by L. D. Davis
I gave her a warning look and asked again “Why are you here, Em?”
She had turned back to the stove, but her shoulders slumped. “I need you to be happy, Kyle,” she said softly.
I stared at her back, surprised. I wanted to see her face, to see what she was feeling. Three years ago I would have walked up behind her, wrapped my arms around her waist, and nuzzled her neck before making her turn to face me. I could practically still taste her skin on my tongue.
“You came all the way from Chicago to tell me you need me to be happy?” I asked sourly. “You couldn’t write that in a Hallmark card and mail it?”
“Hallmark doesn’t sell ‘Sorry the Second Most Important Man in Your Life Is a Dumbass’ cards,” she snapped.
“Finally, we know where I rank,” I retorted.
She looked over her shoulder at me, and I saw how hurt her eyes were. “Don’t do that,” she whispered. “You know what you meant to me, and if my presence is any indication of what you still mean to me…”
“You wouldn’t even give me an opportunity to explain anything to you,” I yelled, surprising even myself. “You heard what you wanted to hear, gave me back the damn bracelet and left.”
“You had a whole year to explain,” she yelled back and then she closed her eyes for a moment and took a deep breath. “I didn’t come here to argue about us—or what used to be us. We weren’t meant to be, but you and Lily…”
“What do you know?” I snapped. “Lily spends a few hours with you and now you’re an authority on our relationship? You think you can just walk in here and say ‘Kyle, I want you to be happy’ and that fixes everything? It doesn’t fix everything!”
She looked at me patiently. “No, saying that doesn’t fix everything, but it can be a start.”
“Go home. Go back to your husband,” I spat and turned to walk away from her. I made it only a few steps before I felt the spatula smack me on the back of the head. I spun around. Emmy stood at the stove, looking angry as hell, the green in her eyes flashing.
I stormed over to her. Ignoring her squeals of protest, I picked her up and threw her over my shoulder. I carried her across the living room to the foyer. I opened the door and dropped her on her ass in the hallway.
“Hey!” she yelled, but I had slammed the door before she could finish the word.
I started back towards the kitchen to turn off her burning pancakes, but I forgot to lock the door. Emmy was through the door and literally on my back in a matter of seconds. I flipped her off of me and onto the couch and kept moving to the kitchen. I turned off the burner, but when I turned around Emmy was standing in the middle of the kitchen, ready to pounce. Her hair was a little wild and her shirt was hiked up over her belly button. When she advanced, I moved away from the stove to avoid burns, but otherwise held my ground.
When she wrapped her arms around my waist and fiercely hugged me, I was too stunned to move at first. I was even further stunned to feel her crying against my chest.
“I forgive you, Kyle,” she said through her tears. “Now you need to forgive yourself.”
Before I understood what I was doing, I wrapped my arms around her and held her tightly. I couldn’t help the few tears that squeezed out of my eyes.
Emmy
Kyle sat on the couch with his legs stretched out and his feet on the coffee table. I sat beside him, facing him with my legs drawn up in front of me. His arm was across the back of the couch and his fingers absently wove through my hair, and his free hand was linked with one of mine.
“Why did you make Larkin give you the pictures?” I asked him quietly.
“I couldn’t just go on with my happy ending as if I had not done something terribly wrong,” he said, watching his fingers in my hair. “I couldn’t pretend that I had not become a monster on more than one occasion and physically hurt you on more than one occasion.”
“I never meant for you to know exactly what you did that night, Kyle,” I said sadly. “I didn’t want you to live with that.”
“You had to live with it,” he said, looking me in the eyes. “Probably still live with it on some level.”
I looked away. “Sometimes I dream about it,” I admitted. “But I can’t help that no more than you can help your dreams. Why did you keep me in the dark about Sterling Corp and the jobs you were trying to save?” I asked, changing the topic. “You lead me to believe that you really wanted Jess on some level, and you were trying to cover your dad’s ass. Why didn’t you tell me you were on a mission to save thousands of employees’ jobs?”
