‘Okay. I believe you. I trust you.’
‘You can always trust me.’
‘Make sure you drive safe. Don’t crash your car.’
I hadn’t thought about it in a long time. More than a year. The date came and went too without me even noticing. That’s what Kinsley did to me. Did to my life. She helped me to move on and helped me to forget.
I thought I had been doing the same for her.
I had the date almost pinpointed. I knew it was sometime this week. And it had to do with the scar. That’s why I always gave her some space, or if I lingered close by, I’d accept whatever lie she wanted to tell.
Standing alone in the kitchen, I looked around and realized Kinsley was right.
This was all fake.
The entire house and everything inside it.
Her tiny apartment didn’t have enough furniture for a house. My apartment was the cliché bachelor pad. So, when I bought the house, I wanted everything new. I wanted it all to be ours. I paid someone to come in and design everything. From the coffee mugs that all matched in the cabinet above the sink, all the way to the fancy notched bedposts on our bed. In my mind, I wanted to scoop Kinsley up off her feet and give her everything. My way of loving her… or maybe my way of stepping back into something I once had.
“Shit,” I said to myself.
Images flashed in my mind of her. The way she straddled me in bed. Driving her hips against me, wanting to kiss me, wanting me inside her. Catching me off guard, leaving me worried about her. Not that I didn’t want her. Not that I wouldn’t have taken her and left her begging for more. Not that I wouldn’t have gone all night…
I just didn’t know who I was to her.
Was she trying to fuck me? Or was she trying to fuck Brice?
The thought of his name angered me.
I made fists and slammed them to the counter.
Was she making the same move right now on Brice? In his bed? Her nude body glistening with sweet sweat. Her hair messy and dancing all around. His hands touching places that were once his, but now belonged to me. Maybe his fingertips gently touching her scar, and she’d be okay with it because he was tied to that scar with her.
Brice was the father of the baby they lost…
The notion collapsed on my chest like an elephant. I stepped back from the counter and felt my legs get weak.
Of course that’s what it was.
How could I have not seen it before?
They saw each other at that fucking soccer thing (goddamn you, Linda, and your messed up life) and started talking. Calling. Texting. Emailing. Something happened.
All that time trying to avoid the past, and all it took was one slip of it to destroy everything I had built for us. All I had built for her. I wanted Kinsley to see how beautiful she was. To know how much I loved her. To understand that the way I worked was for us.
But I did it all wrong.
She wanted me.
I wanted the house and the stuff that went along with it.
We were in the same city but on two different roads.
Yet when our paths crossed, and our eyes met, there was something.
“Fucking hell, there was… there is…,” I said out loud to nobody.
We were in love. I fucking loved Kinsley. She fucking loved me.
And if the missing piece was our pasts, then so be it.
An idea came to me and I charged right back to my office. I opened the door and rushed to my desk.
I sat in my chair and for the first time in longer than I could remember, I wasn’t there to do business. My heart pounded as I tried to hold back all the raw and tucked away emotion.
If this was all coming down to the past, fine. I knew a part of her secret because of her scar and because of Brice. Now it was my turn to confess something to her.
There was one sole purpose for me now.
To make sure I didn’t lose Kinsley for good.
21
Everything to Remember
Brice
I managed to sneak off the couch without waking Kinsley. It was morning. The sun came through the windows with a brightness that left me grumpy and tired. All told, I probably got four hours of sleep if I was lucky.
Even still, it was all worth it. The taste of Kinsley’s lips lingered on me and she was on my couch. Under that ugly yet comfortable blanket. Sleeping peacefully, her long hair messy all around her head. Different than the last time I was able to watch her sleep.
I stood there for a minute just staring, trying to figure it out. What brought us to this point in our lives. Living on the other side of forbidden and wrong, yet nothing about it felt that way. On the surface, yeah, this was a disaster. She was with another man. No matter what happened the night before or what was said, there was no excuse for it.
Not to mention my own personal situation that hung lower by the day. It was only a matter of time before June would get out of rehab and come looking for me. You’d think she would want to go see her son, right? Go hug Milo and make a promise to him that she would never do anything to hurt him. But that wasn’t going to happen.
I rubbed my jaw and snuck away from the couch. I gently placed some logs on the long dead fire and got it started again. My romantic vision of Kinsley waking up to a fire on a cold snowy morning was happening. Fresh snowflakes gently fell from the sky as I walked into the kitchen to make us some coffee.
My eyes kept going to the clock, knowing the inevitable moment was coming. The exact second that everything happened. Right now, years ago, Kinsley was being rushed into surgery. I stood there with her as she was getting ready to push, coming to the final stretch of a strenuous labor. But then the doctor checked her and started shouting orders. Kinsley complained of pain and the world spun faster than I was able to keep up with. They took Kinsley from me as they rushed to give me hospital attire so I could go into the room with her.
I shut my eyes and took a deep breath.
At least this year I’m not alone.
My plan for this day had always been the same.
Stay drunk and avoid it.
