by L. D. Davis
"Stupid," I muttered and hit the doorbell.
The door opened almost immediately, as if he were waiting just on the other side of the door.
He smiled down at me.
"Why didn't you use your key?" Kyle asked, as he stepped aside to let me in. "Or do you not have it anymore?"
I held up my spare key. "Right here. I wasn't sure if I should use it or not."
I looked around. There were boxes everywhere, some full, some in the process of being filled. Other packing supplies were visible.
"Are you moving?"
"Yeah," he said, standing beside me surveying the room. "Going back over the bridge. I bought a really great apartment not far from work. It has three bedrooms, two and a half baths, and a lot of space."
"Why do you need so much space?"
He shrugged and then looked at me. "Maybe someday I won't be by myself."
I looked away, feeling slightly flustered.
"Are you hungry?" He asked. "I can order something, or we can go out. I have stuff we can make."
Just do what you came here to do and leave.
"We can cook," I said, tossing my tote bag on the couch.
"That's a big ass bag," he said as I followed him into the kitchen.
"Yeah, I am usually carrying diapers and sippy cups and little annoying toys in it. I just didn't feel like changing over to a smaller bag."
He stood at the open refrigerator. "I have steaks, I have fish, hotdogs, chicken and some other unidentifiable items."
I slid in close to him and also looked at the contents of the fridge.
"Do you have ingredients for chicken parm?" I looked up at him and his eyes were on me.
"I think so," he said in a distracted tone. "Your hair..."
"You have a hair fetish," I said. "You may need to seek professional help for your addiction."
"It's not everyone's hair that I have a thing for, it's yours and yours only."
"Would you like me to give you a lock of it?"
I looked away from him and started taking items from the fridge and freezer. Together we prepared dinner, talking about minor things while we worked, nothing too heavy. Despite the rift between us, it felt comfortable moving about the kitchen with Kyle, felt like old times, maybe better than that. When he touched me, it didn't nearly incapacitate me like it used to, but it did feel warm and tingly.
When dinner was put on the table, Kyle poised a bottle of wine over my glass and looked at me for permission. I nodded my consent.
"Are you sure?" He asked in a teasing tone. "I know you feel vulnerable with me when you drink."
"Pour," I demanded.
When dinner was finished, we carried our glasses and our second bottle of wine to the living room. After small talk, I asked the question I've been wanting to ask.
"Kyle, what happened with you and Jessyca? I've heard bits and pieces, rumors mostly, but I haven't been able to confirm anything."
He sighed and sat back.
"It got ugly," he nodded. "Long story short, I broke up with her about a month after...after you left. Jess had some dirt on my dad's personal life and some of his illegal business practices, and she had been holding me down with it for a long time, but I just didn't care anymore. I had already lost the most important thing in my life," he brushed the back of his hand against my cheek, making me shiver.
"Jess's dirt definitely ruined the connection Sterling Corp had with her father's business, and we lost a lot of perspective clients. My dad went on a rampage, fired me, cut me off financially, and banned me from all things Sterling, but then he had no choice but to resign. I was hired back into the company by my more honest family members and other board members, and my parents got a divorce. Since my mom took practically everything, he's now the one banned, and on house arrest for a few years."
"Wow," I said, because I felt that I had to say something. I readjusted myself so that my face wasn't so visible, because I was feeling...slighted. Kyle kept me hanging by a thin thread for a long time because of Jessyca's dirt on his dad. While I understood the desire to protect one's family, I thought he should have immediately let me go, or immediately accepted the fallout from such dirt being dished. His decision to try to have both nearly ruined me, and maybe him, too.
"I looked for you after everything went down," he said softly. "I looked all over for you. Your family wouldn't tell me anything, Donya wouldn't tell me anything - except to fuck off. I hired someone to find you, but your trail ended in London. I didn't hear anything again until after you settled in Chicago. I figured you were with Luke, so I let you go. Again."
I gave a short nod, acknowledging I heard him, but didn't trust myself to speak.
"You hate me for what I've done to you," Kyle said.
"I hate myself more for not having enough of...whatever it is I needed to resist you in the first place," I said in a shaky voice. I stood up to get away from him. "I wish you never found me in the bar."
I stood in front of the window with a distant city view, trying to get myself together. I could sense him standing behind me, and then I felt his breath on my neck and his hands on my hips.
"If it wasn't there, it would have been somewhere else," he whispered in my ear.
For a moment, I froze, and for a moment, I was vulnerable. If he kissed my neck, I would surrender. If his hands moved to the front of my body and touched me in sensitive places, I would have given in. If he even wrapped his arms around me, I would have willingly become his slave. But it was only for a moment that I felt so impressionable. The window of opportunity closed, my vision cleared, and the fog in my brain dissipated. I realized my near folly and hastily stepped away from Kyle.
"I should go," I said and made a beeline for my giant bag.
"Emmy," Kyle was on my heels, and stopped me at the door. "I can't deal with losing you again. What do you want me to do?"
"I don't think..." I shook my head and stared at him.
"Nothing I can do? We just had a really nice night. I know you don't really mean that. You had a good time."
"I did, but...it's not enough."
