“I love you, I want this, and I am willing to do whatever it takes. I am here and I’m not going anywhere, okay?”
He nodded, pushing her hair back, doing his best to wipe away the red staining her lips, before pulling her mouth over his. Their tongues danced for what felt like hours, as they explored each other. The feelings came flooding back. There was no awkwardness, no uncertainty. It was just CT and Kensie, how it should have been from the beginning.
She could feel him growing under her. She wiggled her hips. “Is that for me?”
“Happy birthday.” He grinned, lifting her hips up over his semi-erect cock.
She pushed her panties aside and sunk down on his length. “I missed this,” she moaned, letting her head fall forward. “I love you.”
“I love you more.”
Twenty minutes later the bus pulled to a stop in front of a small night club.
“So, what are we doing?” Carter asked, stuffing himself back into his joggers.
“You’ll see,” Kensie teased, doing her best to fix her makeup in the tiny bathroom. Once she was satisfied with her appearance, she led him off the bus and up to the building. The word, Voodoo, was scrawled across a purple awning.
“Hi, may I help you?” the man at the desk greeted them as they walked in.
“Yeah, we have a three-thirty reservation.”
“Thayer?” the man asked.
“Yup, that’s us?” Kensie nodded, as Carter wrapped his arm around her neck. “Soon,” he whispered in her ear, and she had to take a moment to catch her breath.
“Have either of you ever been on a zip line before?” the man continued.
“A zip line?” He looked at her with equal parts confusion and excitement.
“Well, while I don’t know what’s on your bucket list, I did finally get the courage to listen to your new album,” she explained. “I figured this would be perfect.”
“I still don’t get it.”
“I want to soar with you.”
“Alright, Las Vegas, you guys have been amazing tonight,” Ryder drawled into the mic, sending the crowd into an eruption of cheers. “Our time is just about up.” This elicited a low grumble of boos. “I know, I know, but The Unburned are going to fucking blow your minds.” Kensie giggled as the cheers boomed through the audience once more. “But, before we go, we’ve got one more song for you. This one, you may have heard. It’s doing pretty well right now. It’s the title track off our new album, Neverland.”
Kensie had to plug her ears at that. The sound in the arena was deafening. She looked over at her friends, the four of them stood off the side of the stage, watching the guys, their hearts into the performance. The night was amazing, from the bus to zip-lining to racing back to the arena to make it in time.
“We’re going to do things a little different tonight,” Ryder announced. “CT, man, get up here.” There was more screaming as CT rose from behind his drum kit. Javi handed Ryder his bass and went back to sit behind Carter’s drums. Ryder slapped CT on the back before releasing the mic stand.
“How y’all doing tonight, Vegas?” CT asked, adjusting the stand. The crowd went wild. “Okay, okay. So, what a lot of people don’t know is that I wrote Neverland for my girl.” AWW, the crowd cooed. “I put her through hell and she stuck by me when most people would have bailed. She is my Wendy, my best fucking friend, and she happens to be here tonight.” Wendy! Wendy! Wendy! “So, if you guys don’t mind seeing my ugly face on the big screen, I’d like to sing it for her. Is that okay?” YESSSSS! “Alright, enough of the sappy shit, Kensington Grace Roth,” he said, pointing to where she stood off to the side of the stage, “this one’s for you, Friend.”
Smoke and Mirrors
As I sit at the end of the old oak bar, swirling the ice around my empty glass of whiskey, I can’t help but wonder if this is the life I chose or if this life chose me. The last year was hell, finding my best friend in bed with the love of my life sent me into a downward spiral. I never understood what pain was until that moment. I never knew what loss felt like before then. The pain and betrayal was suffocating; I died a gruesome death at the hands of the ones I loved. I didn’t know that it was darkest before dawn. I didn’t know that joy cometh in the morning. I didn’t know that I would soon be reborn.
