Radio silence. She’s unreachable— maybe because after my first fifteen calls, forty or so text messages, and multiple attempts at Face Time— she changed her number. Clever. I’ll give her kudos for her maneuver, but she’s forced my hand, and I’m an opponent you don’t want to be up against. I managed to snag her address from a bill resting against the counter at her parents’ house. Slowing, I take in the neighborhood, assessing the area and ensuring it’s safe.
Her front door opens, and two guys emerge; both stop and put their fucking hands on her. One too familiar in the way his hands linger, caressing her lower back as he hugs her. I’m seconds from exiting my car and beating the shit out of some fraternity punks when her friend— I believe it’s Avery from pictures— pulls her towards a house a few doors down. Another dude answers and ushers them in. I don’t have a clue what she’s doing in her extra curricular activities, but I promise it’s gonna stop. PRONTO!
Parking a few yards down the street, I observe. It isn’t long before she exits the house with Avery in tow. Judging by their body language, an argument is in progress. My mind reels with what could have caused it until I see the guy in question come to the door . . . holding an infant. Ah, this must be Deacon . . . the general has kind words for the father, but the mother, Adriane, isn’t high on his list. I understand she took off after the kid was born. I’ve never understood why Emberlee put up with her shenanigans. Loyalty. As much as my girl likes to act hard, she’s loyal to a fault.
A tiny blonde comes running from the house to greet them, but Emberlee walks past her, ignoring her. The girl watches her walk past and stares. Avery takes her hand and leads her the opposite way. This Emberlee isn’t one I know, and I’m not sure I like her. I’m wondering how much damage I did and if it’s fixable. That wasn’t a factor I considered in all this.
Reaching for my phone and doing a quick search, I order flowers with a single request to be written on the card. I pray she comes tonight. My official date of separation from the Air Force is in two weeks, but they’ll be in Colorado, so the General insisted on having a small ceremony tonight. I watch her glaring from the porch at Avery and the other girl; she shakes her head as she slams the door. Bitchiness isn’t a pretty look on her.
Dessert is being served and no sign of Emberlee. I’ve watched the door all night, been distracted with all the commotion surrounding me. I smile when mandated, shake hands and exchange pleasantries . . . but I’m missing her.
The General and Natalie are getting ready to leave, citing an early flight in the morning. “Gerald, Sara just called and there’s been some kind of tiff tonight. She’s asking we stop by there before heading home.”
He rolls his eyes and faces me. “Damn kids. Sorry to cut this short, but Deacon’s mom has summoned us.” He chuckles. “I knew letting Emberlee live off campus was a mistake.”
“Hope everything is okay, Sir.” I’m trying to control my body from fleeing before he leaves.
“I’m sure it is. It better be. I have to spend two weeks with everyone, and I won’t tolerate bickering. That group has been together since diapers. They’ll be fine without interference from their parents but the wives think otherwise.”
“Enjoy your vacation.” My hand’s resting on my phone, but I remember I don’t have her number. “Will you have your phone while you’re on vacation?”
“Should. Sometimes I leave it with Natalie, and she’ll be shopping. Anything wrong?”
“Nope. Just thinking I may want to call and wish you a Merry Christmas. I don’t want to be a bother.”
“You’re never a bother, Son. Let me give you Emberlee’s number in case you can’t reach me. She’ll know where I am at all times.” He pulls his phone from his pocket mumbling. “I know I have it. I just paid a fee to have her number changed. She was complaining, some unwanted caller. I told her she shouldn’t give out her number to boys she meets at parties.” I swallow down a chuckle, knowing she won’t be so lucky to have it changed again. Looks like I won this set. I’m sure she’ll throw another match at me, but I’ll have a tactic ready to block her.
“Thank you. If you’re sure it won’t upset her.”
“No matter. I pay the bill.” This may backfire. His control over her is what he seems to care about. I let it slide— after all, I’m getting her number.
I program the number as he rattles it off and promise to see them when they return. I want to add my appearance will be with their daughter— on a permanent basis, but I refrain. Walking them to the door so I can make sure they leave, I dial my little spitfire.