“That part of my life was complicated and stressful, especially with Walter and Jess thrown into the middle of it all. When I was with you, I didn’t want to live in that part of my life. I wanted to keep that part of my life away from us as much as possible. I just wanted my time with you to be my time with you, and not all of the other bullshit that went on in my life at that time. Em, when I was with you, I was able to forget about all of that. I felt at peace when I was with you. I felt like a different man—a better man. I felt like I could be something more than I was, something more than I was set up to be. I didn’t want to tarnish our time together with my reality.”
I looked away from him and looked at our interlaced hands. I felt extremely bad that I had been that place of peace for him, but all of my whining and complaining aided in its ruin. The fact of the matter was that it was impossible to keep Kyle’s ‘reality’ out of our little bubble for very long, but before the bubble burst, I could have made him happier.
“It’s not your fault,” Kyle said softly, sensing how I was feeling. “I should have told you all of that and more. I should have told you about my brother, my sister, and all of the bullshit I endured growing up in that house, but I just wanted to pretend none of it happened. I just wanted to focus on us and our future once everything was settled, but I fucked that up. I fucked everything up, Em. You deserved better than what I gave you.”
I still could not meet his eyes. I continued to stare at our hands, a sight I’d never thought I’d see again.
“I wasn’t enough for you,” I whispered.
Kyle started to object, but I finally looked into his startled face and repeated my words.
“I wasn’t enough for you. If anything, I made matters worse, gave you something else to worry about. If I was enough to keep you grounded and somewhat happy, you wouldn’t have felt the need for the drugs.”
“I turned to the drugs because I’m a drug addict, Emmy,” Kyle said firmly. His hand that was in my hair was now on my cheek. “Don’t blame yourself for my stupid actions.”
“I pushed you too hard,” I said. “I made things harder than they needed to be. I knew you were struggling with some things, I wasn’t sure about everything at the time, but I knew that you were having a hard time and I pushed anyway.”
Kyle turned around to face me. He released my hand and put both hands on my face, forcing me to look into his sad, chocolate eyes.
“None of that shit was your fault, Emmy,” he said firmly. “None of it. I found you in the bar that night. I pushed you into our fucked up relationship. I held you prisoner there. You weren’t the cause of my problems and I should have been straight with you from the beginning. I chose to take drugs. I broke your wrist and I broke you. I am a terrible, dark, fucked up person. You are and always have been perfect to me, Emmy. Please don’t blame yourself.”
His thumbs caressed away my tears. Through Kyle’s eyes and his fingers and his words, I felt an overwhelming sense of love…and regret. I wrapped my arms around his neck and he pulled me into a tight embrace. It was a few minutes later before we released one another and settled back down on the couch. Kyle’s eyes were pink and his cheeks were just as tear stained as mine.
“Kyle,” I started and then paused for a moment, unsure how to proceed. “You’re going to break Lily if you leave her again.”
“I’ll break her if I stay,” he said flatly, his brow furrowed. “I don’t trust myself not t
o hurt her like I did you.”
“Kyle, those were different circumstances. You were under a great deal of stress.”
“Who is to say I won’t find myself under a great deal of stress again? What will stop me from calling up my supplier?”
“You’ve been clean since September, and before that you were clean for almost two years. I have no doubt in my mind that you can stay clean. You’re not using now and you’re under a great deal of stress.”
“Yes, and the craving is strong, Emmy,” he sighed. “After I saw those pictures and the video of you…I still don’t know how I managed to stop myself from getting high.”
“It’s Lily,” I said, squeezing his hand. “I was just…I just made you feel better while we were in our bubble, but Lily isn’t in a bubble, is she?”
He hesitated a moment before answering. “No, she isn’t.”
“Lily is your reality,” I said softly. “She has encompassed all aspects of your life.”