The hurt lingers on, but now I endure it; I wear it like a talisman. It protects me and it reminds me not to fear love or companionship, but to welcome it, to nurture it, and watch it flourish. Because pain is fleeting, and because love is everlasting, and because this heart of mine, fractured though it may be, is still beating.
The backyard erupted in applause as Kensie finished reading an excerpt from her book. It had been a long road, many a sleepless night, but she finally finished. Smoke and Mirrors would be live soon, and she could officially cross another item of her bucket list. Tomorrow was still a mystery, but today, at Safe Haven, surrounded by the people she loved, Kensie could truly say, she was happy.
Josh and another little boy ran up to her, throwing their arms around her. “Can we cut the cake now?” They didn’t care about the book, just the party.
“We can cut the cake now,” Kensie giggled, and the boys went darting across the lawn. Kensie took in her surroundings, canvas posters lined the perimeter of the yard, showcasing the creations that came from her art class. In the center, hanging from a large tapestry, held the cover of Smoke and Mirrors. She commissioned Chris, one of the older boys at Safe Haven, to design the original cover art. He took it seriously, even sketching a few ideas before they settled on one.
Make a difference
Climb Mt. Kilimanjaro
Dance in the rain
Visit a sex club
Get a tattoo
Run a 5k
Touch the sky
Do something that makes you uncomfortable
Be brave
Write a novel
“Not bad,” she muttered to herself.
“Not bad at all, Friend.”
Kensie smiled as she felt the warmth of Carter’s body on her back. Settling into his embrace, she asked, “When did you sneak in?” She angled her head slightly to take him in, the purple Kensington scrawled across his neck still took her breath away.
“Twenty minutes ago, but you were reading, and then the little ones attacked you, and after last night I figured I should lie low.”
“Don’t remind me.” She cringed, recalling the night before.
After work, she had gone right into decorating the yard for the party. It had been late, the boys were supposed to be in bed, so she’d recruited Carter to help. That was her first mistake.
They’d gotten the chairs set up and were halfway through the tables when his hands had started to roam her body. She had tried to focus on the task, pushing him off every time he’d wandered up her shirt or down her pants, but she could only resist for so long. It was physics, his touch, gravity.
Before she’d known what was happening, she’d been sitting on top of the table, her blouse unbuttoned, with her rockstar boyfriend standing between her legs, palming her breast through her t-shirt. That’s when Chris and Josh had walked out, wanting to know if they could help. It was a miracle they didn’t tell Tanner. “It’s not like we were fucking on the Xerox machine.” Carter shrugged.
“That’s easy for you to say, you’re famous. You don’t have to worry about keeping a nine-to-five.”
“We’re hardly famous,” he scoffed.
“Baby, Neverland is in the top ten on iTunes and you guys just signed a three-album deal with a major label and—”
“Lots of people sign deals and never make it,” he clarified, tightening his grip around her shoulders.
“Last week a group of teenage girls asked me if I was Wendy,” she countered, arching her brow.
“My bad,” he chuckled, “I posted the picture of us from Gas Works up on my Instagram.”
“Oh, so only five million people saw it.” Kensie shrugged. “No big deal.”
/> “Okay, so we might be a little famous now, but I’m still the douchebag you fell in love with.”
“Well, douchebag, I’m going to say bye to Tanner and the boys, and then you can take me back to your house and show me why I fell in love with you in the first place.”
“My little nympho,” he said, swatting her on the behind as she went. She rolled her eyes. Only Carter would smack her ass in front of a bunch of children. He was right though; no amount of fame or fortune would change her lost boy.
Before this summer, happiness was always abstract, but now it was tangible. It was the six-two drummer who couldn’t keep his hands off her. It was the bucket list she carried in her wallet, reminding her that she could do anything she set her mind to.
Kensie said her goodbyes, hugged her friend, then went in search of her man.
It didn’t take long before she found him, standing at the edge of the yard, body rigid, fists clenched into balls at his side, lips pressed into a thin line as he stared down her ex. Rage coursed through her veins. Of all the places for him to show up, why here? Why now?