Hesitating to congratulate myself regarding my stalker skills, I smile as I block my number. She doesn’t answer this phone call and let me know she’s all right. I’ll drive over to her house. Restraining orders don’t scare me. Plus, her dad loves me so I doubt it will come to that. I’ve sunk to a new low contemplating a record just to get the girl to talk to me— I’d kill a man with my bare hands if he pulled this shit with Brecklynn.
“Adriane?” Her quivering voice is a punch to the stomach.
“It’s Brody. What’s wrong?” Her quick intake of air makes this victory worth it. Short lived as it is because she opens her lying mouth.
“Nothing. Hanging up now.” If she wanted to disconnect, I wouldn’t have gotten a warning.
“Cut the shit, Embe.” I sink to a new low. She’s exposed what that nickname does to her. “What happened? Your parents flew out of here like shit through a goose after a phone call.”
“I said nothing.” Honking in the background with her muttered curse tells me she isn’t home.
“Where are you?”
“Starbucks.” A low growl startles me. “But I’m leaving in two minutes.” She fucked up. Letting the enemy know her location is an amateur move, little girl.
“I’ll be there in one. You can either sit your ass there and wait or hope you laced up your running shoes because I’ll chase you until I find you. You don’t want a scene at the airport tomorrow, do you?”
“That’s low.”
“All’s fair, Embe. Nothing is off limits when it comes to you.” Dead air is my response. Yet, I’m confident she’ll be sitting at Starbucks waiting for me. Problem is, this is a college town— there are nine million overpriced coffee houses. I shoot her a text asking for the location, and to my surprise, the response is rapid. Good girl.
The streets aren’t busy, so I make it to her location in under six minutes. Her hair’s piled up on top of her head, she has black streaks staining her face from tears, shirt rumpled and I believe her shoes are two different colors. The most gorgeous hot ass mess I’ve seen. “Sticking to your story that nothing is wrong?” I eye her, trying to see inside her mind.
“Yep.” The ‘p’ pops as she grits that word out.
“So you make a habit of leaving the house with mismatched boots?” Her gaze snaps to her feet.
“Fuck me.” She sighs.
“Not tonight. We need to talk first.” Her head whips up, and I’m pretty sure she’s wondering what she’d look like in prison stripes. “You’d more than likely end up in Leavenworth. I’m still enlisted, and you’re the daughter of a highly decorated General. You may think it’s like club med but fresh meat like you— it’d be rough. Take murder off the table.”
“I hate you,” she seethes.
“I know. I’m waiting.”
“For what? Hell to freeze over because that’s the only way I’ll fuck you again.” If she knew what her sparring did to my dick, she’d shut her mouth.
“Talk to me. What happened tonight?” I soften my tone and sit down across from her.
Her shoulders slump, and she stares at the Formica table. “I blew shit up.”
“I don’t follow.” Taking a chance, I grab her hand, and she doesn’t immediately pull back. Instead her eyes close, lashes resting against her cheeks as she sucks in a trembling breath.
“I blew shit up. I didn’t mean for it to end the way it did. I hurt a lot of people a
nd for what? For who?”
“I don’t know. Want to explain?”
She shrugs. “No. I’d like to go back to three years ago. That’s what I was trying to do, but it didn’t work in my favor. My friends hate me. Adriane— she bailed. Par for the course with her.”
“I don’t think anyone could hate you. Apologize.”
“You’d disagree if you witnessed Avery’s slap.” I sit up, ready to pounce anyone who laid a hand on her. She shakes her head, “I deserved it. And the kicker is, I’m not sorry. I’m sorry people got hurt, but the reason I did it— not sorry.”
“What did you do?” It doesn’t sound good. I know she’s tight with this group of friends. They’ve been together since birth.
“It doesn’t matter.” Her voice is so small.
“It does to me.”
“Why? Why now?” The pleading in her voice drives me to move from my seat and get as close to her as I can.
“No. Don’t touch me.”
