by Brea Viragh
Nolan returned with a quart of amber-colored liquid and a wet ring around his mouth. “Anyone else having some?”
I reached for the container, knocking Kai’s hand out of the way when he too reached. Sure, the whiskey earlier had gone down smoothly, but I considered this a good topper. I’d deal with the consequences if they came. “Ladies first,” I said.
Kai was all graciousness. “By all means. I remember your fondness for alcohol from the other night.”
This first sip should have gone down smoothly too, the slightly sweet liquid trailing along my throat. Somehow I took a page from Nolan’s book. Instead of sliding lower, it came up. I coughed and sputtered.
“Hey, are you okay?”
I shot Kai a murderous glance while my mother strained her neck looking back and forth between the two of us.
“The other night?” she probed. “What happened the other night?”
“It’s nothing,” Kai covered. “I remember Nell saying something about wishing for a glass of wine with dinner my first night here. I was trying to make a joke and failed, sorry.”
When I looked up, his lips were pressed into a thin line. Good cover, bad poker face.
“Ah.” From the glint in her eyes, Thessaly was anything but soothed. Turning back to the game and using the last of her pieces, she drove the sword home.
“Look at that. L I E for fifteen and…double points.”
She slapped her remaining tiles down and made sure the three of us felt the full weight of her victory.
“Lie. I win.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Dawn was my favorite time. It had taken too long to train my body to rise with the sun, while darkness still kissed the horizon, to not appreciate the quiet promise of the beginning of the day. In my own apartment, I enjoyed the hush alone. The time was mine to appreciate and waste. To drink coffee in my underwear and prepare for the day. Or to dream the indulgent fantasies of a single woman.
Now, with people packed into each room, and the house still slumbering, I was wide awake. It was rarely quiet and I knew I had to make the most of it.
We had managed to pass the rest of the evening companionably. It almost made me think everyone had learned their lesson. I watched my father doze in his chair while we fought through a second round of Scrabble. Thessaly won both times, though I suspected Nolan’s heart wasn’t in fighting mode the last time around. It took a repetitive series of deep breaths and more moonshine than I’d willingly admit to in order to push through the rest of the night. At least until the clock on the mantel chimed a respectable end to the festivities.
Yes, Thanksgiving was over, and without any casualties. Once my temper cleared and I again had the capacity for cool common sense, I took hold of the situation and made it up to bed with my spirits level if not high.
Stretching my arms over my head brought warmth to my muscles while I enjoyed the pleasure of the stillness. When I did blink the last of the sleep from my eyes, it was to discover that the weathermen, so infamous for their inability to accurately predict weather, had nevertheless hit a home run.
“Oh God!” I jumped out of bed, heedless of the chill, and pushed the curtains aside. I stared bleakly at the scene. “Oh Mary Mother of God.” My fist beat against the sill and did nothing to ease the squeezing feeling in my chest. The pain was sudden, bright, and unwelcome.
It was like Christmas, but without the lights and wreaths. The harsh beauty of the white scene everyone wanted, everyone dreamed of. Except this was the end of November.
There was no way I wanted to step into the fantasy. Not now.
The landscape was still. Glaringly bright and undisturbed under a thick sheet of snow. The storm blew in sometime during the night to cover everything. The lawn, the driveway, the vehicles.
I squinted through the frosted windowpanes. The colonial house we occupied, as well as sheds and outbuildings on the property, had stood firm through the storm. From past experience, I knew it would be a while before a well-meaning neighbor with a tractor came to dig us out. A few feet of snow on the back roads meant you settled in and got comfortable, because you weren’t going anywhere.
Smoke from the woodburning stove pumped out the chimney to mingle with the frigid air. There was nothing moving; there would be no driving. It was a day to stay inside and snuggle, maybe brave the weather to build an igloo in the yard, or a fort and have a snowball fight. A day to sit in front of the fire with a mug of something hot between your hands.
