"You alright?" I asked quietly.
He inhaled a deep breath, taking a very long time before answering. "Yeah, I'm fine." There was so much in his voice that he wasn't saying. Even though Kellan was good at it, I knew he was lying to me.
"Kellan...is there something you want to tell me?" My heart started pounding, the ice in my stomach so painful I nearly doubled over. That woman's face flashed in my mind, the look on his as he'd leaned in to whisper in her ear. The mysterious text number rang through my brain on a never-ending loop...
He sniffed and took another long moment. "It's nothing, Kiera...just the stress of the road. I'm sure you can imagine what life on a bus with Griffin is like." He chuckled, his voice back to light and happiness, and I didn't believe a word of it.
I bit my lip as I stared at Denny, now giving me concerned glances. Kellan was holding back from me, that much I could tell. I didn't know what or why, but I couldn't open up to him about Denny now. I just couldn't. "Okay, well...if something was going on, you know that you could tell me...right?"
He sighed softly. "Yeah, I know..." His voice trailed off, then brightened. "But really, nothing is up, aside from the fact that I miss you like crazy."
A sad smile touched my lips. "Yeah, me too." As we pulled into the parking area of the cafe, I sighed. "Hey, I'm here at the restaurant...I need to go. I'll call you later?"
"Yeah, okay." With a humorless chuckle he added, "I'll be here, on the road through nowhere, wishing Griffin didn't need to let The Hulk breathe quite so often."
I laughed, the release of it easing the knot in my belly. "I love you, Kellan."
"I love you too, Kiera." He said it immediately, with no hesitation or trace of deceit. If anything else, he at least honestly meant it when he said it.
I hung up the phone as Denny shut off the car. Twisting to me, he shook his head. "You didn't tell him I was here." It was a statement, not a question.
I sighed, fingering the cool contraption in my palm. "Not yet, it didn't feel right yet." I peeked up at him. "I will...soon. I promise."
He shook his head again but didn't comment any further. Just as he cracked open his door, his cell phone rang. He glanced back at me, a small smile on his lips. "Well, aren't we popular?" I smiled at his comment and watched as he checked the screen. The small smile on his face grew about a million times brighter. He looked up at me real quick. "It's Abby, I need to take this."
I nodded as he answered, "Hey, babe." Pushing open his door, he stepped out to the parking lot. Before closing his door, I heard him say, "No, you caught me heading out to lunch with Kiera..."
He shut the door and I didn't hear any more than that, but it marveled me a little that he'd confessed so openly to her that he was with me. I guess they didn't have the same trust issues that Kellan and I had. I guess that's what you get when your relationship starts by betraying someone-a never-ending well of doubt. If we could do it to someone, it could be done to us.
Giving Denny a private moment to catch up with his faraway girlfriend, I ran my fingers back through my mostly dry hair and stared at my phone. I wanted an explanation to magically appear on it, but it didn't. Sighing, I typed a message into it and pressed send.
I watched Denny through the window while I waited for a reply. He was leaning against the hood of the car, laughing at whatever conversation he and Abby were having. He seemed genuinely happy, his eyes practically glowing as he spoke to her. I wondered if he'd looked like that when he'd talked to me so long ago. I wondered if he'd tenderly made love to Abby before he'd left her. I was pretty sure he had...and it had probably been a lot more romantic than getting sloshed and hav**g s*x in a bathroom at a party.
As I watched Denny run a hand back through his hair in warm, familiar way, my phone buzzed in my hand. Pressing the screen, I read the message from Kellan. 'I love you too...more than anything. I can't wait to see you again...soon, hopefully.'
I repeated the sentiment, then opened my door to join Denny, since his conversation looked about over. Sighing peacefully, he nodded over to the cafe doors. "Sorry about that, she was getting ready for work and I didn't want to miss her." Looking down, he kicked at a rock as we walked along. "I make sure to talk to her as often as I can..."
He looked up at me from the corner of his eyes and a flash of guilt ran through me. I was the reason he kept in constant contact. My cheating spree with Kellan had started while he'd been gone. The experience had made him all the more attentive to his current girl. I guess something good had come out of the whole mess after all.
Not commenting, I only nodded as we made our way inside. Sitting down, I tried to keep the light smile on my face. "So, Abby...what's she like?"
He looked at me blankly before picking up a menu. "You don't really want to talk about this, do you?"
Watching him absentmindedly flip through the pages, I nodded. "Yes, I do actually." When he looked up at me, I shrugged. "We're friends, remember, and that means sharing our lives. She's obviously an important part." I shrugged with one shoulder. "I saw your face while you were talking to her..."
Sighing, he looked over my shoulder. A reminiscent smile on his face, he shrugged. "She's...she's great. She's warm and sweet...loving."
He looked at the table, a small flush coloring his cheeks. I felt the same mild embarrassment, but I did my best to ignore it. We should be able to talk about the people who were important to us. His fingers flicking over the menu pages, he exhaled softly. "I was really...broken when I got home. She helped me through it, made me smile again."
