by Chloe Walsh
"You're always holding me up, Kyle," I said in a serious tone, wrapping my arms around his neck. "Let me hold you up, too. You don't always have to be the strong one. You don't have to carry all the weight. Let me help you."
He stared into my eyes with such intensity that I could feel the atmosphere in the room changing. "Jesus, you pull on my goddamn heart like a guitar string," he said with a shudder. "When we first met, I knew you would be my downfall," he said in a hoarse tone as he cupped my neck and pressed his forehead to mine. "I'm glad I was right," he whispered before sealing my mouth to his.
"I love you," I said against his mouth as he rolled me onto my back. My legs fell open of their own accord and Kyle slipped between them, his body in sync with mine. My whole body trembled from the feel of him on me. The size of him, the sheer strength of him…I never felt safer than I did when I was in his arms. He was my addiction. My utter absolution. I wanted to climb inside of him. There wasn't a physical interaction powerful enough to portray how I felt for him. He coaxed my mouth open and slid his tongue inside at the same time he pushed inside me.
"I love you too," he breathed.
****
Kyle
"Do you believe in god, Kyle?"
Derek's question caught me unaware. We were sitting in the living room of my old house. Well, I was sitting. Derek was sprawled out on a mattress on the floor with an empty case of beer–and a woman's bra–at his feet. It was beyond me as to why he was camped out here when there was four perfectly good bedrooms in the place, but the guy was acting so strange lately I didn't ask. I was afraid of the answer. I'd dragged myself out of bed at three in the morning and rushed straight here when I read the text message he'd sent me.
*Cupid's gonna kick my ass, dude.*
I was as confused about the meaning of that text as I was about the question he'd just tossed at me. At least he was docile tonight. I never knew what version of Derek I was going to get when I came here. His mood swings were impressive to say the least.
Derek's suffering from depression, Kyle….
Lee told me she thought Derek had depression and, to be honest, the word alone scared the hell out of me. She said there wasn’t an overnight cure for what he was going through and even contemplating agreeing with that statement went against my natural disposition. I couldn’t just sit back and do nothing. No way. There was no way in hell I was going to leave him here alone with his demons…
"I don't know," I told him while I thought about his question. I wasn't an overly religious person. I'd lived with families from various religious backgrounds over the years and nothing had appealed to me. My grandfather's religion had been money. Hell, money had been his god and he'd been damn good at making it. Worst grandparent ever for keeping tabs on a kid, but Frank Henderson had the golden touch when it came to doubling profit. "I believe there's something out there," I told him. "We'll all know someday I guess."
"I do," he replied as he sat up and reached for his beer. "I went to mass every Sunday when I lived at home."
"Uh…good for you, man." What the hell was I supposed to say to that?
"You mind?" he asked as he waved a box of cigarettes in the air before taking a sip of his beer. I shook my head and watched guiltily as he lit up a cigarette. I hadn't realized he'd started smoking again. Derek smoking was something else that I was responsible for...
I was fresh out of high school and flat broke when I first met Derek Porter. I'd moved out of Frank's swanky pad in Denver the day after my high school graduation and into University Hill in Boulder. To be fair it had been my choice to move out. Frank had gone along with it knowing that place had never been my home.
Frank Henderson had taken me out of the system before my thirteenth birthday. He'd provided me with a roof over my head and a college education, but I never forgot. I never let myself forget where I came from and who shared the blood that ran in his veins. The five and half years I'd lived with him had been a stopping gate for me and we'd both known it. I was never going to be Frank's golden grandson–he had Mike for that–and he was never going to hang my fucking moon. We'd both known he'd taken me in over guilt and I'd stayed out of desperation.
