In the Zone (Portland Storm 5) (28 page)

Brie let go with one of her hands, reaching up to brush some wetness from my cheek.

“Don’t.” I shook my head, backing away from her. She let me go, but at that point it was too late. Her compassion had opened the flood gates, and all the self-loathing and guilt and pain I’d been wallowing in for years, keeping bottled up inside me, it all came pouring out of me in a torrent.

I collapsed on the floor, dropping my head to my knees and wishing I could make it stop. But the more I tried to get myself back under control, the more it came out of me.

I don’t know how long I cried, how long I stayed there on the floor nearly in a fetal position. All I knew was that when it finally started to subside, when I became aware of anything beyond the pain wrenching my heart out through my eye sockets, Brie was on the floor beside me. My head was buried in her neck, and she had both arms wrapped around me. She didn’t say a word. She held me, stroking my head and back as my mother had when I was a little boy.

If she really understood what an ass I’d been, she would never want to touch me. She would kick me out and never look back. That was what she
should
do, at least.

So even though I didn’t know how I’d manage to get the words out, I started to tell her everything, waiting on the moment when her anger and disgust would prevail over her desire to comfort me.

Even though it took me over an hour to get it out, and she had countless opportunities to separate herself from me, she didn’t. We stayed right where we were, on the floor of her living room, her arms pulling me to her. At one point, I realized that BC had come back and settled himself on my lap again. I stroked his head the same way Brie kept stroking mine. Having something to do with my hands eased the telling, somehow. Later, I realized that another cat had joined us, as well. He was curled up in the bend of Brie’s knees, one eye on me but not running away. I supposed he’d eventually gotten used to the sound of my voice as I’d droned on and on, recounting all the vile things I’d done and said to my brother, the things that had led to his death.

I couldn’t understand why she was still sitting here with me when she should be kicking me out of her apartment.

“Garrett wasn’t gay?” she asked quietly after I’d fallen silent, other than some sniffles as I attempted to sort myself out.

“No. Not as far as I know. He always had girlfriends.”

“But Shane is.”

I nodded, but then I wondered how she knew. I hadn’t said anything about that. I’d only been confessing everything to do with how I’d treated Garrett.

I must have tensed in response, because she said, “I caught him and Cole kissing earlier, while you were out seeing everyone else to their cars. On the stairs. I backed away before they noticed me because I didn’t want to interrupt.”

“He’s never told me, you know,” I said. My throat was raw after all the talking and crying. “Gran let it slip a while back. I can only guess that he was afraid to tell me because…” There wasn’t any need to explain why. Everything I’d told her to that point was reason enough. “I saw them making out tonight, too.”

“Does he know?”

“He looked right at me, daring me to react.”

“But you didn’t, did you? You never meant any of the things you said to Garrett, and you’d never dream of saying anything like that to Shane.”

“But I still said them.”

“You did, because you were young and stupid and going along with peer pressure. We all make mistakes, Keith.”

“But most people don’t make mistakes like this.” Most people don’t kill someone they love through making stupid decisions.

“Do you know that there were
no
other factors playing in to Garrett’s decision?” she demanded. I tried to shrug it off, but she kept pressing. “There were rumors always flying around the ballroom community that he’d been suffering from depression for years. A lot of people who are highly competitive are depressed, you know. Especially if they always seem to fall just short of where they want to be. Val and I had been beating him and Monica a lot at that point. They came in second to us more than they came in first.”

“If he was depressed, it was because of me.”

“If he was depressed, it was because of a chemical imbalance in his body,” she argued. “Same as my thyroid issues. They screwed up my weight, my vision, my career… Depression is a disease, and external factors are only one part of it. They say it might run in families, you know. Has anyone else in your family ever been depressed?”

My mother had been taking anti-depressants for as long as I could remember. I didn’t want to let myself off the hook that easily, though. I’d been carrying it all on my shoulders for so long, and now Brie was trying to shoot all that out of the water. Hell, I was probably depressed, too, but that only made sense after what I’d led my brother to do.

“That doesn’t matter,” I said.

“It does. And so do you.”

Somewhere along the way, she’d pulled herself away from me, one hand still resting on my thigh, and now she was leaning back against the wall. She straightened her legs out in front of her, angling her feet in a stretch. We’d been on the floor too long; we weren’t kids anymore. I didn’t know how kids could sit on the floor all the time without aching everywhere. I started to get up, more slowly this time so as not to leave BC disgruntled with the way I dislodged him, and I reached down, offering my hand.

