by K. M. Scott
“It would be a huge favor to me if you’d do this, Stefan. You obviously have the time since all you’re doing is critiquing bad television shows.”
“I guess,” I said as I felt my chance to get Cash’s opinion on what to do with Shay slip away. “We’re still on for Friday night for your bachelor party, right? One last hurrah before you give up the good life forever.”
“Yeah, we’re still on. Kane already told me he can’t make it, but we’re good. Just see what you can do about getting him out of his funk enough to be at the wedding.”
I wanted to tell Cash that I’d rather cut my left arm off and beat myself with it than spend time with Kane, but he seemed really serious about having him at the wedding, so I bit the bullet. “You got it, big brother. I’ll take care of it.”
“Thank, Stef. Olivia and I really appreciate this. I’ll see you tomorrow night at your condo, right?”
“Right. I’ll let you know how the whole Kane thing goes, but don’t worry. He’ll be there for your big day. By the way, is Abbi going to be there?”
Cash hesitated a moment and then said quietly, “No, I don’t think so. Mom said she’s feeling pretty bad.”
“That might be a good thing. I don’t think Kane could handle seeing her now.”
Cash and I talked for another minute before I left for the club, but to be honest, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to convince Kane to clean his act up enough to be there for Cash and Olivia. Just in case, I grabbed his tux from the store on the way, hoping that if all he had to do was shower and make himself look presentable, he might be able to pull it together in time for the ceremony.
*
Five minutes of banging on his apartment door and still he hadn’t answered. “Kane! Open the door. It’s Stefan.”
“Go away!”
Not exactly a good sign, but I had to try to get him straightened out. Cash and Olivia were depending on me.
“Open the door. I just want to talk.”
Nothing. God, he wasn’t going to make this easy. I banged on the door again and jiggled the doorknob only to find it open. Maybe this wouldn’t be impossible after all.
Two steps into his apartment and I knew Cash had underestimated how far gone Kane was. The place was never much to look at, but now it had a skid row feel to it that made me think I might need a tetanus shot after I left. Dirty dishes encrusted with what looked like entire meals sat in the sink, and even as a bar manager I’d never seen so many empty alcohol bottles in one place.
Kane sat on his couch in just a pair of jeans with a full bottle of Jack in his hand. His face looked like he hadn’t shaved in over a week, his beard nearly fully grown in.
“Jesus, Kane. What the fuck is going on here?”
He spread his arms out to his sides, splashing whisky down his chest, and grinned like a madman. “Welcome to Chez Kane! Sit the fuck down and tell me about your fantastic life, Stefan. I’m dying to hear about it.”
The desperate, almost manic, sound of his voice told me he had no interest in hearing about anything I had to say, but I draped his rented tux over one of the kitchen chairs and sat down across from him, hoping I could at least convince him to clean up for Cash and Olivia’s big day. He’d always liked Olivia, and between the two of us half-brothers, Cash was definitely his favorite, so if I found the right words to say he might be willing to put aside his misery for a day to make them happy.
“Cash and Olivia are worried about you, Kane. It means a lot to them that you’re there for the wedding on Saturday.”
He leaned back against the couch and closed his eyes. “How nice that both my brothers have found happiness in life. I couldn’t be happier for you.”
“We’re going to have to work on making that sound less like you want to end it all and more like you mean it, but it’s a start. I picked up your tux, so all you basically have to do is shower and shave that fucking beard that looks like something might be nesting in it and I think you’ll be in business.”
Opening his eyes, he turned his head to stare daggers at me. “What are you doing here?”
“I think I just told you. Cash and Olivia are worried about you not making it to their wedding and you’re supposed to be a groomsman, so he sent me to see how you’re doing.”
“So he sent the frat boy to tell me it’s time to straighten my life out?” he practically hissed at me.
“I’m going to give you a pass on that one since you’re a completely fucked up mess, Kane.”