I poured two cups of coffee and carried them into the living room. I still knew how Kinsley liked her coffee, unless that had changed like her hair did.
I sat in the recliner, cupping the hot coffee mug, my stomach with no desire to drink or eat.
Looking at Kinsley gave me hope. She was here. I would fight for her. I would become anything she needed me to be. Even at the expense of my own heart.
When she started to wake up, I leaned forward and placed my coffee mug on the table. I crouched in front of her as she opened her eyes. She had a surprised look on her face for a second, the same face I had when I woke up and found her still nestled in my arms.
“Morning, Kins,” I whispered.
“Hey,” she said. “When did you get up?”
“A few minutes ago. Started a fire. Made coffee.”
Kinsley blinked a few times as she sat up. She yawned and stretched, her hoodie pulling up enough to show skin. She was just naturally beautiful in a way I never saw in another woman. Even with her messy hair and mismatched hoodie and pajama bottoms, she was still by far the most stunning woman I’d ever met in my life.
“Here,” I said and reached back for the cup of coffee.
“Thanks,” she said as she yawned again.
She stretched her neck and groaned.
Every little thing she did now was like a fucking cry of temptation for me. How far I would take this forbidden thing between us.
My lips ached to kiss her again. And I didn’t just want to kiss her lips or her neck. I wanted to kiss her everywhere. I wanted to find the spots that made her cry my name. I wanted to find the spots she was unsure of. I wanted to flirt with her new curves and hold tight to the old ones I called home.
But before all that…
She looked at me and sipped the coffee. “It’s good.”
“I still got it, huh?”
“Yeah,”
she said.
Behind me, the fire crackled.
A few seconds later, Kinsley’s eyes filled with tears. One slowly fell from her left eye and gently worked its way down her cheek.
I blinked faster to hold myself back for her.
I reached forward and wiped the tear away, but there was already another one there to take its place.
She sucked in a quick breath and swallowed hard.
That’s when I put my hand around the coffee cup and took it from her. Without a word, I moved forward and pulled her close to me again so she could cry.
This time, I cried with her.
I didn’t need a clock to know what time it was. It was ingrained in my soul. An unwanted tattoo that I could never cover up because it was on the inside. The ink on my arms was by choice. This feeling… was by fate.
This was the moment our daughter was brought into the world.
Only to be taken away from us.
The moment our lives changed.
There was nothing to be said in that moment. So we just held each other. And we cried.
Today was her birthday.
Our daughter, Lindsay, would have been seven.
We had never been there together. Not even after it all happened. We didn’t have a big thing for Lindsay. The situation was just too heavy for both of us to figure out. Leaving the hospital as just the two of us. All the time spent in the hospital, Kinsley in a bed, recovering from surgery, lost in a world so dark that I couldn’t help her. Then I had to deal with her father. He grieved in his own way, which was lashing out at me. Blaming me for everything. Not that I could fault him for doing so. He just never truly understood how much I loved his daughter.
But the comments started to stick with me. Made me wonder if I had done something wrong. If I hadn’t taken good enough care of her myself or that someone made things happen the way they did. The doctors explained to us several times what had happened and how sorry they were. Even weeks and months after, I would secretly call the doctor to hear it again. Because it didn’t make sense to me. It made no fucking sense. For nine months… it was good. Every appointment. Every ultrasound. Everything was fucking perfect until it just wasn’t anymore.
When I shut my eyes, I could still hear her voice. The first and last tiny little cry out into the world. Her hello and goodbye all wrapped up in one breath. The only one she would take in her beautiful life. She had no idea how important her life was.
The thing was… Kinsley never heard that little cry. And in some way, I wondered if I actually heard it, or just made it up to use it as a way to heal. Which didn’t work.
I stood next to Kinsley, my hand holding hers tightly.
There was a little white angel sticking up from the ground. A small stone mostly covered by overgrown grass. I had the urge to rip all the grass up and clean it up, but I was frozen. The pain. The grief. The intense love I had for Kinsley.
She put her head on my shoulder and took a shaky breath.
I reached across my body with my right hand and touched her face.
“I had to stop asking myself why,” Kinsley whispered. “And when I did, I lost myself.”
“That’s okay,” I whispered. “Everyone is allowed to do that, Kins.”
“It wasn’t okay. It wasn’t fair to you.”
“No, no, love,” I said. “You don’t even have to worry about me.”
“But I do. All the time. I couldn’t give you what you wanted.”
That’s when I finally broke my stare from the little gravestone and faced Kinsley.
“Is that what you think?”
“Sometimes, yes,” she whispered. “I screwed something up, right?”
“No, you didn’t. It’s just the way things happened.”
Kinsley sucked in a breath. “Hearing that was so hurtful. Everyone said that to me. Maybe that’s why I…”
“Why you what?”
“Why I then fell for someone who has everything figured out. From Step A to Step Z.”
I swallowed hard, not wanting to explode with anger.
I forced a quick nod.
“I’m sorry for bringing that up,” she said.
