I’m not going to ask you to come home because I don’t know where home is right now, Kinsley. All we’ve done for each other is to create a sense of normal and perfect. To you it’s all fake, but the only thing that ever needed to be real for me was you. There are no more secrets between us. No more hidden parts of the past. That makes us completely free of everything we’ve feared about the other.
All these words I want to say to you. But I cannot sleep tonight without having the chance of you reading these words.
Kinsley, I love you with every beat of my heart. I understand what it feels like to love two people at once. I’ll always love the one I lost, but the love for you is a different kind of love.
Ben
I stood at the door and waited for the right moment to leave. The problem was that there was no right moment. I could wake Brice up and tell him why I was leaving. Or I could just sneak out and talk to him later. In the balance hung two hearts. The first man I ever truly loved. And the man who gave me a sense of home when I needed it the most.
I never expected Ben to write me a letter. Or talk about the past. I remembered it very clearly the first time we were together. After the first few dates. When he worked so hard to make them special. Dressing up nice. Opening the car door for me. Leaving flowers on the passenger seat of his car. Then came that moment when I exposed myself to him. The way his hands touched me. His lips kissing… going to the scar I could never hide.
There had been a look in his eyes. That look meant he knew. But I lied to him anyway. And he bought the lie. Not because he was naive, but because he cared. In some strange way that was maybe the most romantic thing he’d ever done. At the same time, it was the dumbest because it set us on a path of making lying acceptable.
Never asking about our pasts. Ben keeping us both looking forward with all of his planning. Every day was planned out so much. When things didn’t go the way he wanted, he’d get pissed off. The only way he could calm himself was to buy me something. Whether it was giving me a credit card to order food or telling me to buy something from my favorite store, that was how he settled himself.
I owed it to him to figure it all out.
Brice knew that there was no clean and easy break here.
Maybe my name wasn’t on the house with Ben, but it was still my house. Maybe most of the stuff inside of it was fake and had been there since I moved in, but it was still my fucking house. My feelings mattered. My thoughts mattered. My time spent with Ben mattered. Not to mention imagining him sitting there at his desk in the middle of the night writing to me while he knew I was with Brice…
The guilt and the heartache got the best of me as I slowly opened the front door to the cabin. The cold air smacked me in the face. January was cruel, and so was the giant mess I had put myself into. My mind tried to think of a hundred excuses, so the blame could be shifted to both Ben and Brice.
But this was my fault.
I lost myself and left Brice. I demanded that he stayed away. He foolishly listened to me. I believed I’d ruined his life. My focus turned to veterinarian school and then it turned to Ben. The web just grew and grew.
Tears filled my eyes, but it was so cold it hurt to cry.
I got into my SUV and started it, shivering, waiting for the heat to kick in.
My eyes studied the cabin.
That’s what we always wanted together. A place like this to hide. That was the plan for us. Brice was just going with the flow in life, which he always did. Never planning a thing. His only plan was to wake up and love me until it was time to sleep again. I was going to work with animals. He was going to find something to do. We were going to buy a house and then buy a cabin in the woods for getaways. Even after I became pregnant, the plan was the same. The vision just shifted. Only we’d have a baby to take care of. A daughter to raise. For Brice, it was the same as always, only with two people to love.
He would have been an amazing father.
He should have been an amazing father.
I swallowed hard as I started to back away from the cabin.
Nothing for us had ever been easy.
All we knew was loss.
I just hoped Brice could handle losing me one more time.
23
One Too Many
Brice
I woke up alone and wondered if it was all just a dream. But as I pulled the blanket tighter to my nose, I smelled her. I smelled Kinsley. She was everywhere in my place now. My eyes went to the tea mug from the night before. Just sitting there, ice cold for sure, the tea bag still resting in the water.
I sat up and stretched for a second, wondering where Kinsley was.
The floors were damn cold, and I groaned, wanting to find her and take her to bed. I did not intend on sleeping on the couch the night before, but she wanted to watch the fire burn. And anything she wanted, I wanted.
Our chance to finally take our love for good was here. That didn’t mean it was going to be easy though. She had a lot to deal with. Decisions to make. Conversations to have. Shit, she had a heart to break.
Yet somewhere nagging in the back of my mind I wondered which heart was going to get broken.
Kinsley was nowhere to be found. Stupid me, I checked out front last only to find her SUV gone.
She was at work.
I made coffee that didn’t taste all that great and ended up digging through a few old pictures. The sight of my bed made my heart race. The sheets were messy from us. There was a smell of sleep and sex that lingered that I never wanted to go away. She would never truly understand what touching her meant to me. Or the things she did to me.
