“The first few months after you…,” Kade couldn’t quite finish the thought, “I was blackout drunk. But then I got help. I went to rehab but all that time I left Ali and the boys alone.” Tears filled his lower lids. “I wanted to come back after rehab, but I had to know that I wasn’t going to put them through what our parents put us through. I had to know that I wasn’t going to be my dad.
“But I’m here now and the boys are good. Ricky looks just like you and he’s having a little bit of a hard time with that. He misses you. We all miss you.” Emotion rose in his chest, choking him as he thought about how unfair life was. “But, he’s going to be okay. I told him that at least you looked like Chris Hemsworth and not Chris Farley. And he asked, “Chris who?” I don’t mean to talk shit about your parenting skills, but how in the hell are the twins thirteen and still haven’t seen Tommy Boy?”
Tommy Boy had been Patrick and Kade’s favorite movie when they were in the fifth grade. That and The Godfather. They had diverse taste.
A sad smile lifted on his mouth. “But, seriously, Ricky’s a great kid. He’s smart and funny. He stays out of trouble. He likes to read, which is good. But don’t worry, I’m going to make sure that life doesn’t pass him by while his nose is in a book. Ethan’s taking them both four-wheeling on Friday. They haven’t been since…”
Kade wiped a tear that slid down his face and refocused. “And KJ is good. He’s gotten into some shit, but nothing that’s going on his permanent record. Ethan’s been keeping an extra close eye on him. He’s taking jiu-jitsu and he’s got some serious moves. He’s got some anger he’s dealing with but what teenager doesn’t.
“There’s a girl that comes by to see him a lot. A cute blonde named Presley. She’s named after Elvis. She’s really good at math and softball. And her favorite television show is Rick and Morty.
“Guess how I know all of that. KJ told me. For a girl he doesn’t like he sure knows a hell of a lot about her and talks a hell of a lot about her.” Kade shook his head as he smiled. “His room is a mess, just like yours was. I told him that he needed to keep it clean if he ever wanted to sneak a girl in there. And guess what? Twenty minutes later it was clean. Well, cleaner.”
Thinking about Ali’s face when he’d been carrying her upstairs to give her a bath and they’d passed by KJ’s room made him chuckle. She’d done a triple take and made him go back a few steps so she could see it again. She’d stared into the cleaner room for a good minute before she asked him what voodoo magic he’d used to get KJ to clean. He’d told her it was ‘guy stuff.’ She then slapped him on the chest. And he’d kissed the irritation right off her cute face.
A tight knot formed in Kade’s chest as he thought about Ali. He understood her concerns about the boys, but it had been two days since he’d touched her, other than helping her while she hobbled around. He hadn’t been able to kiss her, to hug her, to make sweet love to her and it was driving him crazy. But he had to respect her decision, even if he didn’t agree with it.
She’d made it clear that they were “just friends.” That they’d had one night of fun but nothing could happen between them. He’d wanted to argue with her, and he might’ve if he hadn’t seen the look on her face when KJ unexpectedly came by the house to grab something for school.
All of the color drained from her face and she started stuttering as she told KJ they were just eating breakfast. They were just eating breakfast but she’d tripped over her words like she was lying through her teeth. When he left she’d given Kade the third degree asking him if he thought KJ knew anything. The panic she felt over the boys finding out about them was palpable.
But that didn’t change how he felt about her or them. It just meant he was going to be benched for a while. He just hoped no one came and knocked it out of the park before he got back up to bat.
“And Ali. Ali is…” He started to say good, but he stopped himself. “She’s tough. You know that. But, I’m not going to bullshit you, this past year and a half have been hard on her. She’s holding it all together, making sure the boys are good, the business is running, but there’s dark circles under her eyes, and she’s lost some weight.
“She has an onion trick that Ricky says she uses every time KJ catches her crying in the kitchen. He gets upset, really mad if he thinks she’s upset. So she’s come up with all these excuses. If he hears her crying in her room, Ricky says that she tells him she’s watching Steel Magnolias or Me Without You or another tearjerker. If he hears her crying in the bathroom she says that she weighed herself or she has a pimple. And once he caught her crying sitting in the truck in the driveway, and she told him she saw roadkill on the way home.”
Every time he thought about her dealing with her grief alone and having to hide it, he second guessed whether he’d done the right thing staying away…but there was nothing he could do to change the past. All he could do was look forward.
Regrouping he continued, “KJ’s sensitive. Ricky’s observant. KJ’s been trying to protect her from the pain his way and Ricky tries to protect her from it by helping her. He does chores and works at the store in his free time trying to make her life easier. They’re such great kids, but they’re just kids.”
The regrouping didn’t work and Kade hung his head as damn tears sprung to his eyes again and he voiced his greatest shame. “I should’ve been here. You were counting on me. She was counting on me. The twins were counting on me. And I was so fucked up. I’m sorry, Patrick. I’m sorry I let you down. I’m sorry I let Ali and the boys down.”
Kade tried to breathe but his chest felt like it was being crushed by a boulder. He took a moment to collect himself. “There’s one more thing. I love her, man. Ali,” he clarified. “I love Ali. I have for a long time. Ever since Vegas. I know that I’m not the person you’d want her to end up with, and I think she agrees with you.”