And for me, it meant the final chain tethering me to my personal hell.
My mood plummeted against the prospect of another day stuck here.
There was no hint of blue sky behind the haze of clouds. Only white and gray, broken by the stretch of trees bordering the yard. Hidden under layers of snow were flowers, still and waiting for spring’s warmth to trigger their return. Grass lay dormant under winter’s harsh thumb. And my car was nearly invisible with a half foot of snow covering every inch. Everything shimmered beneath a sheet of silvery white. When the sun finally peeked out, it would be brilliant, blindingly so, but for now it merely glistened. Beautiful to look at, yes, but it sealed my fate.
I wondered how I was going to manage yet another day of imprisonment.
I wanted to be one of those people. Always in control and able to look on the bright side of life. I wanted to be able to come home and spend time with my family, and if something happened to throw me off my stride, to roll with it. Instead I had a chip on my shoulder. I had something to prove to all of them and I was raring to show them exactly what I was made of. That, at least, I could control.
What the hell was I going to do?
I’d been given sage advice before my best friend Leda left for her own Thanksgiving celebration. Something about screwing my head on straight and getting back in the game? No, that’s what I’d told her during her debacle last summer. It turned out I was a whiz at giving advice to others, but I couldn’t take it at all. Even so, the advice was sound.
I went down to the kitchen, expecting to find Kai. Funny how the image came to mind before I saw him standing near the sink. He turned in time to catch me staring.
“It’s my first big snow.” He kept his voice low, as though any increase in volume would disturb the picture outside. “I could never imagine how it would look. It’s amazing.”
“What, you never got snow in Oregon? I find that hard to believe.”
“Oh sure, but it was more like frozen rain. Never much accumulation. A couple of inches now and then, and gone within hours, washed away by the next warm day. Nothing like this. This is…” He gazed with fascination out the kitchen window. “Well, it’s amazing.”
“Yeah, you said that already. Bitchen cold and a pain to shovel is what it is.” I turned away. “You know what this means.”
Kai’s hand closed over mine when I reached for the nearest mug. “Let’s put the past behind us. We don’t have to fight, you know.”
“Funny, I didn’t realize we were.” I stepped aside and instead of falling away, his hand slid to cup my elbow.
There was a flicker of something on his face that I’d never seen before. It happened when our eyes connected across the empty space. Just a ghost of an expression, and in another state of mind I might not have noticed it. Or recognized it.
It was resolve. Kai was headstrong, one of the most stubborn men I’d ever known, and when I saw the look, my heart flipped over.
“You know what I mean. We might not be physically arguing, but we’re at odds.”
“I find it hard to be on the same page when it’s all a lie. Try to resist the meaningful talks until I’ve had my coffee. You should know better.”
He reached behind the pot and slid a mug across the counter to me. I caught it an instant before it threatened to topple off, caramel-colored liquid sloshing over the lip.
“What’s this?”
“It’s your coffee. First thing I did when I got up. I know how you like it now.” His hand r
eleased me with unexpected abruptness.
I peered at the ripples in my coffee. Sighed. There were a dozen and one things adding up and nowhere for me to trash them. “Kai…”
He glanced over at me, scowling in a way which made it difficult to argue. “Sit. Drink your coffee. Then we can do this. I know you kept your head during Scrabble, but there are words bubbling inside of you that had no place on the board. I’m here to listen.”
I eyed the chair closest to me, wondering what would happen if we decided to play nice. “If I sit, then before I know it, everyone will be up and in our business. Look—”
There was steel in his eyes when his gaze shifted to my face. “Nothing good ever starts with look. You’re going to recycle the same spiel about how it was just sex and we’re all wrong for each other.”
I would not muck this up. Last night I’d tried to play along and it left a bad taste in my mouth. “Look,” I repeated deliberately. “You’re a nice guy and I appreciate you being here and dealing with all of this craziness. However, I’m not ready for anything meaningful. And definitely not with you.”