“What the hell are you doing here?” she hissed, storming over to where the two men stood. The last time the three of them were in the same room, Carter almost broke Trey’s nose.
“I didn’t come here for you. I came to see him,” he said coolly, not bothering to look in her direction.
“We don’t have anything to talk about,” Carter replied with an equal amount of frost in his tone.
“You should go.”
“What, do you speak for him now?” Trey’s body tensed as he said the words, still refusing to look at her. The bitterness cut through the air like a machete.
Kensie had to mentally count to five before answering. “Actually, we speak for each other, but you wouldn’t understand anything about that, would you?” The nerve of him, barging into her party, making demands on Carter’s time as if he hadn’t had ten years to talk.
Trey looked down at her for the first time since she’d walked over, his brown eyes filled with regret. “Was I that bad to you?”
Kensie sighed. She didn’t want to rehash all this shit, especially not when her co-workers stood within earshot, but he was here, and for whatever reason, she still felt the guilt of what she’d done to him. “Look, Trey,” she said, taking a step towards him. Carter snaked his arm around her neck, pulling her back into his front, halting her forward progress. She glanced up at him, watching as he shook his head making it clear that she was to stay put. “I’m sorry it didn’t work out between us, okay, but this is my job. Can you just go, please?”
“Not until he talks to me.”
He was as stubborn as she remembered. “I can’t believe you’re doing this here,” she snapped, eliciting a few curious glances from people standing nearby.
“I’ve been trying to do this for weeks and he’s been ignoring me. This was my only option.”
“Maybe you should have taken it as a sign to fuck off,” Carter growled. “I’m not buying whatever it is that you’re trying to sell.”
“Just give me ten minutes, and then I’ll leave. No harm done.”
Kensie looked back and forth between the two men. To everyone else, Carter wore a mask of indifference, but she knew better. She saw the resentment that lingered behind his blue irises. Trey, he was desperate, but she couldn’t read his motive.
“Fine,” Carter gritted.
“Are you sure, baby?” she asked in shock. She never thought she’d see the day that Carter would voluntarily have a conversation with Trey.
“Baby?” Trey snorted.
Carter turned Kensie around, pulling her to him by her ass. He looked up at Trey mumbling, “Baby,” against her lips just before covering her mouth with his. He kissed her deeply, the kind of kiss he usually reserved for the bedroom, but she understood his need to do it, so she let him. They kissed like that, indecently, for almost a full minute before Carter pulled back. “Sorry,” he whispered in her hair.
“It’s fine,” she said, placing her hands on either side of his face, forcing him to look at her. “I’m yours. You can claim me wherever and whenever you want.”
“Ahem.” Trey cleared his throat, pulling them from their bubble. Kensie felt her cheeks heat as she glanced around the yard. Thankfully everyone’s attention was on Josh and the cake.
“Five minutes, cornball,” Carter grunted, shouldering past Trey through the gate. Trey looked at her for just a moment before following his former friend.
Kensie wasn’t sure how much time passed before Carter came back into the yard, but his face was pale. “You ready?” he asked, grabbing her hand and pulling her into his arms.
She planted her feet. Her mind was working overtime trying to figure out what the hell just happened.
“Wait, what did he say?”
His jaw twitched, and she could see the walls she’d fought so hard to tear down, slowly going right back up. “He apologized.”
“Apologized?”
“He said he knows it’s too little too late, but that he felt like it needed to be said. Now can we please get the fuck out of here?”
“Do you agree?” she pressed. There would be no going backwards. When they agreed to try again, they agreed there would be no more secrets, no more lying. He was going to talk to her, whether he liked it or not.
“I don’t know,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck. “I thought I needed to hear it, but now that he finally said it, I realized something.”
“Realized what?”
