“It’s also pretty fucking amazing.”
I peek through my fingers, surprised by his take on things. “How do you figure?”
“You’ve basically written thirty novels, Kenley. How many people can say that?”
I let my hands fall away from my face entirely. “Well, none of them are done. So, I don’t think it really counts.”
He arches a brow at me. “How much is missing from each story? Like, the last quarter?”
I’m tempted to hide behind my hands again, but I fight the urge. “More like the last chapter.”
“Then it definitely counts.”
“We’ll agree to disagree.”
He laughs, but there’s a sweet warmth in his eyes flooding me with care. “Why don’t you tell anyone?”
I shrug. “Because I started doing it on a crazy whim. It was the first year after my marriage imploded, where I knew it was over, but he was still holding on, but you know, the way you might hold someone you’re trying to choke to death. In a figurative sense, of course. Not literal.” Still, right around that time, I learned just where the line was between a verbal fight and one where things got physical. “I needed a mental escape, a creative project to get lost in. And...I don’t know. It’s become more than just a hobby but...” I exhale loudly, shaking my head. “I guess I always planned to tell people when I actually finished something, when I felt like I had something worth sharing. And I just haven’t reached that point yet.”
“But you’re sharing it with me.”
“You seem to think we ought to be doing that sort of thing,” I remind him.
“I do.” He smiles. Because I’m clearly starting to agree with him. But he’s kind enough not to point that out. Instead, he circles back around to where we started, “But then how can you hate reading romance? Do you hate writing it too?”
“Ilovewriting it,” I assure him. “Weird, right? But making up love stories is pretty much my favorite pastime. All my life, I’ve been the girl in love with love.”
“Except when it comes to reading about it.” He’s oddly delightfully baffled by the whole thing. It’s adorable. And funny. And I kind of love how much he keeps asking questions about it. Aboutme. “So, what do you think it’ll take to finally finish one?”
“I wish I knew.” I sink down until my head is resting on his shoulder. “I’ve been the girl in love with love...who never found it.” I shrug, but it doesn’t deliver the casual gesture I’d hoped. “And I think maybe that’s why I can’t get myself to write those happy endings. But it’s also what keeps me coming back, keeps me trying, telling new stories over and over. Because deep down, I’m secretly hoping, if I manage to write that happy ever after even once...maybe it’ll become real.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
KNOX
All I can think listening to her is, how I’m that guy. How I’ve been on that same hollow path hoping for something,someone, I spent many times thinking wasn’t still out there for me. But the last thing I want, is her wondering if it’s some line, some convenient commonality when she’s at her most vulnerable, so I don’t say it. Not now. Not like this.
“Did you know Matti was married?” I ask a question that must seem like it’s coming out of left field to her. But I have a point. I’m just taking the long way around.
“I didn’t.” Her brow crinkles a little, but for the most part she seems relieved the topic is moving away from her. She’s even looking me in the eye again.
“She was his high school sweetheart. They stayed together through everything, all the shit years in the beginning when we were practically living out of our car while driving town to town to play gigs, and still barely scraping by with enough to buy food and new guitar strings.” I pause to swallow. All this shit is stirring up feelings I wasn’t expecting to confront tonight. “She’d stay put back home, living with her roommate, and working two jobs just to help keep us afloat and pushing on. She was amazing. The way she loved him, I just thought he was luckiest goddamn man alive.” I smile, but it’s bittersweet knowing how their story ends. “And he was a good man too. He never once took for granted the sacrifices she made or the fact that she was back home, waiting for him, trusting him.” I nod, remembering. “He earned that trust every damn night. Even when we were playing dive bars or coming in at the bottom of the totem pole as the three-song opening act, Matti never failed to attract women. And he never failed to turn them down.”
“Sounds like they both knew what they had was sacred,” she says softly.
“They did. Hell, we all did.” Even when it all fell apart, we knew what it meant, what it was Matti and Nessa were losing. “And I always wanted what they had. Always knew I was the kind of man Matti was. Cheatin’, that’s just never been my thing. If you want out, get the fuck out. Don’t string someone along when you know damn well they’re putting more in than you are.” Even before Emmery cheated on me, I knew I’d never do that to someone else. “But I didn’t ever love anyone the way Matti loved her. And even when I thought I got close, she didn’t love me back the way Nessa loved him. I thought for a while she did,” I admit, even now still constantly searching for the reasons I kept going back, kept hanging on. “But where Nessa was always pushing Matti to go, I was always being asked to stay. Forced to choose, to prove that I cared more for her than anything else.” I understood why she needed it; I just couldn’t ever give it to her. And in turn, we took something that should have been beautiful and made it ugly. Made it destructive. “Eventually, she hated me for always letting her down, and I hated myself for being that guy who always wound up hurting her because the choice was never between her and music. It was between her and me. And as much as I wanted her to know she mattered, I wasn’t willing to prove I mattered less.”
“Yeah,” Kenley says thoughtfully and it’s obvious there’s more on her mind than she’s saying.
“What?”
She shakes her head. “It’s just...I obviously don’t know this woman or what your relationship was like,” she pauses again, choosing her next words carefully, “but coming from the perspective of someone who spent many years weaving their way through someone else’s mind games and guilt trips, it sounds like pretty manipulative behavior. Like it was never aboutproving that you loved her...and just about breaking you down to control you.”
I nod. That’s the first time I’ve ever told anyone what things were like between me and Emmery and had them see it so clearly. Even Matti, who never hesitates to tell me how batshit crazy she is, always seemed to think that I’d have chosen her every time she asked if she’d been the one. “Took me years to sort that out and break out of that mindfuck, but yeah. That’s exactly what it was.” Even if it wasn’t intentional. And I’m not saying it wasn’t. I’m just saying, I’ll never know for sure that it was. “The reason I’m telling you all this,” I try to circle back around to where I started, “is because I’ve been that guy the way you’ve been that girl. I feel like I’ve been watching people find their soulmates and build their lives from the second I arrived on this earth. Hell, even my own parents were high school sweethearts who married right out of school, made a bunch of babies, and loved each other through every second of it. Even the hard ones.” I lift her hand from where I’ve been holding it to my chest and press it to my lips. “When Matti and Nessa split, I thought for a while maybe it was a sign. That the magic wasn’t real. That what I wanted couldn’t be found.” I release her hand and she lets it slide along my neck before it catches over my heart again while my own hand moves to find her cheek, gently caressing her soft skin. “Then I met you. And I knew that it could. And that magic isn’t a fantasy. And the only sign I need moving forward is the way the light sparks in your eyes every time you look at me and I remind you that this is real. That we’re real. And that even if I have to leave, I’m always coming back for you.”
KENLEY
Goddamn, the man gives a good speech. Have I said that before? I have. At this rate, I’ll be saying it regularly. Possibly for the rest of my life. Because I think I’m starting to believe him. Really believe him, believe all of it.
