Never Tied Down (The Never Duet #2)

by Anie Michaels

  Chapter Three

  He’s Not Hard On The Eyes

  Kalli

  It was a Saturday morning, and the first Saturday in weeks I didn’t have to work. I enjoyed sleeping in, but woke up hungry, so I padded down the stairs toward the kitchen. As I neared the first floor I could hear Ella talking to the baby and smiled when I came into the great room and saw Mattie happily sitting in her bouncy chair while Ella spooned something into her mouth. The TV was on in the background and Ella watched it as she fed her daughter.

  “Morning, Kal,” she said cheerily, looking over her shoulder as I came into the room. “I didn’t think you were here.”

  “I got a Saturday off. It’s a miracle,” I answered, my voice still a little raspy from sleep.

  “Really?” she asked excitedly, turning to face me. “I was going to drive to Portland to see Megan and have lunch and go shopping. Wanna come with me?”

  “You aren’t spending the day with Porter?” That surprised me. Generally on the weekends they were together all the time.

  “He has to work in Lincoln City today and then is having dinner with his mom. It’s a girls’ day!” she exclaimed, turning back to Mattie, using her mom voice again.

  “You know what? That sounds like a lot of fun. I think I will go with you.” I grabbed a banana, then moved to sit on the couch facing Ella, who was parked on the floor.

  “Really? That’s great. We’ve really missed hanging out with you,” she stated. She wasn’t looking at me as she said the words, but I could hear the underlying meaning. I’d closed myself off from them for a while. Not because they did anything wrong, but because I wasn’t emotionally ready to let myself feel anything but sadness and loss. I was staying with them, living in their houses, but I wasn’t the same person I used to be. A small smile crossed my face and I decided it was as good a day as any to try to enjoy myself with my friends.

  “I’ve missed me, too,” I replied honestly. “And thank you for not giving up on me. I’m trying, every day, to get back to normal. I’m just not sure what normal is anymore.”

  “Oh, sweetie, you’re doing fine. And we’ll be here to help you as long as you need.”

  I smiled at her, grateful for my friend in that moment, but my attention was pulled to the television as I heard a woman speak a name I’d tried for months to avoid hearing.

  “Riot Bentley made quite the appearance last night at the Hollywood premiere of Midnight Ride when he showed up on the arm of none other than pop superstar, Lexi Black.”

  My breath snagged in my lungs and my heart skidded to an immediate halt at the mention of Riot, and my traitorous head turned toward the television, where my eyes landed on his image. It was the first time I’d seen him in months, thanks to avoiding the Internet all together. My first thought? He looked amazing. Handsome and delicious in a suit with no tie, top buttons of his shirt undone. It wasn’t jeans and a t-shirt, but it was a look he wore well.

  “Oh, shit,” I heard Ella mumble, then from the corner of my eye I saw her scrambling for the remote control. She speed-crawled across the floor to the coffee table and grabbed the remote. Just as she lifted it to change the channel, I stopped her.

  “No, wait, I want to watch this.” Obviously, I was into pain.

  “Lexi Black, who’d been rumored to be dating famed director George Lebowitz, showed no shyness as she planted a kiss on her leading man right on the red carpet.” I sucked in a sharp breath as they showed a slow-motion replay of Lexi leaning in and planting her red, luscious lips right on Riot’s. “Fans might remember Bentley as the hot hunk in her most popular music video to date, which was, coincidentally, directed by Lebowitz. Bentley, the current heartthrob on the hit show Shield to Shield, looked slightly uncomfortable in front of the cameras, but this was his first red carpet event so we’ll give him a pass.”

  The woman on the television gave a slimy wink and I felt as though I was going to throw up right then and there.

  “We’ll all be watching to see how this new and exciting relationship develops. It might even be Hollywood’s hottest love triangle.”

