North Star - The Complete Series Box Set

by Tracey Ward

“Yes,” I assured her. “I’ll have it taken care of.”

  Her face cleared. “Good. Alright, you two. Let’s eat. Oh, but first I want a family photo!”

  I followed them into the hallway, watching as they receded from me – identical in height, hair, and dress, like the twins from the Shining.

  My throat constricted, hot and acidic.

  I reached my hand into my pocket, searching.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Three Months Later

  “What do you say, son?” Dan asked, grinning like an excited kid.

  Like he already knew what my answer would be.

  No, I thought, the word resonating through my head, bouncing off the walls, clattering to the bare floor with a deafening discord.

  “Yes,” I croaked. I coughed once, hard. “I say yes.”

  Dan offered me his hand, then pulled me into a firm hug. “I thought you might say that.” He released me before stepping to the door and opening it wide. “Marylyn, the cart, please. Thank you.”

  I stood motionless in the center of the room. My feet were cemented to the floor.

  “Gentleman, ladies, come on in!”

  I heard wheels on the rug. Feet shuffling, bodies moving. The room began to spin.

  “Press in, everyone. Make room.”

  The space began to fill with faces, all of them watching me. Sweat trickled down the back of my neck.

  Dan took two champagne glasses off a golden cart Marylyn had brought in. Everyone in the room had taken one as they entered. It occurred to me how often I’d seen the stuff lately. How often they celebrated. Reconciliations, engagements, Christmas, Thanksgiving, New Year’s, Wednesdays. Everything fueled from one bubbling golden moment to the anticipation of the next. Always rolling forward. Pressing on. Relentless.

  My stomach rolled violently.

  “Today, we welcome a new member to the Monroe, Falcon, Bryson, and Associates family. A bright young man who I am going to be lucky enough to welcome into my personal family very soon as well. Please raise your glass.” Dan handed me a cold, shimmering flute as arms audibly raised in a wave around me. Surrounding me. “To Kellen Coulter. Welcome!”

  “Welcome!” the crowd called as one.

  My mouth watered. My vision blurred.

  “Kellen,” Dan said, his voice distorted. “Are you alright? You look pale.”

  I shook my head, forcing a smile, slipping deeper into the dark. “I’m fine. Overwhelmed. Thank you. Thank you, everyone!” I raised my glass to salute them all, then took a quick sip.

  I almost spat it back out.

  The room began to mingle. People swarmed around me, congratulating me.

  I excused myself to use the restroom.

  I closed the door silently behind me, throwing the latch.

  Taking three deep breaths, I knelt down and vomited into the toilet.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Fourteen Months Later

  “Ugh,” Laney groaned, sitting on the edge of the hotel bed and scrolling through her phone. “Mom is sending me more links to dresses she wants me to try on. I don’t have time for all of these.”

  “Then only try on the ones you want to.”

  “She’ll be annoyed if I don’t try on at least some of her suggestions,” Laney muttered irritably. “This whole trip to New York was her idea and now I’m stuck wedding dress shopping with you and Jenna, the people who care the least about it in the world.”

  “That’s not true,” I told her, staring at the muted TV. “Your dad cares a lot less than any of us.”

  She rolled her eyes. “He told me to go to JC Penny. Can you believe that?”

  “He was joking.”

  “See, I don’t think he was.”

  “He was. He just doesn’t want you going overboard and you and your mom love to go overboard.”

  “We do not!” she cried indignantly.

  I raised a skeptical eyebrow her way. “You’re really going to sit there and say that to me? After what happened last weekend?”

  “This again? It’s a wedding cake, Kellen. It should be beautiful.”

  “It’s going to be four feet tall with a waterfall down one side.”

  “And it’ll be gorgeous!”

  “And it’s why I’m here,” I told her, turning back to the TV. “To protect your dad’s bank account.”

  “You guys are overreacting. He can afford a nice dress.”

  “A dress you’re going to wear for one day shouldn’t cost a man a small fortune.”

