Nobody Else

by Jaxson Kidman

  We walked to Milo, who was officially annoyed that he couldn’t make a basket.

  I said goodbye to him and walked to my truck.

  As I sat there, warming up a little, I watched April and Milo playing together.

  I wasn’t sure how I felt about the situation. Or what to expect with June. In some rotten, greedy way, I fully expected her to show up and throw herself at me. Then I would have had my own comfort while Kinsley figured out all her thoughts and the direction of her heart.

  I still had a little time to kill before heading into work.

  My plan was to sit there and watch April and Milo… without a good reason why.

  When my phone started to buzz, the last person I expected to see calling me was Kinsley.

  She met me in the parking lot of the bar. Around back, hidden, keeping a low profile. Although, she wore the same hat with the pom-pom on top that I picked on her for. It was so cold outside, but seeing her warmed me up in ways that nobody else ever could.

  Being apart from her was killing my heart, but I went with the ride. I respected her and her life. It wasn’t easy to just go home and pack up some clothes and leave. There were deep ties to her current situation. There were deeper ties to me. I wasn’t a fool to think that running away with me wasn’t a bad decision. It was risky as hell. It would hurt another man’s heart. It would piss off her father. It would take her molded, so-called perfect life and expose everything.

  On the other side of that though was forever. A love she would never have to question. She’d never stand at the kitchen sink and wonder if I was going to walk by and kiss her. She’d never have to dream up fantasies of me touching, kissing, taking her whenever I felt like it and whenever she needed it. The kind of love that would scare you because of how intense it was. Just like what we had before. Right up until that love got challenged in the worst way possible.

  “Kins,” I said as she stood there with the door to her SUV open.

  Heat poured out but was nothing to the bitter air around us.

  “Brice,” she said with a smile.

  “Want to come in for a drink?” I asked. “My treat.”

  “No…”

  “Soda? Water? Warmth?”

  “Brice, I need to show you something.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Everything okay?”

  She looked guilty as sin. Her bottom lip quivering. Maybe from the cold. Maybe from the fear of needing to talk to me.

  “Kins…”

  She took her hands out of her pockets.

  Slowly, she raised her left hand as she bit her lip. My eyes moved from her beautiful face down to her hand. The diamond ring on her finger was big and obnoxious. But I wasn’t there to judge the quality of jewelry. Yet I knew exactly what that ring was and what it meant.

  “Fuck,” I said.

  “Listen to me,” she said.

  My eyes moved back to her eyes. Those pretty eyes of hers. That was the first thing I noticed about her when I met her. Of course, admitting that made me look as though I was reaching for an excuse. And rightfully so. Who wouldn’t notice everything else about her? But her eyes…

  “You don’t know what you’re doing,” I whispered.

  “Brice…”

  “No. I see it in your eyes, love. Don’t lie to me.”

  Kinsley nodded. “He gave this to me. He didn’t exactly propose though. But the ring…”

  “That’s a fucking engagement ring, Kins.”

  “I know what it is.”

  “And he didn’t get down on one knee?”

  “No. Because-”

  “What a fucking bum,” I said, curling my lip.

  “Brice. Stop.”

  I stepped back. “Sorry.”

  “Please just listen to me. We started to talk about everything. There are things about his past that I didn’t know. And he finally opened up to me.”

  “Because you left him.”

  “Yeah. Exactly.”

  My heart was like dust piled together. One quick breath and it would scatter.

  Kinsley had just taken that breath.

  She was engaged to Ben. Whether he got on one knee or even asked, she was wearing the fucking ring. The big diamond that cried out to the world, I’m taken for good.

  “Brice…”

  “Kins, I don’t know what to say here. I fell asleep with you in my arms and I woke up alone. I haven’t seen you since. Now you’re engaged to another man.”

  “It’s not like that. Ben knows everything. About us.”

  The pain in my chest twisted into anger. “Everything?”

  She nodded.

  “So, you two are bonding over the past.”

  “Something like that. I’m trying to do the right thing here.”

  “The right thing? What’s that look like?”

  Kinsley swallowed hard. “Trying to make sure whatever happens, everyone understands. I messed up with the way I let things get. With him. With you.”

  “You regret coming to my place?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “You’re everywhere in my place, Kins. I can’t get rid of it. Tell me what this means.”

  “I don’t know what this means,” she said. “Okay?”

  “So, you’re going to keep both of us waiting.”

  “No. It’s not waiting. It’s…”

  “Engagement,” I said. I touched her hand and looked at the ring again. “I thought I was going to be the one to give you this. I planned on it, you know?”

  “When?” she asked.

  “Do you really want to know that?”

  “I don’t know,” she admitted. “Brice, nothing’s changed. Between us. The way I feel about you.”

  “You know where I stand. My life is yours, Kins. There’s no other way to put it. And a diamond ring won’t change that. Especially if he gave that to you out of fear and pity.”

  Kinsley ripped her hand away from me. “Fear and pity?”

  “Yeah. He was afraid he was going to lose you. And then he felt bad for not getting you earlier.”

