Kyle's Reveal

by Royal Blue

  “Watch your step,” I say as I lead a blindfolded Andy forward.

  I try not to laugh at the way he’s reaching out trying to feel his way. I wanted to do something that said Andy. Something I know he would do all alone and be completely content with.

  “Where are we going?” he asks for the millionth time.

  “Just keep moving. We’re almost there. A few more steps,” I respond.

  I stop us in the center of the room. I called in a few favors for this one. Tara and Emma were a big help in getting it all set up for me. I’m a bit nervous. I’ve never done anything like this for anyone.

  “Okay, stop right here,” I say when we get to the center of the room.

  From here he’ll be able to take it all in. I look around and reassure myself that everything is in place. I wipe a hand across my forehead, biting my lip. Flexing my fingers, I suck up my nerves and reach to remove the blindfold I placed on Andy when we left my house.

  When I release the fabric and it falls away, Andy slowly turns his head, taking in the room. He turns in a circle before facing me. His blue-gray eyes are soft, and a smile graces his full lips. Grabbing the front of my shirt, he tugs me to him.

  “I don’t know how you do it every time. This is amazing,” he says against my lips.

  “You like?”

  Andy pulls away slightly, looking up at me like I’ve lost my mind. He waves his hands around, with wide eyes. His mouth opens and closes, and a hand locks into the front of his hair as he gathers himself and his thoughts.

  “Are you kidding me? A dinner in the middle of a library. I can smell the pages and the leather binds of the older books, mixed with the aroma of something delicious. Where are we?”

  “It’s an old mansion of a friend of a friend’s. It’s been in their family for generations, and the library has thousands of books. Mostly rare and first editions,” I explain.

  “This is amazing. I’ve always wanted a library like this. I’d be lost in here for hours,” he muses, his eyes lighting up with the thought.

  “Noted, no building a library for you to hide from me in and definitely not a workshop for those antiques,” I tease. “I’d never see you again.”

  Andy’s arms go around my neck.

  “You say that as if we’ll be living together,” he says quietly.

  “I’ve been thinking about it. I’m just not sure. Mason’s so young. I don’t think he’ll understand. I promised my sister—”

  “Relax, Kyle. I know. He always comes first. We’re just talking. I’m not trying to pack my things and move in,” he cuts me off teasingly.

  I blow out a breath, swaying us where we stand. I’ve been thinking about this a lot. I want to take our relationship to the next level, but I don’t know how this will affect Mason. I worry every day if I’m making the right choices concerning him.

  Should I start to bring him on the road with me and provide a tutor? I’m his only parent. Is it really okay for me to always be away? Am I spoiling him too much because of my guilt? The list goes on and on.

  My sister always used to say let a child be a child. To expose my nephew to the truth is also asking him to hide it as well. That’s adult shit. I want him to be a kid. Sure, coming out to the world would solve that, but then I’m handing my nephew a cruel world that will force him to defend me.

  He’s already a young black male in a world that’s designed to see your skin first and everything else about you last. He has enough on his plate.

  “Come back,” Andy whispers.

  When my eyes focus on him, I can see his searching my face. The concern I see there helps me to breathe again. That soothing feeling fills me, and I allow it to take over.

  “You’re an amazing uncle. Mason is the luckiest little boy in the world. We don’t have to rush into anything you don’t feel is right for him. I’m here no matter what. Whatever you need from me. If you want me to step up and help out more next school year, I can,” Andy offers.

  “Michael and I would sleep in separate rooms sometimes when Mason was over,” I blurt out without thinking.

  The air shifts around us. Andy drops his arms from around my neck and looks away from me. I want to kick myself for opening my mouth. Yet at the same time, we need to address this. I need to know what’s been going through his head.

  “Let’s sit and eat. Then we can talk,” I say.

  Andy moves to the table set in the center of the room. It’s like he can’t get away from me fast enough. He’s in his seat before I get a chance to pull his chair. So much for me trying to cater to him tonight.