She took it and allowed me to help her up. When she moved, the other cat ran off to hide in her bedroom again. We watched him go, Brie’s hand still in mine. I wanted to pull her into my arms and bury all the emotional garbage that had been dragged up today in making love to her. I wanted to drown myself in her scent, to lose myself in her touch. I wanted to forget about everything but me and her and right now.

But then she let go of my hand and moved over to her sofa, and I knew she wasn’t ready to move back to that sort of relationship. She might not hate me for all that I’d done, but we were never going to have the sort of relationship that I wanted.

I’d just laid it all out on the table, and I had been absolutely right. She didn’t want me.

I
T HAD TAKEN
every ounce of restraint and willpower I possessed to keep myself from falling into Keith’s arms last night and taking him to my bed. That was what he’d wanted. It had been plain enough to see that in his eyes. And some part of me—not a small part, either—had been of the same mind.

It would have been the easy thing to do, of course, but not the right thing. He’d finally started opening up and letting himself feel all the emotions he’d been trying to hide from for so many years, and his primary inclination was to bury it all again by falling back into our old pattern.
Don’t wanna talk about it? Why not have sex?

It would have been the simplest answer, but it would have set us back almost as far as we’d been before he’d finally started to open up about Garrett’s death. So instead, I’d put a little physical distance between us and kept the conversation going. Try as I might, I hadn’t been able to get Keith to admit his brother’s visit could possibly be an olive branch, an effort toward reconciliation. He was still determined to see himself as the bad guy, as someone his family would never be able to forgive, let alone love. I was more of the opinion that the only person in that family who hadn’t forgiven him and who didn’t love him was himself.

He’d stayed for a long time, until well past the time we both should have gone to bed. He had a game tonight and should have been resting up for it, and I had a long session with Devin today to work on our piece for his show and start on the number for the music video.

When Keith had finally gotten up and headed for the door, he’d asked me to come to his game tonight. I hadn’t had the heart to say no, and I
had
at least met some of his teammates’ friends and family at his party yesterday, so I’d agreed.

Now I was second-guessing myself, wondering if I was sliding too quickly from
friend
to
girlfriend
. How was I supposed to make that distinction? When was it okay to step over that line in the sand that I’d drawn? Right now, it still felt too soon…but how was I supposed to recognize the signs that would tell me the timing was right?

All of that was running through my mind as I rode the bus to the studio for my session with Devin. I sipped from my coffee cup and stared out the windows, watching Portland pass me by and worrying about what my next step with Keith ought to be.

When I stepped through the door to Rose City, it was to find Devin leaning one shoulder casually against the doorframe to the office and flirting outrageously with Tanya. Based on the playful look in her eye, she was giving it back to him in kind. I had no intention of getting in the middle of all that.

“Morning,” I said briefly, brushing past them and heading straight for the changing room. At least that way they’d know I was here so Devin could extricate himself whenever he was ready and we could get to work.

I pulled on an oversized T-shirt and a long skirt made from a polyester-and-spandex blend, admiring the way the shirt hung on me now that I had the new bras. That only made me think of that package Keith had brought over to my place last night, though, and then my cheeks flushed.

I’d taken a look through it after he’d left. There’d been a lot of silky, lacy things—teddies, matching bra and panty sets, baby-doll nighties, even a corset and garter—and it had been all I could do to keep myself from trying them on then and there. They were my size, but that didn’t mean someone my size ought to wear them. I’d shoved it all back into the packaging and left it on the coffee table, wishing I could forget about them. That didn’t seem very likely to happen at the moment, when simply looking at myself while wearing a properly fitted bra made me think of it all…and of the man who’d bought it for me.

The only way I was going to get all that off my mind right now was to focus on something else—my work. I left the changing room and headed to the studio. I’d barely gotten through the doors when I stopped short. Devin wasn’t in there yet, but the room wasn’t empty. Far from it. The six members of The End of All Things were lounging along one wall, staring at me.

My jaw must have been on the floor because Emery winked at me.

“I guess Devin didn’t fill you in on the change of plans, huh?” he said. “We wanted to be with the two of you when you first heard the track so we could all talk about ideas before you got to work.”

I forced my mouth closed, nodding, and attempted to prevent my eyes from bulging in shock at the band’s presence. “Great idea.”

Devin came in, ready to work, with a look in his eye that left no doubt he’d just stolen a kiss or more from Tanya before joining us. He grinned at me. “All set?”

I was as ready as I’d ever be, though that wasn’t saying much. I nodded and set my mind to the task at hand.

C
OLESY HURRIED AFTER
me when I left morning skate, rushing through the parking garage. “Hey! Burnzie,” he called out. “Wait up.”

I slowed down so he could catch up to me.