Reserved

by Tracy Ewens

  Looking up, she noticed Travis masked by a cloud of steam in his dance alongside Logan, clearly doing what he was meant to do. The feeling washed over her like one of those warm waterfalls on some exotic island. She had been in love before, but the first time it slammed into her so unexpectedly, she barely had time to catch her breath. And while this time was just as scary, it was different. She watched him laughing at Larry, who was telling some animated story to Logan, and knew she loved him. Maybe she’d always loved him on some level, but now it was front and center. Kenna let out a slow steady breath and while her mind had yet to figure out the details of a life with him, her heart seemed content in the knowledge.

  She pushed through the doors and into the bar, surprised to see it now flooded with women in tiny dresses, tiaras, and boas.

  “My God, what the man can do with his tongue.” Barbie, actually Bride-to-Be Barbie as her sash read, was fanning herself with the hand not holding her drink. Kenna often wondered how Sage stayed sane; no wonder she did crosswords for fun.

  “I know that tongue,” another Barbie said, and they all laughed.

  “Oh, oh, girls, show of hands, how many of us have had some piece of Travis’s anatomy in us?”

  Sage looked up from serving Barbie number six or number seven some stupid umbrella drink and met Kenna’s gaze. She shook her head and rolled her eyes. Kenna took a seat partly because she couldn’t look away from the gaggle of feathers currently making it almost an embarrassment to be a woman, but also because she was curious again. More than half the Barbies raised their hands. Kenna had to stop herself from leaning back and forth to count.

  “You heading out?” Sage asked, finally making her way over.

  Kenna stared at Bride-to-Be Barbie who was now using her hands to describe a certain part of Travis’s anatomy.

  “Kenna?”

  “Oh, sorry. Yes, I’m heading to the farm. Who are they?”

  “Bachelorette party. Pamela, the soon-to-be, and her merry band of drunk divas. They were already a few drinks into the party when they got here, lucky me. We should probably warn Travis before they call for him to come out and entertain them. I always thought it was only men objectifying women, but these lovelies are giving the Hooters crowd a run for their money.”

  “Yeah, is it true?”

  “Is what true?”

  “He was with her, the bride-to-be one? They dated?”

  “I’m . . . pretty sure they were together for about a minute, but I wouldn’t call it dating.”

  “And the rest of them, you think they’re making it up?”

  “Probably not.” Sage started to laugh but stopped when Makenna didn’t seem amused.

  “Hey, it’s not a big deal. We all have a past, right?”

  “Right. Yeah, sure. I need to get going, so be safe and try to have a good night.”

  “You too. Are you all right?”

  “I am. Oh, I almost forgot, could you bring ice and soda for Paige’s birthday on Sunday?”

  “You got it.”

  Makenna went back through the kitchen to avoid hearing the end of what Travis did to Barbie number four on the hood of her car one night. Yikes, the guy was a legend. What does that make me? Another customer at the drive-thru? Makenna’s head was spinning with questions, most urgently—What the hell am I doing? I have no business with a man like Travis, and how on God’s earth is he ever going to fit into my very real world? She looked back toward the kitchen one more time and saw Travis talking with two older ladies who were clearly smitten. Mr. Smooth, she thought, just as he looked up and then appeared to be excusing himself to walk toward the back kitchen. Makenna grabbed Paige’s lunch box and left out the back door.

  By the time Travis made it to the back kitchen, she was gone. She’d seen him, but even from that distance, there’d been something in her eyes. He wasn’t sure it had anything to do with him, but she hadn’t said good-bye. He pushed through the back door and found Kenna just as she was putting her seatbelt on and starting her Jeep.

  “Hey, no good-bye?” He kept it casual and leaned in to kiss her. The minute his lips touched hers, he knew something was wrong. He searched her eyes and found nothing. She stared blankly, as if right through him. Shit!

  “You okay?” He touched her arm and could have sworn she wanted to pull away.

