Secretly More Page 14

  Kimber crossed her arms and watched as he bent down to pet Pepperoni, who was curled up in the nap position on the beanbag chair. “What about you, buddy? You like it here, too?” He ran his hand up and down Pepperoni’s spine, seemingly oblivious to the cat bristling, as if to say, Who is this stranger and why is he mauling me in my own home? He gave no sign of remembering who Dane was.

  Dane straightened and turned to Kimber, raising an eyebrow as he shrugged off the tan, Salvation Army-bought corduroy suit coat he wore as a jacket. “You okay?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “I’ll say.” He grabbed her waist and pulled her toward him. “I missed you,” he murmured before crushing his mouth to hers. His tongue slid against her lips, seeking entry, and she obliged, unable to think of a reason not to.

  He broke off their kiss. “Show me your bedroom.”

  The reminder he didn’t already know where it was or what it looked like weighed on her. He was so removed from her life now. This dampened her already tenuous enthusiasm toward the evening, but she still took him by the hand and led him down the hall, and they toppled onto her bed in a tangle of limbs and open-mouthed kisses.

  Dane settled atop her, touching her with an almost bruising need, but that was okay. She wanted it to hurt, felt like she even deserved it to as he kissed her with an intensity she no longer felt for him. What was the point of this? How was this half-assed charade better than being alone, facing her sadness? She was tired and ought to get some sleep-or try to. The thought of how she’d bought brand new sheets, pillowcases, and a comforter in the wake of their relationship’s demise in an effort to erase Dane’s trace from her bed took precedence over any passion she might’ve felt toward him.

  “You’re so hot tonight. It’s driving me up a tree,” Dane mumbled as his mouth traveled to her ear, her neck, and in the darkness, in spite of herself, she thought about her mystery lover-Jay. Suddenly Dane’s presence became bearable, his touch actually inspiring her passion. Her lips sought his, and finally she returned the kiss with equal fire, all the while picturing him as someone else.

  Her self-deception worked, sparking her desire at last. Part of her hated that it did; it broke her heart to fantasize about someone who hurt her so badly. Yet she couldn’t help herself, thinking of her body pressed against Jay, who instinctively knew how best to please her-information he’d somehow derived from connecting with and trusting her outside the bedroom.

  The memory that someone had intimate, expert knowledge of her body and her needs had her tangling her legs around Dane’s waist. She didn’t even realize she’d been moaning until a loud crack of a headboard sounded against the wall. The headboard next door.

  The shock of the familiar noise ripped through Kimber as she remembered seeing Jay’s car in the parking lot. Now she was forced to hear just why he was there.

  Taryn’s screams came through loud and clear. “Oh God, Jay. Yes, right there… Oh yeah, that’s good… Don’t stop, Jay, don’t stop.”

  Dane laughed and kissed her neck again. “Guess your neighbors have the same idea we do. Wouldn’t it be funny if it was your Jay, the guy who introduced us?”

  Kimber’s lust turned into lead in her stomach, and she rolled off the bed, disoriented and on the verge of what she could only assume was a panic attack. She stumbled from the room and into the kitchen, where she flipped on the light and took a few deep breaths while trying not to cry.

  Pepperoni appeared in the doorway, then wound around her legs in both greeting and a not-so-subtle reminder he was hungry. Operating on autopilot, she scooped a tablespoon of wet food in Pepperoni’s bowl as Dane shuffled into the kitchen, looking drunk, horny, and confused. “Bables?”

  “Just feeding the cat.” She avoided eye contact, didn’t want him to ask what was wrong.

  “You got up so fast, I thought I did something wrong.” He approached her from behind and wrapped his arms around her, burying his face in the crook of her neck.

  “No, you go lie down. I’ll be back in a second.”

  “Okay.” He drew away and gave her ass a slap. “I’ll just listen to the couple next door and get ideas.”