He rolled his eyes and took a drink from the bottle in his hand. “Thanks for the newsflash, Stef. You always were smart.”
“Yeah, whatever. So are you going to be able to pull your shit together and your head out of your ass in time for Olivia to walk down the aisle?”
Kane’s eyes narrowed to angry slits. “Is that what you think this is? You think all this is just me having my head up my ass, Stef?”
This was definitely not going well. I needed to do something to diffuse the situation. Pasting a smile on my face, I shook my head. “No, Kane. It’s okay. We all feel this way sometimes. I know you and Abbi will patch up whatever went wrong and be fine.”
Leaning toward me, he flashed me a look of pure rage and bellowed, “Patch things up? So now she and I are just going to patch things up? You think it’s that easy, do you? You have no fucking idea what you’re talking about!”
I wasn’t in the mood for his shit and snapped back, “Whatever, Kane! I don’t know what your fucking problem is, okay? Is that what you want to hear? All I know is what I saw that day I brought that poor girl here to see you and watched you act like an asshole toward her! She’s fucking pregnant, and all you can do is sit here drowning your sorrows like you’ve just been told someone goddamned died!”
“You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about, Stef, so just keep your opinions to yourself.”
“I know what I saw. Abbi cried all the way back to my mother’s house because the asshole who got her pregnant couldn’t be bothered to even be nice to her. She’s all fun until she makes you stand up and be a man, Kane.”
“Shut the fuck up and go back to your happy life with that girlfriend of yours you don’t deserve, Stefan, and leave me alone.”
I stood to leave, fed up with his bullshit and not even caring anymore if he showed up at the wedding or not. But I wasn’t going to let him attack me without saying something back. “I may not deserve Shay, but at least I’m not a dick to her when she needs me.”
Kane waved me off and took another gulp of whisky. “What the fuck would she need you for? You’re a plaything for that kind of woman. I told you from the first day I met her she’s out of your league. It’s just a matter of time before she realizes that. And then you can tell me how it feels to lose everything you care about in this life.”
His words made me stop dead, and I turned around to see him grinning like he knew the truth and I was just some stupid jackass who couldn’t see the writing on the wall.
“You don’t know shit about Shay and me, so shut your fucking mouth before I do what I should have done a long time ago. I came here to make sure you’re okay to come to the wedding because Cash and Olivia care for some reason if you’re there or not. Personally, I couldn’t fucking give a damn what happens to you. You’re an asshole, Kane.”
“Fuck off, Stefan. Go back to your life and make sure you keep that girlfriend of yours happy or some guy who’s more than looks and a bike is going to show her you’re nothing but a frat boy who’ll never be enough for her.”
That fear that what he said about Shay was the truth made something snap inside me, and I let my anger over my fight with her take me over. Lunging at him, I slammed my fist into his face like I’d wanted to so many times in my life. Caught off guard and still holding the bottle of Jack in his one hand, he crashed back against the couch, so I landed a few solid punches to his jaw and cheekbone before he sent the bottle flying and regrouped to fight back.
Kane’s size usually gave hi
m the upper hand in our sparing, but after drinking so much, even his best punches barely affected me in my state of rage. He caught me on the jaw and on the cheek, but with so much adrenaline pumping through me, the blows barely registered in my brain.
I hit him for what he said about Shay and me. For all the years of ass busting. For being a dick to Abbi. But he got the better of me after a minute or two and threw me off him over the coffee table. I landed on my ass but jumped up fast, ready for round two if he wanted to come at me again.
But he was in no shape for any more. He shook his head and wiped his knuckle across his lower lip to catch the trail of blood rolling down toward his chin. “Just go. Leave me alone.”
As my heart returned to its normal beat, I suddenly felt as if he’d gotten the best of me. The knot in my stomach that had been there since talking to Shay returned, and my chest hurt, probably from when I flew across the coffee table just a minute earlier.
