by Megyn Ward
The only thing I have left of them.
I want to tell her everything. All the things I’ve been thinking and feeling since the first time I kissed her.
Holy shit.
I think I’m falling in love with her.
Twenty-one
Briana
Out of here.
I have to get out of here. Away from Keaton and the crazy way he makes me feel. The insane things he makes me want to do.
I drop my shoes by the front door and unwad my shorts so I can step into them as quickly as possible before turning in a half-crazed circle, looking for the tank top I was wearing when I got here.
“I work at Nina’s.”
Keaton is standing behind me, a few feet away, my shirt in his hand.
Before I can hold out my hand and demand that he give it to me, what he said registers.
Yanks the indignation right out of me.
“What?” I heard wrong. He couldn’t have said what I think he just said.
He sighs, a low, frustrated sound, before he says it again. “I work at Nina’s.” he pushes each word out of his mouth slowly, enunciating them carefully. “I’ve worked there since I was eighteen.”
Nina’s.
It’s a sex shop downtown.
Its basement is legendary with kids who grew up in Chicago and its surrounding suburbs. Rumor has it it’s a sex club. Anything goes.
I close the gap between us and reach for my shirt, jerking it out of his grip. “You work at a sex shop?”
“No.” He shakes his head slowly. “I work in the basement.”
Oh.
A million things race through my mind at once. A million questions that need answers. When I don’t ask any of them he hunkers down and gathers my shoes. “I wear the hat and sunglasses because even though most people who go there don’t want to be recognized any more than I do, I’ve had a few situations where a club-goer has found out where I live and…” I think he’s going to stand up and hand me my shoes. He doesn’t. “and anyway, that’s why I wear them.” He lifts my foot off the floor and slips it into my shoe. “Like I said before, I work weekend nights—Thursday, Friday, Saturday—because those are my show times and it affords me the week to go to school.”
Show times?
Did he just say show times?
He ties my laces in a carefully constructed bow, pulling the loops into a secure knot. “That part was true but I don’t go to a university. I go to the community college across town—I’m already paying one university tuition and I can’t afford two without living in my car.” When he’s done, he sets my foot aside and reaches for the other one. “I’ve never called another woman sugar in my entire life and I hate them too.” He shoves my other shoe onto my foot and yanks hard on the laces. “My tattoos. I hate them too, but the truth is male performers with ink are in higher demand. They make more money.” He’s finished now but he doesn’t stand. He stays right where he is, kneeling in front of me. “Doing what I do allows me to support myself and pay Kyle’s tuition at Notre Dame.”
He still hasn’t told me what he does.
“Is it unsafe?” The question finds its way out on its own. “Is that why you don’t want to tell me?” A thought occurs to me and I’m ashamed to say I get a little sick to my stomach. “Why you don’t want to—”
He shoots to his feet, suddenly towering over me. “No.” The word comes out harsh and final. “I don’t fuck people for money.”
Relief courses through me and I can’t help but sigh. “Then what? What could be so bad that—”
“People pay to watch me.”
“Watch you what?”
He flushes. Shakes his head. Doesn’t want to tell me. Isn’t going to.
“Then why tell me any of it?” I throw up my hands. “If you don’t want to be with me then why does it matter?”
“Because I do.” He shouts it. “I need you to understand that it really isn’t you.” He sighs, takes a step back. Away from me. “I want to be with you so bad I don’t think I can stand it. It’s me, Briana—it’s me.” He pushes a frustrated hand through his hair and shakes his head. “I have responsibilities I can’t walk away from. I don’t have room in my life for more and that’s what I want—I want more with you but I can’t have it.” He drops his hands and looks at me. “Do you understand?”
“You want me, so you can’t have me.” I shake my head because I don’t. I don’t understand any of it. “You can’t have me so we can’t be anything—not even friends.”
“I wish my life was different, sugar.” I can hear it in his voice. Regret. As clear as a bell. “I wish I was different, but I’m not.”
The finality in his tone tells me everything I need to know. This—whatever this is between us—is over.
Twenty-two
Briana
2018
He thinks this is his fault. That he’s to blame for the fact that his brother is a cheating asshole. Telling him he’s wrong won’t change that. Telling him that Kyle is a grown man who can and has made plenty of bad decisions on his own won’t matter.
Keaton’s been his brother’s keeper for way too long.
He’s standing right behind me, hands locked around my arms. I know what he’s doing. He’s trying to keep me still. Keep me from turning around.
And I know why.
The knowing makes it easier to do what I came here to do. I turn to look at him and despite his best intentions, he lets me.
He never was able to deny me the things I really wanted.
I look up at him, the ink on his throat and wrists peeking out from under his cuff and collar of his expensive, three-piece suit. Seeing it reminds of the time I showed up on his doorstep to apologize to him.
I hate tattoos. I fucking hate them.
I’d been horrible to him. Said things I’d instantly been ashamed of and he let me. He didn’t say a word. In the heat of it, I thought it was because he didn’t care about my opinion. Didn’t care about me. That wasn’t why.