  Kimber forced a laugh that sounded like a grunt of pain as Dane left the room, and her eyes filled with tears. She sank down on the kitchen mat beside Pepperoni, who briefly glanced up from his tuna feast in acknowledgment. She pressed her fingertips to her now leaking eyes and tried to calm her breathing, which left her in trembling gasps. How could Jay treat her like she was the most important person in the world one night then hop into someone else’s bed like she never mattered at all? If she’d had any remaining notion that Jay still harbored any feelings for her, it was gone now.

  She sat on the kitchen floor long after Pepperoni had finished eating and padded off into the darkness. The quiet of the room except for the hum of the refrigerator both comforted her and emphasized her loneliness. Finally she stood and, with trepidation, returned to the bedroom, where Dane snored, fully dressed and sprawled horizontally across the bottom of the mattress. No further sounds came from the other side of the wall.

  Kimber changed into her pajamas in the dark and crawled under the covers, careful not to kick Dane. Then she lay awake for hours, unable to recall a time when she’d ever felt more alone.

  Chapter Eight

  Jay awoke to his body rocking back and forth with a violent vigor often associated with storms at sea. He scrambled to a sitting position on the bed, his heart jumpstarted as he looked around the unfamiliar room and recalled he’d fallen asleep in his clothes last night next to Taryn, who stood beside him with eyes the size of the moon.

  “Brad’s here!” she shrieked in a whisper. “His car just pulled up.”

  “Okay, so…” He rubbed his eyes, desperate to understand the situation, but the sleep still clouding his brain refused to let logic in.

  “You have to get out of here.” Taryn tore the sheets off him and dragged him from the bed. “He’ll be walking through the door any second.”

  “How am I supposed to get out? The only exit aside from the front door is off the balcony.” He held up a finger. “And before you ask, no, I’m not jumping.”

  The front door opened, and Taryn let out another shriek. “No time!” Before Jay could protest, Taryn ushered him into the wide, two-door closet, kicked his sneakers in after him and shut the door.

  He squeezed his eyes shut and pinched the bridge of his nose, feeling the onslaught of a headache. “You’ve got to be kidding me.” What a fucking sitcom. He listened to Taryn scamper from the room and down the hall to presumably meet Brad, and he cursed his luck, which had become part of his normal routine. Jay jammed his feet into his sneakers, stepping on the pointy heel of a woman’s shoe in the process, but silenced his hiss of pain as he heard someone enter the room, kissing and groping another someone.

  “I missed you so much, Brad,” Taryn said between kisses as if she hadn’t slept next to Jay all night, even though there had been a healthy stretch of mattress between them.

  “I’m so sorry I left,” replied Brad, or so Jay gathered from the crack between the closet doors. Brad cupped Taryn’s face. “It’ll never happen again. I promise.”

  She smiled like an angel with a devil’s intentions. “Make it up to me?”

  In one fluid, continuous move, Brad had Taryn on her back, her pajama pants off, and his head between her legs, and Taryn erupted into a series of high-pitched moans.

  Jay sat back in the closet atop a haphazard pile of dirty laundry and dropped his head against the wall. He’d officially reached a new all-time low. Whoever thought he’d come to this point? On the day he met Kimber, never did his sixteen-year-old self imagine him in this predicament.

  As always, he wondered what she was up to. Taryn’s wails of pleasure brought to mind a nasty assumption. Was Dane still at Kimber’s? Were they lying in bed, giggling and having a conversation that only made sense to them as they delayed the inevitable rising to greet the day? Were they
sleeping, limbs entangled, or was he between her legs and thrusting inside her like he had last night?

  Jay’s stomach turned over and tears stung his eyes. The whole situation had spun so out of control he couldn’t think himself to any conclusion. Maybe there was none. Maybe this was it.

  Through the crack, Jay could see Taryn lost in bliss, holding Brad’s head close to her pussy as she gyrated against his face. The sight reminded him of how Kimber had looked when he’d gone down on her, a memory that did nothing to abate morning wood. He couldn’t believe it was an actual memory; it had been so surreal he felt like he’d dreamed it, yet he could recall every aspect in its entirety, from her breathy moans and “oh Gods” to how her inner thighs had brushed his face to her smile to how silky wet she was, and the rosy blush on her face as she neared climax…

  He already had his cock out and in his hand before he made the decision to do so. He stroked in time to Taryn’s cries, which built in frequency and pitch until she tugged Brad upward and turned over with her ass in the air. Brad unzipped his pants and slammed into her with the force of a man possessed by the call of his primitive side.