But it was something more too. Seeing Kane like some broken man made me feel like shit. I didn’t want to lose Shay and end up like him, holed up in some crappy rooms drinking myself into oblivion so I wouldn’t feel anything for anyone.
“Okay, Kane. I’ll tell Cash you’re not feeling up to a wedding right now.”
He said nothing and bent down to pick up the bottle from the floor. I watched him take a gulp of whisky and balance the bottle on his knee as he hung his head and let out a heavy sigh. Nothing I or anyone else could say was going to convince him to come out his funk.
Rubbing my jaw to ease the pain that began to sink in, I left him sitting there alone with nothing but the alcohol he wanted to drown himself in. As I drove back to my place, I couldn’t get what he’d said about Shay out of my head.
I knew what he said was true. She was out of my league, and it was only a matter of time before she realized that and left me for someone more like her.
And there was nothing I could do about it.
Chapter Five
Abbi
The last rays of the afternoon sun streamed in through my bedroom windows bathing everything in sunlight, but all I felt was sadness. Every day I sat out at this house on Anna Maria Island like some kind of modern day princess locked in a tower waiting for her Prince Charming to come rescue her, but he never came. Day after day, I sat on the front porch looking down the road for Kane’s Mustang, and every day right before the sun went down, I climbed the stairs to my room and crawled into bed, my heart broken that I’d have to spend another night without him.
I wanted to go to him. I wanted to ask Alexandria to have her driver take me to his rooms at the club so I could march up those stairs and let him know whatever his demons were telling him was all lies and no matter what, if we had each other, that’s all we’d ever need. I believed that so deep in my heart that I knew if I could just talk to him that I could convince him.
So every day I texted him, hoping he’d answer and as soon as he did, I’d be in that car and on my way to him. But he never answered. All those messages I’d sent, and never once had he texted not even a single word back. All I needed was one word from him.
Last night I dreamed he came back to me. As I lay in bed sleeping, he sat by my side like some kind of guardian angel watching over me. He never said a word in my dream, but I saw in his beautiful blue eyes the pain he felt. At one point, it looked like he wanted to say something, but he remained silent.
And then he was gone again and I was left with just a dream of him.
I sat on the edge of my bed and wished I could at least cry. Maybe if I could cry I would feel better, but I had no more tears to shed. I still loved him more every day, but I wasn’t so much sad as lonely without him. I knew he loved me, and I had to believe when he finally overcame the power his demons had over him we’d be together again, but what I felt most was how much I missed the simple things he did that made me so happy.
The way he slid his fingers over the ends of my hair as he held me in his arms. How he kissed me on the top of my head as I drifted off to sleep. The sound of his deep voice when he called me angel. The intense look of need in his eyes when we made love.
What I feared the most was forgetting all those things, though. It had been months since we’d been together, and every day that went by added more distance between us. I refused to believe our love wouldn’t outlast this separation, but what if his demons held on for so long that our child was born and we still weren’t back together?
I cupped my hands over my slightly swollen belly and wondered if it was a boy or a girl. In my mind, I imagined a little boy years from now with black hair and blue eyes like his father. He’d be tall, like Kane, but I hoped somewhere inside him he’d have a little of me too.
Or maybe our child was a girl with my blond hair and blue eyes. She’d love to twirl and dance and play in the backyard at the house with the squeaky door that Kane hoped we’d live in.
I didn’t want to think those things wouldn’t someday happen, but sometimes when I was alone and the house was silent after the caretaker had gone to bed, a tiny kernel of doubt nagged at me and made me worry Kane might never come back.
No! I had to believe in him. Now more than ever, he needed me to show him I loved him. Even if it meant he only heard from me through those text messages I sent each day, he needed to know I still waited for him and my heart was still his. We could weather this storm, and when it was all over, we’d be stronger for it.
I had to believe that or I wouldn’t be able to go on.
A noise downstairs roused me from my thoughts about Kane, and I heard a voice yell, “Abbi, are you up there?”