Unlike me, I thought sadly.
“I don’t want to hurt her or the baby,” he whispered, looking terrified.
“You won’t,” I promised. “You have to forgive yourself for what you did to me.”
“I could have killed you or Lucas,” he said.
“But you didn’t. Kyle, Lucas is a semi-normal two year old. He’s hyper and he drives me up a wall, but he’s not emotionally or physically damaged from anything that you did.”
“I’ve scarred you,” he said in a choked voice that made my heart clench. He reached up and ran a finger over the little scar in my hairline, a scar that was a reminder of that New Year’s morning when Kyle lost his mind.
“I’m not going to bullshit you and tell you that I don’t have physical and emotional scars, Kyle,” I said and then took his hand into mine. “They are a part of me and who I am today, but I’m not broken, okay? I’m happy with my life and I’m able to live with what happened in my past. I made my own mistakes, too. As much as you want to take the full blame for everything that happened between us, you just can’t. No matter what you say, I will always know that some of that was my fault, and I will always have to live with what I did to Luke. But that’s just life, Kyle. I keep on moving forward and I don’t let the past drag me down. You’re letting the past drag you down, except you’re taking Lily and your baby with you.”
He stared at me wide eyed. “I love her so much it fucking hurts,” he said, his voice raspy. “I never thought I could love anyone again after you, but I do, and I love her more than…” He closed his mouth and looked away from me.
“You love her more than you’ve ever loved me,” I confirmed.
He put his head in his other hand.
“It’s alright,” I said softly and rubbed his hand.
“She’s the complete opposite of anyone I’ve ever wanted before,” he said, staring at the floor now. “It doesn’t even make sense.”
“It doesn’t have to make sense.”
“I keep trying to let her go and can’t.”
“Then you shouldn’t,” I said. “She really loves you, Kyle, and she’s really hurting now.”
“I don’t know why I’m surprised that she came to you,” he smiled faintly. “She thinks she’s living in your shadow. I haven’t done a good job convincing her that you and she are on different planes. No offense.”
“No offense taken,” I smiled. “She asked me if I knew all of the facts back then if I would have taken you back.”
He looked at me curiously. “What did you say?”
“I said no.”
He looked a little taken aback my answer.
“The fact is if I was right for you, there wouldn’t have been any secrets between us,” I said quietly. “If I was the one you were meant to be with…well…things would have been different, but I’m not the one you were meant to be with. Lily is. She’s healed you in ways I was never able to. In fact, I never healed you. I simply drugged you.”
Kyle looked away for a moment with a loud sigh. When he looked back at me, his eyes were again teary.
“I will always love you, Emmy,” he said gently. “I will always feel a connection with you that I will never have with anyone else. You will always be a part of me. No one will ever overshadow the strong emotions I have for you.”
I leaned forward and gently and chastely pressed my lips against his.
“Thank you,” I murmured against his lips. “I will always love you, too.”
Kyle
“She should have been here by now,” I said, pacing the living room.
Emmy looked at her watch and frowned. “I agree.”
I had wanted to give Lily the time she needed to think without having any of my ‘goons’ on her, but it had been too long now. I pulled my phone out and dialed Harry.
“Harry, where is the Cadillac? She should have been back here by now.”
“It’s parked at the bar. She’s been there for about three hours now. I figured she’s probably working, like she usually does.”
“Thanks,” I said and ended the call. Before I could do anything else, my phone rang.
“Dude,” Mayson said when I answered. “I know you’re across the pond, but I have to tell ya…I’m going to fire your girlfriend. She did a no-call no-show. Can you please remind her who got her this job and who stuck up for her when you guys wanted to publicize your love? She’s not answering her phone.”
“I’m actually at home. Lily doesn’t have her phone,” I said patiently. “But it’s not like her to not even call you. She’s at the bar; she could have called you from there.”
“You sound uneasy, Sterling, which is making me uneasy. Is everything okay?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted, running a hand through my hair. “Mayson, I have to go.”
