“Huh?” I say again, this time looking from her to him. The look on his face is just as uncomfortable as I imagine mine is.
“I asked what’s been up,” he says, making eye contact with me for the briefest of all moments before glancing down at the worn countertop.
“Nothing,” I blurt out, a little too eager and entirely too quickly to pass off as a normal line of conversation. God, why are my legs jelly and vision blurry and my throat dry? He is the one who is guilty here. He should be nervous, not me. I should stand boldly and make him quiver at the remembrance of what he’s done to me.
“Have you been…good?” he asks after a momentary pause. He plays it off well, like he’s cool and collected, but I remember the Kris who refused to give a speech in freshman health class because he was terrified of speaking to crowds. His nervousness doesn’t escape me.
“I’ve been great, thanks,” I say. Against all the angry emotions and lustful thoughts (that only make me more angry) rushing through my mind, I manage to smile with that southern girl charm that comes with being raised in Texas. “I assume you’ve been good as well?”
He nods, staring straight into my eyes with his auburn ones. Though his jaw is chiseled and his neck is thicker, and his hair is no longer cut as if it had a bowl on top of it, he looks the same. I hate that he got hot as hell with age and I got, well, plain and average.
“Your parents good?” he asks with a slight break in his voice as his nervousness threatens to crack his calm exterior. He has some nerve to ask about my parents. He could have asked them himself if he’d bothered to go to Tyler’s funeral.
“They’re good. They’re back in college.” I could kick myself for giving him that extra bit of information. He doesn’t need to know that. He doesn’t deserve to know anything about my parents. Or my life. All he needs to know is where to deposit my paychecks. I should tell him that, too. I should walk around the counter, shove him against the wall and beat the shit out of him. I should tell him exactly how much I hate him for what he did, and how many nights I cried myself to sleep over the loss of my brother and the hurt that comes with being ignored by the boy you loved. I should throw every fucking heavy object in this gym at his face. Maybe then he would understand just a fraction of how much I hate him.
Unfortunately, all I do is slouch behind the counter and pretend to check the gym’s email account on the computer in front of me.
“Well,” Kris says, releasing the counter and stretching his fingers out in front of him. “Don’t mind me, ladies. I’m just here to work out.”
I want to ask him about the boy he was with at I Scream for Ice Cream. I want to ask why he didn’t acknowledge me that night, but he can ask me casual questions today, as if he didn’t kill my brother and then disappear all those years ago. That boy had to be at least thirteen years old—there’s no way he could be Kris’s son. Maybe it’s his stepson?
My wild assumptions make a knot form in my stomach at the realization that I don’t know anything about Kris anymore. He’s twenty-eight years old which is old enough to have done a million things that I don’t know about. The thought of Kris having children…or a wife…sends an angry chill down my spine. Tyler doesn’t get to do any of that and Kris is free to live his life however he wants. It isn’t fair.
Susan pushes herself behind the counter the second he leaves to workout. “You didn’t tell me you knew him!” she hisses in my ear, giving me a playful slap on the ass.
“You didn’t ask,” I whisper back.
“Girl, there’s some history there. I could sense it. I need every single detail, right this instant.” She runs her tongue over her bottom lip, almost foaming at the mouth at whatever naughty thoughts run across her mind. I swear the woman’s appetite for gossip is insatiable. Normally it’s funny but right now is not the time for her real-life Housewives from Hell obsession.
I glance toward Kris, somewhat relieved to find out that he’s not within earshot of us, and he’s not even looking our way. “It’s nothing and I don’t want to talk about it.”
Susan’s bottom lip pops out in a pout of toddler-like proportions. “Delaney!” she whines. “You have to tell me. Did ya’ll two…” She makes a motion with her fingers that could make even a sailor blush.
“Jesus no,” I hiss, turning on my heel and heading for the cooler full of protein shakes and Gatorade. She scampers along behind me, ignorant to how much she’s crossing the line with the subject of Kris Payne. I yank open the cooler door and begin restocking the chocolate Muscle Milk while she hovers over me, an expectant look on her face. “I knew him ten fucking years ago and I haven’t seen or spoken to him since. There is nothing else for you to know, so quit fucking asking.”
