Love's Call

by Jala Summers

  He looked up, and jumped from the sofa. “Wait, why so early?”

  “I just have things I need to take care of. Bye,” she said and opened the door and practically flew down the sidewalk toward her car.

  Kyle stood there, confused about why she seemed in such a rush to get out of there. Then he thought about the nude text Shaila had just sent him. Had she somehow seen it?

  He looked over at the laptop on the table. Oh no, please don’t tell me, he moved the mouse, taking the screen out of standby mode and saw the minimized, flashing chat window. He opened the chat box to see the same nude picture of Shaila, sitting in a chair, spread-eagle style, that she’d sent to his phone. Damn!

  Kyle dialed Liana’s number and heard it ring incessantly until he was finally directed to her voicemail. He tried several times more, only those times, it went directly to voicemail, without ringing, and he knew she was rejecting all of his calls.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Her phone vibrated on the wood desk, again. Liana looked over at the display to see the word Kyle lighting up the screen. She pressed the Reject button and continued sifting through properties on her computer. It had been like that the entire day so far. Kyle calling every half hour to hour and her, sending his calls straight to voicemail.

  There wasn’t much to talk about. He thinks I’m a fool. I may love him and he may have convinced me to start to trust him, but I’m not a fool. I know how to put two and two together.

  She knew that no woman would book a flight and fly out to see a man unless they had arranged a meeting. And if so, why was he arranging meetings with her, and worse, why hadn’t he told her about it. And then after she sees his ex-wife leave his place, she sees nude pics on his computer. The whole situation just seemed too suspicious to her.

  And Liana knew, first hand, how men could be with their wives. If Shaila wanted to come back into his life and beg for him back, it was very likely that he would go back to her. Because, after all, she had been his wife, and someone he’d loved.

  And as far as I know, he could still be in love with her. There were just too many things being left unsaid and kept secret for her to feel anything but uneasy about the whole thing.

  ***

  Shaila had just peeled off her panty hose and fell back onto her sofa to relax for a minute, when she heard the knock on her door. Please don’t let this be Kyle, she thought as she got up and padded toward the peephole. Her prayer hadn’t been answered, because Kyle stood there, alive and in the flesh on her porch waiting for her to open the door.

  She blew out her breath in a dramatic sigh, and pulled open the door. Evidently ignoring him wasn’t working. Besides, maybe it’s good he’s here, because he needs to do some explaining. She had several questions that she needed answered and it was better that she saw his face, so she could see just how much of the truth she was getting out of him.

  He looked surprised, and at the same time, relieved that she had opened the door. “I know what you’re upset about, just let me explain,” he said.

  She stepped aside, so that he could enter, “Yes, please do.”

  “I know you saw Shaila’s nude message that she sent me through chat. Please believe me when I tell you, I knew nothing about that. I didn’t know she would send it, and she’d never done it before that day.”

  Liana stood in front of him, her arms crossed over her chest. “So why did you put your phone on vibrate after she sent it on your phone in a text too.”

  “Huh?”

  “I saw you, Kyle. For some reason, you didn’t want me to hear your phone chiming from her text message. Don’t start lying to me.”

  “Okay, okay,” he nodded. “Yeah, I did do that. But it wasn’t because I was trying to hide it from you deliberately. It shocked me too, and I didn’t want you to ask and get pissed thinking I was sexting my ex.”

  “Well, you were hiding it. And if you weren’t sexting her, why not tell me that she sent you unsolicited pics? Now it just looks like you’re lying.”

  “I know, that was a dumb move, I should have told you.”

  “You know what else you should have told me? That she’d been trying to contact you lately.”

  Shit, he thought to himself, because she was right, this was looking worse and worse for him. He did look like a liar or at least someone who was trying to hide something from her. And what frustrated him the most was that he was nothing like that. He’d hoped she’d known him enough by now to realize that.

  “If you’d just done that, I wouldn’t be here now, unable to believe a word you’re telling me.” Her voice rose as she became more emotional. “Because when the first time I’m hearing anything about it is when I see Shaila running out of your condo when I happen to pull up, it’s pretty damn suspicious. Because, you know what, I wasn’t even supposed to be there that day. Me, showing up at your place, was a surprise.” She waved her hands emphatically, “Who knows what the hell else you would have or could have done if I hadn’t even seen her that day, Kyle!”

  Now she’s making assumptions and creating far-fetched scenarios, he thought. And though he understood where this was coming from with her, and he knew her past influenced much of her thinking, he didn’t like being put into the same category as the other men in her life. Men like Brian. He felt that was who she was really talking to right then, and no longer saw him in front her, but Brian.