With my back against the bed as I sat on the floor, I flipped through a bunch of pictures of our old house. We had this dream of someday buying the place. The woman that owned it was in her seventies and hinted to us a few times about selling. We thought if we bought the place we could maybe get the land where the horses were. That’s all I wanted for Kinsley. To let her have a big piece of land to take care of horses. Her mother once rode horses when she was very young. But an accident broke her leg or something and she was never able to ride again. When she died, Kinsley found boxes of her mother’s stuff about horses. That’s what started the love of horses and animals for Kinsley. It was me who prevented her from actually chasing down her dreams though. That’s why her father hated me the way he did. Which I couldn’t blame him for.
I found a picture of Kinsley standing in really short shorts with a cowboy hat on, looking down. She had one leg up on a fence and a piece of straw in her mouth. The sexiest picture of her and I remembered taking it like it was yesterday. That hat and those shorts didn’t stay on very long after the picture was taken.
Finally, I put the pictures away.
I couldn’t live in the past. We knew the past. We had been through it. The only thing that mattered now was today and tomorrow. I never lived my life worrying about tomorrow, but an uneasy feeling settled upon me. Because tomorrow… without Kinsley in it?
I didn’t want to think about it.
I couldn’t think about it.
That kind of thing would send me spiraling.
I decided to put the pictures away for good, skip the crappy coffee, and call April to see if I could treat her and Milo to some breakfast.
An hour later I rang the doorbell and Milo tore open the door.
“Brice!” he cried out as though he hadn’t seen me in a month.
His hair was messy from sleep and he was still in his pajamas. Which was normal for him. He had afternoon kindergarten so he spent his mornings playing before eating lunch and going to school for a few hours.
“I never eat this late,” April said as I put the bags of food on the counter.
It was almost eleven already.
The day was cruising right by.
My mind was completely distracted by thinking about Kinsley.
“Live a little,” I said.
“Milo, you fill up,” April said.
“Can I
watch TV?”
“Yeah, sure,” she said.
I got Milo a plate of food and took it to the living room. He plopped down on the floor and was really excited to eat and watch TV at the same time. For a second I wished I had his innocence.
“Enjoy, buddy,” I said.
I kissed the top of his head.
It hurt my heart. Really badly.
I stood and went back to the kitchen.
April was picking at a plate of scrambled eggs.
“Don’t tell me you’re picking out the bacon,” I said. “You realize that’s what gives the eggs the flavor, right?”
“I know how to eat,” April said. “I just don’t have much of an appetite.”
“Not feeling well?”
She shrugged her shoulders.
She turned her back to me and I rolled my eyes.
Getting her to talk was like pulling teeth. And it wasn’t my job to get her to talk. Yet in some ways… it was.
“You know where I stand, April,” I said. “I’m here to help. Anything you or Milo need. I actually have to go to work a little early, but I’d like to take him to school. If that’s okay with you.”
“That’s fine,” she said. “I have a full day anyway. So that actually helps me.”
“Good,” I said. “Now what else is wrong?”
April slowly turned. “I really haven’t been paying attention to the calendar, Brice.”
“Okay.”
“I mean, the holidays are busy. But with a kid…”
“It’s crazy,” I said. “And he just went back to school after a long break. What’s the problem? Are you okay financially?”
“I’m not asking you for money.”
“I didn’t say you were. But if you ever need…”
“I’m okay,” April said. “It’s about June.”
“Oh,” I said, my heart sinking a little.
“I talked to her last night. She sounds good.”
“That’s good,” I said. “That’s what she went there for. To get help. To get her head straight. To learn how to fight off her demons and keep herself clean.”
“Yeah, well, she sounds good and she’s getting out soon.”
I froze.
I swallowed hard.
April and I stared at each other with the same look in our eyes.
She nodded. “Yeah, Brice. She’s going to get out. And I don’t know what the hell she’s going to do.”
“Well, what do you want her to do, April?”
“I don’t know. Part of me wants her to live here and learn how to take care of herself and Milo. Part of me… wishes she would never come around…”
“It’s okay to think that,” I said. “She’s a mess. Always has been.”
“But at least she has you, Brice,” April said. “That’s the only hope I have. She has you. I have Milo. And we’ll make it all work.”
I looked down at my food.
We’ll make it work.
I felt my chest collapsing in a little.
I had made too many promises to too many people.
The only thing that I cared about working… was my future with Kinsley.
I dropped Milo off and sat there for too long watching him walk into the elementary school. The car behind me beeped its horn but I didn’t give a shit. I waited until the building had swallowed him up before leaving.
There was still time before I was supposed to be at the bar, but I couldn’t stand the idea of going back to my place and pacing the floors alone, desperate to catch the smell of Kinsley’s sweet skin. For a second I thought about finding her veterinarian practice, but I didn’t want to stir up more trouble for her. Bad enough I had met her friend Linda twice. But that was her doing. It made me wonder what she told Linda about me. If we were just friends. Or if she told Linda the truth.
When I got to the bar it was surprisingly busy.
Lucky took one look at me and offered a rare smile. “You read my mind.”
“Did I now?” I asked.
“Look at this place. Get to work.”
“I think I’ll order a beer and get lunch first,” I said.
