Nobody Else

by Jaxson Kidman

  I cried at my desk at the end of the day.

  When I moved my hands, I brushed my lip against the diamond ring, and that only added to the emotion. So, I quickly ripped it off my finger and kept it in my pocket until I got home.

  But now Ben wasn’t home, which meant I didn’t exactly have to put the ring on.

  Even if he was home…

  I sighed as I climbed out of the SUV.

  Right behind me came Linda in her car, pulling into her driveway.

  She’s home early…

  That’s what my life had become. I had everyone’s schedule memorized. Living in a cul-de-sac was quiet, comfortable, and private. But it came with a sense of too much of it. Too much time to think. And thinking was not a good thing for me. So, I knew the exact time Linda left for work, came home from work, and did things with Paige. This wasn’t what my life was supposed to become. A big part of me wanted the adventure Ben promised when he gave me the ring. Although his version of adventure was different than mine.

  Very different.

  Linda climbed out of her car looking super dressed up.

  I whistled and waved. “Hot mama alert.”

  “Pissed off mama alert,” she said and slammed the car door.

  “Sorry,” I called out. “Bad day?”

  Linda threw her purse onto the roof of the car and dug out her cigarettes. She wasted no time in lighting one and taking a deep drag, looking right at me.

  I slowly walked across the frozen lawn toward her driveway.

  Winter had settled its teeth in really hard. The beautiful random snowfalls turned into super-cold temperatures. And on the days when it got just a little more comfortable, a storm would come, dropping ice, threatening everyone with power outages, downed branches and trees. Ben had spent so much time in hotels in Philly, he joked and said we should just look into renting an apartment because it would have been cheaper.

  The we never happened, but Ben did get an apartment for himself.

  That meant I had more than a few nights to myself. And that meant… talking to Brice…

  When I caught the bitter yet sweet smell of the cigarette smoke, it made me want one again. I snuck one cigarette from Linda right after the whole Brice, Ben, ring thing blew up in my face, but that was it. Just one and I was done. For good. Forever.

  “Bad day?” I asked again.

  Linda cocked her head to the side and shoved her cigarette into her mouth for another drag. “Court today.”

  “Court?”

  “With Dave,” she said. “About Paige.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Crap.”

  “Crap is right. I hate that man with a passion…”

  “Do you mind if I ask what happened?”

  “Not at all,” Linda said. “Want to go inside so I don’t freeze my ass off out here?”

  “Of course,” I said. “You can come over to my place, if you want. Change of scenery for a minute.”

  “No. I don’t want to get a scuff mark on Ben’s floor. He hates me as it is.”

  “Linda…”

  “Sorry. I don’t want insult your fiancé,” she said with a grin. “Just make sure I get a decent seat at the wedding.”

  I looked at the ring. “This…”

  It’s not worth it right now.

  Once inside Linda’s house, she went right for the coffee.

  She poured out the morning’s leftover coffee as she looked over her shoulder at me.

  “So, I get a letter in the mail,” she said. “That he wants to take a look at the child support agreement we have, right? He feels that he doesn’t see Paige enough to warrant what he pays.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Yeah,” Linda said. She filled the coffeemaker with water and opened a cabinet to get a can of coffee. “I called to talk to him. To be civil for a second. I mean, he has his time with her. He chooses to mess it up. He’ll call on Thursday night to tell me he won’t be able to pick her up Friday. That kind of crap. So, he tells me on the phone that I should bring Paige to him. To make it easier. Well… kiss my ass.”

  “I’m sorry, Linda.”

  “Oh, it gets better. He feels that since I have a nice house and he doesn’t, why should he pay anything at all for Paige? Now mind you, when we split, I took the high road and didn’t get near him. Meaning I didn’t bother him for a dime for myself. But he feels that I’m rich or something. Which I’m not. So, he wants to fight it out in court.”

  “And you did today?” I asked.

  “It was a joke. He got to say his… that’s about it. So, we have to keep fighting. Which takes time. Costs money. It’s a joke. He thinks he’s going to present some perfect case and get out of this. Or better yet, he thinks he’s going to control me and Paige. Watch the judge give him more time with Paige. I’ll laugh my ass off. Because there has never been one time when he’s asked for Paige and I said no. I made it clear that she’s our daughter. Not his daughter. Our daughter.”

  Linda suddenly cleared her throat.

  I moved toward her and touched her arm. “Hey. I’m really sorry. You shouldn’t have to go through that stuff.”

  “But here I am. It’s my doing. I fell in love with him. He was wild, fun, free. We were moving so fast. It was amazing. And then it just stopped. He changed. I changed. And somehow we threw a kid into the mix. That’s what hurts me the most. That Paige has to grow up in this.”

  “Paige is smart. She gets it. She knows how good you are to her. And if her father is really that much of a jerk… she’ll figure it out. It won’t be easy for her, but she’s tough. She takes after you.”

  Linda looked up and sighed. “Oh, Christ, Kinsley. You’re making me cry.”

  “I’m being serious.”

  “We need a night out again,” she said.

  “I’m okay with that. You let me know your schedule.”