“Let me be your friend. Just for tonight. Please?” Her hands ball my shirt at my waist, and I know she’s given in. For her it’s only tonight, for me it’s the start of a lot longer.
“I need a friend.” I swallow my retort. I want to scream I’ll be her friend . . . her everything if she’d just let me. “How can I be so stupid?”
“Don’t call yourself that. You’re one of the smartest people I know, Ms. Valedictorian.” Her bitter laugh creates tension in my shoulders. “Emberlee?”
“Yeah, about that. Didn’t pan out.”
“Did something happen?”
“You. You fucking happened. You came in and set my world spinning. When you disappeared, you knocked it off its axis. Or shall I say Melody did.” She grabs my left hand and runs her fingers over my fourth one. “Are you the type of man who doesn’t wear a wedding ring and cheats, or did you break her heart, as well?” God dammit! I need a clone of myself so I can kick my own ass.
“No to both of those. You know me better than that.”
“I thought so. I really thought so.” Her body slumps against the chair, and I feel the breath hit my cheek from her heavy sigh.
“You did. Do you want to listen to me?” I don’t think she’s up for it tonight but I’ll share until I’m blue in the face if she wants.
“Not yet. Give me a minute.” She’s retreating, getting in her head, and I need to extract her.
“Tell me about tonight.”
“Things have changed. You missed so much.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You remember my friends?” I nod. “Adriane and Deacon had a baby. She hauled ass. Motherhood doesn’t suit her, so she says. Deacon is raising Julie, that’s her name. Their baby. Anyways, he couldn’t go into the majors so Caden and Mason didn’t either. They committed to play ball at Wichita State, so that’s how we all ended up here. I live with Avery and a new girl, Saylor. Deacon lives two houses down with Julie, and Mason and Caden in between.” That explains the blonde girl I saw. “Thanksgiving I slipped up. I let you in, thinking it’d be closure. It wasn’t. It opened up wounds I tried to close.”
Interrupting her, “It didn’t have to, baby. I tried to talk to you, make you see I wasn’t there to hurt you. What’d you do to yourself?”
“I don’t think you want to know.” Shit. If she harmed herself in anyway I’ll never forgive myself.
“Tell me.” I stare into her gem colored eyes, imploring her to give it all to me. Let me take this burden. All of them.
“I was naïve. I believed you that night. I had stars in my eyes, head in the clouds. The day your fiancé came over to get your briefcase was the day I lost my innocence. Not the night I offered you my virginity. I didn’t know what to do. I needed something to ground me, stop me from spiraling. I found it.” Her mouth thins, and I brace myself. “In Mason. He picked me up at my lowest and stitched me together. So I thought.”
Her destruction.
Her words.
Her sorrow.
It all fucking hurts.
“He was my fuck buddy.” I suck in a breath, my fists balling. “Don’t, Brody. You have no right.” She’s correct in that, but it doesn’t stop me from feeling like this. “Mason’s uncomplicated. He says what he means. No games. I wasn’t in jeopardy of losing my heart. I love him, but not like I loved you.” Past. Fucking. Tense. “Adriane ended up pregnant, abandoned us and I’m still here searching. I use to think she understood me, her dad and my dad share a gift— forgetting they’re parents. She didn’t. Nobody matters to her if they aren’t helping her get what she wants. I see it, but I can’t let go.”
“That isn’t healthy.”
“No shit. I learned that tonight. I got this bright idea to create a time machine in real life. I was going to remind them how it was when we were all together. A unit. Deacon’s falling in love with Saylor, and I want to stop it.”
“Is she not good for him?”
The eye roll, the bitterness rolling off her is radiating jealousy. “She’s fucking perfect for everyone. Beautiful, sweet, doting. Avery sings her praises, Mason’s all up her ass; Deacon is ga-ga over her. Julie fucking adores her.”
“And you hate her?”
A lone tear runs down her cheek. “I want to. I tried. But, I don’t. She hates me after tonight. They all do.”
“Emberlee,” I know it can’t be good. “Are you jealous?”
“Yes, but not in the way you think. I want my friends to be happy, but everyone is moving forward without me.”