He let me say those things because he felt and thought them about himself.
Still does.
“Then what?” I tear my gaze away from his neck to settle it on his face. “What are you sorry for, Keaton?”
For a moment, just a moment, I think he’s going to say it. He’s going to tell me the truth. That he loves me. That he regrets walking away from me. Leaving a hole inside me big enough for his brother to slip into.
But he doesn’t.
He drops his hands away from my arms and takes a step back. He shakes his head at me, jaw clenched. “You’re Kyle’s fiancé.”
Even after what he witnessed, that matters to him. Even after what I told him, that this isn’t the first time he’s cheated on me, he’s still worried about his little brother.
Still puts him first.
“No.” I shake my head, pulling the ring I’ve been wearing for the past year off my finger. “I’m not.” I reach for his hand and he lets me. “That’s why I’m here. Why I wanted to talk to you…” I turn his hand in mine to press the ring into the center of his palm. “I wanted to give this to you and tell you I’m not marrying your brother.” I close his hand with mine, squeezing his fingers tight. “I decided weeks ago, I just didn’t have the guts—” I stop short when I realize the truth. “I never wanted to marry him. I never loved him. Not the way you should love someone you’re going to vow to spend the rest of your life with.”
“I don’t understand.” He shakes his head at me, confused. “If you don’t love him then—”
“Because you left.” The truth tumbles out of me, so fast it leaves me breathless. “Because he was all that was left of you and I couldn’t let you go.”
He stares at me, his throat working against the knot that seems to be lodged inside it. Finally he looks down at his clenched fist wrapped inside my own. “Why are you giving this to me?”
“It’s your mother’s.”
He opens his hand to look at it. It’s a m
odest ring. The diamond is under a carat. Simple round cut. Plain gold band. Something a girl like me is supposed to turn her nose up at.
“I get that, sugar.” He sighs and looks up at me, brow furrowed and frustrated. “Shouldn’t you be giving it to Kyle? He’s the one who gave it to you, not me.”
There’s nothing between us now.
No lies.
No unspoken truths.
He walked away from me years ago.
That means I have nothing left to lose.
“I’m giving it to you because I want it back.” I let him go, my arms dropping to my sides. “But this time, I want you to give it to me.”
Twenty-three
Keaton
I’ve had this dream before. The one where Briana find me. Tells me she loves me. Forgives me for the shit I’ve done. Wants to be with me.
In the dream, I’m brave enough to say yes. I’ve got the balls to tell her I love her. That I’ve been in love with her since the first time I kissed her. That I’m sorry—so fucking sorry for the way I treated her.
Beg her to leave my brother and be with me.
But this isn’t a dream.
I’m wide awake and she has no idea what she’s asking me for.
Who she’s asking it from.
Ring clenched in my fist, I drop my hand to my side and shake my head. “You wouldn’t say that—ask me for that—if you knew the truth about me.”
“What truth is that?” She looks around, gesturing at my office. “That you own a sex club? That you bought your assistant at an auction when she was barely eighteen?” She drops her arms and looks at me. “That you’ve done things you regret in order to take care of your brother.”
He told her.
Kyle told her everything.
For the first time since our parents died, I want to hurt him.
Your parents didn’t just die, chief.
“I killed them.” I force myself to say it, to remind myself of what really matters. None of what happened after that would’ve come to pass if I hadn’t done what I did. “Did my brother tell you that? That I killed our parents?”
“You didn’t kill your parents.” She sounds so sure, so confident, I almost believe her.
Almost.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about, sugar.” I shake my head at her, jamming my clenched fist into the pocket of my pants. so hard I feel the stitches holding it together pop. “You weren’t there.”
“Neither were you.” She looks up at me, her eyes trained on my face and so unbelievably sad, I have to fight with myself to keep from looking away from her. “You weren’t there either, Keaton.” She sighs and shakes her head. “It was an accident. A horrible accident… but it wasn’t your fault.”
“They were coming for me.” My guts twist again, so hard and fast I think I might throw up. “I called them, too drunk to drive. I’m the reason they weren’t at home, sleeping and safe. Me.”
I have this dream too.
The dream where I call my parents and ask them to come get me from a graduation party of some classmate I barely knew because I was too drunk to get myself home.
Only it’s not a dream.
It’s a memory.
Just stay where you are. We’re on our way.
That’s the last thing my father ever said to me.
He was killed in a head-on collision less than twenty minutes later.
My mother survived three days before she finally gave up and followed him.
Take care of your brother.
That’s the last thing my mother ever said to me.
Not take care of yourself.
Not take care of each other.
Take care of your brother.
“He doesn’t love me either, you know.”
Her voice, closer than it was before, pulls me back and I look up to see her standing a few feet away. “Yes he does.” I take a step back. “He wouldn’t have asked you to marry him if he didn’t.”
“He wouldn’t have cheated on me if he did.” She gives me a sad smile. “I’m sure it’s been plenty of times but twice in a row it’s been in places he knew he’d get caught—caught by me and caught by you.”