If he took offense, he didn’t show it. “Not with me,” he repeated. “What do you mean?”
I took a sip of coffee. Damn, he’d gotten it right again. It disgusted me as much as it delighted me. I took a seat at the banquette. “It’s nothing personal. You’re my brother’s roommate, and if that didn’t make things sticky enough, our sexual liaisons tipped it over the edge. Now my mother is pulling the word matrimony out of a bag and it’s become too much for me to handle. Sorry. The sex is done, and so am I.”
“Let me ask you one question before you continue,” Kai snapped.
“By all means.”
“Why are you against having a meaningful relationship? I know it has something to do with Peter, but I think I deserve an explanation.”
If I didn’t think I could handle him, I wouldn’t have been concerned. Yet somehow, I was. I knew how to manage men—mostly—but Kai turned me on my head.
“Don’t start this,” I begged. He was moving faster than I preferred, and yeah, I was concerned I couldn’t keep pace. “Don’t start acting like this is more than what it is. I don’t want to talk about past relationships with you again.”
“I’d understand if you didn’t find me attractive, or if we didn’t click on an atomic level. But we do. I see it in your face whenever I catch your eye. So please tell me what it is that makes you so set on sabotaging your own happiness.”
I scoffed, tossing my head, a horse unwilling to accept a bit. A bit made of compromise and feelings of affection. “I am not sabotaging my own happiness.”
Kai refused to budge. There was too much anxiety and adrenaline living inside me to keep from fidgeting, shifting my weight from butt cheek to butt cheek on the chair. But he was fixed in place. Solid. Dependable. He kept his arms crossed over his chest, hips propped against the counter, and his eyes locked on a spot in the distance somewhere over my head.
“Is it because you want to be your own person? You don’t want to lose your identity by having a man in your life? I get the feeling Peter was the dominant one.”
“Kai, it’s kind of cute that you want to figure me out, but you don’t need to put your Psychology 101 to use on me.” I stalled, finally slapping my palms down on the table and leaning forward like I meant business. “We didn’t date, we will never date…this is the end of the line.”
Kai straightened, each step deliberate until he reached the table and sat opposite me. Mimicking my posture, he continued. “We’ve shared multiple meals and conversations. We’ve spent the night with each other in the same bed. We’ve been physically intimate. Nell, I’d say we check off more than enough elements in the date category to at least get us started on the right path.”
“What don’t you understand here? It’s impossible for us to be together. Having a relationship is impossible.”
“Why? What happened with Peter?”
A red haze settled over my vision. “You’re unbelievable. Nothing happened with Peter, okay? Do you ever stop to think this isn’t about me, but you?” My fingernails dug into the wooden tabletop and I fought the desire to say—or do—something stupid. I set my teeth against the urge.
“My ego isn’t large enough for me to forget my own shortcomings. I know enough about you to see beneath the surface.”
“Typical male attitude.”
“See, there you go.”
Challenged, I studied him. Who would have thought this man, this guy with a skinny build and a silver earring, could push me to my limit?
“You want to know what happened to me in the past? Beyond the endless parade of potential suitors pushed at me since I entered my teenage years? I dated a guy my first year of nursing school. Yeah, Peter.” I squirmed and jumped up, just to expend the nervous energy. I paced for a moment, and when I looked back, Kai was still focused on me. Expectant.
I heaved a sigh. “I did whatever it took to make him happy. Not because of him, but because of me. I could finally be the person my mother wanted me to be and she’d be content. I’d be the happy wife, the happy mother, the college graduate, all with a career of my own. I could handle it. Then I flunked out of freshman biology. I flunked organic chemistry. I had to take summer classes to catch up to the rest of my peers, because I’d let my identity disintegrate. It took everything I had to move forward, working extra hard to get me back. Peter wanted to keep me under his thumb because of how I made him feel, and he didn’t give a damn about my education. It’s better this way, he told me. Better to have me at the house taking care of him instead of worrying about school. And I…I refuse to sacrifice myself like that for someone else ever again.”
