by Robin Leaf
“He’s right. You are a catch.” She took my bottle from me, but I snatched it back before she could take a drink, which made her roll her eyes. “Look, if she was done with you, why didn’t she leave the ring with me? She had to know I would make sure it was returned. Or she could have asked me where to find you so she could mail it, but she didn’t. She’s probably telling herself that she’s wearing it to keep it safe, but that’s not the reason.” She placed her hands on my upper chest and patted. “She’s hoping to see you again.”
Walking to the fridge, she grabbed her own bottle of beer. After taking a drink, she got one of those looks like she figured out how to balance a tough chemical equation. “Damn, Bro, that explains why she was so… I dunno, down maybe? She wasn’t happy. She knows you didn’t take me back, so she probably thinks you don’t want her.”
Heather turned and walked toward the door.
“My advice is to find this girl, explain what happened. Make this right.” She opened the door and turned around to face me and pointed her bottle in my direction. “I have a feeling about you two. There’s a reason she was brought to you on the day you caught me and Kyle. It was a sign.”
“I don’t believe in signs.”
She walked toward the door. “Well, you should. It was a big one, whether you believe it or not. And I hope you find her. I want you to be happy. You deserve it.” She turned and smiled at me one last time. “Don’t leave without saying goodbye.”
***
“Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes,” Stephanie said, setting a glass of water in front of me. “Sorry, but since you’re driving, no beer for you.”
Heather was busy helping a customer, so I sat at the bar, satisfied I got a chance to talk to Steph before I took off.
I raised the water glass to her. “Yeah, I know you’ll miss me, but there’s no need to cry on the bar.”
“Oh, I guess you don’t know… Heather asked me to manage her other location. Apparently, when she visited, she had to fire the previous manager. So, we’ll be close… like you’re taking a little part of home with you.” She smiled. “Today’s my last day here.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Are you okay with this?”
“I wouldn’t have agreed if I wasn’t. I think she wants me the fuck away from here since I’ve made it clear I don’t approve of how things went down.” She leaned over the bar. “Look, the other day, Kyle was sniffing around some chick who I later found out was the girl you were with the night y’all broke up. It seemed like they knew each other.”
I took a drink of water, trying to figure out a way to play it cool. If Kyle was already stepping out on Heather, I wasn’t sure how I was gonna deal with that.
“Was he… hitting on her?”
“If he was, she wasn’t having it. She didn’t seem to care for him much.”
The relief I felt from that knowledge was probably visible on my face. Luckily, something over my shoulder caught her eye.
“Looks like you can ask him yourself.” She smirked and leaned forward, lowering her voice. “But if you are gonna hit him, please take it outside in the back, and make sure you tell me so I can watch.”
I turned to find Kyle approaching me slowly, with his metaphorical hat in his hands.
“Hey, Hasbro.”
I felt my blood start to heat up at the sight of him, so I relied on the water to try and cool it.
“It takes fucking balls to call me that, Dickhead.”
He threw up his hands in surrender. “You’re right, you’re right.” He shook his head. “Just trying to lighten the mood. I figured since I gave you that nickname, I would try to remind you that we are friends –”
“I think when you fucked my girlfriend, it effectively ended our friendship, Fuckwad.”
He held the back of his neck and looked down.
“Wow,” he chuckled awkwardly, “Dickhead? Fuckwad? What’s next on your middle-school, name-calling roster?”
“How do you know Kaelyn, Shit-stain?”
He put his hands on the bar and looked at me sideways, drumming his fingers on the bar.
“So it’s not, ‘How could you do this to me?’ or ‘I thought we were friends?’ or even ‘How could you fuck my girlfriend?’ You’re just gonna fly right over the girl you were going to ask to marry you and land on some chick you just met?” He knocked on the wood. “See, this is why you were never right for her.”
The need to punch his smug face was overwhelming. But after I took a deep breath, I had to agree that his statement was correct. I should be more worried about what he did to me rather than Kaelyn… right now anyway.
“You know, I’ve thought a lot about it, Kyle. If you were in love with her, why didn’t you come talk to me?”
“And you would have what? Told me you understood? Stepped aside? Given me the green light to date your girlfriend? Because in the history of guys screwing over their friends, that’s the way it always goes down.”
I stood, bumping my chest into his. “So you admit you screwed me over?”
Hanging his head, he took a step back. “Dude. Not on purpose.”
I took another deep breath and leaned back against the bar. “So tell me. How long have you had feelings for Heather?”
He shifted on his feet and glanced quickly in her direction. He looked me dead in the eye.
“Since the first time you introduced me to her.”
I had to fight my mouth dropping open. “That was almost two years ago, Kyle.”
He nodded once. “I’m aware.”
I saw the pain he was trying to hide. I realized right then that loving someone for years while watching her with someone else couldn’t have been easy. Especially when the someone else was a good friend who wasn’t exactly the best boyfriend. I fought a smile.
“Damn, that had to be torture.”
He scoffed. “You have no idea.”