Her eyes bulge at my double use of the f-bomb, and my trembling hands and clenched jaw must finally get through to her because she puts one hand on my arm and the other across her mouth. “I’m sorry, Del. I am.” She pretends to zip her mouth closed. “I won’t talk about it anymore.”
I spend the next two hours working incredibly hard behind the counter, despite having exactly nothing to do. Under no circumstances do I look around the gym, especially in the direction of the free weights where Kris deadlifts five hundred and fifty pounds. Not that I looked long enough to see how many plates he loaded onto the bar.
Nathan texts me more than usual, and I happily reply to him. Each time Kris sees me on the phone is a victory as far as I’m concerned. I hope he thinks I’m dating a rock star—no, two rock stars, and that I live a glamorous life that has no painful traces of him.
My phone lights up with another text from Nathan, bitching about his favorite basketball team losing the game. I burst into a girlish giggle and type out a reply, biting my lip as if I’m replying to something sexy or scandalous. Kris actually sits up from the weight bench, wiping sweat off his forehead as he watches me send the text.
You know, not that I was looking or anything.
Chapter 8
The sports announcer freaks out as the Houston Rockets score another goal, bringing their losing game up to a tie. I don’t like basketball but I can’t exactly look away while Nathan thrusts into me from his place behind me on his leather couch. Couch sex is his favorite—although I’m not sure if it’s because of his view of my backside or of the television.
I reach my hands behind me, squeeze the top of his thighs and peer over my shoulder at him. He’s biting his lower lip as he watches the basketball game. “Uh, hello,” I say, my voice bouncing with the rhythm of my body. “You’re having sex with me, not the Houston Rockets.”
“I know, baby. I know.” He grabs my waist and pulls me further into him, grunting at his own pleasure. I don’t feel much of anything but annoyance. Usually I can mind-over-matter boring TV sex, but today my mind wanders places it should never go. Places that are boarded up and shackled, covered with DO NOT ENTER signs nailed there from ten years ago.
My mind ignores the signs and I’m thinking of Kris-fucking-Payne before the next commercial break. Nathan’s hands slide up my waist, cupping my boobs. I wince as he squeezes them a little too hard, but he takes my gasp of pain as one of pleasure and squeezes them even tighter. I grab his hands and pull them away.
“Too hot for you to handle?” he asks in his mock deep voice. The voice I guess he thinks is indicative of a porn star, but, well, I’ve always found it stupid. Kris and I never had sex—we were kids back then and although he was willing, I was ignorant to all things after second base and therefore had a deep-seeded fear that I’d end up pregnant or dead if my clothes came off in front of a boy.
Even without having sex, Kris loved touching my boobs. He never squeezed them, or did this weird nipple twisting thing that Nathan does now. Kris was eighteen and as inexperienced as I was; he kept his hands above my shirt and only pressed my B-cups together, occasionally pressing his face into my cleavage during make out sessions in the backseat of his car.
A ripple of pleasure pulses through me as I glance do
wn at my jiggling boobs, now C-cups and tinged pink from Nathan’s rough grasp. My cheeks flush as I let out a moan at the thought of Kris’s face buried between them like the old days. Only I don’t imagine what he looked like back then. I imagine him now. I let out a groan. I so should not be thinking about him!
“You like that?” Nathan asks. The sudden sound of his voice snaps me out of my daydreams. I glance down again and see Nathan’s hands pressed to my body, not Kris’s face.
“Mmm-hmm,” I moan, tossing my head back like the pornstars do in the videos he keeps saved to his desktop. No, I don’t like it. But I can’t tell him that. I can’t exactly climb off him and say that’s enough sex for today, I can’t stop thinking about my ex-boyfriend and wondering if he would be better in bed than you and that’s really killing the mood of our weekly couch sex and basketball routine.