“What are you saying?” I feel sick again. “That he wanted us to catch him? That he—”
“I don’t know.” She shrugs and shows me her hands, palms up and empty. “That’s a question you’ll have to ask him,” she says, dropping her hands. “But I know he doesn’t blame you for what happened to your parents.” She looks away from me for a second like she needs to steel herself for what she’s going to say next. “The only person who blames you for that is you.”
When I don’t answer her, she sighs softly before raising herself onto her tiptoes to press her lips against my cheek. “Goodbye, Keaton,” she whispers against my jaw before she lowers herself back down the floor. “I hope I see you again.”
And then she walks out the door.
Twenty-four
Briana
Almost as soon as I step outside Keaton’s office, I run into Kyle.
Again, I know what I’m supposed to say. What I’m supposed to do. I can practically see the Jilted Fiancé checklist in my head.
There might have been a time when I’d been interested in playing the part.
But not now
Not anymore.
Before he can open his mouth, I hold my hand. “It’s okay.” I almost laugh at the puzzled look he gives me. “You don’t love me, Kyle.” I shake my head and drop the hand I’m holding up between us. “I don’t think you ever did. Maybe you pursued me to hurt Keaton. Maybe you were just infatuated with the idea of stealing your big brother’s girl.” I smile again and shrug. “Maybe not.” I told Keaton that Kyle didn’t blame him for what happened but I’m not entirely sure that it’s true. I only know what Kyle told me. “Either way, it’s okay.”
He stares at me, letting out a long, slow breath. Keaton told me once that Kyle looks more like their dad while he’s the spitting image of their mother. Right now, he looks so much like his older brother that it nearly breaks my heart. “What will you do?” he says, not bothering to deny anything that I’ve said.
“Right now?” I shrug and smile. “Right now, I’m going to the apartment to gather the rest of my things—I have a limo at my disposal, I might as well use it.” My smile wobbles a little before falling flat. “I’d appreciate it if you’d let me do that on my own.”
“Of course.” He flushes, giving me a quick head bob, stepping aside to finally let me pass. “I really am sorry, Bri. I never meant to hurt you.”
If there was ever a time to tell him the truth—that he wasn’t the only one who was in this relationship for the wrong reasons, it would be now.
But something tells me he already knows.
“Me too,” I tell him. “Take care of yourself, Kyle.” I think of Keaton on the other side of the door and my heart almost snaps into two.
“Take care of each other,” I say, giving him a sad smile before walking away.
“Sure you don’t want me to go with you?”
I look at Amelia and smile. We left Helena and Sara at the club. Neither of them wanted to leave and seemed puzzled when I told them I was calling it a night. It was like they had no idea I hadn’t been next to them on the dancefloor, drinking and partying the whole night.
“Nope.” I let my gaze slide past her, aiming it out the window behind her. “I’ll be fine.” I know what she really wants to ask—what happened with Keaton?
What happened?
I gave him his mother’s ring back and told him I wanted him to put it on my finger.
And then he let me walk away.
The limo pulls up in front of Amelia’s building and rolls to a stop. I hear the driver’s side door open. Listen to the crunch and scrape of his shoes against the street, seconds before he pulls the rear door open to let Amelia out.
She doesn’t budge.
“I’ll be fine.” I give her hand a squ
eeze and smile while she scowls at me.
“You can stay with me,” she says, ignoring the fact that our driver has traffic blocked and is standing on the sidewalk, waiting to help her out of the car. “Go back to your apartment, get your stuff, set his on fire, and come back.”
The thought is tempting. Amelia is my best friend. She knows everything. Understands. If anyone can help me through this, it’s her.
“No.” I shake my head. “I’m going to go home for a while.” It makes me think of Claire. That fact that she never left. “But I love you for offering.”
“You know where I am if you change your mind.” She leans over and kisses me on the cheek before she gives her hand to the driver, so he can help her out.
Twenty-five
Keaton
2015
August
I found a new place to live..
Someplace quiet. Without neighbors.
Briana’s back to ignoring me. When she’s coming home from an early breakfast or a late night out with friends and sees me roll in from work in the small hours of the morning, I try to forget the fact that she knows where I’ve been. Maybe not what I do exactly, but enough. She knows enough to make me feel like shit every time I see her.
That was the point of telling her, right?
The point of listing all the ways you’re not good enough to lick her shoes, let alone fuck her.
You were trying to disgust her.
Push her away.
And it worked.
It’s like I’ve ceased to exist.
Like right now, she’s standing less than three feet in front of me, on the elevator, chatting with her friend, Amelia, about how excited they are to start their senior year of college, ignoring me so hard I’m starting to doubt my own existence, while I stare a hole in the back of her head from behind the dark lenses of my shades, purposely trying to make her feel uncomfortable.
It’s not right.
I’m the one who ended it.
Pulled the classic, it’s not you, it’s me on her.
It doesn’t matter if it’s true.
It was a shitty, lame thing to do.