his attention back to me. “I’m on a roll. Ready?”
I shook my head nervously. “Kyle, I don’t know what you’re going to do… but no. I’m not ready for it.”
His left hand slipped under the table and touched my knee. “Look at me,” he said, slowly sliding his hand up my inner thigh.
Breathing became difficult, as my nerves shook my lungs. Kyle’s touch made my skin shake, my heart thrum. He wasn’t even touching my skin directly and my body went crazy, craving for more, never wanting his touch to stop. I grabbed his hand when it reached inches from my center.
“Do not stop me. Move.”
“No. Not in here.”
He smirked. “Don’t look away from me. And move your hand. No one can see up under this table and as long as you keep a straight face you’re good.”
“The waiter is going to come back,” I tried to convince him this wasn’t a good idea.
“Well, I suggest you do a damn good job. Plus, you have on pants. Not like I can do much.” He used his free hand to move mine.
Closing the remaining distance, he slid over me downward, up, then slowly back down. My entire body heated.
“I think you might be running a temperature, Spirit.”
From my periphery, I saw someone approaching. My eyes shifted in that direction and he grabbed me, his fingers shoved against my opening, and I craved to know what it would feel like if these clothes weren’t blocking him. I bit my lip to stay quiet.
“I said do not look away,” he whispered in warning.
He turned from me to the waiter. “Thank you. We’ll be out of your hair in a minute.”
I had on the thinnest yoga pants, making it all too easy for me to feel him. For me to feel each finger, and enough stretch for one of those fingers to slide deep between my folds.
Gosh, I should’ve worn panties, had I known this would happen… Oh thank you for not putting on panties, Val.