by Naomi Niles
“Do you want to come inside?”
“No.”
“Are you going to forgive me?”
“I don’t know. This relationship is still new enough that if I get out of it now, it won’t hurt as much as if I invest another few months into it and then you break my heart.”
“Callie…”
“Don’t, Kyle, please. Don’t make me any promises that you’re not ready to keep. I’m not some needy, pathetic girl who is going to disregard my own self-respect for a hot guy. You completely disrespected me tonight and I don’t think you even realize it now.” I opened my mouth and she put up her palm. “I’ll call you…I’m not sure when. I need some time to figure out if I’m willing to put my heart on the line or not. That is, unless you’d just like me to bow out and let you have another go at Amber.”
“No, Callie, I like being with you. I screwed up tonight, but don’t judge me based on one big fuck-up, please.”
“Like I said, Kyle, I need some time. I will call you.”
I leaned over and tried to kiss her. She turned her head. I swiped my lips across her cheek and got out of the car. The truth be told, once I was inside and I had time to review the night’s events in my head, she was right. I had completely disrespected her, and I wouldn’t have respected her at all now if she hadn’t been pissed off about it.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
AMBER
“Are you just never going to talk to me again?” I was trying to get ready for bed and Dylan was following my every footstep. We’d driven home from the restaurant with me completely silent and him cussing about Kyle, and then the manager of the restaurant, and the guy changing lanes in front of us, and then Kyle again.
My head felt like it would explode by the time we got home, and I just wanted him to leave me alone. I didn’t say anything. I just left the bedroom and went out to the kitchen to grab a bottle of water. I leaned up against the counter and twisted it open. Dylan followed me. He wasn’t going to let this go no matter how badly I didn’t want to talk about it tonight… I just don’t have the energy to fight anymore. I cringed every time I thought about him knocking Kyle to the floor in that restaurant. If he’d been completely well, he would have given Dylan more of a run for his money. I guess it didn’t make me a very good fiancée to wish for that. I looked down at my arm where Dylan grabbed me earlier, though, and thought about how badly he did need his ass kicked. He thought he could do and say whatever he wanted. He was better sober, but he could still be the world’s biggest ass. I looked back up at his face. He was staring at my arm now and he at least looked like he regretted that.
“I just need some quiet time tonight, Dylan. Is that too much to ask?”
“I can’t let it go until we talk about it.” His fingers reached out and brushed the bruising area on my upper arm lightly. “I didn’t mean to hurt you, I’m sorry.”
I pulled back slightly. “I know… You never mean it and you’re always sorry.”
“That’s not fair, Amber. You act like I beat you up or something.”
One of these days, he and I really needed to have a serious talk about abuse. I didn’t have the energy for that tonight, either. “I didn’t mean it that way. Can we just let it go for tonight, at least, Dylan? We could talk until we were blue in the face and things would never change, anyways.”
“What’s that supposed to mean? I’m not capable of change?” I could see him getting angry all over again. It was so easy for him. “Or maybe that’s what this guy Kyle is about? You’re bored with me? You need a change?” I didn’t answer him. I really didn’t know the answers to that. All I knew was that in the nine years I’ve known Dylan, no man had ever come along that made me even for a second consider leaving him until Kyle. I can’t even describe what he did to me, but I did know that I couldn’t be in the same room with Kyle and not want him…
“Let me ask you something, Amber: why are you still with me?”
“Dylan, don’t do this, please. My head hurts.”
“Seriously, I’m not trying to be an ass, Amber. Damn it, I have feelings, too. I shouldn’t have hit that guy, especially in a public place the way I did. I’m sorry I embarrassed you, and I’m sorry I hurt you, but you have to look at it from my point of view, Amber. I found you all cozy with him in that alcove… I saw red. You slept with this guy.”
I started to open my mouth and he continued, “I know, we weren’t technically together at the time, but that’s not the point I’m trying to make. I’m not accusing you of anything, but I know you, Amber. I’ve known you since you were fourteen years old. I’ve loved you since we were fifteen. You never cheated on me, you never slept with anyone else. I’d stake my very life on that. So, the fact that you slept with this guy tells me that he meant a lot to you and that thought makes me sick to my stomach. Amber, I never wanted to spend my life with anyone but you.”
“Don’t stand there and try to tell me that I’m the only woman you’ve ever been with Dylan because I’ll call you a liar to your face.” I know that two wrongs don’t make a right, but he hadn’t put me in a position to want to let him get away with anything tonight.
“I’m not.” Not only was he readily admitting to it, he didn’t look the least bit sorry about it. It’s my fault as much as it is his. I knew he was screwing around and for the longest time I just wished he’d fall in love with one of them and go away. “When I was using and drinking… Shit, Amber, you knew I was screwing around. But you are the only woman I ever wanted to end up with, even then. I’m not pointing a finger at you here. Like I said, you had the decency not to cheat on me while we were together, but you told me yourself that you were in love with him – and that kills me. It makes me physically hurt inside. And, I have to ask you this: why are you still with me? Why didn’t you just leave me while I was in rehab and be with him?”