I'd worked my ass off the summer before starting college, but the rent in Thirteenth Street had crippled me, so after about a month of living on toast I'd placed an ad for a roommate online. At the time I hadn't known the place was mine and the rent I was paying was going into a bank account my grandfather had set up for me. If I had known that I would have packed my bags and left. I'd appreciated his help, but I never planned to fall at his feet for it or take handouts. My future had been the one thing that I had control over. The one thing I'd clung to when I was a kid. I'd never intended following him into the family business. I hadn't wanted that life. I still didn't want that life. Before Frank died, and I inherited his fortune, I had plans and goals of my own…
The day Derek moved in with me I remembered thinking this is a mistake as I watched him saunter through my front door, six weeks before our first semester at C.U, with his baseball cap turned backwards on his head and his football shirt stretching over his muscles.
I'd answered the door with a cigarette hanging out of my mouth, a towel wrapped around my hips and the hangover from hell. I remembered feeling amused as hell when I watched as his mommy kissed him on the cheek and then cry all over my kitchen table as she came to terms with the reality that her precious baby boy was moving in with Mick Jagger–her words not mine.
I hadn't made the best impression on Mrs. Porter that day. The first black mark against me was when I handed her–lord forbid–underage son a beer from the fridge. The second was when she met my houseguest from the night before when she sauntered into the kitchen in nothing but a G-string. I'd almost choked on my beer when Derek muttered, "Dude, I think I love you already," and Mrs. Porter pulled out her rosary beads and started blessing herself.
I was wary of Derek in the beginning, but then again I'd never been into the whole trusting people deal. I was used to being let down, but Derek was different. For starters the guy never shut the fuck up, and second, he never let me down. He used to yap on and on and he was so full of life and positivity that I got infected with it. His word was his word and he stood by–and up for–whatever he believed in. And apparently he'd believed in me…. Everyone loved the guy, my grandfather included. Frank gave him a job working with me in the bar at the hotel over the summer. We'd gotten along okay, but what had really bonded us was when Derek discovered he hated my father as much as I did.
The day Derek punched my dad in the nose, in the middle of the bar, after being caught hitting on my stepmom was the day that sealed our friendship for life. I'd been so impressed. David had thrown some smart comment and Derek had flipped out and punched him. Then Mike had punched Derek for hitting his daddy and I had punched Mike for hitting my…Derek.
We were both fired and thrown out of the hotel and I'd coaxed Derek to the dark side with booze, house parties and girls. I gave him his first cigarette that night. I also filled him up with a wagon load of Jacky D before setting him up for the most memorable night of his life with the Sullivan twins from down the street. At the time I'd thought it was hilarious to hear the jock hack up a lung and watch him morph from being a focused athlete into a horned up teenager who'd just figured out he was in a parental free zone.
We ended up spending the rest of the summer getting drunk and getting laid until we realized we couldn't take care of ourselves or the bills…Cam moved in a month later and whipped both our asses into shape.
I lost my wingman the second she walked through our front door with those horrible pink suitcases. I swear I'd never seen so much pink in my life until Camryn Frey walked into our lives. She snared Derek that very first day with a flick of her blonde hair and had enforced a no-smoking-in-the-house rule within a week of moving in. I'd protested but it was pointless and ended up quitting a few months later. The queen had taken residence and had confiscated our balls i
n the process. Within a month she had the house under order and I'd learned more shit about pores and female beauty products than would ever be deemed acceptable for a man.
It might have been my name over the door, but Cam had always been in charge and I'd indulged her bossy nature. I'd also banished myself to the upstairs of the house because there was only so many times a man could walk into a bathroom and have to stare at the scraps of lingerie she used to dry in the bathtub. It wouldn't have been so bad, but she was like a baby sister to me. I didn't want to even think of that shit on her body. It was…wrong.
Cam cared about us and had mothered us to the point where one night she sat me down to talk about my habit. I laughed into her face the night she handed me a pamphlet for a treatment center in Denver. Yeah, I might have been a screw up and a slut when I was younger, but I had never put so much as a joint past my lips. I was only three when my mom died, but I remembered exactly what that stuff did to her when it was cocktailed with cocaine and heroin. Even growing up the way I did, and seeing what I had, I knew I wasn't going there. I was never going to walk that line...