  “You’re an asshole,” she spat at me.

  “You don’t like the truth.”

  “I’m leaving. I should have just called you and talked to you.”

  As she turned, I touched her waist and spun her around. Her back against the SUV, she grabbed my winter jacket and let out a gasping breath.

  Her cloudy breath danced in front of me as I closed in on her.

  “I will always tell you the truth, love. Whether you like it or not. That ring doesn’t mean shit to me. Even though my heart is broken because of it. He gave you something I never did. You told him your story… which is our story. And you know his story. But you lived my story, Kins.”

  “Brice, I told you this wasn’t easy,” she said.

  “I know that. I’m not asking for it to be easy. I just want to make sure you do what your heart actually wants. Not because of the kind of car you drive or house you live in. Or the size of the diamond he gave you.”

  “Do you think I’m that kind of person?”

  “No,” I said. “That’s why I love you. So fucking much.”

  I leaned forward and brushed my lips against her cheek.

  When I pulled back she held me tighter.

  We were cheek to cheek. Her jaw shivering from the cold.

  I could have stood like that for the rest of my life and it would have been a great life to live.

  I didn’t move until she let my jacket go.

  As I inched back, I touched her left hand again. I gave the ring one last look.

  “You’re engaged to another man now,” I said.

  “He never asked. I never answered.”

  “But you’re wearing the ring, Kins. Anyone who sees it…”

  “Brice, I love him. And I love you.”

  “You’re not wearing my engagement ring though.”

  “I’m wearing the scar of what happened to us,” she said.

  Her eyes filled with
tears as she rushed to get into her SUV. The comment left me in shock. I stood there like a damn idiot and watched her drive away.

  When she was gone, my eyes filled with tears.

  She could hide the scar from the baby we lost. But she was showing off that diamond ring that another man gave her.

  Which meant she was slipping away from me.

  And that, I would not let happen.

  I made it home by three in the morning. My night was a fucking mess. There were too many people, too many drunks, and Lucky had to convince me not to fight at least three people. Ever since the night I got drunk and he had to take my drunk ass home, he has kept an eye on me.

  Believe me, I didn’t need a goddamn babysitter.

  Getting home, it was quiet, cold, and fucking lonely.

  A nip of whiskey and a fire helped to settle me down, but my mind couldn’t stop seeing the ring on Kinsley’s finger.

  After spending the night with me, she woke up and went to work. Then went home. She faced Ben and what had happened. He took her in with open arms, or at least an open heart. An understanding of what she and I meant to each other. I wasn’t sure if that made Ben a good man or fucking insane. Because I would do the same for Kinsley… so maybe I was just as insane.

  The ring meant nothing without the promise and the truth behind it. He didn’t even bother to get on one knee. To make a big deal about it. So, what did he do then? Just throw a ring at her and tell her to put it on her finger?

  The thoughts attacked me, and the whiskey wasn’t helping to chase them away. It wasn’t my business what happened in their house. What was said. What was promised. Whether it was a lie or not. If I lived that way, then I really would go insane.

  But I couldn’t just let her slip away. There was no way she meant for any of this to happen. She wanted to meet me to show me the ring to be honest. We loved each other. She loved Ben because of their time together. And now they were opening their pasts up to one another. And if that somehow saved what they had, then maybe I would just have to fade away. But I’d never be gone. Our lives would not exist without the other in it.

  I looked over my shoulder and an idea came to me.

  Sometimes whiskey thought of really bad and really stupid things to do.

  A few minutes later, I dug through a box of pictures, looking for a certain one.

  If Kinsley thought for a second that I hadn’t planned on proposing to her… she was very wrong.

  5

  Locked Away

  Ben

  I left my meeting and could have gone straight home. But home didn’t exactly feel like home at all anymore. Not that it really felt like home to begin with. It was all for Kinsley. All to make her happy and give her the sense of home that I couldn’t give to someone else. The plan was to live happy and live with the past way behind us.

  Until the past came back to get us both.

  The woman I loved was in love with another man.

  That should have been the line for me. Any good man would have seen that and walked away. But it wasn’t that simple. It wasn’t like Kinsley went out to a bar and met someone and started a thing. It wasn’t just physical for her and Brice. And that crushed me to think about, but it was true.

  It was my fault for not opening up about the past sooner. If I had done that, she wouldn’t have wanted to see what was there with Brice. Holding back on the past left an opening for him to swoop in. And I didn’t know about him because I never asked. I never asked because I never wanted to talk about Chrissy and TJ. The biggest mistake of my life was going to that meeting, knowing in my heart I was going to miss TJ’s baseball game. And yet I lived my life the same. It was like waking up each day and living the same day, waiting for the pain in my heart to lessen. As though in some sick way I would find the reason why I did what I did or the reason why they were taken from me.

  As I pulled up to the gate at the storage unit place, I leaned out the window and punched in the code to gain access.