"Kiss me."
"No," I said and started to move away, but he grabbed a hold of my shoulders. "Kiss me, and then if you still want to walk out of the door, I will let you."
"I can't," I whispered.
"Because you know how it will make you feel," he said and pressed me against the door. "You want to kiss me, though. Don't you?"
His lips drew so close to mine, I could feel his warm breath going into my mouth. It had a taste, a familiar taste, the taste of Kyle's mouth. I was centimeters away from tasting him again. I closed my mouth tight. His tongue flicked across my lips, but my lips were sealed.
"Open," he whispered and pressed his tongue on my lips, trying to pry them open. "Open your fucking mouth. You want to kiss me. Open."
He again tried to force his tongue through my two lips, but failed. I started to feel a little triumphant until his hand went up my skirt faster than I could react, and his fingers made contact with my sweet spot. I gasped and in that moment, his tongue was in my mouth. I wanted to ride his hand and suck on his tongue, but I forced his hand out of my skirt, and broke free of the kiss.
"You want me," he whispered in my ear.
I bit my lip to the point of pain, and with an extreme amount of effort, pushed him away from me.
"I didn't come here for this!" I cried out.
"Then what did you come here for?" He barked back. "Did you think that we could just pretend that nothing ever happened between us?" He closed the distance between us again. "I know you love me, Emmy."
He reached out to touch me, and I almost let him, but I shoved him away. I couldn't control how my body temperature rose in his presence, or how moist it made me when he touched me, but I could control almost everything else.
"You hurt me!" I screamed. "You put your hands on me and you hurt me."
"I was fucked up on drugs, Emmy. I'm sorry. I don't even remember
it."
"It's not just the drugs and the abuse, Kyle. You weren't strong enough to stand up to your dad and to Jessyca."
"But I eventually did!"
"Eventually was not soon enough, Kyle," I said bitterly. I reached into my bag and produced the bracelet. I held it out to him, but he stepped back.
"That was a gift. I don't want it back."
"You need to take it back," I said. "This is why I'm here. I've been holding onto it, in essence holding on to you. I have to let you go."
"You don't have to," he said, and I could see the hope in his face.
"What do you expect me to do, Kyle? Tear my son away from his father and move into your shiny new apartment with you? Tear him away from his family and everything he knows? Is that what you want? It probably is, Kyle, because you don't give two shits about the aftermath when you get what you want. You smooth talk your way into getting things your way and then when it gets too fucking hard you duck out or shove some meth up your nose. You beat me and you could have killed me and Lucas. That broke me. I will never be with you again." I shook the bracelet at him and shrieked "Take the fucking bracelet!"
In a stunned silence, Kyle reached out and gingerly took the bracelet.
"Thank you," I breathed.
I opened the door and stepped onto the landing.
"I am very sorry," Kyle said to my back.
I had nothing left to say and let the door close behind me, cutting myself off from Kyle forever.
Chapter Forty-Six
"So what's up? What do you have to tell me?" My mom asked.
We were sitting out by the lake at the family house in Louisiana. Lucas and I drove in the Friday after Labor Day for a short visit before returning home to Chicago. My mom had helped Grace get settled into her new place before returning back to Louisiana.
I took a deep breath and told her about what happened with Kyle. I wanted to come clean with her. I had a strange sense of obligation, like I'm supposed to tell her because she's my mom. I no longer needed her to kiss my boo boo and make it feel better and give me a cookie, but I needed her to know because it was a secret too deep to keep from your mom, I guess.
Her face didn't change during the entire story. I wondered if she was really hearing me. When I was done, we sat in silence for a full minute, staring at one another.
Abruptly she stood up.
"What are you doing?" I stood up with her.
"I gotta go," she said distractedly.
"Go where?"
"Kill that son of a bitch Kyle Sterling."
"No, no killing."
"He needs to be dead!"
"What is up with you and Donya and the death thing?"
She burst into tears and I again become the one to provide comfort. It took me awhile to convince her that she shouldn't go cut off Kyle's nut sac, and awhile longer to convince her not to tell my dad.
"I need a drink," she said. "You want a drink?"
"No, I don't want a drink."
She was walking back toward the house but stopped and looked at me with her hands on her hips.
"Whaddya mean you don't want a drink? What's wrong with you? Are you in AA?"
"No, I'm not in AA. I have to stay alert for Lucas."
"Oh. Right."
I watched my mom drink until she mellowed out and then I went to check on Lucas. He was in the yard with my dad playing catch. It made me think of Luke and a house. If we had a house with a yard, Luke could play catch with his son. Lucas still couldn't catch the ball, but he could throw like a pro.
I slipped away, back to the chairs by the lake and called Luke at work.
"We need a house, with a yard, so you can play catch with Lucas," I said when he answered.
"That's random."
"Sometimes I'm random."
"Sometimes?"
This was our first real conversation since I yelled at him when I was still in Belmar. We had spoken briefly when I told him that we were flying to Louisiana, and of course he spoke to Lucas daily.
"Are we still fighting?"
"Depends. Do I have to fight anyone for you?"
"You would fight for me?"
"To the death."