He sniffed and his mind replayed the moment she told him they didn’t have a future. It was like a serrated knife twisting in his heart.
“But, if she changes her mind, I want you to know, I’m going to lock that down. If she gives me the green light I’m going to ask her to marry me. I want her to be my wife. I want the twins to have what we didn’t have growing up. I want them to have a home with two people that love them and each other.” Kade laughed when he thought of how much he and Ali had bickered all their lives. “I know what you’re thinking. That if that’s what I want I should see if they can live with the Myer’s.”
Jess’s mom and dad had been married for over forty years and still couldn’t keep their hands off one another. They’d had a child with serious health issues but somehow they weathered it. It might’ve even brought them closer together.
Kade scrubbed his hands over his face. “But, it’s different now than it used to be. We’re good together. We still call each other out on our shit, but that’s good. I love her, man. And I just needed you to hear it from me.”
The weight that he’d been carrying around for years finally lifted off of him and he sat for a few more minutes in that moment. He was about to leave when he remembered, “Oh and I’m not sure if you know this, but George is sick. He’s dying, I guess. And he’s doing it stone cold sober.”
Kade sat and talked to Patrick for another hour. He told him about the town and how everything was the same but different. He talked about his last fight and how badly he’d fucked up. He told him that he was meeting with Kennedy the next day to look at places to rent and what he was thinking he should get in a house. He wanted rooms for both twins so they could have their own space when they visited him.
He just talked about life. Life that Patrick was missing because he was gone. But for the first time since Kade had got the call that his best friend died, he didn’t feel like his best friend was so far away. He felt like part of him was still around. Still here. Kade knew it was just a feeling, but hell, so was loneliness, pain, and despair. He’d take feeling there was a part of Patrick that was still here, over those feelings, any day o
f the week.
CHAPTER 20
Ali sat on the picnic table in the courtyard next to the rental shop and tried to focus on the Excel spreadsheet in front of her. Since she’d always planned on running the rental shop with her brother, she’d gone to college for accounting and business management. And she’d graduated with honors. This should be the part of her job she excelled at, no pun intended. But she wasn’t doing a very good job. She kept getting distracted, checking Facebook and Twitter, or mindlessly surfing the web.
Not that it mattered. It’s not like she was getting much work done anyway. Her mind kept wandering to the same place.
Kade.
She’d never understood the true agony of something being so close and yet so far before. He was a carrot dangling in front of her; her wildest fantasies wrapped up in the perfect male specimen that she’d been in love with her entire life.
Irritation and resentment bubbled just beneath the surface. She wasn’t sure how much longer she could keep up her facade. She ran her hands through her hair and reminded herself that although Kade was the reason for her aggravation, it wasn’t his fault. It was her situation.
She tried to be grateful. She was alive. The sun was shining. Birds were chirping. Spring break kicked off tomorrow and the weather was supposed to be in the nineties all week. Tourists would come in droves and people would be out on the lake, and that meant dollar signs for her. The boys were out with Ethan on their dirt bikes for the first time since their dad had been gone and that was something she hadn’t been sure would ever happen again. And she and KJ’s relationship seemed to be getting back to normal. They’d had real conversations where he volunteered information and even asked her questions and laughed at her corny jokes. She’d forgotten how much she missed his laugh.
She should be happy. Elated even. But instead, she was anxious, antsy, and borderline miserable.
“Hey there, beautiful. How’s the ankle?”
Ali turned and saw Laura Lopez sidle up beside her. The brunette beauty ran The Snack Shack housed in the building adjacent to hers.
“It’s better. I can put weight on it now.” She’d been icing it all week at Kade’s insistence. He was a broken record reminding her to keep it elevated and wasn’t letting her do anything herself. He’d been waiting on her hand and foot at home and accompanying her to work every day where he insisted on doing all the lifting, heavy or otherwise. It was driving her crazy. And not in a good way.
“Well, thank goodness Kade came home when he did. I’ve noticed he’s been doing a lot around here.”
That statement was like nails on the chalkboard of Ali’s soul.
She bit her tongue and inhaled slowly through her nose, doing her best to keep her face neutral as she made a noncommittal noise, “Mmm.”
Kade had been back in Whisper Lake exactly one week. Seven days and people were acting as if he were literally a knight in shining freaking armor. Every time she turned around someone was telling her how lucky she was that he was there. People kept saying how great he was with the boys. There was practically a choir singing his praises about the manual labor he was doing around the shop. Manual labor that she’d been unable to do because of her injury and which she’d tried to hire other people to do.
It wasn’t that Ali didn’t appreciate all Kade had done. His skills in the kitchen alone were enough to earn him brownie points in her book. She hadn’t had to choke down a barely-edible home-cooked meal in seven days. And there was life and laughter in the house again. KJ’s room was somewhat clean. Ricky was talking more. Yesterday morning she’d woken to KJ mowing the lawn and when she went downstairs Kade was sparring with Ricky.
The list went on and on and they were all incredible developments. Kade had accomplished a ton in a week.
But it was one week.
What about the seventy-eight weeks that she’d been there?