Alexandria had come to see me early this week. Usually her visits didn’t happen until the weekend, but it was only Thursday. Then I remembered Cash and Olivia’s wedding, and it all made sense. She’d be busy on Saturday and didn’t want to miss our time together.
“I’ll be right down!” I yelled, pretending to be happy instead of miserable.
I hurried down the stairs to find her waiting for me in the hallway. She appeared happier than usual, flashing me a warm smile as she said, “We’re having a guest tonight. Are you up for a visitor?”
My heart leaped in my chest at the word visitor. Had Kane changed his mind and come to see me?
“Who?” I asked excitedly, barely able to contain my excitement.
“Stefan called and said he wanted to come by and see me, so I told him I’d be out here spending time with you.”
“Oh. That’s nice,” I said quietly, unable to hide my disappointment. I liked Stefan well enough and he always had a way of being able to make me smile, but he wasn’t Kane.
Alexandria gently touched my shoulder and looked at me with sympathy in her soft brown eyes. “Oh, honey, I didn’t meant to tease you like that. I didn’t think before I spoke. Please forgive me. I never meant to make you think—”
“It’s okay. You didn’t do anything wrong. It’ll be nice to see Stefan again.”
She took my hands in hers and gave them a squeeze. “Only if you’re up to it. I don’t want you to feel like you need to entertain my son if you’re not feeling well. Stefan can talk to me after the wedding on Saturday, so don’t think you have to say yes.”
I couldn’t help but smile. She took such good care of me. “No, I’m fine. I feel good today. The morning sickness seems to be gone, and I’m not even tired as much.”
“Then it’s settled. The three of us will have iced tea and the cookies I brought.”
“When is he coming?”
She took me by the arm and we walked into the kitchen. “He’s on his way right now.”
“What if I’d said I couldn’t handle visitors?” I asked and then realized I sounded incredibly rude. “I’m sorry, Alexandria. That was so rude of me. This is your house, so you can have anyone you want to visit.”
“Not rude at all. I remember what it was like to be pregnant. If you weren’t up for it, I would have told Stefan he needed to go.”
“
You’d do that for me?”
“Oh, Abbi, of course I would. You’re like the daughter I never had, and someday I hope to be able to call you my daughter-in-law.”
“Your daughter-in-law?” How could she think that would ever happen with either of her sons?
Cradling my face, she smiled at me. “Yes, my daughter-in-law. I think of Kane like one of my own children, so someday when all of this is over and done with and you two are happy again, I hope you’ll get married.”
“I hope that too, Alexandria. I really do.”
Stefan arrived a few minutes later, happy to see his mother, and we sat around the kitchen table talking about Cash and Olivia’s wedding and how thrilled the two of them were to see the marriage finally happen. Stefan was never more at ease than around his mother, and as they told stories about Cash and him as children, I couldn’t help but feel bad for Kane as I remembered what he’d told me of his childhood. Alexandria’s tale about the night the boys tried to make pizza at three in the morning but almost burned the house down made me laugh so hard tears ran down my face, especially when Stefan tried to defend what he called their “first attempt at culinary greatness” and Alexandria reminded him how much it cost to redo the kitchen after the Pizza Debacle.
“You sound like you had a wonderful time growing up,” I said to Stefan as he got up to get a drink from the refrigerator.
“We did. It was a good time.”
“And on that truth, I’m going to bed, dears,” Alexandria said as she stood from the table. “All this talking about the past has tired me out.”
“Already Mom? It’s barely nine o’clock,” Stefan said as she bent down to kiss him goodnight.
She nodded and turned to give me a kiss on the forehead. “Yes. I’ll leave you two young ones to enjoy the nightlife.”
“Yeah, right,” I said with a chuckle. “Pregnant women are always the life of the party.”
“Don’t stay up too late, kids. Stefan, if you drink, I want you to stay here tonight. You can drive back to your place in the morning.”
