by Chloe Walsh
I wanted to ask Kyle a million other questions, but I didn’t. I could tell it was a huge deal for Kyle to tell me what he had. It was a huge deal to me. More of the pieces of the Kyle Carter jigsaw slid into place.
He was brave and he was proud. He didn’t like to show weakness; I don’t think he liked to feel weakness. I loved him for doing this for me. He’d exposed himself to ease my pain. He was incredible.
“Hey Kyle, you wanna go shoot some pool…Whoops sorry.” I jumped up from the step to see Derek at the kitchen door, grinning mischievously. Kyle stood up slowly and stretched. “Never mind, I can see you guys are busy,” Derek grinned, waggling his eyebrows.
I moved away from Kyle and walked inside quickly. No we’re not; I was just going to bed.”
Derek raised his brow in surprise.
“She means alone asshole,” Kyle said, as he went to the sink and rinsed his cup.
“Whatever you say dude, I can smell the sex vibes from here though.”
I blushed and ducked under Derek’s arm, heading for the stairs.
“Goodnight princess,” I heard Kyle say, just before Derek cried out in pain.
“Ow, dude? What the fuck?”
I chuckled. “Goodnight Kyle.”
Chapter Twenty-six
Kyle
I stalked around my room like a mad man. I was nervous and she was late.
“Dude, what the fuck are you wearing?” I turned around to see Derek bent over in my doorway sniggering.
“If you tell anyone about this, I’m gonna kick your ass,” I warned.
This was the most degrading moment of my life. I blushed like a fucking girl.
“Couldn’t you have gone as someone manlier,” he suggested. “Like Batman or Arrow?”
I looked down at the green tights I had on and cringed. “Fuck you. Her favorite book as a kid was Peter Pan.”
Derek staggered over to my bed, holding his stomach. “You are so pussy whipped dude. And you’re not even gonna get your dick sucked for this.” He wiped his eyes. “This is a whole lot of effort you’re going to for a girl who’s just a ‘friend.'”
I glared at him. “Ha ha. You think you’re fucking hilarious don’t you? Keep talking dude and we’ll see how much Cam likes the sex tape you made with Julie Wilson in junior year.”
Derek’s face paled and I knew I had the fucker’s silence. “You’re a cunning bastard.”
I snorted. “I do what I have to.”
Derek rose and walked to the door. “Fine I’m going, I’m going,” he muttered. He stepped into the hall and jumped in the air, clicking his heels together. “I wish I was a boy. I wish I was a real live boy.”
I lunged for him, but he was faster. “That’s Pinocchio you asshole,” I growled, chasing him down the stairs.
“Dude, I didn’t realize you were such a fan of Disney?” Derek shouted. I caught him on the bottom step and tackled him down, just as the door swung open.
“Oh my god,” Cam laughed, as she stood in the doorway. “Kyle what the hell are you wearing?” she asked, through fits of laughter.
I climbed off a laughing Derek and shifted around awkwardly. “Surprise,” I muttered. I focused my attention on the motive for this ridiculous outfit.
“Kyle? What are you doing?” Lee asked, as she moved away from the doorway towards me. Thank fuck she wasn’t laughing at me. I didn’t think my male pride could take it.
She touched my outfit with an awestruck look on her face. “Why are you dressed as Peter Pan?”
I shrugged, ignoring the smart-ass comments coming from my roommates. “You said you’ve never been trick or treating. I thought we could go?” Lee gazed up at me, with glassy eyes and a huge smile.
“Dude you are twenty two years old. You cannot be serious?” Derek piped up from behind me. Lee’s smile fell and I wanted to kick him.
“I fucking am. If Lee wants to go trick or treating, then we’re going trick or treating.”
I turned to look at her. “Do you want to go princess?” I asked calmly.
She nodded eagerly. “But I don’t have a costume,” she said, pulling her lip into her mouth.