I smiled, even though in a roundabout way, Luke was also associating death with Kyle. Disturbing.
"I'm sorry I was being an ass," he said.
"I'm sorry for giving you a reason to be an ass."
"You don't have to apologize, Emmy. I've been trying to get you to open up to me for months and I blew it the first time that you said something I didn't like."
"Well, I didn't exactly make you feel secure in our relationship."
"If I'm insecure, it's my own fault. I trust you, one hundred percent. Listen, I have to go. I have a client waiting for me. I'll call you tonight."
"Okay. I love you," I said and held my breath.
"I love you, too, babe."
My heart flopped around happily in my chest.
Later that night, after Lucas was already in bed, Luke called. I told him about the bar, how I had the remains leveled and then cleaned up and put the property up for sale.
"You did all of that in a week?"
"The right amount of money can almost move mountains in a week."
"What's the rush? I thought you were going to think about it for a while."
"I had to let it go in order to move forward. My life isn't in Jersey anymore. My life is in Chicago."
"You sound sad about it."
"It's a little sad," I admitted. "But I don't fit there anymore, not even with my friends and my family. I felt like an outsider in Belmar. Truth be told, I feel like an outsider almost anywhere." I didn't mean to get so deep, the words just tumbled out, and now I had a lump in my throat. Sometimes I can be so lame.
"You're crazy. Everyone loves you. My mom loves you like a daughter and my sisters love you like a sister. Your own family..." He hesitated, because he knew he couldn't begin to fudge that one. Emmet and I had grown close since his move to Chicago, but my other siblings remained emotionally and personally distant. Even my relationship with my father wasn't like it was when I was a kid. I don't even need to elaborate on my mother.
"I have you and I have Lucas," I said. "But...I don't know. It's not that you two aren't enough..."
"We're not, but I understand. You need to talk to your mom. Talk to her, not at her. Speak, don't yell."
"Blah," I said.
The next morning I pulled my mom outside again. I was so calm and cool when I told her about Kyle, but when I started telling her about how I felt about her and our relationship, I felt my blood boiling beneath my layers of skin. When I was done with my spiel (after many interruptions), she sighed and slumped back in her seat.
"You're my favorite, you know," she said.
"Let's not tell lies, mother."
"I'm not lying. You're everything I wished I could have been when I was young."
"A weak, cheating, man-stealing, heart-breaking, under achieving, single mom?"
"No. A strong, independent, beautiful, resourceful, successful, wonderful mother."
"What are you talking about, mom? You got everything you've ever wanted, right? A husband, children, a nice home, and a great figure."
"Those are all very nice things," she said with a small shrug. "But I sometimes wish that I would have waited a little while before doing all of that. Long before Lucas was even a thought, you had traveled the world, climbed mountains, swam in distant seas, had a successful career, and experienced love and sex in ways a woman who gets married at nineteen will never experience."
Yuck!
"I thought you were happy," I said, suddenly concerned she was going to go through a mid-life crisis twenty years too late and divorce my dad and date someone a little older than Lucas.
"I am happy. I'm very happy, but that doesn't mean I don't have my regrets."
"If I'm everything you wish you were, then why do you hassle me so much? I have daydreams about shoving you off of cliffs or
drowning you in gelatin."
Her eyes turned to the lake. The slight wrinkle in her forehead told me she was trying to find the right words to use. At least she was thinking before speaking.
"Sometimes I think you're not being the best you can be," she started, turning her attention back to me. "Sometimes it seems like you want to blend in with everyone else and be ordinary, but you're not ordinary. You stand out in a crowd, you always have. It's not that you don't fit, honey. You're just too dumb sometimes to see that you're the center piece, and the rest of us are trying to fit around you.
"So, maybe I do hassle you sometimes. Some of it is typical mom stuff, you'll understand when Lucas is older, but sometimes I know you are better than the things you sometimes do. And I'm just a little crazy, so I suppose I'll always annoy the hell outta ya."
Chapter Forty-Seven
"Guess what, Lucas?" I cooed, as we walked down the hallway to our apartment. "We're home!"
I slipped the key in and opened the door. Lucas ran in ahead of me while I struggled with our luggage.
"Daddy!" I heard him screech.
"Hey, buddy! I'm so surprised to see you!" Luke exclaimed and I heard the "Muah" of a kiss being planted somewhere on our son. A second later, Luke appeared in the hallway, carrying Lucas. They were both grinning ear to ear.
"Surprise," I said, trying to drag in a suitcase.
"I am surprised. I wasn't expecting you guys for a few more days." He stepped over a couple of bags to give me a quick kiss on the lips.
"We were homesick, weren't we Lucas?"
"Homethicks," he agreed.
Lucas and I piled into the rental we had picked up in Jersey, and started back to Chicago a few days after my talk with my mom. I really was homesick, missing the sounds and sights of Chicago, the craziness of Lorraine's house during family functions, and of course Grace's apple pie.
And I missed Luke. Since our "make-up" phone call, I felt like a teenager again, sending love notes during the work day, but spending hours on the phone at night. I had a perpetual smile on my face and when we weren't talking, I often found myself recalling our latest conversations and reawakening the butterflies in my stomach.