His warm brown eyes looked up at me and I clenched my stomach, willing my eyes not to water. I'd done that. I'd broken him. Smiling softly, he shook his head. "I think I love her, Kiera...really love her. I think she's the one," he whispered.
Then my eyes did water and I couldn't possibly stop the reaction. I nodded as I swiped my fingers under my eyes. "Good, I'm glad, Denny."
And I was happy...and devastatingly sad too. It was hard, watching someone you had once loved, loving someone else, and loving them more than they'd loved you. But, really, that's exactly what I'd done to Denny with Kellan.
Denny's hand stretched across the table to rest on my arm. "I'm sorry if that hurts you. I just wanted to be honest with you." He stressed the word honest.
As I considered all of the multiple things that I hadn't been honest about in my life, Denny tilted his head and asked, "What about you and Kellan? Are you guys really okay?" His hand on my arm squeezed it. "Are you happy, Kiera?"
Shaking my head, knowing I was worrying about things with Kellan before their time, I smiled as effortlessly as I could. "Yeah, I am." I nodded, remembering all of the good times Kellan and I had shared. "I mean, being with him has its challenges...but...we're good."
I absently stroked the ring on my finger and Denny's eyes locked onto it. The dark depths glossier when he met my eye again, he smiled effortlessly too. "Good, I'm glad, Kiera...I really am."
Chapter 17
Boise
A month later, nothing much had changed in my life, even with Denny back around. I went to school, I went to work. I had coffee with Cheyenne, while she tried to make poetry make some sort of sense to me. I spoke to Kellan three or four times a day, more if he was having a traveling day, for hours when he called me on Valentine's Day. Denny came around to the bar for dinner most nights, and we spent the time catching up on our year apart.
I even agreed to take a more advanced art course with Jenny and Kate on Saturday mornings...even though I was atrocious and the instructor humored me with every comment he made. I made a note to not repeat the six-week course with her. Her talent was just way beyond my skills.
But as much as the good things stayed the same, the questionable things stayed the same as well. I avoided computers, too tempted to Google my boyfriend, too afraid of what I might find. And I definitely didn't want to see any more footage of him with Halle 2. I just couldn't handle seeing it again.
But I never asked about it when we talked. And I never told him about Denny being back in Seattle. My mouth locked up when I tried. Just the idea of Kellan cheating on me terrified me so much...I didn't want to give him that same fear. Not when it wasn't warranted. Denny and I were only friends, truly, just friends.
So the nagging doubt lingered between Kellan and me, and I let it, not ready to confess what I knew, too scared to hear what he knew...
Getting home from class on a windy Thursday afternoon, I collapsed beside my sister on the sofa, grateful for a few hours respite. I didn't have to work tonight and I didn't have class again until Monday. Until work tomorrow night I could just be a couch potato.
Anna sighed, irritably tapping her foot as she flicked through channel after channel on the television. I tried to ignore her restlessness. She'd been getting more and more agitated since the holidays. I suspected she was more peeved that Griffin hadn't asked to see her than she let on. I suspected she missed him more than she let on. Since they hadn't had any romantic rendezvous, she hadn't been with him, well, since the night of the going away party. And Anna, for some godforsaken reason, liked being with him.
Tossing the remote on the floor, she laid her head back on the orange monstrosity we were sitting on. "God, I'm so freaking bored." Popping her head up, she excitedly leaned forward. "Let's go to Boise."
I blinked at her. "What?"
Nodding, she leaned forward even more, her tight sweater showing off a decolletage that I'd never have. "Let's go to Boise. The guys are playing a show there tonight and it's the closest they're going to be to us until the end of the tour. So let's go to their concert!"
She gave me puppy dog eyes, sticking out her full bottom lip. I shook my head. "Idaho? By tonight? It's almost five now...we don't have time to drive that far, Anna."
She sat up on her knees, really excited now. "So we'll hop a flight. It's probably only an hour or so on a plane."
I raised my eyebrow. "We can't just 'hop on a plane' to see a concert, Anna."
She raised her eyebrow right back at me. "We can do anything we want, Kiera. Come on, live a little."
I sighed, but she was already pulling me up off the couch. "You're too focused, too structured. You need to let loose every once and a while. Besides, don't you want to see Kellan?"
Biting my lip, I stifled another sigh. I did want to see him, more than anything, but...there were conversations that we needed to have, conversations that I didn't know if I was ready to have yet. I did miss him though...and I hadn't found any playful notes in a while to help keep the loneliness at bay...
Maybe seeing me starting to get sold on the idea, Anna dragged me to my room and started packing a bag for me. I cringed when she found the lacey Christmas present that I'd gotten for Kellan and cringed even more when she shoved it in my bag. Like I'd wear that on a tour bus. Sitting on the bed while she zipped the bag closed, I murmured, "I don't want him to think I'm checking up on him."
She paused. Anna knew I still had questions about the video. "You could finally ask him about the girl?" I shook my head and she twisted her lips, then shrugged. "Well, he'll be too busy screwing your brains out to care anyway."