It was a valid question. I didn’t quite know how to answer it without telling him it was because I felt guilty and obligated, so I said, “I don’t know how not to be with you.”
He laughed, but not happily. Maybe that was as bad as saying, obligated. “Wow…kick me in the stomach, why don’t you?” The hurt look on his face made me feel like shit. Once again, I was reminded that this man loves me and he has for a very long time.
“I’m not trying to hurt you, Dylan. You asked me to be honest. I do love you. I’m just not as in love with you as I used to be. It feels like we just keep growing further apart. I don’t want that any more than you do, but if we go on like we are, it won’t get any better. I haven’t stopped loving you, Dylan. I still love you like…” I was going to say “a best friend,” before he interrupted me and said,
“Like what Amber? Like a brother? A friend?” Obviously, not what he wanted to hear.
“I don’t know how to explain it.” I was tired and frustrated and pretty sure I’d forgive him like I always do and we’d move on. So, I said, “I love you enough to make this work. I love you enough to be your wife and have your children and do my damnedest to make a good life with you. I love you enough that I still have hope I will fall back in love with you…”
He kind of laughed again. I hated how sad his eyes looked. I honestly didn’t want to hurt him. Dylan has had his problems and those problems have led to some terrible behavior, but at the end of the day, I still believed that he was a good man. “So, where do we go from here?”
“We pick back up where we were before the whole restaurant fiasco?”
“Are you still in love with him?”
“No.”
“Honestly?”
“Honestly, Dylan. Until tonight, I had put him out of my mind completely.” That was mostly true. I’d forced myself not to think about him. I have no control over who I dream about.
“I love you, Amber. I don’t know what to do without you.” The tremor in his voice when he said it pierced my heart.
He opened his arms and like I always did at the end of the day, I folded into them. “I know. I’m not going a
nywhere, Dylan, okay?”
He nodded. I could feel his heart slamming into his chest and his arms trembling slightly. After a few minutes, he pulled back and said, “Take a year off, Amber.”
“What?” I was confused. “A year off of what?”
“Take a year off from the clinic. I’ll accept the job with the PRCA judging and we can just spend the next year on the road, just you and me, babe. We can get back to where we used to be. By the time we come home, Dad will have our house built and we can have our wedding and start thinking about starting our family. We need this, baby… Please, Amber, do this for me.”
“I’m not going to see Kyle, Dylan…”
“I know, baby. I know you won’t cheat on me. It’s not that, it’s not him. This is about you and me. We need this.”
“I don’t know if I can get a year off…”
“Then quit. You’re so smart, baby, you can get another job. Hell, you could work with the trainers if you want to work while we’re on the road. Please, do this for me.” I surprised myself, I was actually thinking about it. Maybe Dylan was right and this was exactly what we needed. Maybe being far away from Kyle where I wouldn’t bump into him at restaurants was exactly what I needed.
“Okay. I’ll talk to Dr. Bowen tomorrow.”
He held me back and looked at my face. He looked skeptical or shocked that I agreed. “Are you serious?”
“Yes, I wouldn’t play with your head about something like this. You may be right – this may be just what we need. We’re much too young to be in such a rut.”
He startled me then by grabbing me up in his arms and swinging me around. He squeezed me so tightly that I could hardly breathe. When he sat me down and I looked into his eyes, I saw that they were filled with a joy I hadn’t seen there for a very long time. When he was drinking and using drugs, they were dead. Afterwards, they just seemed lost. Tonight, he looked like that boy I fell in love with all those years ago.
He crushed his lips to mine and ran his hands all over my body while he devoured my mouth. He pulled back just a fraction of an inch and said, “Let’s go to the bedroom…we never finished our celebration tonight.”
“No,” I said, breathlessly and suddenly very ready for some kind of change. “Let’s do it right here.”
He looked at me like I was crazy. “In the kitchen?”
“Why not? We’re trying to put the spice back in this relationship, aren’t we?”
He grinned. “Okay, baby, you asked for it.” He took another step back and pulled off his sweater and then the t-shirt underneath it. He’d lost some of the weight he’d put on in rehab and since he’d stopped spending his days lying on the couch, he was beginning to get his muscle back. He reached for me again and started pawing at my dress. I laughed and pushed him back.
“You need to unzip it first. You’re like a bull in a china shop.” I turned around with my back facing him.
“Hold up your hair.” As soon as I lifted it up I felt his lips on the back of my neck. He worked the zipper down to my waist and pushed the dress down off my shoulders and onto my arms. As I was letting it slip off my arms, his hands were already slipping inside of my bra, cupping both of my breasts in his rough hands. He kneaded and massaged them, tweaking each nipple before releasing the catch on my bra. I let that fall off, too.
Then, I turned and faced him and his mouth began its exploration where his hands had been only moments ago. He worked one side over with his lips, tongue, and teeth before moving over to the other side and giving it the same treatment. My legs were shaking hard and my knees were about to buckle. He grabbed me by my waist and lifted me up onto the counter. He peeled my panties off and looked up into my eyes again. “You and me forever…right?”