“Yeah you do,” I said, nudging her towards the staircase. “You don’t think I’d dress like this by myself? Go get your ass ready Tinkerbelle. Before all the good candy’s gone.” I shouldn’t have done it, but I gave her ass a little slap.
Lee squealed excitedly and rushed up the stairs with Cam hot on her heels.
I stood there motionless, watching her disappear at the top of the stairs. My heart was bursting with a million different emotions.
Derek slapped a hand on my shoulder. “You’re in deep trouble buddy.”
Didn’t I know it?
Lee
I didn’t think it was possible for me to love Kyle more than I already did. I was wrong. When Cam had opened the door and I’d seen Kyle dressed in that Peter Pan outfit, I thought my heart was going to explode.
He had done it for me. He made a complete idiot out of himself just to make me happy.
I had donned my Tinkerbelle costume and gone trick or treating with Kyle. We looked ridiculous knocking on doors looking for candy at our ages. But Kyle hadn’t seemed to care, so I hadn’t either. He had a knack of putting me at ease and I had known at that moment, while we stood outside a decorated house waiting for candy, that I would always be in love with Kyle Carter. It was all his fault.
Kyle had a way of turning my world inside out and upside down, blowing it to pieces and then putting it back together. It was a dangerous thing; to love a man who had the ability to destroy me. He had ruined me for every other man and I did not care. I would never want anyone, but him.
“I think we have enough candy to see us through until thanksgiving,” Kyle said when we reached our street. He was smiling and holding my hand as we walked towards our house. I loved that he was carefree tonight; usually he carried such a weight around.
“You’re just a big kid at heart aren’t you?” I mused, grinning up at him.
“Oh, I’m big all right,” he joked. “And strong too, you want to test that theory?” He winked and my mouth fell open. “Come on my little fairy, I’ll give you a ride home.” Kyle hunched down. “Hop on, you’re chariot awaits you.”
I giggled excitedly as I climbed on his back. “You know, I think that’s from Cinderella?” I said, wrapping my arms and legs around him.
He gripped under my thighs; his hands straying dangerously close to my butt.
“It sounded good though,” he chuckled, as he straightened his back. “Come on, spider monkey,” he said as he took off running.
I squealed and clutched him for dear life, “That one is definitely from Twilight. You have no originality Kyle Carter.”
We were still laughing when he opened the front door and stepped inside. My laughter died when I took in all the people in the house. One of Cam’s parties was in full swing. Kyle tensed; his hands fell from my thighs. I took that as my queue to get down. I wiggled down his back, as a voice broke through the loud music.
“Well isn’t this sweet, Peter Pan and his little fairy whore.”
I glared at Rachel from behind Kyles back. She was dressed as a slutty devil, with horns on her head and not a lot else on her body. The costume suited her. Evil bitch.
“It’s Halloween you know, you could have dressed up as something other than your usual evil self,” I said bravely. I’d had enough of Rachel and her nasty comments. I wasn’t about to let her ruin my perfect night with Kyle.
Rachel cut me a death glare and Kyle stiffened. “Lee, go upstairs now,” he said quietly, without meeting my eyes.
“Yeah Lee, run along now, this is a big girl’s party,” Rachel mocked.
“No, I want to stay with you,” I said, pulling on his hand. “Just ignore her.”
He jerked his hand away. “Please Lee, get out of here, I can’t be near you right now.”
Kyle exhaled harshly and ran his hand through his hair, kno
cking his feathered cap off in the process.
“Why are you doing this?” I whispered.
“This is the way it has to be,” he said and I closed my eyes. I couldn’t bear to watch him walk away from me again. My stomach was twisting inside me and I focused on not throwing up.
When I opened eyes, Kyle was gone and Rachel was grinning deviously.
“I did warn you,” she said smugly. “He will always choose me.”
Chapter Twenty-seven
Lee
The following month was cold. The weather was definitely growing crisp; we were well into November. I was feeling the climate change. I was used to the consistent heat in the South; the erratic snowstorms and cold fronts here were playing havoc with my natural body temperature.
