How We Lived (Entangled Embrace) (4 page)

“You know that guy?” Rosie asked, shifting closer to me.

I shrugged. “Sorta.” Sorta? I almost wanted to laugh. Bear might not have thought our six years of friendship meant anything anymore, but I sure as hell did. I’d tried to get him to talk to me after the accident. I’d shown up at his house begging for him to forgive me and he’d slammed the door in my face. I’d called and texted. Nothing. Until finally I decided…fuck that. I didn’t need him to forgive me. I needed Kels to.

Vito frowned. His eyebrows were higher than normal, a worried expression crossed his face. “Everything okay?”

I glanced behind me again. Bear was gone. “As far as I know, everything’s fine.”

And it was going to stay that way, at least for now. What was Bear going to do? Beat the shit out of me in the middle of Vito’s? He’d had plenty of time to do it before tonight. That night at his house for starters. And it wasn’t like this was the first time we’d run into each other since the accident. It was a small fucking town. You couldn’t leave your front lawn without running into someone you knew. Maybe the look was because of Kels. Had she told him I went to the funeral?

Satisfaction thrummed in my veins. I hoped she did. I hoped she threw it in his damn face. I hoped she told him I hugged her, cried with her, was there for her. In fact, maybe I should get up and tell him so next time he’d keep his girl close.

I shot a look behind me, but couldn’t spot them. I wanted to see her again, talk to her again. I was a freaking junkie looking for my next fix. After the accident, I’d tried to see her, too, but nothing. I told myself it was her parents shutting me out. It’s how I kept sane. If it was Kels’s idea to stay away, there really wasn’t much to live for.

But after that morning…I had hope.

“They’re sitting at table thirty if you need to go back there,” Vito said.

My stomach—and any hope I’d managed to work up—sank. Table thirty was the table for two in the back. I shook my head. “No. That’s probably not the best idea.” People only sat at table thirty when they wanted to be alone, and if they wanted to be alone, I didn’t want to see what they were doing. The mental picture alone crushed me. “He’s probably here with Kyle’s sister.”

Vito’s gray eyebrows lifted higher and his frown deepened. “I’m sorry.”

Rosie’s voice butted in. “Who’s Kyle? Oh…” She trailed off. “
That
Kyle.”

I froze. Rosie knew, then? Of course, I should have figured Vito would tell her, or maybe her coworkers, or the guy who bagged the groceries. You couldn’t keep secrets here.

Vito patted the bar in front of her. “Shush now, Rosie.”

I pushed my plate away, not feeling like eating anymore. He took it without the normal comment. If it was any other night, he would have razzed me about not finishing his masterpiece, but he wasn’t going there tonight.

When Vito’s gaze drifted over my shoulder again, I gripped the first objects I could—the stools next to me. I needed to hold myself back. I could feel her behind me, could feel her looking at me, and I wanted to jump up and grab her. Press her against me and run my fingers through her hair to comfort her like I’d wanted to do at the funeral. Kind of like the time she fell off her bike trying to jump the ramp Kyle and I made when she was seven and she cried all over me. As a kid, I was grossed out. She’d left tear splotches on my Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles T-shirt. Right now, though, what I wanted was for her to cry on me just so long as I got to feel her arms wrapped around me again. I’d hold her until her tears dried on my shirt, and longer. I’d hold her for the rest of her life.

“She’s pretty,” Rosie said.

I closed my eyes. It was too much. I had to turn around, had to look. They were just leaving when I finally pulled it together enough to actually do it. My gaze landed on her face first, but I couldn’t help myself. I looked down and saw their clasped hands.

It was like someone kicked me in the balls.

Cursing, I shoved myself away from the bar and headed straight for the bathroom.

Why the hell had I looked? To torture myself? The hand in hers should have been mine. I splashed cool water on my face, trying to relieve the itch behind my eyes. I would never get to hold her hand like that. Not after what I did.

A few minutes later, the bathroom door groaned open and Vito put a hand on my shoulder. “I packed up your dinner. Why don’t you head home? Rosie said she’d drive you.”

I shook my head. No way was I getting in a car with Rosie. Not after she’d acted flirty. Not after seeing Kelsey with Bear. I would be no one’s idea of good company right now. “I can drive myself.”

He patted my shoulder and smiled at me through the mirror. “Go easy on my granddaughter when you let her down. I think she might have a thing for your unkempt hair and wrinkled clothes. But I can tell it’s a lost cause.”