  “What do you mean? I’m just in a hurry because I’ve got to drive all the way to the farm tonight.”

  Yeah, something was wrong. Kenna never cared about driving, especially to the farm, and never when it concerned her daughter.

  “One of the night shift dishwashers called in sick and Carl is back there up to his elbows in suds. I’m fine, just busy.”

  “Uh huh.” He leaned over and noticed Paige’s lunch box on the passenger seat.

  “Are you forgetting to forget Paige’s lunch box on purpose?”

  She met his eyes quickly and put her hand on her daughter’s lunch box. Travis felt a chill, almost like a protective back-up-asshole chill, but that couldn’t be, right?

  “Oh, well, I thought with the weekend and since we’ll be at the farm that I’d—Oh damn, why can’t I be good at bullshit. I need some space. There. I need to think about things and I need a little space, so I took her lunch box. I’ll make her lunch for Monday.” She was looking at the steering wheel, and Travis felt a pain in his chest.

  “Okay, space . . . why? Did something happen?”

  “No, I’m just busy, I need a break and”—she whipped her head up and met his eyes—“and, I think we need to think about this, us.”

  She might as well have slapped him, because he liked to think he was pretty perceptive and he didn’t see this coming. It had been only a few hours ago that they were wrapped in each other’s arms. She had woken him up in the middle of the night to show him how the moon lit up her backyard, and he’d made love to her right there on her back patio. And now she wanted space?

  “Makenna, what’s going on?”

  “Nothing. Well, not nothing. We’re just different. Don’t you have to get back in the kitchen?”

  Travis looked toward the restaurant; he did need to get back. It was pretty slow, but Todd should never be left alone for too long.

  “Did something happen?”

  “No. It’s nothing out of the ordinary really, I . . . maybe I forgot who you were.”

  “Who I was?”

  “Nothing, it means nothing. No judgments, okay? But I need to get going. Paige is waiting for me. Can we talk about this later? I’ll see you Sunday for Paige’s birthday.”

  He didn’t know what to say. He couldn’t even fight with her because he had no idea what the hell was going on. He let her go and went back to work.

  After having to make and remake two salads because he couldn’t think straight, Travis left Todd with two pizzas to finish up while he went to find Sage.

  “What’s going on?” he asked a few minutes later while Sage was shaking a drink.

  “Oh no! Why do you always come to me when things hit the fan?”

  “Because you always have the intel. Let’s not waste time. What things and which fan? Kenna took Paige’s lunch box with her when she left, and something’s wrong.”

  “Oh, now see, that was plain mean. I sort of thought she was pissy.”

  “What did I do? Spill it.”

  “Hang on.” Sage flipped up a martini glass, poured the bearded guy on the other side of the bar his drink, and returned to her register with his credit card.

  “You didn’t do anything. Well, you did do something, quite a few somethings actually.”

  “Sage.”

  “Right, sorry. So Kenna was getting ready to leave. She came into the bar to ask me to bring ice and soda and overheard these dipshits at a bachelorette party. The bride-to-be was Pamela. Remember her from when we first opened?”

  “Brunette with the beauty mark?”

  “Yup, good memory, Romeo. That’s the one.” Sage turned and left a leather folder with a pen nex
t to the bearded guy, who was now glued to the football game over the bar. “Anyway, Kenna was almost gone when the dipshits, there were like twelve of them, all started talking about you.”

  “Me?”

  “Yeah, Pamela was drunk and babbling on about how you were the best . . . well, ‘fuck,’ her words, certainly not mine, she’d ever had.”

  Under normal circumstances, he would have laughed at one of Sage’s bar stories, but not this one. He peeked back in the kitchen to check on Todd, who appeared to be working.

  “So there was that, which was bad enough, but then a few other dipshits chimed in that they too had ‘had’ you.” She used the quotes as if he needed them.

  Travis took a deep breath. It wasn’t deep enough because he felt his chest squeeze. “Okay, so that was it? Kenna knows I’ve slept with some women.”