My stubborn brain let an image of the way Kyle looked tonight slip in. I pushed it away and mentally kicked my own ass as I breathlessly said, “Right…you and me.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
KYLE
I sat in the center row of the large auditorium with Greg at my side and watched as Callie received her diploma. She was graduating from law school today and I knew how hard she’d worked to get here. I was proud of her and I loved her… I was a lucky guy.
Callie was beautiful and a little wildcat in bed. She had a good heart, loved her family, and wanted the same things out of life that I do. We both want that house in a nice neighborhood with two point five kids someday. I was getting better and better at my job, and bigger and more profitable jobs were coming my way. Callie’s going to be an attorney. She’s already looking at several internship offers. As of today, it’s been almost a year since the restaurant fiasco. I’d finally been able to move on after that. Amber had firmly made her choice. She wanted Dylan, not me, and I’ve never in my life begged a woman to want me. Of course, I’d never had to, but that was beside the point.
Callie eventually forgave me for that day and after about six months of dating, she moved in with me. Our life together is comfortable and although I knew in my heart that I’m not head over heels in love with her, I also knew that I love her in a different way. I thought that would be enough. Love is a strong emotion, even if it doesn’t provoke the kind of passion I feel when I think about Amber. I proposed to Callie on Christmas and she accepted. It’s May now and our wedding is scheduled to take place in August. The invitations have already gone out, the venue is paid for, the dress is bought, and the tux is ordered. We have an appointment next week to taste some cakes. Callie’s beside herself with excitement and Greg agreed to be my best man. In a perfect world, hell in any world, I should be walking around with a smile spread across my face twenty-four-seven. In reality, I had been. That was until my sister once again decided that she couldn’t keep her opinions to herself.
Callie and I went to Sarah and Michael’s for dinner last weekend. After dinner when Michael was showing my dad his new shed out back and Kimber had taken Callie to her playroom to show her a Barbie or something, Sarah cornered me in the kitchen and said,
“Kyle, I’ve been trying hard to mind my own business, but the wedding is getting close now…” I laughed. She’d never tried to mind her business in her life. She glared at me because she knew why I was laughing and went on, “I have to tell you how unfair I think you’re being to Callie…and to yourself.”
I wanted to roll my eyes, but I caught myself. I had no idea what she was talking about. “Unfair how?”
“Do you love her, Kyle?”
“Of course, I love her. Why do you think I want to marry her?”
“For security maybe?”
I sighed. Sometimes, my sister made me want to beat my head into the wall. “What are you getting at, Sarah?”
“You’re not crazy in love with her.”
“You don’t know everything.”
“I know my little brother. I see that you’re fond of her. She’s like your best friend and you’re comfortable with her.”
“And? What is wrong with that?”
“Nothing, but it’s not a reason to get married, either. Kyle, I don’t think you fully understand how hard marriage is. You’re going to fight. You’re going to butt heads over stupid things and important things. You’re both going to be tempted by others along the way-”
“What is your point, Sarah?”
“Baby, the only reason Michael and I stay together after we have one of our knock down drag out fights is because we are so madly in love that we absolutely cannot imagine life without each other. Marriage is wanting to kill each other, but not doing it because you can’t imagine life without the other person…a marriage that works, anyways.”
“So, it’s only okay to marry someone that you can’t imagine living without?”
“Yes! That’s the whole point of it. If you can live without them, then you should.”“I love Callie. We have a good, comfortable life. Why can’t you just be happy for me?”
“Because my heart will be breaking for you five years from now, or sooner, when you’re breaking up over
some silly fight or infidelity.”
“Gee, Sis, thanks for the vote of confidence.”
“I have every confidence in you – but not in this marriage. You’re marrying Callie because she’s safe. You’re protecting your heart because in the end when it doesn’t work out, you won’t be completely devastated. But what happens if you have a kid or two when one of you decides this marriage never really should have happened in the first place? Then who gets hurt?”
“You missed your calling, Sis. You should have been a psychologist or a psychic since you seem to be able to tell my future.”
She rolled her eyes and said, “Let me put it to you another way: whatever happened to my daredevil little brother? What happened to the Kyle that was willing to take risks? Where is the guy who never did anything because it was comfortable? He did it because it was fun and exciting. Where did this ‘play it safe so nobody gets hurt,’ guy come from?”
“If I recall, when I was out taking risks, you were constantly lecturing me about growing up. Maybe that’s what I did…I grew up. I realized that maybe that all-consuming in love feeling burns out after a while anyways and maybe then you’re stuck with someone that you don’t even like. At least I like Callie…” Shit! That didn’t come out the way I meant it.
Sarah raised an eyebrow and said, “Growing up doesn’t mean settling, Kyle. You were a player and I hated that, but after you got sick, it’s like you were desperate suddenly to settle down and you took the first relationship you could get…a safe one.”
“Do you not like Callie? I thought you liked her.”
She looked annoyed with me, like she usually is, as she said, “I love Callie. She’s become a good friend to me…that’s part of all of this. She deserves a man who worships her, Kyle. She deserves a man who loves and cherishes her unlike he’s ever loved anything or anyone in his life. You’re not only doing yourself a disservice by settling, you’re doing her one as well – a big one.”