  Laney ignored me the way she always did when we fought about money, turning back to her phone. I turned off the TV and got up to stretch my legs, pacing in front of the window.

  “I told Alexander we’re here in New York,” Laney commented absently.

  I paused to frown at her. “Why?”

  She shrugged. “Because he and Jenna should have dinner or something. Catch up.”

  “They broke up over a year ago.”

  “Doesn’t mean they can’t still be friends. They dated for two years. Why would you throw that away?”

  “Why would someone want to be friends with an ex?”

  She lowered her phone, looking up at me with an annoyed expression. “Are you saying you wouldn’t want to be friends with me if we broke up?”

  “We have broken up. A hundred times, and if I remember right, you once told me to go fuck myself for all eternity and never speak to you again.”

  “That was years ago!” she cried defensively.

  “Doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.”

  “Whatever. Anyway, Jenna and Alexander didn’t end on those kind of terms. They’re still friendly with each other.” She grinned wickedly. “Sometimes very friendly.”

  I turned back to the window, scowling at my own reflection. “The guy’s a dick. She deserves better.”

  “Well, we can’t all make out as well as I did.”

  Outside the sun was lighting up the New York skyline. It was piercing through buildings, striking into dark alleys, lighting soiled, wet streets and making their grimy surface shine like glass. Like diamonds. Like they were something better than they actually were.

  “She deserves better than me too,” I mumbled.

  “Mom would be thrilled if she’d get back together with Alexander,” Laney mused. “She’s terrified Jenna’s going to meet some guy at that tattoo parlor she works at, marry him, and have a brood of pierced, tatted up babies.”

  I chuckled at the imagery. “I can’t imagine those family photos on your mom’s walls.”

  Laney snorted. “She’d die. She doesn’t get it.”

  “Doesn’t get what?”

  “Jenna,” she answered simply.

  I’d never been to the parlor, but I’d seen a couple pictures of Jenna’s work during quick, fleeting conversations on the holidays or during stuffy parties where we both looked like we wanted to chew our own legs off to get out. She was good. Really good. So were the people that worked with her, if the ink slowly covering her skin was any indication.

  I lived my life in measured amounts of time with her. When we talked, I made sure it was never for too long. That we never sat or stood too close. The fact that she’d dated Alexander for two years had helped. I was happy to see her moving on. The last thing I wanted was for her to sit around pining over a shit like me.

  “We should head down soon,” Laney reminded me. “Jenna is probably waiting for us.”

  “You go ahead. I need to use the bathroom.”

  Laney laughed, settling in on the bed. “I can wait while you pee, Kel.”

  “I’m not going to pee, Lane.”

  She quickly grabbed her purse, her nose wrinkled in disgust. “I’ll meet you down there.”

  “Yeah.”

  Tell a girl like Laney that she’ll have to stand around and wait while you drop a deuce five feet away and she’ll find somewhere else to be real quick. It was a trick I was using more and more lately as she clung to me constantly. It’d becom
e her new routine ever since the night three weeks ago when she tearfully confessed that she’d slept another guy.

  I should have been pissed. I guess I was, but not as much as you’d think. Not as much as I expected to be. And that shit right there was what really made me angry. Six years ago if she’d told me that, I don’t care how many tears she was crying, I’d have left her then and there. No questions, no second chances. But that night I watched her face turn red as she cried, her makeup somehow holding steady against the rain of tears pouring down her cheeks the way I’d seen it do countless times before and I’d felt… I don’t know. Nothing.

  Feeling my face flush hot as my blood began to pound in my ears, I went to the bathroom and splashed cold water on it. I hovered over the marble sink breathing deeply, calming my pounding heart. This had been happening a lot lately – spikes in the anxiety. Borderline panic attacks. It made me miss boxing like a bastard and there were times, like right now, when I thought about taking it up again no matter how Laney felt about it. She’d asked me to quit just a few months ago because she couldn’t stand the brutality of it and I had agreed too quickly. I’d thought I didn’t need it anymore, that I had outgrown it and I could find some peace somewhere else in the world, but now I felt like I’d cut off a limb. That she’d asked me to hack off my arm and like an idiot I’d done it, anything to avoid another fight and more tears, but then she’d taken that limb and gone and fucked another guy with it. Now I was starting to think I didn’t owe her anything.