"Do you think I'll be forgiven for the things I've done…for the things I'm thinking of doing?" Derek asked, stirring me from my reverie.
"What have you been thinking, Derek?" I choked out.
"Just about past mistakes I've made."
"We've all made mistakes, dude," I told him as I slipped my phone out of my pocket to check the time. "I've fucked up way more than you," I said as I typed out a quick message to Lee to let her know where I was in case she woke up again. She'd already woken up with a nightmare and usually slept through once I got her back to sleep. "So don't worry about any of the shit you've done," I said with a smirk. "I bet I've trumped you."
"But you always redeem yourself, Kyle." Derek smirked but his eyes were lifeless. He took another slug of his beer before speaking. "There's no coming back for me."
"What have you done that you can't fix?" I asked nervously. This was a conversation I wasn't entirely comfortable with. In fact I was about two seconds away from phoning his parents or his brother and having him signed in for treatment. I wasn't losing him as well. No fucking way.
"There's this guy from back home," he said as he took a drag of his cigarette. "I have a lot of history with him. We were…close in high school. He's here in Boulder. Showed up at the house today."
"Yeah…" I coaxed.
Was he about to tell me he was gay?
Because I have to be honest, right about now that would be a huge fucking relief.
"Does that make you…happy?" I asked. Shit, I was not good at this.
"I guess I'm happy to see him," Derek replied. "I've got a lot of love for him and his family, but what I did isn't something I want broadcasted, you know? I took off afterwards and haven't seen him in over four years."
Be tactful, Carter.
Be fucking tactful.
Ah, screw it.
"So you had sex with a dude," I blurted out, losing all tact in my bid to comfort him. "Big deal. You've nothing to be ashamed of. Love is love, bro, it doesn't matter if it comes in the form of a pussy or a penis."
"What the fuck?" Derek shouted in a shocked tone as he jumped off the mattress. "I'm not gay, Kyle."
"There's nothing to embarrassed about, Der," I coaxed. Standing up, I walked over to him. "So you're bi-sexual." I shook my head. "It's not a big deal. Don't be ashamed about how you feel," I told him as I clasped his shoulders. "Embrace it and screw any narrow minded asshole who tells you otherwise. You have my full support."
"I fucked his sister, dude," Derek snapped as he jumped away from me. "Jesus."
His sister?
"Oops," I laughed. "Oh man, I totally thought you were coming out on me."
"Yeah," Derek grumbled. "I guessed that."
"I'd be cool with it if you were…"
"I'm not," he said before sighing. "But thanks for the love. Appreciate it."
"So, who owns the lace?" I pointed at the red bra next to mattress. "Or do I want to know?"
"You really don't." Derek sighed heavily before adding, "Kyle, about the other day…I'm sorry for hitting you. I was having a…"
"Forget it," I said in a stern tone. "I have." He didn’t need to bring that shit up. My face was fine. Not even a bruise. Guess I really did have a head like a rock…"So, have you thought any more about moving in with us?" I asked in a coaxing tone. "We're moving in a couple of days."
Derek didn't answer me.
Instead, he turned around and walked out of the room.
Lovely.
****
Chapter 10
New horizons
Derek
I saw things in my dreams sometimes. Her hair floating over my chest. The scent of her shampoo poisoning my senses. Her blue eyes boring into my soul.
It seemed that even in death she was intent on haunting me. On tormenting me.
I kept finding myself at her grave. I couldn't keep away. Every memory, every touch, every breath she'd taken in my presence was replaying inside my head.
Would I ever get over it? I didn't think so. Six months later and I was still as devastated as I was the day I read that text.
* It's over. I don't love you anymore, Derek. I'm sorry. C x.*
If she'd been unhappy for a while I could understand, but we were solid. Kyle and Lee were the ones with the screwed up relationship, not me and Cam. We'd been fucking strong. Closer than ever after Lee's miscarriage.