  “Want to stay for coffee?” she asked as the coffeemaker made its last few spits and hisses.

  “No thanks. I should get home.”

  “I’m sure you and your fiancé are living it up, huh? Wearing nothing but that ring for him I bet?”

  I laughed and blushed.

  I laughed to keep from getting into an awkward conversation.

  I blushed because what Linda said couldn’t be further from the truth.

  The only bedroom activity happening in my house was me wondering if I was in the wrong bed.

  “You’re not wearing your ring.”

  “What?” I asked Ben as I looked in the mirror at his reflection.

  He touched my hips and turned me around. He slipped his hand to my left hand and smiled. “Your ring.”

  “Oh,” I said as I eyed my naked finger. “I…”

  “Kinsley, look at me,” Ben said.

  My eyes met his. “Yeah?”

  “It’s confusing,” he said. “I know it’s confusing. I know that the ring doesn’t mean the same to you as it does to me. I’m not a fool here. You know that, right?”

  “Of course I know that.”

  “I stand by what I said to you when I gave it to you. It’s a promise from me to you. It’s part of a new adventure. Maybe the romantic dream I had won’t come true the way I wanted, but I’m starting to figure out how to let plans make themselves.”

  I smiled. I swallowed hard. The words coming from his mouth were perfect, but I still didn’t believe them. It hadn’t been that long since Ben decided to suddenly change. Old habits were hard to break. And his old habits were tied to a woman he had loved and her son that he was raising. This wasn’t just about him being a workaholic. There was a connection deeper than I could possibly imagine.

  “I know you don’t believe me,” Ben said.

  Its like he can read me the same way Brice does…

  “It’s not that, Ben,” I said. “It’s just a lot at once. I had a really bad day today.”

  “And I didn’t ask you about it. Shit.”

  “That’s okay.”

  “It’s not ok
ay. I talked about my day and never once asked you about yours.”

  “It was just a rough day. That’s all. And I took the ring off to take care of the dishes. It’s right downstairs on the kitchen counter. I’ll go get it.”

  “Kinsley, you don’t have to do that. I know wearing that ring is weird enough. People think we’re engaged. And yet we’re…”

  He grew silent.

  He wanted me to finish the sentence.

  I smiled and touched his smooth and hard jawline. “We’re here, Ben.”

  “Okay. We’re here.”

  “I’m going to go get the beautiful ring you gave me and then I’m going to get some sleep.”

  He inched down and kissed my forehead.

  He started to walk away, and I quickly grabbed his hands and put them to my waist again. I wanted him to put me on the bathroom sink. My mind had figured out all the rooms in the house where we hadn’t been together, and it was too many to count. I couldn’t imagine living a life where it was the bed or nowhere else.

  Ben squeezed at my waist and pressed forward.

  I let out a sigh of relief. I begged my mind not to show images of Brice. Or his bed. Or his couch. Or that ridiculously comfortable blanket. Or the fire burning in the fireplace.

  “You drive me crazy, my dear,” Ben said as he leaned down and kissed my lips.

  “Yeah? Show me then…”

  He smirked. “Tell you what. You get that ring and I’ll meet you in bed.”

  He backed away, lifting his shirt. This was him being sexy. His version of it. His body was clean and toned, everything defined and in proportion. Ben was sexy. He looked handsome dressed up or with nothing on.

  I bit my lip, knowing I was lucky to have him in my life.

  I retreated downstairs to get the ring.

  I waited until I was at the bedroom door before putting it back on.

  By the time I got into bed, the mood had passed me by. Lucky for me, the same must have happened with Ben. He was still in his pajama bottoms as he nestled up close to me, hugging me from behind.

  “I like this, Kinsley,” he whispered after I shut the light out.

  “I do too,” I said.

  “There’s a lot more I have to tell you,” he said. “About Chrissy and TJ. It’s just hard sometimes to dig through those old memories.”

  “I know,” I said. I started to gently scratch his arm. “I appreciate you telling me what you have so far.”

  “I want you to know… I want to know about you. And Brice. That’s hard for me to say.”

  “Ben, you don’t have to-”

  “I do though. I know you love him still. I know you’re forever with him in some way. I know… given the chance… you’d be with him…”

  My throat tightened. My heart instantly started to pound.

  I couldn’t speak. I didn’t want to lie to Ben about anything. He knew what happened when I left and spent time with Brice. There was no being shy around it and there was no just getting over it.

  “I don’t want to talk about anything right now,” I said.

  “I know. But we have to talk about it. There’s an answer you have to give… to both of us.”

  I shut my eyes without saying another word.

  Ben kissed my shoulder. I didn’t want him to stop, but he didn’t want to push things until he knew I was no longer with Brice. Which I understood.

  Ben wanted the ring on my finger to be an engagement ring. He wanted to marry me. He wanted to live in this house for the rest of our lives together. We didn’t talk about having kids, for plenty of good reasons, but that wasn’t out of the question.

  The perfect life waited right in front of me.

  It just wasn’t my version of perfect.

  4

  A Dusty Heart

  Brice

  “Will you catch me?”