I had been sick over thanksgiving with a vomiting bug and thankfully had used it as my excuse to avoid eating a holiday meal with Kyle. We hadn’t spoken much since Halloween. The atmosphere was thick and strained between us now.
Everyone noticed, especially since Kyle walked around the house with a black cloud hanging over his head. He snapped at Cam, argued with Derek and as usual ignored me.
I was still recovering from my illness when Cam asked me to go for a walk with her. I agreed, even though I still felt weak, but it was better than being inside the house and walking on eggshells around Kyle and his mood swings.
We took the trail veering west from Chautauqua Park.
“You okay there Lee?” Cam called out. She was a good ten feet ahead of me. The cold air was cutting into my face and my eyes were burning.
“No, I need to take a rest,” I said, panting. I had a sharp, stabbing pain in my side and needed to sit down. I sank down on the snowy path and held my side.
“Good grief, you are so unfit,” Cam joked when she reached me.
“It’s not funny.” I really did have a sharp pain in my side. I felt the need to lie down. “Could we head back Cam? I don’t think I can walk much further.”
Cam reached out her hand and pulled me to my feet. “Yeah sure, you should have said you weren’t feeling one hundred percent Lee.” I brushed the wet sludge and gunk from my jeans. “That bug really took it out of you didn’t it?”
I nodded, grateful that we were going home. Cam threw her arm around me, as we made our way back to the car.
The phone was ringing in the kitchen when we made it back to the house.
I plopped into a chair as Cam went over to answer it.
“Hello?” Cam said in a playful tone, “House of all things kinky, the resident sexpert speaking.” I shook my head at her. I didn’t know why she always had to answer the phone with suggestive comments. I guessed she was as sick as I was of answering calls from women looking for Kyle.
Cam’s face paled, as she held the phone out to me. I stared at the phone for a moment, wondering who the hell would be calling for me.
Standing slowly, I took the phone from her. “Hello, this is Lee?”
My heart dropped into my stomach at the sound of the voice on the other line.
“Daddy?”
Kyle
I would like to say that Derek and I had our own lives outside of our female roommates and that we didn’t mope about all day waiting for the girls to return, but if I said that, then I’d be a liar. Where the fuck were they? I hadn’t seen either one since yesterday.
Lee still wouldn’t look at me and I needed to talk to her. I needed to apologize for everything and make things right.
My eyes were glazing over from the amount of time we had spent playing the Xbox.
I wasn’t even that into the game. Derek sighed loudly, for the fiftieth time in the past hour and I snapped. “If you do that again, I’m gonna stick my foot up your ass and give you a fucking reason to sigh.”
Christ, he was getting on my last nerve. I was trying to keep my mind off Lee and how fucked up the situation between us had become and Derek was irritating the crap out of me.
“Dude we are so pathetic, sitting here like a pair of ninnies. Fuck the girls. We should be out on the tiles, munching some bush.”
I groaned and tossed the remainder of my sandwich down. There went my appetite.
How was I friends with this freak? “Munch some bush? What are you the pussy patrol? Dude you have a girlfriend, you remember Cam right?”
Derek dropped his controller down on the coffee table. Thank God. I tossed mine down quickly before he changed his mind. I couldn’t take another minute of that game.
“Yeah, I remember and I also know where she and Lee are right now.”
Wait, what? Where was Lee? I glared at his sulky face .“Where are they right now?”
Where the fuck had Cam taken her? Didn’t she realize Lee was innocent?
“Fucking Montgomery,” Derek sighed and my blood boiled.
“As in Louisiana? What the hell? Why?” How did I not know this?
“Lee had to go home, or some shit, Cam went with her. They left last night.”
I was on my feet and moving before my brain caught up. “Dude, you waste half my day and about fifty chromosomes I’ll never get back playing that shit, when you knew the girls’ were gone to fucking Louisiana?”