I may be fucked in the head but I’m not that fucked up. Nathan’s breathing gets harder as he slides to the end of the couch and pulls me harder and harder against him. I’m losing any ounce of desire I had when we started twenty minutes ago, and now I’m just ready for this encounter to be over. Thanks Kris, for ruining yet another thing in my life.
I know from experience that faking like he’s the best sex god in the world will have him coming in no time. So I groan and moan and gasp for breath and tell him he feels so good baby, just like the girls on his computer do. Thirty seconds later, he finishes and I get to fall back on the couch and snuggle against his chest. The snuggling part is my favorite part of sex with Nathan. I always call him my teddy bear; a snuggly warm body I can fall into after an exhausting day.
I rub my hands across his chest, my hands making an arc across his belly. I don’t mind that he’s overweight. After dating too many stick-thin guys, dating someone with some extra meat on him is a nice change. Susan’s words float into my mind as we lay together on the couch. Maybe I do want a muscled man. Maybe that’s why I feel so apathetic about being around Nathan lately. I spend too much time with meatheads at the gym, and now maybe I subconsciously want someone like that. Or maybe it isn’t like that at all, and maybe Susan’s big mouth put those ideas in my head.
I watch the hairs on Nathan’s chest flow around my fingers and I imagine what it would feel like to touch the smooth, chiseled surface of Kris’s chest. Nathan twists a lock of my hair around his finger, the smile on his face showing how oblivious he is to my internal thoughts.
“So, have you given any more thought to my question?” he asks.
I look up at him. “What question?”
He hesitates for a moment, and when he finally talks, his voice quivers with anxiety. “You know…my question about…moving in with me?”
“Oh, that,” I say. I’m fully aware that is a terrible answer, but my mind is fog and nerves and forbidden fantasies right now so I can’t possibly answer any other way. My eyebrows knit together as I struggle to think of an answer. “I don’t know.”
“If you think I’m moving too quickly, that’s okay. You could have your own room. I can clean out my man cave.”
“I’m not going to make you get rid of your man cave,” I say with a snort. He spent a few thousand dollars on that room. I’d rather sleep on the kitchen floor than ask him to give up his wall-to-wall collection of arcade games and vintage video game systems. But the fact that he even offers sends a chill down my spine. This relationship means a lot to him.
Probably more than it means to me.
“I just want you to be happy,” he says, adjusting on the couch so he can put his hands on my shoulders. First Cat, then Nathan. I’m not sure why everyone wants to have serious hands-on-shoulders talks with me lately. Nathan dons a serious face that somehow makes the dimples in his cheeks form in the same way they do when he smiles. “You’ve been stressed out and just…weird ever since that asshole bought the gym. It’s not healthy and I’m just trying to make things better for you.”
“I’m not sure moving in with you is going to fix my problem,” I say.
“Moving in and quitting your job will fix it.” His voice is absolute and it brings a chill over my skin. He isn’t just suggesting that I quit my job for fun—he’s dead serious.
“Listen,” I say, standing from the couch and pacing across the room. “I appreciate what you’re doing and what you’re offering me, but I can’t accept it. I love you, Kris but I can’t move in with you.”
The words are out of my mouth before I catch them. My body runs cold and my heart seizes in my chest but I keep pacing, hoping to God that Nathan didn’t hear my slip up.
“What the hell did you just say?” His voice thunders throughout the small living room, making his question sound more like a threat.
He definitely heard.
Mortification flows through my veins but I stay calm. I don’t throw my hand over my mouth and turn a deep shade of burgundy. I know better than that. Spinning on my heel, I lift my eyebrows and smile sweetly. “What do you mean?” I ask with all the carefree confidence of someone who’s done nothing wrong.
His hands tighten into fists, but his voice cracks when he speaks. “You called me Kris.”
“No, I didn’t,” I snap on impulse. I know it doesn’t sound convincing. And that’s because I’m a terrible liar. I shrug my shoulders and give him a helpless look as I reach for his arm. He pulls away. “If I said that, then it was just because you were talking about him and his name was fresh in my mind. It doesn’t mean anything.”