I was really starting to understand Kyle’s dilemma. What is the protocol in this situation? If he had come to me and told me he had feelings for Heather, I don’t think it would have gone well. So he sat on it. He didn’t act until she returned his feelings. But still… I wasn’t exactly in the right mind to be all mature about it. I felt my next words leave my mouth with no way to stop them.
“So, what’s it feel like to finally satisfy someone sexually? I know it’s always been an issue for you. Is that what finalized the deal?”
“Brody Heroux,” Heather scorned. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
And the bad word choices kept flying. “He started it by fucking my girlfriend.”
“Yeah, well… It takes two to fuck. You owned up to being a shitty boyfriend a few minutes ago, so why are you giving him hell about this?”
“There’s a difference between owning up to your mistakes and fucking your friend’s girlfriend behind his back, Heather. He could have waited until you broke up with me.”
“You were due back on your birthday, Brody. Breaking up with you on that night would have been pretty shitty timing.”
“Yeah, because seeing it live and in person on my birthday was so much better than you telling me you were in love with another guy. Great plan, Heather.”
“So should I have waited until you showed me the house you had built or until you asked me to marry you?” She laughed humorlessly. “Yeah, those were great options, too. I honestly didn’t know how he felt about me until we both got drunk the first night moving, and it just sort of happened. Both of us fucked up, Brody. In fact, I made the first move. So be mad at me, not him. Get in your truck, drive to Texas, and if you have to, hate us both, but know that neither of us set out to hurt you.”
I downed the water in my glass.
I’m not sure why, but I had to start some shit between them before I left. I know Heather hates, hates, hates when someone lies to her. I had a feeling Kyle hadn’t come clean.
“You still didn’t tell me how you know Kaelyn, Kyle, but I don’t have time to hear the story now. I’ve
really gotta get on the road.”
The look Heather gave Kyle told me I hit the mark square on the jaw. I had to fight hard to suppress the smile at my cunning. He glared at me, knowing full well how I just struck a blow that was just like a punch to his junk.
I knocked on the bar. “Steph, I’ll see you in a few days. Bye, y’all. Don’t be late with the rent, Heather.”
And with that, I gladly walked away from the building I’d called home for the past decade, fired up the truck and moved to my new home in Texas.
Nineteen
Kaelyn
“This is a little awkward, Keaton.”
He sat in the chair of the little hole-in-the-wall dress shop where Emily had ordered the bridesmaid’s dresses, flipping through his tattoo magazine, while I worried if the stool was going to continue to hold me as the seamstress stuck me under the arm with a pin. At least the plum-colored tea-length chiffon dress with the tight, cap sleeves and sweetheart neckline wasn’t hideous. I had a massive case of panty line, but that was a minor detail.
“What’s awkward about it, Bug? Since Emily is helping her cousin move and Mom is writing, I stepped up to the plate.”
I rolled my eyes. “You just added to the awkward by resorting to sports metaphors.”
He chuckled. “Emily’s mom’s head almost exploded when she found out you hadn’t been in for your fitting yet. It’s a fucking riot watching her lose her shit seventeen times a day. I might have had some fun adding to that when I offered to try to score some of the good shit for her.”
I pictured how that might have gone down and smiled. “You don’t even do drugs, so I bet that went over well.”
Emily’s very sweet but uptight mother was quite entertaining, as long as her freak outs weren’t directed at me. I didn’t fare so well today. I mean the wedding’s in five days, which was plenty of time to alter a stupid dress that already fit me pretty well, so I didn’t understand why I even needed a fitting with this sadistic woman who was doing nothing but finding reasons to pierce my flesh with her tiny steel rods of torture. I swear Mrs. Sullivan told her to stab me as often as possible as punishment.
Okay, that may have been a bit of an exaggeration, but I wasn’t imagining that the chick smiled every time she poked me.
Keaton glanced at me over his magazine. “Her mom deserved it after she sicced her husband on me to tell me how I needed to step up my game in the bedroom.”
Giggling only got me poked, yet again.
“Holy shit, Stoney, why did that even come up?”
“Emily said something about having a conversation with her mom and cousin, but I never got the whole story because she couldn’t stop laughing at the idea of her dad trying to school me.” He looked at me over the magazine. “Then, we got… distracted.” After wagging his eyebrows, he looked back at the picture he studied. “I was able to give Collin some tips though.”
“Well, aren’t you a modern-day Masters, or are you Johnson? I can never remember who the guy was.”
“You’re one up on me.” He flipped to another page. “I don’t know either one.”
Ow. Fucking pin pricker.
“Masters and Johnson? They’re sex therapists who studied the sexual response, particularly female orgasms. I learned about them in my psychology of sex class.”
He dropped his magazine to his lap and stared at me for a second. “I’m beginning to question your higher education.”
“I had to take a psychology class. Why not take one that was entertaining?” I shrugged, which got me poked again. “Plus, I thought it would be useful. Guess I was wrong.”
“Excuse me, Caroline, is it?” Keaton addressed the seamstress. She nodded. “Apparently my sister is too nice to say anything, and I’m not sure if you’re aware, but you keep poking her with the pins.”
I swear the bitch smirked before she masked it with a mock horrified expression. “Oh, am I? I’m so sorry, Miss Cartupeli.” She wasn’t. “We’re done anyway. I guess I’m just so worried about how I’m going to do this last minute rush job, that I’m off my game.”