  Of course, I sold the house when I lost Chrissy and TJ. And as luck would have it, it was at the top of the market and I made a good profit from it. That’s what I thought about as I sat there at the closing. Dressed nicely, smiling big, handling all the paperwork. The buyers were excited about their new house. The rest of the room looked at me like I was a crazy person. They all knew what happened and why I was selling, but there I was, holding my tie in place as I leaned over the table to show the buyers some information about the trees I had planted in the backyard. Their little family, that was sure to grow, would have apples and pears each year for as long as they lived at the house.

  When I sold the house, I left everything there except all of Chrissy’s stuff and everything from TJ’s room. That was packed up and shipped to a storage unit. I did everything I could to avoid the storage unit because the past was gone. All we could ever do was learn from it. That seemed like a simple rule that worked in business and life, yet I shattered that rule when I met Kinsley.

  She captivated me with this hidden sadness that allowed me to breathe a little. And by breathing a little, I fell into a routine. That routine worked for both of us. Just living our lives.

  Now our lives were a mess.

  She looked at me differently now. Well, of course she did. She knew about Chrissy and TJ. I looked at her differently. Angry, hurt, full of jealousy. I wanted to track down Brice and ask why the fuck did he choose now to step back into Kinsley’s life.

  But none of it really mattered.

  Kinsley had the ring. It wasn’t the proposal I planned to have, but Kinsley was getting really good at messing up my plans. And my gift to her wasn’t just the ring or my love, but the ability to let her mess up my plans.

  This was why I opened the storage unit and took a deep breath.

  The first thing I needed to do was cry.

  I ran my finger along the dusty lampshade of the baseball lamp. The bat held the lightbulb. A giant baseball was next to it. A glove on the other side. It was right on the dresser that had been in TJ’s room. I still refused to open the drawers and look at the clothes.

  This was a giant memory. A living snapshot of the life I had.

  It was all right there in the palm of my fucking hand.

  A beautiful woman who loved me endlessly. Who knew when I had a bad day, so she would cook something nice or do something nice for me. A woman who was always there to listen to me talk. She knew when to shut off the light and force me to sleep. Either by yelling or using her body. And her son was an amazing kid. For as much as I hated his biological father, wondering how any man could abandon a child like TJ, it almost made me a little happy because I was going to be the one to raise him.

  Then, in the blink of an eye, they were gone.

  I shuffled through the storage unit and found a flowery box. The velcro still worked as I peeled the flap open to reveal all the loose pictures Chrissy had collected over the years. It always drove me crazy that she never organized the pictures. I think at one point she kept doing it this way just to piss me off. Her loving way of pushing me out of my comfort zone. Only when she did that, I became more obsessed with my comfort zone.

  I couldn’t stand there and look through pictures. My stomach was sick. My chest hurt from the pain in my heart. My eyes and nose were sore from trying to cry a little but not too much.

  I grabbed the first picture that had Chrissy and TJ in it.

  Then I got the hell out of there as fast as I could.

  It was painful and ghostly.

  And it served as a reminder of all I did wrong.

  I shut the door and locked it. I tucked the picture into my back pocket.

  When I got back into my car, I looked at myself in the mirror.

  Kinsley wanted my past that badly? She’d get it. She wanted to spend time with Brice and leave me waiting on what her heart wanted? I would stand there for her to show her how much I cared.

  But I also wasn’t stupid.

  Kinsley wasn’t going to en
d up with Brice. The scar on her belly and what that meant to her and Brice would stand forever. That was fine with me.

  She was wearing the ring I gave her.

  And someday soon she would be wearing a wedding dress, marrying me.

  I sat in my favorite chair next to the gas fireplace.

  Kinsley was curled up on the couch with a book. I watched her as she read, biting her bottom lip, constantly looking uncomfortable, making me wonder if she was actually reading or just pretending to read. Her mind was obviously going a mile a minute.

  “Hey, my dear,” I said.

  Kinsley looked up at me. “Yeah?”

  “Can I show you something?”

  “Sure.”

  I cleared my throat and leaned forward. I reached into my pocket and took out the picture of Chrissy and TJ.

  “This was them,” I said.

  Kinsley shut the book, not even marking her place in it. She tossed it aside and reached for the picture.

  The look of sadness on her face was intense as she studied it.

  “She’s beautiful,” she said.

  “Like you,” I said.

  “No. She’s far more beautiful than me. You can see it in her eyes and her face. That strong, motherly look.”

  “Kinsley…”

  “Right,” she said. “Sorry. That’s TJ? He’s a cute kid.”

  “Tall and skinny,” I said with a laugh. “I was waiting until he was old enough to start going to the gym. He would have been tall and strong. A great baseball player.”

  “Thank you for showing me this,” Kinsley said. “Where did you find it?”

  “I have stuff,” I said. “A place for stuff.”

  “Oh. Okay.”

  “That picture was taken at this flower show. It was really annoying to have to go to. TJ hated it. I wasn’t a fan either. But Chrissy loved it. And she could surprisingly name a bunch of flowers. She amazed me when we’d go. I made TJ a deal that if he didn’t complain I would take him to see some scary movie he wanted to see. Of course, by doing that, he had nightmares and ended up in bed with us for a week…”

  I cleared my throat.

  I stood up.