Lucky laughed. “You trust me cooking you something to eat?”
“Good point. I’ll get to work.”
Staying busy meant killing time. I had no idea where the business came from, but it was packed all damn day. Maybe because it was the first really clear day in weeks. Cold as anything, sure, but not a cloud in the sky, which meant not a chance of snow.
When things started to calm down a little, leaving a handful of regulars at the bar and two tables with people, I finally took a break and took a breath. I threw a towel over my shoulder and stretched my head back. Everything settled on me at once. I wished I was in bed with Kinsley. Besides that, I needed to talk to her about June. She had been asking questions, but she needed to know the entire story. She needed the truth. I really never thought that June would get into rehab and stick it out. So that meant I had no idea what to expect from her when she got out.
“Hey, stop sleeping on the job.”
I looked down at Lucky. “Leave me alone, old man.”
“Yeah, yeah. I’ll take a baseball bat to your knees if you call me that again.”
“Is that how you settle up unpaid bar tabs?”
“Believe me, nobody leaves without paying. Ever.”
I laughed.
He gave a nod to the bar where a plate of food and a beer waited.
“Ah, Lucky, does this mean you love me?” I asked.
“Why do you have to ruin everything?” he growled at me.
“Because of that look on your face,” I said. I patted his shoulder. “Thanks for the food.”
“Eat and get back to work,” Lucky said.
The burger was good, but the beer was better.
As I sat there, I wondered what I was supposed to do about Kinsley. I wanted to text her. I wanted to call her. I wanted to check on her day and see how she was doing. Even just to hear her voice for a second. I wasn’t sure if I could do that without causing a bigger issue. That made me grit my teeth. It pissed me off. I wanted to be beyond that bullshit. But I couldn’t push her into a decision.
All I could do was wait.
And wait I did.
Only I wouldn’t have to wait much longer…
My phone buzzed with a text message from Kinsley about an hour later.
When I saw her name on my screen, I smiled like a damn fool. I walked to the register and opened the message.
Brice. Sorry I left this morning. I’m home now. My home. I have to be here right now. Okay?
I read the message a few times before leaving the bar and walking right out the front door. A few of the regulars threw comments at me that I ignored.
‘Oh, check it out… he’s finally quitting!’
‘Must have gotten the call that he’s going to the moon or something…’
‘His mother is checking up to make sure he had his milk today.’
Outside, I didn’t hesitate for a second as I called Kinsley.
I wasn’t doing this through text messaging.
I wasn’t sure if she was going to answer… but she did.
“Brice…”
“What are you talking about?” I asked.
“It’s hard to explain.”
“Try me, Kins. You owe me that.”
“What we did… I mean, you realize on the surface it was wrong.”
“Wrong?”
“I’m with someone else, Brice.”
“Someone you don’t want to be with.”
She was silent for a second.
That hurt.
“I never said anything,” she said. “I don’t regret what we did. But I left in the middle of the night…”
“To come to me,” I said. “Because that’s where you feel safe.”
“I never told him anything about myself. My past. About us.”
“So now you want to do that?”
“I do
n’t know, Brice. Okay? I don’t know. I already told you I can’t just pack a bag and leave.”
“Because you’re too involved,” I said. “The building. The business. Sure. What about your heart? That’s all that matters. The rest is just money and stuff.”
“I know that, Brice. Believe me. That stuff doesn’t matter to me the way you think it does.”
“So then what are you saying to me, Kins?”
“I’m saying I don’t know what I’m going to do right now. I’m sorry.”
I gritted my teeth. I promised her I would love her no matter what she decided.
“You can’t think for a second that I don’t love you, Brice.”
“I would never doubt that,” I said. “I just had this fantasy of you coming back to me tonight. So I could hear about your day. So I could take care of you.”
“Please… Brice…”
“Just tell me what you’re thinking, Kins.”
“There’s so much more to us than I know.”
“Us?”
“Me and… Ben.”
His name was like a dagger to my chest.
“We should have never let our pasts go ignored,” Kinsley said. “That’s what I’m trying to say to you. I owe it to him to tell him everything. And to hear what he has to say to me. That’s what I need to do right now. Before anything else happens. Before anyone else gets hurt.”
I swallowed down a deadly cocktail of jealousy, anger, and guilt. It was like nails boiling in my gut.
“I understand,” I managed to say, holding it together.
“Brice…”
“Kins, go do your thing,” I said. “I get it. I showed up out of nowhere and fucked up your life.”
“You didn’t fuck anything up,” Kinsley said. “You… reminded me of who I am. Of who we were. And how to face everything that happened.”
“I’ll never stop loving you,” I said. “I’ll always be the one standing when you turn around to look for someone.”
“Brice, I’m not going anywhere,” she said. “I promise you. I knew your heart would be hoping I’d be back tonight. And my heart wants the same.”
“I understand,” I said. “Too many hearts right now, Kins.”
Somebody Else (Somebody, Nobody Duet Book 1) Page 27