“Don’t be. It’s why we’re here together. For us. And for her…”
The word her was choked off. I made this stupid grunting sound and my eyes went wide. I couldn’t believe it was finally happening. Me starting to break down in front of Kinsley. I wanted to fight it off, but I couldn’t help it. There was this vision in my mind. Of me standing here alone, next year, telling Lindsay stories about her mother. While Kinsley was off somewhere with someone else.
“Oh, Brice,” Kinsley said.
She moved at me, wrapping her arms around me. She couldn’t exactly hold me in the way I could hold her, but it felt good. Feeling her against me. The smell of her hair. The smell of her skin. The smell of her clothes. The cold air making the tears feel like stinging ice on my face.
Kinsley kissed my cheek. She started to kiss me everywhere on my face. Just kiss after kiss after kiss.
Until I broke from her and turned, growling under my breath to clean myself up. I felt like a pussy. Showing emotion like that. I was supposed to be the strong one for Kinsley. She was the one who deserved to cry. It was her body that went through it all. The changes. The scar. Marks that would never go away because they were supposed to be a beautiful reminder of the journey she went on to motherhood.
“Brice…”
Her hands touched my back. She slid her hands up from the middle of my back to my shoulders. I slowly put my head back, gritting my teeth. I looked up to the cloudy sky and just a few stray snowflakes fell and hit me.
Kinsley dug her nails into me. Through my leather jacket and my shirt. Digging as hard as she could. The feeling it left me with was nothing good. Yet everything I needed.
I turned in a hurry to face her again. My eyes moving to the right to look at the little angel standing on the ground. Her big wings, hands together in prayer, eyes closed.
“Brice…”
The snow started to fall around us.
Kinsley touched my face. I watched a random snowflake flutter down and grab hold of an eyelash on her left eye. It hung until she blinked. The snowflake melted a few seconds later. Her eyes were beautifully dark and bright at the same time. The subtle roundness of her cheeks. The faint dimples on her cheeks that only got more visible the harder she laughed. A very small dimple at the center of her chin that was just a little to the right. Her face was clear as day, yet right where her shirt met her neck, there were tiny pockets of freckles. There were more and more on her shoulders. I used to lie next to her in bed and pretend to draw pictures, connecting the dots.
I held it together as I stood there with her.
“We should probably go now,” I whispered.
“Okay. I’m ready.”
“I don’t want to rush you.”
“You’re not. I’m glad we came here today. Together. Like this. We’ve never done it before.”
I backed away and offered my hand to Kinsley. We walked side by side, through the memories of people lost. Snow falling around us. Not speaking a word. Taking turns to each look back at the spot where our daughter had been laid to rest. A tiny, beautiful, perfect life. The life lost, but the meaning carrying on forever.
The drive back to my place was in complete silence. Kinsley sat with her feet up on the seat, hugging her knees, staring out the window. I kept my focus on the roads as the snow continued to fall, starting to stick to the cold road. My hands holding the wheel tightly with my gut churning around the emotions that refused to subside. Thinking about everything that happened after Kinsley and I lost each other. That day I came home and she was actually gone. In some ways I wasn’t surprised, even though it still killed me inside. I made sure to check up on her through her brother. Kyle was nice enough to let me know she was safe and okay. When it got to the point that I realized she was with family and no longer needed me, that’s when I gave up the
place we were living in together, packed up my clothes, our pictures, and I left.
But now she was next to me. I had her once again. No matter the situation surrounding us, it was us. Always us.
We got back to my place and when we stepped inside, I had this sinking feeling that Kinsley was going to leave. We had gotten through the worst of the moments that haunted us. She had shown up in the middle of the night because she needed me. And I needed her. We kept our promise to be there in the morning. And we went to see our daughter.
What was left?
“I lost her,” I said out of nowhere.
Kinsley took off her coat and looked right at me. “What?”
“I never got to hold her when she was alive,” I said. “I felt her kicking in your stomach. I heard her heartbeat. I saw her on the screen. And when she came out… I saw her for a second. Then I looked down at you. Realizing then that my heart would forever be torn into two. The woman I loved and the daughter I loved. When I looked back to see her again, she wasn’t there. It was all… gone…”
Kinsley touched the corner of her eyes. “Brice, I didn’t realize that. The way you felt. I’m so sorry for what you lost.”
“I don’t want you to leave. This right here isn’t because of today. It’s more than today. I can’t stomach the idea of you walking out that fucking door right now.”
“I don’t want to leave, Brice.”
I moved forward, realizing the threshold I was crossing.
I didn’t move calmly either.
I moved with force.
My hands touched her hips as my lips crashed to hers. Her hands slapped to my face as she tried to groan, but she couldn’t get a breath in because I wasn’t going to go easy on her right now.
Years of waiting.
I lifted her up and turned, sitting her on the back of the couch.
Kissing her faster. Kissing her harder.
Her hands cut to the inside of my leather jacket and ran up to my shoulders, pushing it off me. Then without hesitation, she clawed at my shirt like it was on fire, demanding it came off.
Somebody Else (Somebody, Nobody Duet Book 1) Page 24