  “Some? Romeo, this was like half the bridal party, and they were rowdy. Giving details and talking about how you were their favorite drive-thru.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Yeah, that you would never be the sit-down-and-commit type, but you were fun for a few drive-thrus.”

  “Holy hell, why do I feel dirty and not in a good way?”

  Sage laughed but then grew serious. “Kenna didn’t say anything, but she seemed a little weird. I think she’s all over the place and she’s clearly fallen for you. Maybe hearing all this messed with her.”

  “She has fallen for me and I’ve fallen for her. We’re together. I’m not getting why these ladies, and I use that term loosely, would rattle her.”

  “She has Paige.”

  His eyes met Sage’s and he saw exactly what she meant. He didn’t just feel dirty and used; apparently he was.

  “I’m well aware she has Paige.”

  “I think she wants to make sure that a man in their life is worthy of . . . I mean . . . that’s not what I meant to say.”

  “Sure you did, someone who’s good enough to be in Paige’s life. I’m fine behind the scenes, making lunch or while Paige is waiting for Gracie, but not quite good enough to play in the big game.”

  “That’s not what I said.”

  “You didn’t have to.”

  Travis returned to what he knew, his work.

  By the time they closed around 10:30, he’d calmed down. He tried to imagine what it would be like if he’d sat down at a bar and heard men talking about how great Kenna had been in their beds. The simple thought of it pissed him off, so he tried really hard to keep that in mind. Just because it seemed more acceptable for women to joke about men, it didn’t make it any easier to listen to. Sage apologized again before she left, but the truth was she hadn’t said anything Travis didn’t already know. Makenna and Paige were special, and they deserved a good guy. Although his father’s critical voice seemed ever present in his mind, he knew he was a good guy. But, that didn’t mean Kenna needed to hear the sordid details of his life before her.

  He needed to talk to her. There was no way this was waiting until Sunday, and so instead of heading home, he turned his bike onto the freeway and drove north on the I-10.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Makenna started awake to find Travis standing in the entrance of the bedroom she grew up in. He was leaning against the now-closed door. He must have been watching her sleep because he didn’t say a word.

  “Travis.”

  “I didn’t mean to scare you. We need to talk.”

  She looked at the clock on the nightstand, and her blurry eyes registered that it was one-something in the morning.

  “Is everything okay?” She sat up.

  “No, I don’t think it is.” He sat next to her on the bed, and Makenna clicked on the light.

  “I didn’t have sex until my junior year in high school,” Travis started without warning. “My girlfriend, the same one I’d had since my freshman year, and yes the woman who is now my brother’s wife, wasn’t ready. I cared about her, so I waited until she was ready. She was a cheerleader and I was on the football team. It all sounds a little sickening now, but that was my life. We finished high school and we both got into UCLA. I was even a damn honor student. Squeaky clean, all-American.”

  She could see him building up, the tension seeping into his face, and she instantly felt bad that he felt the need to explain. He stood up from the bed, but she stayed where she was. Everything about his body language said he needed room.

  “You don’t need to do this.”

  “No, I think I do. By the time we graduated, I thought I loved her. Her parents loved my parents and we were the perfect couple, destined for a big wedding and a house in the same suburban neighborhood. It’s hard for me to remember who I was back then, but when I want to kick my old self in the face for being so stupid, I try to remember it’s all I knew. I was raised to be that. My point in telling you all this is that I used to be a one-and-done guy. I wasn’t always, well, what you heard at the bar tonight.”

  “I understand.”

  “No, you really don’t, because here’s where it gets good. Everything fell apart when I hurt my knee. I know it sounds stupid, but that was all it took for the whole damn house of fake to come tumbling down. One knee. Up until her boyfriend blew his knee out, not much had happened to Avery. Her life was pretty . . . shopping-at-the-mall fantastic.”

  When his voice shifted to his version of dipshit, Kenna held back a laugh.