I ended the call. Emmy looked at me with a quirked eyebrow. “You and Mayson are chummy now?”
“A little bit,” I admitted. “Something doesn’t feel right.”
I punched in another number and waited as the phone rang and rang. If Lily was at the bar, she wasn’t picking up. I tried twice more before calling Marco.
“Have you seen Lily?” I asked him.
“No,” he said carefully. “Why?”
“Are you at the bar?”
“No, I’m at my real job, Sterling,” he snapped. “In fact I’m in the middle of a meeting. What the hell is going on?”
“Lily’s been at the bar for a few hours but she isn’t answering the phone there and she doesn’t have her own phone.”
“Shit,” he muttered and I heard a muffled brief conversation and a door close. “I’ve told her repeatedly not to go there alone. There’s been some douche bag driving by and even standing in the parking lot a couple of times.”
Alarms went off in my head. I stopped pacing and just stared straight ahead at nothing. Emmy sensed that something was very wrong and rushed over to me and put her hand on my back as she watched my face.
“What does this douche bag look like?” I asked Marco.
“Looks like an asshole pumped up on steroids. He always drives away before I can get out there. One of the girls that used to work at the other bar said that it’s some guy that used to work there. She didn’t seem too concerned about it, but now I feel like I should have done something more.”
“Did you tell Lily about him?”
“I told her there’s been a man hanging around. Lily said maybe he wants a job. She didn’t seem too concerned and I didn’t want to worry her. I just warned her not to go alone. I’m in New York or else I’d drive over there, but maybe I should come down?”
“No,” I said. “I gotta go. Thanks, Marco.” I ended the call and immediately made another phone call as I rushed towards the door with Emmy on my heels.
“Tagher,” Harry said in greeting.
“Harry, meet me at the bar. Vic has been seen hanging around there.” I punched the button for the elevator.
“Shit. Okay.”
I called Corsey next.
“Corsey,” he answered tiredly.
“Corsey, where are you?” I asked, as I hit the button for the elevator again.
“Just outside of Norristown. What’s up?”
“We should have been keeping an eye on the fucking bar,” I growled. “Marco said a man fitting Vic’s description has been hanging around, and the Caddy has been parked there for three hours now, but Lily isn’t answering the phone and she hasn’t contacted anyone.”
“I’ll be there as soon as I can,” he said in a rush and ended the call.
The elevator doors slid open and I waited for Emmy to step on first.
“What’s going on, Kyle?” she asked. “Are you talking about Vic Rickers?”
I grimaced. “Didn’t Lily tell you what happened?”
“No,” she said shaking her head. “She did tell me that some guy had hurt her and you kicked his ass, but she didn’t say it was Vic. He gives me the creeps.”
“He is obsessed with her,” I told her with an exasperated sigh. “I kept most of what I knew away from her. I didn’t want her to worry, but I should have told her. He could have her right now.”
I felt like their rocks in the pit of my stomach and my chest was so tight with anxiety, I wasn’t sure how I was still breathing. My hands trembled with fear.
“Kyle, what do you mean?” Emmy asked gently as the elevator doors slid open.
“When I was…stalking Lily, I realized that Vic was stalking her, too. I wanted to know why. I meant her no harm, but I didn’t trust him. With some digging, my guys found out some very disturbing facts about Vic.”
I opened the passenger side door to my Audi and let Emmy in. When I got behind the wheel, I continued.
“Vic burned down your bar, Emmy,” I said, looking at her for a reaction.
Her face scrunched up in confusion. “The fire marshal said it was an electrical problem.”
“Vic did it, Emmy. We found all kinds of shit in his house pointing at him. He had thoroughly studied how to start the fire without laying any suspicion on him. I tried to alert one of my contacts on the police force, but because I technically shouldn’t have been in Vic’s house and they had no reason to go in either, he was going to get away with it.”