  Another “reporter” came on screen and started commenting on something trivial, and all I could do was remind myself to breathe. My teeth were clenched and I could feel the muscles in my jaw start to ache, and my face was definitely heating up. My mind raced as every thought and emotion made itself apparent all at once. That was not the way I wanted to see Riot for the first time in months. Silly as it might seem, I hadn’t imagined him moving on. Hadn’t even considered the fact that he would be dating someone new. I guess, on some subconscious level, I assumed he was just as wrecked as I was and still nursing his wounds.

  Silly me.

  Then I was angry at the pair of them. The nerve they had, parading their romance around, practically rubbing my nose in it. Well, I guess not really. They had no way to know I would see a news report about their little date night, but still. My mind flashed back to the music video shoot and the way they’d looked as Riot had lain on top of her, kissing her, running his hand along her body. Had they been seeing each other the entire time I was with him? Suddenly, I felt like a complete idiot.

  “Are you all right?” Ella asked hesitantly.

  “Not even a little bit,” I instantly replied.

  “Oh, Kalli. I’m sorry.” She reached forward with the remote and switched off the television. Mattie squawked and Ella went back to sitting on the floor in front of the bouncy chair to continue feeding her. “That Lexi girl looked horrible.”

  I turned to look at Ella. “She looked amazing. But, thanks,” I said, mustering a tiny smile. Lexi really had looked great. She was thin, young, and had an amazing body. Plus, she had a team of people to make her beautiful every day. I couldn’t compete with that. Not that I was in competition with her. I sighed.

  “Have you talked to him at all since….” Her voice trailed off and I could tell she didn’t want to speak the words.

  “No,” I squeaked, shaking my head and looking down at my hands in my lap.

  “Maybe,” she offered slowly and gently, “you should call him or something. You never really got any closure with him, Kal. There was just so much going on and too much for you to deal with.” She paused, perhaps waiting for me to say something, but when I didn’t, she continued. “Perhaps if you spoke with him, talked about things, you’d start to feel better.”

  “Talking to Riot won’t bring Marcus back,” I whispered.

  “No, it won’t. But sweetie, nothing will.” She looked away and fed Mattie a few more bites. Her baby squeals of happiness were a stark contrast to the actual mood in the room. “Do you mind if I ask what you’re afraid will happen if you see him, or talk to him even?”

  I shrugged, then let out a large sigh. “It’s hard to explain, Ella. When I think of Riot, all I can think about is how if I could have just let him go, if I hadn’t been so wrapped up in everything with him, Marcus might still be alive.”

  “Honey, what happened to Marcus is not your fault. It’s no one’s fault. It was an accident. A terrible, horrible, sad, and tragic accident. But it’s not your fault.”

  “There is a tiny part of me that can understand that. A tiny fraction of my mind knows what happened to him could have happened when I was with him, could have happened at any time. But still, I can’t shake the majority of my thoughts that say if I were home he never would have even been at the park. He wouldn’t have run from Nancy. He would still be here. We’d have stayed home and played Monopoly or video games. He’d still be alive, Riot and I would still be apart, but everyone would be fine.”

  “But that’s not what happened, Kalli. You’re still here, though, and it’s perfectly all right for you to be happy, or at least try to find happiness. You don’t have to punish yourself forever. Marcus wouldn’t want that.”

  My first thought was that Ella wouldn’t know what Marcus would want; she’d never met him. But I knew that was a harsh thought, and I also knew the only reason she
’d never met him was because I kept him from everyone. So I let that thought simmer in my mind. Ella was just trying to help and I knew what she was saying was true, but moving past Marcus’ death was definitely something easier said than done.

  I don’t think anyone prepares for the death of a loved one. I certainly didn’t. Sure, I’d considered the idea that one day, perhaps, Marcus would get sick and because of his mental disabilities, he’d have a harder time recovering. But only in my deepest, darkest moments of fear had I ever considered he’d be taken from me in that way. I’d always imagined growing old with him, taking care of him until I couldn’t anymore, but even then, we’d still be together. I’d never imagined a life without him, so being without him was almost like living in a dream. A terrible nightmare.