  “Anyway, this is getting boring fast, so I’ll give you the condensed finale. After our freshman year in college, Avery dumped me. I wasn’t going to be a college athlete, let alone a professional one, and that’s what she wanted. She didn’t want me, she wanted the same thing my dad wanted: a winner. She found one in my brother John, who was a senior by that time. As with all great romances, they’d been screwing each other behind my back for . . . about six months before she broke it off.”

  Makenna tried to keep him from continuing, but he held up his hand. It almost seemed like he needed to finish, like telling her all of this was some sort of cathartic flush.

  “Fast-forward to less than a year later. John proposed to her the week after he graduated. They were married the following April. I was in the wedding, brother of the groom, best man.”

  Kenna put her hand to her mouth. She’d always been acutely aware of her own pain. She’d lost her husband and her mother had left her when she was five. Her pain had been on display, but this, the private pain of someone she loved, was worse. It was almost unbearable.

  Travis felt the same sting of stupid every time he reflected on his past. His story was taking longer than he’d planned, but he suddenly wanted to answer her questions, needed her to know.

  “I think I’ve only ever told this whole sad tale to your brother, and I’m pretty sure we were drunk when I let it slip. Anyway, I know it sounds pathetic, but I’d never been with anyone else. I was twenty-one years old. My body was broken, an obvious disappointment to all the people I thought were important in my life. When my brother married my ex-girlfriend, he slid into my place. Without a word from anyone, I was done.”

  “Travis, please stop. You don’t need to say any more.”

  “No, I want you to know everything. You need to understand.”

  “I understand, please.” Makenna wiped a tear from her eye.

  “Things get better, I promise.” He sat next to her on the bed. “Please don’t cry. I quit school, traveled some, learned to cook, and figured out what I wanted. I also put women where I needed them to be—I’m sure that’s what a shrink would say. I didn’t need them and even though I swear I’ve always been honest about who and what I was, I guess it’s fair to say I’ve used my share of women.”

  Makenna said nothing.

  “So, that brings us to a few years ago when I met a woman and her little girl. I enjoyed the mom’s ass from afar and started making the little girl’s lunch. Things started shifting around for me and then when I kissed you, nothing else mattered anymore. There were women and then there was just you. I’m not perfect
, Kenna. I do have a past, and I can’t help it if you run into it from time to time. But you need to understand how I got where I am today. We all have history. I’m thirty-two years old. I’m no longer ashamed of who I am, and if I had to go through some stuff to get to you and Paige, then I’m good.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “You don’t need to be sorry. You have a lot to protect. I was pissed, maybe a little embarrassed at first. I get why you ran off, but I’m not some sleazy manwhore. I guess I played that part for a while because it was easier than being dumped, or being some broken loser.”

  “Please, stop.”

  Travis took her in his arms. “I love you. I’ll work my ass off to deserve you, but I won’t live my life ashamed.”

  “I don’t want you to be ashamed.” She touched his face, leaning in to gently kiss his lips. “I was being stupid and now that you are here, I couldn’t care less how many women you’ve slept with. I think it fed my own insecurities: you know, the tiny dresses and the experience. I just—”

  “Took your lunch box and went home?”

  She shook her head. “I shouldn’t have done that. I just got all turned around. This is new for me too . . . Hey, before I kiss you, could you say that last part again?”

  “The lunch box?”

  Kenna shook her head.

  “The part about how great Paige is?”

  She smiled and shook her head again.

  “Oh, you must be talking about the part where I said . . . when I said that I love you.”

  Her lips did that quiver thing, but before her tears fell, she took his face and kissed him. Soft and healing, as if by touching him she could fix him. He sure as hell hoped it was that easy.

  “I love you too,” she said, still holding his face, and he could have sworn she slid right down into his soul. Turned out when Makenna Rye said she loved someone, she meant it.

  He went to kiss her again, but she held her finger to his lips and said, “And just for the record, I loved you before you told me about stupid Avery and your dumb brother with the bad we’re-no-longer-in-college-asshole haircut.”