“Friendships change, but that doesn’t mean the bond isn’t there. Y’all have grown up together. Nothing can replace that.”
“Nothing can replace a mother. Adriane should understand how it is to grow up seeking acceptance from an absentee parent. I can’t let her do this.”
“Fuck Adriane. Why are you fixated on her?”
“Because I know how it feels to be unloved by a parent. She does too, yet she is doing the same thing to Julie.” The crux of her problems is her dad. I agree he comes off hard, but she doesn’t see behind the scenes. I’ve glimpsed moments when he’s bragging about her, the pride evident in his words and demeanor. I’ve seen the stares he sneaks when she isn’t paying attention. I don’t condone the way he acts ninety percent of the time, but she’s way off base to think he doesn’t love her.
“There’s more to the story, but let me tell you that you’re blind to a lot. Your dad loves you.”
Her snort frustrates me. Why can’t she just listen? “He does. I know he comes across as a hard ass most of the time, but you’re missing the big picture.”
“Yes, because I’m the dumb girl. I don’t sit and wait for an ‘I love you’ or ‘good job.’ I didn’t do everything he expected and let him control my life all without a backwards glance when he leaves to serve and protect. Nope, I didn’t live with that every single day. So, tell me again, Brody, how I’m wrong?”
“I’ve seen it. I know he can be callous and come off uncaring. What you don’t see is the love shining in his eyes when he’s telling a fellow officer how smart his girl is. How beautiful she looked for prom. How she had a full-ride scholarship but refused it so someone who couldn’t afford it could have it. How he’s lucky to have you as a daughter after seeing how other kids act. I think he was referring to Adriane with that one. So ride your pity train to the next station and exit fucking left, Emberlee.” I’m seething. I hate her insecurity, and I hate I’m the one who helped mold that.
“And I suppose you care, too? That’s why you pounced and bounced—forgetting to tell me I wasn’t the only one getting you off? Neglecting to tell me about Melody? Tell me, did she know I existed?”
“Yes. She knows every fucking thing when it comes to you. My feelings. How wrong I was—every fucking second I shared with you. She knows.” Finally. That shuts her mouth.
Knock me over with a feather. Yes was the last answer I expected. I was prepared for hemming and hawing, excuses, apologies . . . “W-wh-what?”
He throws his head back and groans. Snapping his gaze to mine— leveling it at me. “I guess we’re doing this.” I stare. He continues. “She knows because she wasn’t my fiancé. She never was. Friends. Like you and Mason are.”
“Were,” I clarify.
“Keep it that way. Everyone is off limits to you from this point forward.” I snort in hysterics. He’s a few fries short of a Happy Meal. “I’m serious, Emberlee.”
“And you’re like a toilet. Fat, round, and full of shit. Get the fuck outta here with that mess. Finish your compelling story of how Melody really wasn’t your fiancé?” I started this night with a bang— might as well go out popping.
“You drive me crazy.” His frustration level is apparent with the bulging veins in his neck and red face. I bet that isn’t good for the ole’ ticker.
“At least you can drive. Mine’s a short walk. Crazy town, party of one, now seating.”
“Shut up, Emberlee. Let me talk before I do something you’ll regret.”
“Meeting you. That’s what I regret. I tried the time machine thing— didn’t work so well, and now I’m sitting across from you. It all revolves around you. How does it feel?”
His nostrils flare. I’m pushing my luck, but I’m stalling. I’m not ready for his confessions. More lies. “How does what feel?”
“The world revolving around you. It seems to in my world. The shit started with Brody Collier entering my life and now present day— you’re still here.”
“Last warning. Stop the shit. That mouth of yours is gonna get you in trouble.”
“Oh, you gonna call my daddy? The big general needs to save you?”
He leans close. “No, I’ll put you over my knee in front of God and everyone else. Right here.”
“What about that kid in the flannel shirt?” I point to the gentleman who is ordering. “He looks like he’ll be awhile . . . he just ordered a muffin and you know they warm it up for you. He’ll bare witness to your punishment.”
KISMET Page 4
