by Tawna Fenske
“Right.”
She watched his Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed and looked up at the top of the doorframe. “It was always a competition with Matt. He wanted to have the better golf game, the better career, the nicer car, the higher number of notches on his bedpost.”
Meg felt herself flinch, not sure what any of this had to do with her. But she waited, and Kyle continued the story.
“After we got done golfing, we went to this bar. Matt’s phone kept buzzing, like he was getting text messages. At first, I thought it might be you.”
“It wasn’t,” she said softly. “I went out of my way to leave him alone that weekend. To give you some guy time.”
“I know. I asked him who it was, and he wouldn’t tell me at first.”
“Annabelle.” Hearing the name again—even in her own voice—sent a dull, icy spear through her heart.
Kyle almost looked relieved that she’d been the one to say it first. “Yes. Annabelle. I thought at first he was just trying to schedule an appointment. He gave me some bullshit about acupuncture helping his golf swing.”
Meg rolled her eyes. “Yeah. I’m sure it loosened him right up.”
“Right. I don’t know when things turned flirtatious, but after we’d been sitting there maybe thirty minutes or so, I could see from the look on his face that something had shifted.”
“He was drinking.”
“Yes. A couple beers, but he wasn’t wasted. He was still in control of his actions.”
She nodded, letting the words wash over her. So far, none of this information was new. The details were a little different than the polished version Matt had delivered two years ago, but there was nothing earth-shattering in Kyle’s version. Nothing to tell Meg she’d had it wrong all this time.
Still, hearing the story from Kyle’s point of view was like poking Q-tips into wounds that hadn’t quite healed.
“Do you remember I texted you that evening?” he asked.
Meg frowned, trying to recall the details. “No. I’m sorry, I don’t. What did you say?”
“I sent some silly photo of us drinking beer on the golf course. Nothing memorable, but I asked how you spent your day.”
She nodded, a twinge of memory flickering in her brain. “I think I remember that. I texted back that my mom caught my dad cheating again.”
“That’s right,” Kyle said. “Nothing new, right? But you sounded upset.”
“I was.” Meg clenched her fists in her lap. “That time was pretty bad. Mom caught him in the act, heard him saying all kinds of sexy things to the other woman that he’d never said to her.” She stopped herself, aware that she was rattling off details that probably didn’t matter at the moment.
“Right.” Kyle took a shaky breath. “It got me thinking.”
There was a dark note in his voice that made Meg slide her hands between her knees and press them tight together. “About what?”
“You sounded bitter. And resigned. And so very, very angry at your dad.”
“I was.” I still am.
“And I thought about your childhood and your history with your dad’s infidelity and I thought—” He stopped, taking a shaky breath. “I thought about what you’d do if Matt cheated on you.”
Meg stared at him, trying to process the words. “And what conclusion did you reach?”
“I knew you’d leave him.”
She nodded, not sure where he was going with this, but not liking the dull twinge in the pit of her stomach. Kyle took another breath, and she wondered if she should offer him something to drink. A glass of water or a beer?
But he spoke again, so she stayed rooted in place. “I started goading him,” Kyle said. “First it was small stuff. Still bullshitting about golf swings and who had the better score. Then I told him about my date the night before. About this hot girl with killer legs and these big, beautiful t—” He cleared his throat. “Anyway, I told him about her, and about another girl the week before who gave me a hand job under the table at dinner and the one I met on Tindr who let me take her from behind in an elevator and—”
“I’m not sure I need to hear this.” Her head was starting to pound, and she had a sour feeling in the pit of her stomach.
“You do need to hear it.”
“You mean you need to say it,” she snapped.
He nodded once, his jaw clenched in determination.
“All those women,” Meg muttered. “Weren’t you dating Cara then?” She was struggling to remember, struggling with the ugly mental pictures he was painting, and trying to make the whole thing fit within the timeline of her own life.
“No. This was during that month we split up because Cara wanted to reevaluate our relationship.”
“And apparently you wanted to fuck everything that moved.” She hated the seething judgment in her own voice, but Kyle just shook his head.
“That’s just it. It wasn’t true. None of it.”
“What?”
“There was no girl with the killer legs. No girl who gave me a hand job under the table. No Tindr girl in the elevator.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I was provoking Matt.”
Meg stared at him, not sure she understood. She knew she should be asking questions, trying to make the puzzle pieces fit together, but they just tumbled around in the box, rattling against each other with a dull clack.
Kyle took a deep breath. “I told him how great it was to be single. To sample the fruit of a dozen different trees. I teased him about only having one woman for the rest of his life.”
“Me.” The word came out like a croak, her voice dry and crackly, but Meg stayed rooted in place, not willing to run for a glass of water.
“That’s right.” Kyle rubbed his hands over his eyes, closing them for a moment before opening them again to continue the story. “Anyway, things kind of took off from there. I could see he kept texting Annabelle. He got up at one point to use the restroom and he left his phone on the bar. I read some of the texts.”
“What did they say?”