  “I can work on being happy, but that doesn’t mean I need to contact Riot. He was just a blip on my screen. Inconsequential.” The words stung as I spoke them because they were so far from the truth. “Being happy today means going shopping with the girls,” I declared, plastering a fake smile on my face. I was glad to go out and spend the day with Ella, Mattie, and Megan, but I could tell that pretending to be okay for an entire day would be exhausting.

  “All right,” Ella agreed, although she didn’t sound convinced. “I was thinking of leaving in about an hour. Will that work for you?”

  “Yup. I’ll be ready,” I answered as I stood up, walking toward the stairs to get ready to spend the day pretending.

  We were halfway to Portland and I was really proud of myself for resisting for the whole thirty minutes we’d been on the road, but I couldn’t help myself any longer. I pulled out my phone and opened up a browser and googled “Riot Bentley.”

  I had never googled him before. At first, when we were together, it had been for authenticity reasons. Anything I knew about him, I wanted to know because he’d shared it with me. It wasn’t normal for me to date semi-famous people and I didn’t want our relationship to be different just because he was on the rise in the Hollywood scene.

  In recent months, not googling him had been more for self-preservation purposes. I didn’t really want to see him, whether it be on a phone screen or a TV screen—I didn’t want to see him, period. I wasn’t sure my heart could take any more pain than it had already been through. So I just never did it. But sitting in Ella’s car as she drove down the freeway, with the seal already broken, thanks to the red carpet coverage, I decided there probably wasn’t anything worse on the Internet than what I’d seen on the television that morning.

  I’d been wrong.

  So.

  Very.

  Wrong.

  I was flooded with images of him. All kinds of images. Pictures of him walking down the street in LA, of him on set laughing with his co-stars, stills from his show, him holding up a gun, looking like a real cop.

  My breath caught for a moment and then I flipped my phone over and put the screen against my thigh. I must have moved too quickly because Ella’s head turned toward me.

  “What is it?” she asked, concerned.

  “I just googled Riot.” I scrubbed my hands over my face, trying—unsuccessfully—to wipe the images from my mind.

  “Oh,” she replied, her voice worried. “That was brave.”

  “I think the word you’re looking for is dumb. That was dumb.”

  “Maybe a little. What’d you find?”

  “Oh, not much, just a bunch of pictures of him looking incredible.”

  “He’s not hard on the eyes.”

  “No, he’s not,” I agreed as I picked up my phone and flipped it over, looking at the screen again. Like I said, I was into pain. “He makes a really hot cop,” I muttered absently, my finger swiping across my screen quickly. I wasn’t even really taking the pictures in, I was just gorging myself on him. Like a kid let into a candy store and told they could eat as much as they wanted. I just kept shoveling it down. “Oh, God,” I groaned, and instantly made my screen go black and shoved the phone between my thighs.

  “What?”

  “I saw a picture of him surfing. Shirtless. Wet. God.” I groaned again. “I didn’t even know he could surf.”

  After a moment’s pause, Ella asked, “What do you think he was doing with Lexi?”

  “You mean besides Lexi? I think they were on a date. Obviously.” I picked up my phone again, but tried to clear out of the images and look for just an article about them.

  “Maybe they just went to the movie as friends.” Ella sounded hopeful. Even Mattie gave a wail from the backseat that sounded frustrated.

  I turned to Ella and gave her my best “you’ve got to be kidding me” face. “Come on now, Ella. You saw that music video. She’s adorable. And sexy. And hot. And he’s… well… he’s Riot. They aren’t just friends. You can’t just be friends with either one of them. Especially considering they hadn’t ever met each other before that video.”

  “But what about her director boyfriend?”

  “I’m reading about it now.” I thumbed through the article until I found what I was looking for. “Lebowitz was contacted to comment on his relationship with Black and he declined to make a statement, which isn’t unusual for him. Both Black and Bentley’s camps are keeping quiet, not offering to confirm or deny a relationship between the two. We at E! News aren’t calling this one yet. Our guts are telling us this was a publicity stunt, but we’ll keep our eyes peeled for more sightings.” I scrunched up my face. “A publicity stunt? They were kissing.”