  Boy, how a single sentence can change an entire night.

  I lift the lids from both plates and set them aside. Watching his reaction, I go to take my own seat across from him. At least he can’t hide his smile when he sees his favorite dish—his mother’s shepherd’s pie. Tara got her to make it for me.

  Without a word, Andy tucks into his food. I do the same, giving myself time to find the right words to address this without it ruining the entire night completely. Andy’s moan pulls me from my thoughts. I look up into his blue-grays to see the sincere smile there.

  “This is Ma’s. I would know it anywhere,” he says.

  “I see why you’re always bragging about it. This is good,” I reply.

  “She’s gifted. Best shepherd’s pie in the world,” Andy croons. “This will be worth the ten-mile run in the morning.”

  “I thought we’d spend the morning in. I don’t fly out until tomorrow night,” I say, gauging his response.

  “Thought Mason would be at the house,” he says cautiously.

  “He and Emma are staying the night at the house. We’re staying the night here.”

  “Oh,” he says. A thousand other unsaid words can be heard in the single utterance.

  I place my fork down and sit back in my seat. I look deep, prodding for the root of the problem. The things Andy won’t say aloud. When I see the latch I need to pop to release my Andy, I inhale.

  Once again, I’m going to step out of my comfort zone for this man. I’m going to give him a piece of me that no one else has. More wounds that I’ve suppressed in order to survive.

  “I’ve told you before. He was my first real relationship. I stuck with it because it was what I knew. I met him at nineteen. He chased me down for almost a year. I was in awe that he wanted someone as young as me, someone from the hood just barely making it out because of some luck, talent, and determination. Michael offered me things I hadn’t allowed anyone else to—attention, what I thought was love.” I pause, staring at my palms.

  As I run my right thumb over the lines of my left palm. I take a moment to think before lifting my eyes back to Andy’s.

  “He played off the things he could see we had in common, things I shielded others from seeing. His own abuse. I… I felt understood,” I scoff.

  I stop, opening my mouth to let a breath escape as I draw a hand down my face. Frustration with my younger self has my knee bouncing under the table.

  “I was young and dumb. I didn’t see that it was all a way to control me and the relationship. My friends tried to warn me. I thought I was mature and could hold my own. My maturity was both a gift and curse in that relationship. I knew what I wanted for my career. I was determined in having that. It’s what got in the way of Michael fully controlling me.

  “He’s a master manipulator. If he wants something he does whatever he has to get it. Lie, cheat, steal…. When I bought my house, I had no intension of him moving in. I came home from training camp and he had it fully furnished and had moved his stuff in.” I snort, shaking my head.

  “We fought about it. Even broke up over it. It was about two months later when I got into another relationship. It wasn’t anything serious, but Michael manipulated the situation, causing a breakup, and I believe he cost Martin his job.” I finish my words, making a sour face.

  “Who’s to say he won’t try that with us? I could lose you. I saw the look in his face. H
e’s not just giving up. What makes you so sure you won’t go back? That he won’t suck you back in,” Andy says, pushing his plate away.

  “I’m not going back into that. Losing my sister was the worst thing that’s ever happened to me—and I’ve been through some shit. She was there for me all of my life, and then the times she needed me, I couldn’t do shit.

  “I had to sit there and watch her die. Nothing hurts as much as failing the one person that means everything to you. The person that believed in you. Yeah, I have some great friends, but my sister… she went through the dirt with me. She knew me when I felt like I’d always be filthy. When I felt like no one could ever love me. And… and I couldn’t do shit to take her pain and suffering like she did for me.”

  I have to pause. The tears have started to flow. I’ve never shared with anyone how I felt about the last two and a half years of my life. I’ve buried it all to be there for my sister when she needed and then to be there for nephew and my team. I haven’t stopped for a single moment to deal with my own feelings and hurts.