Was it written all over my face? No wonder Bear wanted to kick my ass. “I will. If this hasn’t scared her off, I’ll talk to her.”

“You’re a good man, son. You do what makes you happy.”

I nodded once. It was the simplest advice in the world, but sometimes your happiness depended on someone else.

Chapter Three

-Kelsey-

Bear helped me into his truck before running around to the other side. “My place? I don’t think your parents will care.”

Of course they wouldn’t. I was barely a blip on their radar screen.

I tried the fake smile on him again. “Just for a little while, okay? I’m getting kind of tired.”

Bear was lucky. His father let him stay in the studio apartment above the family business, Pearse’s Garage, as long as he worked there. He’d moved in sometime after Kyle died. The apartment was pitch black when we came in. Bear strode across the room and turned on a lamp, casting a small glow over everything. His place always smelled the same, a mixture of cheap soap and the deli meats he used in his sandwiches for lunch every day. For a guy, he kept his place relatively neat. I’d helped him decorate when he moved in and ever since, I’d pick up little things I thought he’d like. There was just as much of me in his apartment as there was of him.

A picture of me, him, and Kyle sat atop the TV stand, and another one of just him and me, with a torn edge, was propped on his dresser. He tore Chase out. Like Chase never existed in the first place. Like he’d never been at the school dance with us, and ganged up with Bear to pick on me so severely about Jeff Clover asking me to dance that Kyle made them both apologize.

Kyle always put family first. Well, maybe it was just me. He always put me first. Chase and Bear were just a tick behind, but I was his sister. If anyone messed with me, including his best friends, they were going to hear about it. Before he went into the army, there really weren’t many instances where he had to put me first. However, after he left and things started to get bad for him, I was the only one he’d talk to. Chase would come by and ask about him because the emails and phone calls stopped. Kyle just didn’t know how to tell his friends he’d made the wrong choice. He was embarrassed. It wasn’t that he couldn’t take the military, he just hated it.

Bear stroked my shoulders from behind. “The bed or the couch?”

I wrapped his arms around me and led him to the couch. It was safer. He didn’t mind. He drew me down to his lap and kissed my forehead.

Bear hadn’t been my first kiss. Unfortunately, that honor went to Jeff Clover, but Bear had kissed me when I needed it the most. When we were together, we’d wrap ourselves in each other for hours. I’d lay my head on his shoulder, he’d put his warm, comfortable arms around me, and we’d just sit there. No talking, no touching, no anything. Every once in a while he’d drop a kiss on my forehead or cheek, but we never tried to go further than that.

“I meant what I said earlier. I wish I could take away your pain.”

And he usually could ease it. At least for a little while. He was a distraction, a break from the constant and unavoidable hole in my life. He gave me something else to focus on.

Tonight, though, the absence of Kyle—and of Chase—loomed everywhere. There was nothing. Not even pain. The security of Bear’s tree-trunk arms weren’t helping because there wasn’t anything. Just an emptiness, like my insides had been gutted.

When I was with Chase earlier, the feeling had left. But it was too good to last. The hollowness crept back into me now with agonizing speed. Bear and I slipped further down into the couch, side-by-side. I threw my leg over his hips and placed myself more firmly on him.

He froze. “What are you doing?”

I laughed at his anxious expression. “I’m just…trying something different.” Leaning into him, I kissed him with my lips parted, hoping he’d take the hint and deepen the kiss. He didn’t.

Bear pulled away, his throat working. “Don’t get me wrong. This is fine. I like it. I do. It’s just we’ve never done anything like this before.” He gestured at our bodies. “I don’t want you to regret it.”

He looked nervous eyeing how close our bodies were. Not nervous like he was excited, but nervous like he didn’t want to tell me no.

Well, this was awkward. “I don’t want to have sex…tonight. Just kiss me. Kiss me like you can’t get enough of me.”

His cheeks flamed. “I wasn’t talking about sex, Kelsey. That’s the last thing you need to worry about.”

That was the thing. I didn’t want to worry about anything. I didn’t want to analyze my emotions and feelings. Analyzing made me think, and if I thought, I’d realize Chase had somehow been able to make me feel when no one else had. If I thought, I’d realize I was seeing a guy who kissed me like I was his grandmother. There was zero feeling, zero emotion. He was just going through the motions. You
had
to kiss your grandmother like you
had
to turn on the oven before you could bake a cake.