  I was thinking of taking up stock in Maalox and antacid tablets considering how much I was gnawing on them. I ate them like they were candy just to try to keep the peace in my own body, but you can only ignore that sort of thing for so long. Eventually you have to acknowledge that you’re rotting from the inside out. That your entire life is a series of patches you’ve put on problem after problem until it’s an ugly, mismatched quilt that’s smothering you slowly.

  “Shit,” I muttered angrily.

  I yanked a towel off the bar with a sharp snap and rubbed it briskly over my face. I squared my shoulders, pulling myself up straight to my full high height and I looked at my eyes in the mirror. I stared at them until my sight went fuzzy and unfocused. Until my own image, the face I’d worn for my entire life, looked unfamiliar and indistinct. I breathed calmly and I forced myself to relax until I found that cool, dark place inside. The one I’d lived in for the last four years. Since the last time I’d touched Jenna.

  I’d been in the dark so long, I didn’t know if I’d recognize daylight if I saw it.

  Last night when I’d had sex with Laney for the first time since she’d told me about the other guy, I’d been down there, deep in the darkness hiding from her. From all of it. I wasn’t in it with her, not even a little. In fact, for the second time in my adult life, I’d hated every second of having sex. When she’d finally finished, I’d rolled over immediately to put distance between us. My dick was already limp, I hadn’t come, and I sure as hell didn’t want to. I didn’t want anything. I didn’t feel anything. As far as I knew, I’d been balls deep in a void. Laney wasn’t wet or dry, tight or loose, hot or cold. She’d been nothing. I was nothing.

  I was sand on a beach turning desert dry as the ocean receded farther and farther from view.

  As the empty spread through my veins.

  As dust settled into my heart.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Jenna and I lasted one hour in the bridal shop. Just one. It was longer than I expected us to last, especially after they forced me to wear a black satin blindfold so I wouldn’t see the dresses on the bride. If I wasn’t there to see the dresses, why was I there? I never got an answer on that.

  By the end of our hour, Jenna and I were both drunk off free champagne, I’d fallen asleep, and Jenna had started falling over in her seat giggling. Finally we left Laney behind in the store to try on her dresses while we got some fresh air and pulled our shit together. She was glad to see us go.

  Jenna lifted a bottle of bubbly from the bridal shop as we were being ushered out and suggested we drink it in the park like the vigilantes we were born to be, and it was turning out to be the best time I’d had in a long, long time. I hadn’t spent more than ten minutes alone with Jenna in at least two years and I’d forgotten what it felt like. How incredible she was and just how much I absolutely missed her in every way.

  “So, I have a question,” Jenna said, handing over the champagne.

  I smirked before taking a pull off the bottle. It was warm but I didn’t care.

  “Is it how long do I think we have before we get ticketed for drinking in public?” I asked her. “‘Cause I think it’s not long.”

  Her long, thin fingers cut through the air, batting down my concerns. “No, screw that. I’m untouchable. What I’m wondering is why are you here?”

  I snorted at the obvious. “Because sitting on the grass in the park with you eating cheese fries is better than being blind in that boutique.” I took another drink, frowning. “What was I doing in a store labeled ‘boutique’ anyway? I should forfeit a Man Card immediately.”

  She grinned. “The guys at the gym will never let you hear the end of it.”

  I felt a pinch in my chest like a sucker punch to my left ventricle.

  “I don’t go to the gym anymore,” I muttered around the ache.

  She stared at me, her face as shocked and pained as I felt. “I don’t believe it.”

  “Believe it. I quit.”

  “Why don’t you work-out anymore?”