Wow, I was almost impressed. Her passive-aggressiveness was just about as good as mine.
Just about.
But not quite.
I held my finger up when I saw Keaton getting ready to respond, put on my armor I reserved for the rude people, and added an extra layer of sugary sweetness.
“The wedding is in five days, and from what the bride told me, you only have her wedding to worry about for this weekend. I’m sorry that I live out of town and couldn’t make it before now. However, I would imagine that, based on your website, someone who boasts of ‘timely and accurate alterations’ could knock out this tiny little modification in less than an hour, but if you’re going to need longer, maybe you should change the guarantee on your shop’s website.” I stepped off the stool. “Just a suggestion, of course.” Once I stepped behind the shower curtain she called a “dressing area,” I added, “I guess we’re lucky the dress is dark. After ten pin pricks, you might have broken the skin. Then you’d have to explain to Mrs. Sullivan about the bloodstains.”
***
“What was that all about?” Keaton asked as he pulled out of the parking lot?
“What was what about?”
He glanced at me sideways. “I’m not sure I understand why you allowed that chick to poke you so many times without saying something to her.”
“You, the king of laid back, are going to fault me for being nice?”
“C’mon, Bug, there’s a fine line between being nice and letting someone walk all over you.”
I sighed. “I have to let some things go because of who people think I am, Stoney. If I say anything, it looks like I’m still that spoiled brat the media won’t let me not be.”
“It just seems that if you don’t stick up for yourself, people are gonna keep treating you like shit.” He nudged my knee with his fist. “I know I’m a ‘live and let live’ kinda guy, but I couldn’t watch her keep hurting you. You shouldn’t need your big brother to defend you anymore.”
I looked out the passenger window so he couldn’t see my tears forming. “You didn’t need to. You just did. And I didn’t ask for this fame.”
“So maybe it’s time you bowed out. You haven’t been in the media much lately anyway.”
My head whipped around so I could see his face. “Are you saying I should give up the event planning?”
He puckered his lips and sucked air through them. “Maybe just give up the high-end celebrity stuff. I’m sure there are other events that need coordinators.” His eyes met mine briefly. “And if you stop dating in the famous pool, you might meet a normal guy. Have a normal life.”
“It’s been my experience that guys are pretty much the same, no matter their level of fame. They either use me and sell me out or use me and don’t call.” I crossed my arms over my chest. “Men suck.”
“I don’t suck.”
“Yeah, but you’re my brother. I can’t date you. Gross.”
“I’m betting you just choose the wrong dudes.” He rubbed his chin with the hand not on the wheel. “Dugger is looking for a date to the wedding. Why don’t you go with him? You know you’ll have fun and he’ll treat you right.”
I sat straighter in my seat. “You are not seriously suggesting I hook up with Dugger, are you? He’s known me since I was in diapers, Stoney.” I lowered my voice and looked forward. “That’s just as gross as the thought of going on a date with you.”
“God, no. There will be no hooking up, Kaelyn.” He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “He’s just someone to hang out with at the wedding… as friends, nothing more.”
The way he said it… well, I was not sure if he was trying to convince me or himself that a “date” with Dugger would be nothing. I needed no convincing. Dugger was like a brother to me. No romantic wedding, no lack of age restrictions, and no amount of alcohol would ever erase that feeling.
His fingers drummed on the steering
wheel. “You can have fun and be yourself. Let your hair down and not worry about anything.”
No filtering my mouth. No commitments. No one to impress. No worries about what happens at the end of the night. Just a fun night with a friend.
I couldn’t help but smile at my brother. “You know, that actually doesn’t sound half bad. Call Dugger right now and let’s set it up.”
***
“Holy Fuck, Kaelyn, Riley Tate just entered the building.” Dugger shout-whispered in my ear.
I giggled. “Watch your language in church. And duh. He’s married to Emily’s pregnant maid of honor. How did you not know that?”
We were leaning against the wall in the vestibule of the old church waiting for everyone to arrive for the rehearsal. Emily’s mother had finally agreed to hire a wedding planner to help with the details for the next few days, and she was currently trying to find someone to let them know we were here.
Dugger tried to nonchalantly watch the actor from across the entry way of the church. “Why would I know that?”
“Because Keaton is your best friend, and Emily is about to be your best-friend-in-law. I’m sure she’s talked about it.”
He rolled his eyes at me. “I don’t pay attention to her pregnant married friends. I’m a busy guy.”
“Right. You know there’s more to life than tattoos and working out, Douglass.”
“I know.” He wagged his eyebrows. “There’s sex, too.”
I playfully pushed him. “Ew. The last image I need in my head right now is of you and one of your tattoo groupies.”
A salacious smile spread across his face. “Or two of my tattoo groupies.”
I chuckled. “Double ew. Will you ever change?”
His smile slipped and he stepped closer. “For the right woman, sure.”
“You’re thirty-two now, Doug. Don’t you think it’s time you found her?”
He took a breath to say something else, but movement out of the corner of my eye drew my attention.