  “I made some dumb mistakes, I’ll admit that, Liana. But you can’t say you’ve actually caught me doing any wrong, can you.” Now he was getting upset and his voice rose too. He was angry that she was painting him out to be such a bad guy, and not telling her a few details was not enough to warrant her treating him like that.

  “I just can’t do it, though Kyle. I can’t make myself believe it. I can’t make myself believe that a woman would travel from Atlanta to Houston, on a whim, out of the blue, without discussing that with you first. I mean, how would she know you’d be there? How would she know you’d answer? And how the hell did she even know your address?!” She was shouting now, and moved to open the door. She motioned for him to leave. “Just go, Kyle. I can’t. I just can’t.”

  Kyle stood there, stunned that the whole situation had escalated so quickly. He walked to the door, but grabbed her hand and gently removed it from the door, and closed it. Her eyes were averted as she fumed, her hands across her chest.

  “Please, don’t do this, Liana. You know me.” He lifted her chin so that she was forced to look into his eyes. “I’m not Brian, I’m not any other man who’s hurt you before. You know I love you. And I’m not lying to you, Lia.”

  She pulled her face away from his hand, and shot him a cold look. She opened the door again. “Leave my house, Kyle. I’m not going to be your rebound woman, your “in-between” or your “break” relationship. Whatever you’re doing with Shaila, leave me out if it. I won’t do this again. Not with you or any other man.”

  He hesitated, and wanted to relieve the hurt in her eyes. He wished he could find the right words to get her to believe him, but he couldn’t. He resigned, and walked through the open door. She closed the door behind him, and leaned on it, closing her eyes. It always ends up here, she thought. And she felt stupid for believing that once in her life it wouldn’t end this way.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Kyle sat in his office, attempting to concentrate on work, but for some reason, it felt like running through mud would have been easier to do. It had been two weeks since his argument with Liana and he hadn’t been able to get her off of his mind.

  He had replayed every detail of their argument at least a hundred times by now, as he tried to analyze where the conversation had made a turn for the worst. He didn’t know why he’d hidden so much from her about Shaila attempting to squeeze her way back into his life. He guessed now that he was afraid she would react the way that she had. He knew that the doubts, the insecurities, and the pain would surface, causing her to pull away from him.

  But he realized now t
hat she was most hurt by the secrets. It’s quite possible that she may have trusted him more if he’d just been open and honest about everything before she had to find it out on her own.

  He looked over at his phone, contemplating. He picked it up and scrolled down to Liana’s number. His hand hovered over the contact button for her number, but then he lowered his hand. He knew she would do as she had the many other times he’d called her--ignore him and send his call straight to voicemail.

  He scrolled up on his phone to Alyssa’s name. She had given him her number when he’d met her and Lloyd at her place the first night he’d arrived in Houston for their bowling night months ago. He pressed the button.

  Alyssa answered, “Hello?”

  “Hey, Alyssa, this is Kyle. How have you been?”

  “I’m well, Kyle.” Then, she lowered her voice as if she was afraid to ask. “How are you?”

  “I’m hanging in there.”

  “i heard about you and Liana.”

  “Yeah, I guessed she’d told you.”

  “I don’t know what happened, Kyle, but she was really upset over that.”

  “Yeah, it was my fault for not telling her everything up front, before she had to find out the way she did. I know it looked questionable. And I wish she would’ve let me explain more, or at least tried to believe what I was telling her, but…”

  “I know, Kyle, you don’t have to tell me. I kind of figured it may have been blown out of proportion a bit. I love Liana to death. She’s my girl, but she has a hard time giving up anything when it comes to relationships.”

  “Well, I was calling you to see how she’s doing. She won’t answer my calls. I just want to know she is okay.”

  “Aww, that’s sweet Kyle.” Then her voice changed, “So if you haven’t talked to her I guess you haven’t heard then.”

  Worry filled him as he asked, “Heard what?”

  “Her father died two days ago.”

  His heart fell in his chest just imagining how she must be feeling. Not only did she have to deal with the blow of her relationship troubles with Kyle, now she was hit by the death of her father. He shook his head at the timing of it all, saddened that he’d had anything to do with making her feel worse.

  “When is the funeral? Do you think she’d be too angry if I came by?”

  “It’s Saturday. She may not like it. But just stay out of the way. I think deep down, she really would like seeing you there, no matter how angry she thinks she is at you.”

  “Okay. If you forward me the information, I’d appreciate it.”

  “No problem,” she said, “And Kyle, good luck.”

  He smiled, encouraged by her support, and hung up. Alyssa may have pushed all of Liana’s buttons, but she loved her friend and he could see she was most interested in seeing Liana happy.

  ***

  Kyle sat in a pew in the back of the church where the funeral for Liana’s father was being held. He had positioned himself far enough back so that she wouldn’t see him, but to the left of where she sat, so that he could watch her during the service. His eyes remained trained on her as the preacher gave the eulogy and other friends and family members rose to speak about Donald Harris and what he had meant to them.