His voice softened as he lifted her arms and brought them around his neck. The wall that he’d temporarily erected had vanished and her Carter was back. “I let go of that shit the moment you walked into my life. Trey was the first person to ever break my heart, but if he hadn’t, then maybe I would have never met you. Maybe I was meant to lose him so that I could find you.”
Tears welled in her eyes. It was in that moment that she knew they would make it. Their love wasn’t a fairy tale. It was dirty and damaged and there were times she wanted to give up, but he possessed the other half of her soul. With him, she could fly. “I love you,” she whispered, because what else was there to say.
“I love you more. Now, let me take you home so I can show you.”
She nodded, following him out to the car. Her words, the words she’d spent months bleeding over lingered in her mind, was this the life she chose, or did this life choose her? In the year, Kensie drifted from purgatory and down to hell, before making her final ascent up to heaven. She was living her life on her own terms and it wasn’t fate that got her to that point. She’d done the work. She clawed her way out of the pit of complacency on her hands and knees over the shards of her broken heart to find her happiness.
It wasn’t easy, but she did it, not for her parents or for her friends or even for Carter. She did it for herself. Because pain was fleeting, and because love was everlasting, and because her heart, fractured though it may be, was still beating.
Tanzania, 1 year later
“I can’t do this,” Kensie sobbed, dropping to her knees. Climb Mount Kilimanjaro. It was one of the few things left on her bucket list and, with Carter’s encouragement, she’d signed them up to for a nine-day trek up Africa’s highest peak.
“Come on, baby, you gotta keep moving,” Carter said, lifting her up by the arms of her forest-green jacket.
“No. Just leave me here,” she whined. Not only had she already fallen behind the rest of their group, but now she was cold, dizzy, and mentally and physically drained. To make matters worse, she was struggling to catch her breath. The tears fell hot and wet down her cheeks as she broke down, realizing for the first time that she might not be able to conquer Kili. “I don’t know why I thought I could do this. I’m not strong enough for this.”
“Kensie,” Carter kneeled in front of her, pulling off his glove to wipe away her tears, “baby, you are the strongest person I know. You can do anything.”
“I..I…I
…I can’t…breathe,” she stuttered, panicked. She looked up towards the peak. It was right there, taunting her, hiding behind a white wall of clouds and ice. Africa had been as beautiful as she imagined, but that beauty was ruthless.
“Just calm down and take deep breaths. If you freak out, it will only make it worse,” he coached, handing her a canteen filled with water. “Drink this, you need to stay hydrated.” Kensie tilted the water up to her lips. The liquid, though not cool, was refreshing. “Make sure you keep breathing. When you’re ready, stand up, slowly.”
She nodded, using the breathing technique their guide taught them on their first day on the mountain. Once she got her breath under control, she stood, using her trekking poles to help support her weight. Her legs shook and her head was spinning, but she couldn’t quit. They’d come too far. They spent seven days slowly making their way up the north side of the mountain, traveling through four different climate zones that spanned nearly forty miles. No, she wouldn’t quit, not when they’d planned this trip for six months, spending every weekend Carter was home, hiking up and down the mountains of the Pacific Northwest in preparation. Not when they were mere miles from the summit.
“Okay?” one of their porters asked in broken English.
“Ndio Asante,” she replied, telling him she was fine in equally broken Swahili. The porters, along with their guide, had been incredible, helping them, pushing them, preparing them. They couldn’t have made this journey without them. She couldn’t let them down. She couldn’t let herself down.
“That’s my girl,” Carter said, kissing the tip of her nose. Their time in Africa was life changing. They were excited to take on this adventure together, bonding and growing while camping under the stars. She was grateful to have him there with her. Whenever the altitude or exhaustion started to take its toll on her body, he was there, reminding her that she was strong. He never gave up on her and he encouraged her to fight. She realized their first day on the mountain that this would be one of the hardest things they’d ever do, but that it would further solidify their bond. They were more than lovers and soul mates. She was him and he, her. They were one in the same.
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