  Jay watched the couple screw and scream their way to a sexual release, half-registering what was happening and half-picturing himself doing the same to Kimber. He imagined taking her from behind and burying his cock inside her to the hilt, her ass bouncing with every thrust and her moaning his name.

  Soon his hand and cock went slick with his cum, and his arousal ebbed to an overwhelming depression. It was quite possibly the most pathetic, loneliest thing in the world to jerk off to someone who hated you. The empty cavern in his chest widened as he grabbed one of the socks from the laundry and wiped himself clean while Taryn and Brad collapsed in a sweaty heap atop the bed, still moaning and mewling. He’d been mistaken-this was a new all-time low. Just when he thought the limit had been reached, he somehow managed to push past it. So ambitious.

  Brad and Taryn exchanged more hushed laughs, whispers and kisses until finally Brad left the room and Jay heard the shower running. Taryn then sprung from the bed, wrapped herself in a sheet, and flung open the closet door. “I’m so sorry.” She blushed, although what was left to be modest about? “I couldn’t help myself.”

  “I know the feeling.” Jay got to his feet, his legs cramped and aching.

  “You go outside. I’ll meet you on the steps.”

  “Fine.” He wondered what she could possibly say to him as he left the apartment undetected by Brad, who was singing “Kryptonite” in the shower when he walked past the bathroom. He sat on the concrete front steps of the building, praying to whatever deity on duty that may have been listening that he didn’t run into Dane or Kimber or worse, both of them together.

  Taryn, to her credit, didn’t leave him waiting long, and he stood as she emerged wearing a bathrobe and slippers shaped like smiling clouds. She gave him a sheepish smile. “I just wanted to say goodbye to you properly. Not that anything that’s happened has been proper.”

  “That’s for damn sure.” He kicked a stray rock that had somehow made its way onto the sidewalk.

  “But when has anything been proper, really?” Taryn shrugged. “I can’t think of a single time in my life when something’s gone by the book or been normal. Nothing’s ever been easy.” She smiled at him and gave his shoulder a light punch. “What I’m trying to say is that people are surprising, and that’s something to be happy about.”

  Jay heaved a sigh, emptying his lungs. “I don’t know. I just don’t.”

  “Exactly.” Taryn held his face in her hands, obliging him to look at her. “And that, my friend, is a beautiful thing.”

  * * *

  Kimber awoke the next morning alone although the TV blasted in the next room. She padded into the living room to see Dane on the couch, eating from a can of ravioli beneath a poorly executed afghan she’d once made when she was going through her knitting phase. His eyes were on the TV but he looked up and smiled when Kimber entered. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and set the can aside, then stretched his arms toward her. “Bables.”

  “What’re you doing out here?” She collapsed on the couch beside him, avoiding his reach.

  “Just hanging out. I couldn’t sleep. Too much on my mind.”

  “Like what?”

  “Just things.” He picked up the remote and flipped through the channels, pausing on Animal Planet. A poodle in a tutu was jumping through a ring of fire. “Cool.”

  She plucked the remote from his hand and turned off the TV.

  He looked to her with a contrite grin and rubbed her knee. “I was thinking about how stupid I was, falling asleep on you last night before anything could happen. Damn, I definitely wanted to see that through. You were never like that before. I’m a lucky guy.”

  Kimber narrowed her eyes. “Why are you lucky?”

  “Because. I get to call the sexiest chick in this dump of a town my girlfriend.”

  She crossed her arms. “We’re not together, Dane.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Exactly that. You and I-we don’t work. We don’t make sense.”

  “But…” His satisfied expression became one of bewilderment. “But I want you in my life.”

  “What about what I want?”

  “I thought that was what you wanted.”

  “Not anymore. We have too many problems. It’s like a giant onion of problems, with all sorts of layers, and we just can’t get to the core of anything. They’ll never be fixed.”

  “Everyone has problems, bables. We’ll fix ours.”