  The church, though small, was fairly full of people. Donald may not have been a great father to Liana or husband to his wife when she was younger, but he must have affected and touched quite a few people anyway, judging by the crowd. Maybe he’d tried to change and redeem himself after all later in life. But unfortunately that was too late for Liana, he thought as he watched her try hard to remain stoic.

  When the service had ended, the attendants filed out to their cars to follow the funeral procession to the burial site.

  Kyle was first out of the church and waited in his car until Donald’s casket was loaded into the hearse, and the procession of cars began.

  When all of the attendants had gathered around, he walked up, and again, stood in the back. He noticed that Liana seemed to lose her footing, as if she had suddenly become weak and overcome with the emotion of the moment, and saw a man who bore a striking resemblance to her, help lift her back up onto her feet.

  Kyle wished more than anything that he could have been the one right there by her side. He looked down at the soft ground beneath his feet and cursed, upset that it had turned out this way.

  Finally, after the last words were spoken, and the funeral had officially come to an end, Kyle stood off to the side as everyone filed back to their cars. He saw Liana walking back to her car with Alyssa, her mother and the man from before, that he assumed was her brother. He moved toward them before he could think, and before he could lose his nerve. He just needed to see her face again, if only for a few seconds. If she cursed him out, he was willing to take that chance.

  “Liana,” he called. They all turned to see him approaching them. Alyssa leaned over and whispered to Lena and Liana’s brother, and they followed her to the car.

  “We’ll be right over here at the car,” Alyssa called back to Liana.

  Liana’s heart had fluttered quickly when she’d heard Kyle’s voice and saw him moving toward her with his assured, quick strides. She couldn’t deny that she was glad to see him there. “Liana,” he said again when he’d reached her. “I’m so sorry about your loss. I know you must be going through it right now.”

  “Yeah…it’s rough.”

  He was grateful to get a chance to look into her eyes again, but it hurt him when he saw the depths of the pain behind them. He wanted to pull her against him and never let her go, wiping away the tears as they fell from her eyes. But he’d screwed that up, he knew, and would have to learn to live with loving her from a distance and behind the barrier that she had placed between them again.

  He wanted to touch her hand, but didn’t know if he should even do that. The last thing he wanted to do was upset her more. “I...I just wanted to let you know that I’m sorry. And I am praying for you, and your family. Take care Liana.” It took everything in him not to kiss her before he turned to walk away, but he resisted the urge.

  Liana’s legs felt glued to the ground as she watched him walk off and toward the parking lot. And she realized just how much she had missed everything about Kyle Jones.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Liana held the cell phone to her ear and laughed at Alyssa’s teasing. She could always count on her friend to make her laugh and lighten her mood. Alyssa had called her every day for the past week after her father’s funeral just to make sure she was fine.

  But then, without a smooth transition or any tact, she moved right into a question that Liana could tell she’d been dying to ask her. “Lia, what really happened with you and Kyle?”

  “Huh?” Liana was caught by surprise by the random question.

  “I mean, you told me the basics already, but I mean, time has passed, you’ve had a chance to think about it, did it really go down the way you think it did in that moment?”

  “I can’t believe you’d ask me that.”

  “Come on, we’re real with each other, right? I just want to know. Because I find it hard to believe that man who doesn’t love you, who is lying to you and who wants to hurt you would show up at a funeral and risk getting cussed out by you. That sounds more like someone who really cares for you.”

  Liana sighed, because she had been thinking the same thing for the past week after the funeral. She thought about how he’d made the effort to just be at the funeral even though he thought she couldn’t stand him.

  “I mean, do you have proof that anything happened between him and his ex-wife?” Alyssa asked.

  “No, but…”

  “And has he ever done anything else to make you doubt that he was an honest person?”

  “Ok, no, but…”

  “No, wait,” Alyssa cut her off again. “And what did he have to gain by showing up at that funeral and getting the floral arrangement for the family, and all of that?”

  “Well, it could’v
e just been a way for him to try to get back in.”

  “Oh, come on, Lia,” Alyssa groaned, frustrated. “You have a reason, excuse and explanation for everything. But the reality is that he still loves you. And you know what; I know that you love him too. So you can sit over there and be a stubborn cow if you want to, but that’s your choice. If you end up miserable years from now, wondering what happened to your life, you know who you have to blame for it.”

  “Damn, ‘Lyssa, really? You have to be so harsh?”

  She could hear Alyssa sigh into the phone. “Okay, I’m sorry. I just...I want to see you happy Lia. And you get in your own way every time.”

  “Okay, okay,” Liana said, ready to cut this conversation short. “I’ll think about what you said, alright.”