  “Kyle—”

  “Let me finish. I couldn’t give her what she needed, and she died. That was the time Michael was supposed to forget himself and think about me. When someone loves you, that’s what they do. When he left and made everything about him. I felt like I was watching that shit from outside of my body, but at the same time, I told myself not to stop him. If he could go then, he was toxic to begin with.

  “It clicked that I was in a relationship with a narcissist. It will always be about him. I’ve failed one person I love in my life. I don’t plan to ever repeat that. If I let Michael come between us, I’ll be failing everyone I love,” I say, wiping the tears from my eyes.

  “I don’t like him. He’s a snake, and I get a bad vibe from him,” Andy mutters.

  Something else weighs his words down. However, I visibly see when the shutters slam down. I don’t catch it fast enough, but I immediately assume it could have been fear.

  “I’m not going to let him come at you. I’ve got this,” I reassure him.

  “You’re underestimating me. I’m sure he is too. I’m not a punk. I know who he is now. I’ll be ready next time,” he replies, folding his arms over his chest.

  I bite my lip, tilting my head to the side as I stare at Andy. Yeah, I’ve underestimated him a time or two. Yet I’m learning. Andy is a lot more than meets the eyes.

  Andy

  I FEEL guilty. Kyle opened himself up to tell me how he felt while losing his sister and breaking up with Michael after. That should have taken this date over the top, but I’m hiding my own secret.

  I haven’t told Kyle about everything Mitch found out for me. I’m not sure how much of it Kyle already knows. I can’t see him knowing half of what I know and still allowing Michael anywhere near Mason. A shiver runs through me every time I think of that file.

  My biggest problem now is that I don’t know how to tell Kyle what I did—or if I even want to. Trust is a big thing for Kyle. I should just come out and tell him, but I still can’t get over that look on Michael’s face. Like I’m easy prey. After what I now know, that look is burned in my mind.

  “What are you thinking about?” Kyle asks while running his hand through my hair.

  After dinner Kyle sat watching me as I got lost in the library. Eventually, I found something I wanted to read. I settled on A Tale of Two Cities. We moved to the perfect little reading alcove I hadn’t noticed until Kyle pointed it out.

  A cute cozy spot tucked beneath the stairs. Almost like a window seat but wider. Wide enough for Kyle to sit and still have room for me to lie on my back with my head in his lap. A window provides a view of the grounds behind the house leading to the gorgeous maze of a garden—Kyle promised we’d walk it in the morning.

  “I can just imagine this spot being built for someone that was ill or unable to get about. On warm summer days this was where they could sit and read while basking in the rays of the sun,” I murmur. “Or on a rainy day, they spent their day reading and getting lost in a world far away.”

  I speak my thoughts from before my mind wondered to my guilt. It’s the first thing I can think of to say as the internal war within continues. I lean the book against my chest, looking up over my head at him.

  He’s staring back at me, watching closely just as he always does. My curiosity is piqued. I once attributed his watchfulness as him being in tune or intuitive. Now, as I hold my breath trying to keep my secret locked away from his talent for pulling at the truth, I see something else.

  It’s deep in those dark brown eyes. Almost like the fear of not knowing or not seeing. It tugs my heartstring, pulling me up from his lap as I catch it.

  “You watch everyone so closely. You see everything. I never thought about it before,” I muse aloud.

  Kyle turns his gaze away from mine. This time I can feel that he’s trying to hide. I sit the book down on a nearby table. Like he always does to get my attention, I reach to place my fingers beneath his chin and turn his head to me.

  Neither of us says a word. I dig deep just as he does, looking to see what goes unnoticed by others. My eyes narrow in, and almost instantly his words slam into me.

  “She was there for me all of my life, and then the times she needed me, I couldn’t do shit.”

  I don’t know why those words rush me, but I know they hold the key to what I’m missing. I drop my own eyes, searching my feelings and thinking of the knowledge I have of Kyle. I close my eyes slowly when it starts to add up.