He wraps his arms around me now, pulling me close to his bare chest. He smells like sweat from our romp on the couch. “I’m going to believe you because it’s the only choice I have.”
I feel like telling him he has plenty of choices, and that staying with me despite what I say or do isn’t healthy for anyone, but I know that won’t go over well. So I continue to stand, my bare feet cold on the painted concrete floor, while he holds me tightly to him. My arms hang limply at my sides as he squeezes me, resting his chin on my head. It’s times like these were I can’t help but imagine what life would be like if things happened the way I wanted them to. If I spoke my mind instead of letting others speak for me, if I walked where I chose to walk instead of enduring everyone else’s walks as their doormat.
What do I want? It isn’t Kris. Because fuck him. But I know it isn’t Nathan either. I will have to tell him this and end things so he can look for his real soul mate. I’m only hurting both of us by staying in this relationship.
“I love you so much,” Nathan whispers into my ear. “I could never live without you.”
A knot twists in my stomach. Yeah, I need to tell him someday. But, not today.
My phone rings from the coffee table in the center of the room. A glance at the screen shows me it’s a number that isn’t saved in my phone. Nathan releases me so I can grab it, and I’m so grateful for the distraction from Nathan’s declarations of love, that I won’t even mind if it’s a bill collector or telemarketer.
“Hello?” I ask, thinking that on second thought, a call from a bill collector would actually suck.
“Am I speaking with Delaney?” a man’s voice asks. I mumble an acknowledgement into the receiver, hoping to god that the voice I hear on the other line is just shockingly similar to who I think it is.
“Hey, it’s Kris. Sorry for the late notice, but we’re having an employee’s only team building event at the Fun Max House on the north side of town tonight. Can you make it?”
My vision blurs and I use all of my brainpower to keep my face emotionless in front of Nathan. He would die if he knew I was talking to Kris. Hell, I could die from knowing that I’m talking to Kris.
“You there?” he says. “Again, sorry you weren’t informed earlier. It was a mistake on my part.”
“Um,” I say, smiling to Nathan and mouthing the words It’s my Mom with a roll of my eyes. “Sure, I can join you. It’s no problem.”
Chapter 9
A wave of anxiety makes me lightheaded as I walk past a woman struggling
to keep her five kids together in the busy parking lot of Fun Max House. I’ve never been here but I’ve seen the commercials enough times to know that Fun Max House is a giant warehouse with mini golf, laser tag, arcade games and tons of junk food. They even made it a place for adults to enjoy by serving alcohol in the special adults’ only section with pool tables and bowling.
I’m not sure there’s enough alcohol in the world to calm my nerves right now. As I walk through the parking lot, each step closer to the fun house makes me feel like it’s one step closer to my own demise. What if Kris lied about the team-building thing and what if he only invited me? The whole thing could be a lie to get me alone so he can…what? I shake my head. It’s not as if he would want to do anything to me. I’m not the killer here. I’m not the person who abandoned the other one.
But I’m on the verge of a freaking panic attack at the ridiculous idea that this is all a setup to get me alone. Maybe I should have brought my sister.
The scent of wine and cherry blossom body spray crushes into me as Susan appears out of nowhere and wraps her drunken arm around my shoulder. “Do we have the best boss ever, or what?” she says, nodding her head in an answer to her own question. She reaches into the pocket of her velour track pants and tosses golden coins into the air. “Open bar and as many tokens as we want.”
I steady my arm around her waist in an attempt to keep her drunk walk from pulling both of us to the ground. I guess I was wrong about the Kris only inviting me thing. Of course he wouldn’t do that. He probably tried not to invite me at all. Up ahead, Koby holds open the door for us. He’s the part time high school kid we hired to wipe down the machines and take out the trash every day.
“How many drinks has she had?” I ask him as he leads us inside the crowded warehouse full of lights and noises and people. And somewhere, Kris Payne.
“Not many,” he says, leading the way to the adult section in the back. “But I think she may have arrived a little tipsy,” he whispers into my ear.
Not Your Fault Page 4