It wasn’t that she wanted credit for taking care of literally everything and not having a nervous breakdown. It was just that she was tired of people acting as if she should be grateful for Kade because they never would’ve survived without him.
Were things easier with Kade there? Sure.
Did she have everything under control before he got there? Yes.
Barely, but yes.
Before he’d returned people had either treated her with pity, or like she should be nominated for sainthood. Now everyone was treating her like a princess who’d been rescued from a tower. No one needed to feel sorry for her. Many people had it a lot worse than her. And she certainly was no saint. But she also wasn’t some damsel in distress that needed him to slay dragons for her.
All she wanted was for things to go back to normal, to be treated like she was normal, but she was beginning to think she didn’t even know what that was anymore. Lately her normal was simply trying to avoid Kade because being around him was absolute torture.
“Kade’s been staying with you, right?” Laura twisted the cap off her bottled water as she committed one of Ali’s biggest pet peeves, asking a question she already knew the answer to.
“Mmm, hmm.”
“It must be nice having him around.” Laura winked before taking a sip of her water.
“Mmm.” She made another sound instead of using her words and hoped that Laura would get the hint.
“I wouldn’t throw him out of my bed, if you know what I mean.”
Yep. She did know what she meant. Ali had thrown him out of her bed.
“I thought the two of you might have something going on but then I heard that he’s been looking for his own place.”
This was not new information to Ali. Kade told her that Kennedy had shown him some properties the day before. But she didn’t want to discuss it with him and she sure as heck didn’t want to discuss it with Laura.
The woman clearly wasn’t picking up on Ali’s whole vibe so she opted for silence as she stared at her computer.
Laura scooted closer and rested her hand on Ali’s forearm. “You know I’m not one to gossip.”
In Ali’s experience, anyone who started a sentence with “I’m not” usually “was.” And there was usually a “but” that followed.
“But…a…
There it is.
“little birdy told me that she saw Kennedy and Kade cozying up at Bite Me.”
Bite Me was Whisper Lake’s answer to Subway. The community had done its level best to keep chain restaurants and stores from infiltrating the city limits. Part of the sleepy town’s charm was its Mom and Pop establishments.
“You know they used to date in high school?”
Yeah. Ali was aware. Unfortunately, she’d had a front row seat to the Kade and Kennedy show. They broke up and got back together so many times it gave Ali relationship whiplash. Every time the two of them would split, hope would bloom in her heart. Then they’d get back together and rototill her hope flowers.
“My friend said they were very cozy.”
Ali did her best not to roll her eyes. It must be a slow week if Kade and Kennedy eating lunch was making the front page of the Gossip Gazette.
“Has Kade mentioned anything about it?”
Yes, he had. One of the steps in his program was making amends, and he’d told her he’d done that with Kennedy. He said that it had gone well. And the entire time he’d been telling her that, the only thing Ali could think about was wanting him to shut up, grab her, and kiss her. And that irritated her more than this conversation.
“Nope.” Ali shut her computer and carefully swung her foot over the bench. “I’ve got inventory to do. I’ll see you later.”
“Is Kade around?”
“Last I saw he was down at the dock.” She’d tried to tell him she didn’t need his help, but he’d insisted. So, she gave him a to-do list a mile long. She may not need him, but she could at least take advantage of the opportunity. Besides, if he was busy with errands, it was easier to avoid him. So far, it had been working.
“Tell him to stop by and see me
anytime. He can have my special strawberry shake on the house.”
Ali was sure that wasn’t all Kade could have.
She had to give Laura credit, the woman was an eternal optimist. She was a two-time divorcée and was definitely looking to walk down the aisle again. She kept saying, “Third time’s the charm.”
Ali had no plans to get married, but if she did and it didn’t work out twice, she would probably throw in the towel. People like Laura intrigued her. Life knocked her down and yet she sprung right back up like a weighted, inflatable punching bag. No matter how hard you punched it, it popped right back up like nothing had happened.
When life knocked Ali down, she got up again, but it was more like an elderly person getting up from a chair after sitting a long time. It was slow, awkward, and she never really stood up straight.
Laura pointed a sky-blue acrylic-tipped finger at Ali. “Don’t forget to tell Kade. Strawberry shake.”
“Got it.”
That was another thing that was getting on Ali’s nerves. People kept wanting her to tell Kade things. She hadn’t passed on this many messages since she was in seventh grade. Just like her sexual frustration and irritation at how lucky people thought she was, people using her as their personal telegram service wasn’t Kade’s fault. Logically she knew that. Emotionally, it was another story.
Ali was doing everything she could not to let Kade know that she had a boatload of resentment with his name on it. He didn’t deserve her emotional cargo. She’d tried to be extra nice to him whenever he was around. He’d kept asking her what was wrong, kept trying to make sure she was okay, and she kept telling him nothing was wrong and she was fine. The issues she was dealing with were her own and she didn’t want him to feel like she was unhappy he was there.
She wasn’t. She had mixed feelings about it. Feelings that she was sure a therapist would have a field day with. But since she didn’t have a therapist, she’d been solely relying on humming therapy. It might not solve anything but it did brighten her mood.
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