  “No, I still work-out. Running and all that.” I paused, taking a deep breath. “I quit boxing.”

  Her jaw and French fry dropped to the ground. “You what?!”

  I nodded tightly, feeling the tension everywhere. I hadn’t talked about it with anyone but Laney and Dan, and only in passing with him. His face when I’d mentioned it had been a mixed bag of confusion and worry. I’d immediately run away from him and the reality of my decision.

  “When?” she asked softly.

  “A few months ago.”

  It felt like years.

  “Did you get hurt? What happened?”

  I chuckled dryly, wishing I had. Wishing I had a better reason. “Laney didn’t like it. She never has. She asked me to quit because she said she couldn’t take it watching me get hit like that.”

  “You don’t get hit very often.”

  “I try not to, but she said it scares her. She cried and I felt like shit so…” I took a breath, not sure what else to say. It all sounded so flimsy. Like I’d given it up without a fight. But once you got used to doing that, it started getting easier. “I don’t know. What else could I do?”

  She frowned, avoiding my eyes. “I don’t know.”

  “Yeah, me either.”

  It was bullshit. We both knew what I could have done – I could have told Laney no. Plain and simple, problem solved, but I hadn’t. I was the only one to blame for the situation. I hadn’t had the balls to just once say a single, simple word that could have changed everything so many times.

  No, I don’t want to take you out on a date, because we have nothing in common.

  No, I don’t want to get back together, because we never last longer than an erection.

  No, I won’t come pick you up from that party, because I’m in love with your sister, we’ve crossed a line, and I’m terrified that if I leave this house with things as they are, she and I will never be able to be okay again.

  No, I won’t marry you, because I don’t love you and us getting engaged won’t fix that.

  No, I won’t quit boxing, because it’s the only thing that keeps the demons at bay.

  No, I won’t forgive you, because you slept with another man and what we have has never been worth salvaging.

  “That wasn’t what you were asking, was it?” I asked Jenna, grasping for the bottle of champagne and a chance to get out of my own head.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You weren’t ask
ing why I was here in the park with you.”

  She hesitated. “No.”

  “You meant why am I here in New York with her?”

  “I thought you weren’t supposed to see the bride in her dress before the wedding,” she teased weakly.

  I sat up from where I’d been lounging on the ground, turning to face her. I got in close. Closer than I probably should have. “I didn’t see anything, remember?” I asked as I offered her the bottle in my hand.

  She jerked it from me playfully, grinning. “You know what I mean.”

  “I’m not so much interested in seeing the dress as the price tag.”

  “Why are you worried? I thought dad was paying for it.”

  She wrapped her lips around the top of the bottle to take a long hit, then offered it back to me. My eyes were locked on her lips glistening with the bitter bubbles of the champagne. My hand accidently brushed hers, the feel of her fingers against mine giving me a warm burn in my stomach like I’d taken a hit of the good stuff.

  “Just because we’re not paying for it doesn’t mean I think she should spend as much on a dress as most people do on a car.” I pressed my lips to where hers had been and took a drink. I shook my head as I swallowed. “This wedding stuff, Jen… it’s so insane. I had no idea.”

  “I think a wedding is only as expensive as you make it.”

  I chuckled, handing the bottle back. “Isn’t that the truth? She wants doves. Why? Are we keeping them and naming them? No, we’re supposed to release them when we walk out like we’re John fucking Woo.” I shook my head in disgust. “We’re basically buying throw away birds.”

  “Would you feel better if you ate them afterward?”

  “A little, yeah! At least we’d get something out of it.”

  Jenna pursed her lips, thinking. “I think Laney sees it as getting a memory out of it. A great photo for on the wall to look at and remember the day. She’s not the type to spend the money just to show she can.”

  “No, I know that. I wouldn’t be marrying her if she were that girl. I get that this is a dream for her. It’s something she’s thought about her whole life and she wants it to be perfect. I just don’t understand a little girl sitting in her room dreaming of doves.”