  “You didn’t know she took the abuse for you. You didn’t see it,” I say on a shallow breath.

  “No.” His word comes out broken.

  “You were a kid. Kyle—”

  “Don’t.”

  I open my eyes and see the torture written all over his face. The ache I feel runs so deep. I understand him on so many levels now. His need to protect, the need to be a team player, but not the center of attention, his need to always have a choice. It all clicks into place like a lock and key.

  “She did what she thought would protect yo—”

  “I should have seen it. I was so busy thinking that I’d finally become invisible. It was almost a year before he told me why he stopped coming into my room. It was his way of punishing us both. Shaming her in front of me and tearing me to pieces. There’s nothing in this world that will ever make that right,” he says tightly.

  “I…. Okay. One of the things that used to make me feel so pissed off was when people would tell me they understood what I was going through or when they’d tell me how to feel. I won’t do that. I can want to understand how you feel, but that doesn’t mean I will. I can never be in your feelings. So….” I stop talking.

  There’s nothing else I can say. I don’t even want to imagine what that all must have been like for him. I don’t think I would have survived sanity. I’m just as protective of my siblings as they are of me. Not being able to keep something terrible from happening to them would have broken me in two.

  “After that… I knew. I knew every single time he touched her. I could see it in her eyes. When I started to get big enough to challenge him, I did all I could to protect her. He’d just wait until I wasn’t around, and she would try to hide it from me.

  “I offered him me, just like she did. I wasn’t small enough for him anymore. He couldn’t get his kicks off of placing that same fear in me. He told my aunt I was gay. No matter how hard I denied it, she wouldn’t listen. She took me to the church to have me baptized for the second time and made me tell the pastor my impure thoughts,” he tells me.

  “Wow.” My own hands are trembling with rage.

  “I was thirteen. Already angry and confused. That shit just made me hate everyone. When kids would pick fights with me, I’d beat the shit out of them. I didn’t have to take shit from anyone outside of that house after all I went through. Savanna and I would beat up bullies together. It was our way to feel like we had some control, I guess,” he says, his eyes dist
ant as if lost in the memories.

  “We don’t have to talk about this,” I say.

  “Nah, it’s out there now…. He stole our innocence. We never got to be kids after we lost our mother. We were turned into the villains when we were the victims. My aunt blamed Savanna. Love was such a confusing thing for me for so long. I had my aunt and uncle claiming everything they did, they did out of love.” He goes quiet after his last words.

  I toe off my shoes and pull my knees to my chest. I shift until my back meets the wall behind me. Waving him to me, I let my legs slide down a bit and make room between my thighs.

  “Come here,” I say.

  He looks at me for a beat before moving toward me. I reach for his arm, causing him to turn his back to me, settling in between my legs. I wrap my arms and legs around him and bury my face into his neck.

  “This is what love feels like. If you ever need a reminder, you let me know. I’ll show you anytime you need,” I whisper into his skin.

  His hands cover mine, and he nods slowly. I don’t know how much time passes as I nuzzle his neck and pour my love into him. I hold on for dear life. As if letting go would be releasing him into harm’s way.

  “Thanks,” he says into the silence a while later.

  “I love you,” I say back.

  “I think I might love you more,” he says reflectively.

  “Not a chance.”

  If only you knew, I’d die for you.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR: BEST UNCLE EVER

  Kyle

  “TODAY WE have Kyle Tyson with us. Kyle is a dynamic player. I personally love watching him on the court. Welcome, Kyle,” the interviewer says as he sits across from me.

  I try not to show my annoyance as this interview runs late, keeping me from my plans for the evening with Mas. He has texted me so much through Emma’s phone that I told her to bring him down to the studio, thinking I’d be finished by now. They should be arriving any minute.

  “Thanks for having me, Derrick,” I say, forcing a smile to my face.