“I don’t remember the exact words, but he was making plans to meet her that night. It was clear my jabs had the intended effect.”
Meg gripped the edge of the sofa, determined not to let her eyes fill with tears. Determined to get some answers. “Your intended effect,” she repeated, not sure she was following. “You wanted Matt to cheat on me?”
He nodded, avoiding her eyes. “Yes.”
“To hurt me?”
“Absolutely not.” His voice was sharp, which might have been sincerity or guilt. She couldn’t tell anymore.
“But why—”
“I wanted him to cheat and I wanted him to tell you about it,” Kyle said, meeting her eyes again. “I didn’t mean for him to wait until the night before the wedding. That was a mistake. Hell, the whole goddamn thing was a mistake, but that part especially—” He shook his head. “Anyway, after it happened, I pushed him to tell you. I told him he needed to start the marriage with a clean slate. I told him you deserved to know, that you’d appreciate his honesty and that you could start your life together with no secrets between you.”
Meg shook her head, trying to understand. “Did you really believe that?”
“No.”
“So why—”
“Because I wanted him to falter in your eyes. I wanted him to do the one thing I knew you’d never be able to forgive.” His hands balled into fists on his lap, and he looked at her with an expression that held more self-hatred than she’d ever seen from anyone.
Meg swallowed, choking back the urge to feel empathy. “Because you hated him that much?”
Kyle shook his head. “No. Because I loved you that much. And because I didn’t want him to have you.”
The words felt like a kick to the gut. She stared at him, trying to make sense of it all. “So you manipulated your own brother—”
“Yes.”
“And me.”
“Yes.”
H
er brain replayed the conversation, hanging up on the part about love, but knowing the manipulation was the part she needed to focus on. “You changed the course of my whole life,” she said. “Of Matt’s life.”
“I’m sorry, Meg. It was a selfish thing to do. If I could take it back, I’d do it in a heartbeat.”
She stared at him, trying to imagine what that would look like. She’d be married to Matt now, maybe with a child. They’d be enjoying the riches of her cookbook success together.
No you wouldn’t, her subconscious pointed out. Matt would still be dead. And you would have spent two years trapped in a marriage that didn’t make you happy.
“But I wouldn’t have known I wasn’t happy.”
“What?”
Meg hadn’t meant to say the words aloud, but her head was spinning. She didn’t know what to think. She didn’t know what to feel. Something hollow and empty and aching had grabbed hold of her gut and wouldn’t let go.
She started to stand up, but realized her legs wouldn’t obey the command. She pressed her feet into the floor, struggling to feel the ground beneath them. “I think you should leave, Kyle.”
He looked at her for a few beats. “If that’s what you want.”
“It is.”
He nodded. “I’ll show myself out.”
She watched him stand up, wiping his hands on his jeans before turning to walk around the chair. His movements were slow, and he looked back at her like he wanted to say something else. But Meg just watched him, unmoving, unwilling to say anything else.
When he got to the door, he turned back and looked at her. “I never stopped loving you, Meg.”
She swallowed hard, ordering herself not to cry. “Lying? Manipulation? Deceit?” She shook her head. “That’s not what love looks like.”
“I know that now.”
So do I, Meg thought, wondering why she had to keep learning that lesson the hard way.
Kyle nodded, the haunted look in his eyes radiating from this far away. “Goodbye, Meg.”
“Goodbye.”
She managed to hold the tears back until the door clicked shut behind him.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Two days later, Kyle stood barefoot in his dining room polishing a piece of copper. He’d been rubbing the same hunk of metal for an hour, sliding the cloth over the grainy surface until his hand had gone numb.
He should be working in his studio instead of his house. He’d already made a mess of steel shavings in his kitchen sink, the shiny flecks reminding him of the glitter in Meg’s eyes.
But the studio held more memories of Meg. Of her touching his sculptures, confessing her secrets, making love with him on the cot . . .
The doorbell rang, and Kyle looked up from the warm wedge of copper. He set it on the table as his pulse began to gallop. Maybe it was her. Maybe she was ready to talk. Maybe he’d managed to conjure Meg with the force of his own memory.
As he started toward the door, he found himself chanting it in a silent mantra. Please be Meg, please be Meg, please be—
“Cara.” His voice sounded flat as he held the door open and stared at the woman he’d once laughed with, cared about, lived with.
“Don’t sound so excited,” she deadpanned, offering him a wide smile to show she wasn’t really offended.
“Sorry, I just wasn’t expecting you. That’s all.” He ran a hand over his chin and realized he hadn’t shaved for days. When was the last time he’d showered?
“I brought you something,” Cara said, holding out a cardboard box.
Kyle looked down at it, staring into the clutter of his past life. Cara’s arms bowed a little under the weight of it, so he reached out to take it from her.
“What is all this?” he asked.
“The stuff I told you about the other day. Just a bunch of knickknacks you left behind at the house.”
Kyle stared down at the contents of the box. He spotted a charger for a phone he’d lost years ago and a sweat-stained baseball cap he used to wear on camping trips. There was half a roll of wintergreen Life Savers she couldn’t possibly have assumed he still wanted, but he thanked her anyway.