It wasn’t shock I saw on Kai’s face now. It wasn’t irritation or judgment. He saw me for me. I was a real person instead of a stranger, flesh and blood and capable of making mistakes. “Is that how you see a relationship? A sacrifice?”
“Don’t you?”
I’d struggled over the first hurdle in telling Kai about my past. Suddenly it was too cold in the little kitchen. The winter wind from outside seemed to seep through the cracks and chilled me to my bones.
“Relationships are nothing but a sacrifice,” I said. “How much of your wasted time could have been saved if you hadn’t done everything for your old fiancée? It’s a burden. A loss of identity. I went through it once before I wised up. Grew up.”
He straightened his spine, cracking his knuckles on his lap. It looked like a nervous tic from where I stood. “I can’t lie and say it was all worth it. But the experiences made me into the man I am today. I was able to grow and learn because of Elizabeth and our time together.”
Frustration grew, hardened until I felt the resolve I’d built up draining. “You can cut the crap. I’m not buying into your philosophy. There has to be anger there that you aren’t showing me.”
The sudden silence between us felt odd and out of place, filled with whatever strange moment had just happened. I was about to speak to stave off the awkwardness, as well as forget the thoughts and fantasies now crowding my mind, but he beat me to the punch.
“So you’d rather be mad at me than face the mistakes you made. That’s not my fault.” His temper brought a flush to his cheeks. “Don’t blame me for Peter and think it wipes your slate clean.”
I huffed. “The only thing I blame you for is being too stubborn and mule-headed to leave when I asked.” I spun away from him, flinching at his glower.
“I’ll leave when I’m ready. You’re the only one getting angrier, standing there ready for a confrontation when there doesn’t need to be one. I’m not going to walk away from you,” he said. “And I’m not going to force you to change your life for me, or wait at my beck and call. It’s insulting to think you’d see me the same way.”
“You don’t understand—”
“No, I don’t, because this is the first time you’re letting me close and it’s still not close enough.”
<
br /> I heard his chair scrape as he got up, took three steps in my direction. I turned to face him and he turned, dragging in another breath while he regained his composure. Annoyance still sparked beneath the surface, kept at bay by a tight tether.
“I’m sorry,” Kai responded softly. “I don’t want you to think I’m cornering you.”
I wiped at my suddenly watery eyes and took a step in the opposite direction, hesitant to tell him more but unable to leave it like this between us. “No one else has been able to fuck with my head like Peter. Not even my mother. She does a good job, but he was on another level. And she still loves the idea of him despite the problems.”
I recognized the flicker of irritation crossing Kai’s face. The rage dancing in his eyes. “Go on.”
“He said I needed to be the kind of woman he could see himself marrying. He’d come to me at any hour, knowing I would do whatever I could to make him happy. Money loans, help studying for finals, you name it.” I sighed, elbows resting on the countertop and gaze focused on the floor. The admission did nothing to ease the tightness in my chest.
“He was yet another person wanting more than I could give. It’s the story of my life. And when he knew he’d messed up and pushed me too far, he’d come and try to woo me again. There was talk of vacations and dinner at fine restaurants…anything he could say to keep me from rejecting him. In the end, I didn’t recognize myself.”
I’d never considered the eyes a weapon until I saw the change in Kai’s, his normal warmth changing to dangerous shards of ice. “I know it’s none of my business, but if I met this man, I would strangle him.”
“Oh, you’re so dangerous. You don’t even know him,” I retorted.
“I know enough to say he never deserved you.”
“You don’t know me, either.” I threw the barb at him with ruthless aim.
Kai stared at me for a moment before letting out a breath. “That’s clear to see.”
I snatched up my mug, wrapping myself up in the warmth from the fresh coffee. “I refuse to let another man control my life, especially one my mother has already tried to pair me with. She’s picked out the cake topper but I can’t allow these charades to continue.”