  I stood at the bottom of a dark green slide that wasn’t all that big. To Milo, it was a mile long, steep, with fire and snakes all the way down.

  I crouched and put my hands out.

  “I’ll catch you.”

  “Promise?” he called out.

  “Milo. I promise.”

  He sat down and inched forward, letting himself go down the slide.

  It amazed me how he was so fearless with everything in his young life, but a slide got the best of him. He was obviously afraid of heights and either didn’t know it or didn’t know how to tell anyone about it.

  I caught him at the end and stood him up. I ruffled his messy hair.

  “Stick to lower things for right now, okay? I have to talk to your Aunt April.”

  “I’m going to go shoot basketball,” Milo said.

  “Have at it,” I said.

  The kids’ park was nice, but the basketball hoops were the regular size, meaning Milo would be lucky to hit the rim once in every twenty throws.

  April sat on an orange park bench, staring off into space. I knew the look because I basically invented the damn thing.

  I walked to the bench and sat down next to her. I let out a deep breath and my breath shot out of my mouth like white fire.

  “Cold out here,” I said, stating the obvious.

  “Yeah,” April said. “He needs to get outside though.”

  “Of course he does. He loves it. At least it’s not snowing. Or icing.”

  “True,” she said.

  “You feel like talking?” I asked.

  She turned her head and looked at me. She didn’t say anything.

  I simply nodded.

  June had gotten released from rehab a little while ago. It put me in a really tough position because of how things were left with her. In her heart, she thought she was going in to get clean then come out to become my wife. I never told anyone the truth of how I felt because I didn’t know what it would do to her. Getting dumped as you walk into rehab? It felt shitty.

  Then again, I had been feeling shitty for a while.

  I washed the sheets from my bed, but they still smelled like Kinsley. The last time I saw her was when I fell asleep on the couch with her in my arms. I’d talked to her on the phone a couple of times. We texted more when it was convenient. And I did all I could to wrap my heart around the idea of her needing a chance to think about everything in her life. But she was doing it at home with someone else.

  When June got out of rehab and called me, I had to tell her the truth. That I didn’t love her. At least not in the way she wanted me to love her. I couldn’t promise my heart or my forever to her. I told her I would be there for her and Milo, and help with anything they needed to figure out their situation as a family. It surprised me that she was okay with it. Because she met someone in rehab.

  Of course she did.

  That was typical June.

  What I didn’t expect was for it to hurt April so much though. She thought that me and June together would keep June straight, a decent mother, and that I would always be in the picture to keep things glued together.

  Not that I ran anywhere.

  The evidence was me sitting on a park bench on a frigid winter afternoon, trying to talk to April.

  “I guess you don’t want to talk then,” I said. “I’m going to go play with Milo for a little bit before I have to go to work.”

  I stood up.

  “She hasn’t come to see him yet,” April called out.

  I froze and looked over my shoulder. “I know, April.”

  “I can’t stop this battle in my heart and my mind, Brice. What’s best for Milo?”

  I slowly turned and crouched as though I was about to catch Milo from the slide again.

  “April, there’s no good answer to this. She fell in love with someone in rehab.”

  “Is that smart? Two people in recovery suddenly free?”

  “I’m not a doctor. I don’t know anything about that life. She did this to me so many times. She would take off on me and find another man. I would chase after her to make sure Milo was okay. Things wouldn’t work out and she�
�d come back to me.”

  “You always took care of her.”

  I nodded. “And I didn’t mean to leave anyone hanging on what me and her were when she went for help. I didn’t want you to kick me out of Milo’s life.”

  “I know,” she said and took a shuddery breath. “I just keep having this battle…”

  “Right now, the best thing for Milo is this. He’s at the park. He’s playing. Take him home, get some food, shower and bed. Right? It’s all normal. If June tries anything stupid, I’ll be right there to help.”

  “I just need to talk to her,” April said. “Find out where she is with everything.”

  “You will.”

  “She’s not answering. She won’t even reply to her own son.”

  My heart ached. “Then that’s her loss. Not yours. Stand up and go play with Milo. Forget everything else in life.”

  “Is that how you survive?” she asked.

  “You don’t want to know how I survive,” I said with a grin.

  I stood up and offered my hand to April.

  I pulled her to her feet and looked down at her. The same blue eyes as June. Her hair was a little darker though and much shorter. June was skinny everywhere, mostly because of her addictions. Comparing June and April seemed foolish, but it was just one of those deals when you looked at them, you knew who was the responsible one and who was the mess up.

  It made me feel for April. She worked hard. She took care of herself. She never had much luck in love and kids and all that stuff. But she was good to Milo.

  “April, you’re doing amazing with Milo,” I said. “You really are. He’s happy and safe. I’ve never seen him like this.”

  “You’ve seen the worst,” April said. “You saved him from the worst.”

  “And you’re raising him to be a good kid,” I said.

  “I know we don’t agree on much, but I do appreciate you being here,” she said.

  “I lied to you to be here, April. And you don’t need to keep telling me you appreciate me being here. I’m not going anywhere.”

  “I don’t get that though. Why force yourself to be here?”

  I laughed. “Don’t worry about it.”