“I appreciate it,” he managed. He looked back up at her. “Did you want to come in for a second?”
He hoped she’d say no, but she smiled like he’d offered her a box of kittens. “That would be great.” She stepped around him, breezing into his home like she’d been here a dozen times before.
In truth, it had only been once, just a few weeks after their breakup. She’d stopped by to reclaim the muffin pan he’d forgotten was hers to start with, and they’d laughed about it and agreed to remain friends when all was said and done.
From her bed in front of the fireplace, Bindi raised her head. She looked at Cara for a few beats, then laid her head back down on her paws and closed her eyes.
Cara headed for the kitchen bar and pivoted to face him. She smiled again, and he noticed she wore a low-cut black dress he used to love on her. Her dark hair was held back with a blue and green silk scarf that matched her eyes. She looked fresh and polished and beautiful and not a single thing inside him stirred.
“I like the scarf,” he said, for lack of anything better to say.
“Thank you. You gave it to me for my last birthday.”
“I know.”
“I thought I was getting an engagement ring.”
“I know,” he said again. “I’m sorry.”
She shrugged and leaned back against the granite counter. “It seems silly now,” she said. “Water under the bridge.”
“Right.” Kyle set the box on his dining room table. “Want something to drink? Wine or beer or water or something?”
“Beer would be great!” She sounded entirely too upbeat for a woman who used to hate beer, but Kyle rummaged in the fridge and found an amber ale he thought she might like. He poured it into a glass, trying to be a good host but mostly feeling like a curmudgeonly asshole who just wanted to be left alone.
He handed her the beer and eased himself onto a barstool beside her.
“You’re not having one?” she asked, seeming to hesitate as she raised the glass to her lips.
“I’m good,” he said. “Gotta work.”
“Work,” she said, taking a small sip of the beer as her eyes scanned his dining room. “How’s that going?”
“Good. Sold a piece to a gallery in Wisconsin.”
Cara smiled and reached out to trail a finger up his arm. “Not my piece, I hope? The calla lily?”
Kyle shook his head. “No. Not that one.”
“Good. I want you to have something that makes you think of me.”
“Why?”
The bluntness of his question seemed to startle them both, and Cara took a moment to answer. “Because,” she said slowly. “Look, I’ll just lay my cards out on the table here. I think we should give it another shot between us.”
“What?”
“I’ve been thinking about you since I saw you out with your mom the other day, and I miss the way we were. Don’t you?”
The word no was on the tip of his tongue, but that would be unnecessarily cruel. He didn’t want to hurt her. He just didn’t want to be with her. Especially not now, with his desire for Meg burning a hot hole through the center of his chest.
“You deserve better,” he said at last.
“I think I deserve you.” She gave him a small smile and set the beer down on the counter, her manicured fingers still clenched around the glass. “I think we belong together.”
“No.” Now that he’d said the word, there was no taking it back. Her smile vanished, but Kyle pressed on, knowing he needed to make himself clear. “I’m sorry, Cara, it’s not you. It’s me.”
God, that sounded lame. Cara must have thought so, too, because her brow creased with those tiny little lines she used to call her devil horns.
“No, it isn’t.”
“What?”
“It’s not you. It’s also not me.” She let g
o of the glass and folded her hands in her lap. “It’s the same thing it always was, isn’t it?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, even though he had a pretty good idea.
Cara aimed her index finger toward the corner of the room. Kyle didn’t have to look to know what she was pointing at. “It’s her, isn’t it? It’s always been her?”
He turned anyway, even though he knew what she was looking at. He stared at the sculpture, at the delicate curves of copper, the burnished brown iron, the sloped steel angle that looked like a shoulder blade. The piece was clearly feminine, but it was abstract, not recognizable as any one person.
At least that’s what Kyle used to think.
“I always knew it was her,” Cara said softly, dropping her hand back in her lap. “All that time together, you loved someone else.”
Kyle swallowed hard and closed his eyes. It seemed stupid to argue, but some stubborn, idiotic part of him did it anyway. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Of course you do.”
He opened his eyes to see her shaking her head a little sadly. He’d expected to see anger in her eyes, but it looked more like pity.
“Meg Delaney,” she said. “Your brother’s wife.”
“They didn’t get married.”
“I know. I was there, remember?” He watched her head tilt as though angling to conjure the memory. Kyle remembered, too. The lavender scent of the unity candle behind him. The high giggles of the twin flower girls. The heated itch under his collar, the sensation of choking to death on his bow tie or his guilt or some combination of the two.
Beside him now, Cara spun the beer glass on the counter. “I watched your face that day,” she said slowly. “When she turned and ran out of that church?”
“I don’t—”
“I’ve never in my life seen you look at me that way.” She gave a hollow little laugh. “I’ve never seen any man look at any woman that way. Like you wanted to chase her down that aisle.”
He shook his head, wanting to argue, but knowing he didn’t have a leg to stand on. She was right. All of it, every word she’d said.