Finding Lee hemorrhaging on the bathroom floor had messed Cam's head up. Mine too. She'd been extra clingy in the days after Lee's surgery. She'd talked a lot of babies and how what Lee had went through scared the life out of her. I couldn't have agreed more with her. It had terrified me, too. All I could think about when I was holding Lee in my arms on that bathroom floor was what if this was Cam? How would I feel if the love of my life was losing our child? It shook me up and I'd felt Kyle's pain. I'd put myself in his shoes and it was somewhere I never wanted to be again. Not even hypothetically.
I remembered the morning everything changed. I remembered the exact moment I'd lost Camryn Frey and it wasn't that day in April when I'd received that text. She'd been all fucked up since that morning back in January when she ran out of my room crying. To this day I still didn't know why. We'd woken up as normal and had some amazing morning sex before I slipped across the hall to take a shower. Cam always used to join me. That morning she didn't. I hadn't thought much of it at the time, but when I'd walked into my room ten minutes later she'd thrown my phone at my head and ran out crying. That day was the beginning of the end for us. She didn't come home for three days and when she did she had closed herself off from me. Three months later I lost her. Two months after that I buried her.
It wasn't right. I'd known it then and I knew it now. Something must have happened to her. I'd gone over and over it in my brain. What had I done? What the hell had I done to make her stop loving me? I'd checked every call and text in my phone even though I knew I had nothing to hide. There were no other girls. I'd been faithful to that girl from our very first day to our very last. There had been no secrets between us…
Dammit, I should have done more. Fought harder for her. I could have kept her safe. She sure as hell wouldn't have been in that house if she had been with me. I looked down at the plane tickets in my hand before tucking them into my back pocket.
Ireland.
Cam had always wanted to go. I'd worked in a shitty kitchen, for twelve hour days, all summer to pay for us to go. It was supposed to be her graduation gift. I had it all arranged. We were supposed to fly out the morning after graduation, but she'd left me before I had a chance to tell her. Walked the fuck away from me for Kyle's asshole brother.
At the time I'd been too proud to fight for her. Too heartbroken and angry to say another word to her. I hadn't told her want she meant to me. She didn't know the plans I'd made for us. She'd never know about the engagement ring I planned to give her aft
er we kissed the Blarney Stone in Cork. Or the cruise I'd booked for us to take on the river Shannon. That ring and those dreams were in the same place as her now. Dead and under the ground.
The day she was buried, when Kyle had chased after Ted and Mora, I'd gone back to her grave with Hope and tossed the ring into the ground with Cam's casket before they covered it over. It had been for her. It would never be for anyone else. I would never be anyone else's. Jesus Christ, the regret was killing me. I felt like I was choking on bitterness. Most days I could barely breathe.
Just the other day I found her hairbrush under my bed. Yeah, that's about all I can remember from that day. I'd seen her golden hair on the bristles and I'd lost my shit. I had ended up at a bar and had tried my very best to drink myself into oblivion. It didn't help. I'd woken up still tormented and with another girl in my bed.
I hated myself. I wasn't me anymore. I'd never been a big drinker, not really, and I wasn't a whore. But lately it was all that helped.
And believe me it helped.
Maybe Kyle was right. Maybe I did need to leave Thirteenth Street. But I knew what he'd do the minute I left. He'd sell the house and I couldn't let that happen. I wasn't ready to let her go. There was also a very high chance that he'd torch the place. Therefore, I considered it my civic duty to remain there until I was ready to let go and until my best friend got over his new favored notion of arson. He said he'd do it on enough occasions and he was an impulsive guy… I didn't want him to come near me, but I didn't want him to give up on me either. I knew that didn't make any sense, but I wasn't making sense. Nothing fucking clicked in my brain anymore. I wasn't sure if there was a way out of this darkness, but if there was then Kyle would find it. He was good at fixing things. He'd get me out of this…