Derek groaned. “Fuck them Kyle, Cam’s probably honky-tonking her little ass around some bar by now and not giving two shits about me.” Could he hear himself?
“You dipshit, don’t you care that there’s probably fifty guys right now trying to get in your girl’s panties.” And my girl’s.
I grabbed my keys and headed for my truck, not waiting for Derek’s reaction.
“Ah shit,” I heard him shout a few moments later.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Lee
“What are you going to say to him when we get there?” I knew what Cam was asking, but I honestly had no answer for her. I didn’t know what I was going to say.
What do you say to the man who raised you, tortured you your whole life and was now lying in a hospital bed? A heart attack, he had said. I was not surprised.
Daddy smoked cigarettes like he breathed air; constantly.
“I’m not sure Cam. I’m more worried about what he’ll say to me to be honest.” We had been driving all night and we had another two hours to go. I planned on using those to plot how I was going to approach my father.
“You know, you don’t have to do this Lee. We can turn around be home by nightfall. You can walk away from this. You owe him nothing.” I nodded, but didn’t say anything.
There was no point. Nothing I could say to Cam would redeem my father in her eyes.
I kept thinking that this was the right thing to do. My mother wouldn’t have wanted him to be sick and alone.
Kyle
My head was bursting. I had a headache to kill all headaches and Derek would not shut the fuck up. “Dude I swear if she’s with another guy when we get there, then I’m totally done. I mean it this time. I’m not taking her shit anymore.”
His rants didn’t even render an answer. He was talking out of his ass. I just nodded or shook my head when he looked over at me, which seemed acceptable.
To be honest, my mind was nowhere near Cam and Derek’s fucked up relationship, it was fixed on mine and Lee’s fucked up one. Why did she need to go home? Was she sick? Was she running again? Was she leaving me? I sounded fucking pathetic; I wasn’t hers to leave. I wasn’t anything.
“Dude did Cam mention anything about why Lee needed to go home?” This was the fourth time I had asked Derek that question since we hit the road. Every time he distracted me with some sob story about Cam. I wanted to puke. I should have caught a flight, but I hadn’t fucking thought it through. When Derek told me where Lee was, I’d gotten in my truck and started driving.
His phone rang just as he was about to answer me. “Who is it?” I asked.
“Fucking Camryn,” Derek grumbled as he looked at the screen.
I wanted to grab the phone off him. “Answer it dumbass.”
Derek pressed a button a
nd put the phone up to his ear. “Babe, are you okay? Did you get there safely?” What a pussy. So much for his ranting…
“Oh, that’s good I guess. How’s Lee holding up?” I strained to hear Cam’s voice on the other line, but it was too muffled.
“No, I didn’t say anything.” Didn’t say what?
“Cam baby, I didn’t tell him.”
Derek looked at me and shifted uncomfortably. “Can I call you back later, I can’t talk right now.” Oh, this was getting interesting.
“Yeah, Kyle’s here. Gotta go.” I waited until he put the phone back in his pocket to speak.
“You’ve been holding out on me buddy. Talk. Now.”
Lee
My feet shook with every step I took towards the hospital room. “Do you want me to go in with you?” Cam asked.
“No, I have to this myself.”
I stepped inside. “Delia, baby?”
I approached the old man in the bed in front of me. Tubes and machines were surrounding him. I swallowed the vomit that threatened to spill.
“Hello daddy.”
His face looked much older than when I had last seen him. I felt like crying. I knew he had done some terrible things to me, but this was my father; the only family I had in the world.
“I’m so happy you came, didn’t think you would, I wouldn’t have blamed you if you didn’t.”
I sighed and sat on a chair beside his bed. “I almost turned back twice.”
He patted my hand and I flinched, pulling it away. “We’ll I’m glad you changed your mind.” He whispered.
“How bad is it daddy?”
He shrugged and tried to pull himself up, but winced in pain. “Don’t you worry about me darling, I’ll be just fine.”