  “Stop calling me that.” She rose from the couch and paced the length of the room. “And we won’t fix them. We can’t. If we could, why didn’t we fix them before?”

  “I don’t know.” He shook his head, looking lost. “I guess I was just being a stubborn jerk.”

  “But now you think things could be better.”

  “Well, I fucking hope so, Kimber, because I’ve never been this unhappy before in my life. I just don’t feel like myself. I’m not Dane without Kimber.”

  “But you are. Everything you are is you without me. You’ve always been you without me.”

  “And I don’t want to be,” he insisted. “I don’t understand. Look, I can be a better boyfriend. I’m ready for that now. I want to be good for you. I want to be with you.”

  She stopped pacing and stared at him. Dane finally offered what she’d wanted after all these years. He knew the script; he knew all the right things to say, as if he’d sifted through the card aisle at Hallmark to pull his inspiration.

  But now the offer wasn’t enough. It hadn’t been before, and it certainly wasn’t now. She thought of Jay, insisting he’d only ever need one chance, and she knew it was true. She would never be sitting around, having a similar conversation with Jay, because-all current events aside-Jay would never blow it like Dane had, over and over, without a second thought. A rush of affection mixed with regret flooded Kimber’s chest, and she sighed. “I think you should go.”

  Dane watched her, stunned, his eyes like a battlefield after a war. “Are you really serious? You don’t want to be with me?”

  “Come on. You know this doesn’t feel right. It never has.”

  He stared at the rug, resembling a little boy whose ice cream just toppled from the cone and onto the hot sidewalk. A few minutes of silence drifted by until finally he clapped his hands on his knees with finality and stood. “Well then. Don’t I feel like a real asshole.”

  Kimber sank back down on the couch and noted her apathy toward her ex-boyfriend as she watched Dane jam his feet into his sneakers, his movements slow, like he expected her to change her mind. When she said nothing, he said in a rush, “Y’know, Kimber, I really hope you find whatever it is you’re looking for. And I hope someday you’ll actually let someone try to make you happy, or else you’re going to be really lonely.”

  She didn’t mean to laugh, but she did. What the hell was he talking ab
out? Did he know her at all? Probably not, but that didn’t seem to matter now. “Thanks.”

  He shook his head, stunned. “What’s wrong with you? Why are you being so ‘whatever’ about this? About us?”

  Kimber wanted to ask him why he’d been so “whatever” about their relationship for more than half a decade, but that would surely prolong his presence. She shrugged instead.

  “Fine. I guess that’s it then.” A long pause followed. “I can’t believe it’s really over.” Panic welled in his eyes. “I don’t understand why we have to end things this way, but if you’re being for real, then for what it’s worth, I just want you to know how fucking sorry I am. You gave me all the love and compassion and caring I could have ever asked for, and I just couldn’t reciprocate and I don’t know why. I’m going to try to get help while I’m at my parents’.” He sucked in a shaky breath. “I also want you to know how much I care for you. I care for you endlessly, and you’ve changed my life. If I never talk to you again, I hope that everything works out for you.”

  The icy ambivalence around Kimber’s heart melted at the sadness and desperation in Dane’s voice. No matter how she felt toward him now, she had loved him once. He’d been the most important person in her life for a long time, and they’d had good times together. She used to love how he’d hug her tight and sigh her name, and when they’d laze around in bed in the morning, making up songs or drawing “tattoos” on each other with washable markers. One of her favorite memories of the times she’d spent with Dane included the night they drank Corona, watched Roundhouse episodes taped off the TV ten years prior, and kissed during the dated commercial breaks.

  But laying around in the darkness giggling and feeling close for a few hours wasn’t a relationship-at least, it didn’t count as one for her any longer. She wanted more than that. She deserved more than that. She deserved more than phone calls after midnight, phone calls that were weeks late, phone calls that were had only on Dane’s terms. She deserved more than four dates in a span of a year, more than no Christmas presents, more than forgotten dates and empty promises. For how much she had cared about a boy whose rash of excessive, downright cartoonish bad luck always featured more prominently in his thoughts than her, she had always deserved more.