Anger sparked in me. “Kyle’s dead. He’s not going to come kick your ass if you touch my boobs or grab my ass or kiss me with a little more passion.”

His blue eyes widened, then shut as a wave of hurt panned his face.

Cold regret washed over me. “Oh my God, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it.” It was so easy to forget what Bear was going through. To forget he’d watched his friend die.

He held on to me, tight. “Yes, you did. And that’s okay. I just figure we’ll get around to doing that stuff. You know, later. Not when you’re still sad about your brother. Not when we have to make up for months of lost time in a weekend. We’re not even officially dating.”

He moved me against the back of the couch and brushed his hands through my hair. “I like making you feel better. That’s been my goal every time I’m with you. You know if you need me, I’ll be there. No matter what. I’ll be there.”

My heart hurt. It wasn’t Bear’s sweet declaration, it was the way he brushed my hair with his fingers. Chase had done the same earlier.

He’d managed to seep into my every thought, conscious or unconscious. A few measly minutes together and he’d threaded his way back into my life like he’d never been pulled out.

…

Bear dropped me at home later that night. Dad’s car was gone, Mom’s door was closed, and my mind wouldn’t shut off. Somehow, I found myself in Kyle’s room, lying faceup on his bed, my hands tucked behind my head. I didn’t make a habit of coming in here. Mom had left it the way it was, as if she couldn’t accept that he’d never walk in again and grab the issue of
Sports Illustrated
off his desk to read. I hated the…expectation of him in his room.

Bear hadn’t helped tonight. In fact, he’d made it worse. If the funeral was any indication, I needed Chase.

Everywhere I looked in Kyle’s room, I saw him. He was in Kyle’s football trophies, he was in Kyle’s yearbook they’d gotten off the shelf when he was home on leave, he was on this bed with us, talking and giggling till late in the night before my mom would come in furious and make him go home. She never liked how he hyped us up. She never liked how strong we were when he was around. We were impenetrable, the three of us.

Did that make it worse that I couldn’t bring myself to hate him now? Or better? I wished Kyle were here to tell me. If the situation were reversed and I’d died instead, would Kyle hate him? Could Kyle hate him?

I didn’t know.

Dad returned around midnight or so. The car tires ground against the pebbles on the pavement, the house keys jingled and fell from his reckless grip. He swore, and then jammed the keys in the lock when he finally found the hole. His fancy shoes thudded across the kitchen floor, and then the sound disappeared on the hallway rug right outside Kyle’s room.

He pounded on their bedroom door. When he didn’t get a reply he banged harder. Nothing. He choked, a raspy sound like an old person begging for life. When he spoke, his words slurred. “You can’t shut me out forever.”

Her silence was deafening.

His shoes thudded back down the hall, and the springs in the couch groaned with a metallic squeeze. My father would be spending yet another night in the living room. He’d slept there every night since I’d been home. The sleeping arrangements were something new. It hadn’t always been like this. It wasn’t even like this a month ago when I’d come home for the weekend.

Movement caught my eye from the window. Chase. In his room. In his house.

I gripped Kyle’s sheets and sat up. I’d forgotten how clearly you could see into his room at night with the lights on, like a beacon in the dark. When the three of us misbehaved, Kyle and I would get sent to our rooms and Chase back to his house. We never let it stop us from finding ways to communicate with one another, though. I’d eventually make my way over to Kyle’s room, where we’d grab the flashlights for Morse code, which never worked. We’d also had a pulley system where we’d clip notes to a long string that we worked in a circle to get our secret words from one house to the other.

And if we were feeling particularly bold, we’d sneak over.

Chase’s light went out. I walked to the window. It was unlocked, like normal, so I lifted the frame and dangled my leg outside. The coolness of the night bit at my bare feet, but I didn’t hesitate. I slipped out, closed the window behind me, walked the few yards to Chase’s, and tapped on the glass.

Nothing for a few seconds. Then his face appeared above me.

He lifted the window. “You look like hell, Kels.”

I tried to smile and shook out my hair. “I feel like hell. And thank you. For noticing.”

His eyebrows drew together. “What are you doing out here?” He peeked behind me like he expected to see someone else.

I rubbed my arms. “I’m alone. Can I come in? Please?”