  “Things aren’t always as they appear,” Ella said with her new motherly, all-knowing voice.

  “It doesn’t even matter. He can date whoever he wants.”

  “He’d probably like to date you,” Ella said carefully, giving me the side-eye from behind the steering wheel.

  I decided not to respond. I could have agreed with her, or told her it couldn’t be true. Either reality was too harsh to think about. So I tried not to. Instead, we spent the next thirty minutes in silence as we made our way to Portland.

  I took a few quick steps to get to the door of Poppy before Ella, holding it open so she could push her stroller through with ease. She gave me a thankful smile as she passed, and then I saw her eyes go into boss mode. She looked around the sales floor and I could only imagine what was running through her mind. She was probably examining inventory levels, employee productivity, all kinds of things she’d learned to manage as the owner of a small business and assess with just a sweep of her eyes.

  “Hey, Fella,” Megan called before we were halfway through the store. “Kalli!” she nearly squealed when her eyes found me. “I’m so excited to see you.” She came toward us, giving us each a hug. Then she bent down in front of the stroller and used her baby voice on Mattie. “Hello, sweet girl. How’s my favorite niece?”

  Mattie gurgled her response.

  “Are you ready to go?” Ella asked, taking another sweep of her eyes through the store.

  “Yeah, Brittany’s here, so I’m good.”

  Almost as if she’d heard her name, Brittany came out of the back room and saw us.

  “Hey guys. How’s it going?”

  “Just headed out for a girls’ day,” Ella said, smiling warmly at Brittany.

  “Sounds fun.”

  “Could you take a minute to finalize the schedule so it can be posted by tomorrow?” Megan asked Brittany. “I’ve already looked it over, but if you can do it too, I’ll feel more comfortable.”

  “Of course. Want me to post it before I leave?”

  “That would be awesome. I probably won’t be back today. After girls’ day, Patrick is taking me out to dinner. It’s our six-month wedding anniversary.”

  “Awww…” Brittany sighed.

  “You guys are too cute,” Ella said with a little bit of disgust in her voice.

  “Oh, my God,” I cried. “You have no room to talk, Ella. You and Porter are, like, sickening to be around. Let your sister celebrate her anniversary.”

  All four of us laughed. />
  “Okay, okay. Let’s go,” Ella said, shaking her head.

  We spent the afternoon shopping downtown, taking frequent and needed breaks to tend to Mattie. She was a wonderful shopping partner, being a happy baby, but she needed attention more often than us. We’d found a cute coffee shop to stop at while Ella fed Mattie, and I enjoyed a few minutes of just chatting with my best friends.

  “So, what are you working on right now, Kalli?” Megan asked.

  “There’s a small theatre company in Portland who lost their costume designer over the summer. She’s on maternity leave. So I’m outfitting their fall production.”

  “That sounds fun.”

  “It’s so fun,” I said with enthusiasm. “Their budget is pretty good and I’ve been able to hand-make some of the pieces. Makes me feel like I’m back in the lab in college, designing pieces and then making them real. It’s refreshing.”

  “Seems almost therapeutic,” Ella added. “Like you could get a lot of thinking done at a sewing machine.”

  “Yeah. That’s true,” I said, taking a sip of my cold coffee drink. “My mind’s pretty much running a million miles an hour anyway. But you’re right, having to sit in a quiet room for hours on end does let me get a lot of thinking done.”

  “What’s your mind been telling you?” Megan asked.

  I sighed. If anyone deserved a glimpse into my mind, it was Ella and Megan. They’d been supporting me emotionally for months, even if that meant stepping away and letting me deal quietly. I knew they wanted in, wanted me to talk to them, and I figured I owed it to them.

  “My mind tells me different things every day. One day I feel like I’ve finally gotten over the hardest part of all this, but then the next day I wake up crying and missing Marcus so much, it feels like he just passed yesterday.” I shook my head. Grief was a nasty thing. “But lately, I’ve been feeling pretty solid.”