He reached down and took my hand. As soon as I was inside, he shut the window and drew the curtains.

I turned to him and noticed the cut muscles of his shoulders. His chest. His stomach. He looked like a man, not the scrawny boy from my memories. The one I kept imagining in my head.

He picked a T-shirt off the ground and threw it over his head. “You could have used the front door. My mom’s not here.”

“I wanted to use the window.” Clothes littered the floor of his room; magazines were left forgotten on his desk. Everything still looked the same. “Where is she, anyway?”

“You know her. She’s off on another adventure.” He blinked a few times as he pulled the hem of his shirt down. “Why are you here again?”

I played with the frayed edges of a magazine. “I’m just…here. Do you want me to leave?”

“No.”

I sat on the floor, my back against his dresser. “I don’t think you’ve cleaned your room since the last time I was in here. It looks the same.”

He made his way to the bed. “You don’t.”

I ran my hands through the carpet, willing myself not to pull at my shirt or fix my hair. “I know. I look like shit,” I said, mocking him.

He scowled. “I said you look like hell, but that’s not what I meant. I know it’s only been a few months, but you’re older somehow. I noticed it this morning. You…grew up.”

“People tend to do that.” As soon as I said it, as soon as I heard the words come out of me, I wanted to take them back. Kyle wouldn’t grow up. He’d never be any older than twenty-one. I pulled my knees to my chest and hugged them. “You look the same. Girls are still hanging all over you, I’m sure.”

He shot me a look but didn’t say anything.

“Kyle used to get so pissed. He never understood why the girls fell all over you with your reputation.”

Chase frowned. “My reputation?”

“You know, the one where you screw anything without a penis.”

His eyes rounded, then he laughed. I loved that sound. I hadn’t realized how much I missed his laugh until it warmed me from the inside.

“Oh,
that
reputation.” He lay down on his side and folded the pillow under his head. “I saw you with Bear earlier. So I guess you’re with him, huh?”

I bit my lip. I didn’t want to discuss Bear. I didn’t want to discuss anything that happened in the last five months. “Let’s…play a game,” I said, thinking of Kyle when I did. That was him. He was always saying “Let’s play a game” when we were kids, and then he’d make up stupid rules to some game only he could win. “We can’t talk about anything that happened after. Just before.”

It made me sick to have to say it like that. Time would forever be told in those terms now. What happened before Kyle died, and what happened after.

“Okay.” Chase nodded, all serious-like…but then he smiled. “I’m not sure why Kyle would ever be jealous of me. He got Brandy Farmer. Brandy. Farmer. Are you kidding me? Do you remember the boobs on her?”

I laughed and slapped my hand over my mouth. Chase Crowley just made me laugh when I hadn’t so much as smiled in months. I liked the feeling. Actually, I loved the
feeling
.

He smirked. “Don’t act like you didn’t notice.”

“Who didn’t? She couldn’t keep them trapped inside a shirt apparently.”

“They were their own entity. How could she keep them covered up? They were placed on her body to be enjoyed by all.”

“Just not you,” I reminded him.

“At least I got to look.”

I dug my toes deeper into the carpet. “We had fun, you know?”

He laid back. “I don’t know about that. You’re the annoying little sister.”

Present tense. He said it in the present tense. But I wasn’t a sister, not anymore. You couldn’t be a sister unless you had a sibling. My sibling was dead.

I couldn’t keep the sadness from my voice. “Bullshit. You loved me, too. Not just Kyle. It was the three of us. It was always the three of us.”

His eyes widened, and then glazed over. I couldn’t take it. I looked away. A heavy silence fell over us.

“Kels?”

He was ruining everything. “What? We’re playing a game. Don’t screw up the game.”

He motioned for me to come closer. “Get over here.”

I shook my head. As badly as I wanted it—no, needed it—I couldn’t let Chase comfort me. If he held me, I’d break.

“Get the fuck over here. Now.”

I rubbed the sting from my eyes, then crawled toward him. I couldn’t help myself. “He’s gone,” I whispered, as if whispering it would make it less true.

Chase pulled me into the bed beside him and drew the blankets around us, cocooning me against his chest. “I know, Kels. I know.”

He wrapped his arms around my shoulders, and I let him. God, this was so messed up. Why had I come over here? What was wrong with me? This needing him thing? If my parents found out, they’d kill me. “I should go.”