Chapter 9

BEA

“I’ve never been here,” I mentioned as we walked into the restaurant while Ky held my hand.

Ky said something to the hostess and then turned to me with an odd look in his eyes. “You’ve never been here for dinner before?”

“Nope. I always wanted to come, but…” I let the words trail off. Law would never bring me. He said it wasn’t the best place to go on dates because it could be too loud, and the atmosphere was all wrong. Looking around the place, I knew he lied, and it made me wonder why. What in the world could he have been hiding that he never wanted me to come here?

“Well, good. Then you get to experience it with me first.” Ky grinned as he said it, and I couldn’t help the petty little voice in the back of my mind that reminded me that he had obviously been here before, and it wasn’t with me. Ugh! I had to stop. That wasn’t fair to him. We weren’t together then. I refused to let my issues with Law cloud my experience with Ky. Darn it.

We were seated not far from the bar and Ky seemed almost embarrassed by that. “What’s wrong?”

His cheeks were a little pink. “This was the best seat I could get without a reservation, but it will probably end up a little loud, rather than romantic.”

I glanced around and noticed that the seats further away, near the windows, had candlelit tables and seemed a bit quainter than the one we were seated at. The candle wasn’t even present at our table, and he was right, there were a bunch of men sitting at the bar. While a quick glance showed me they were all in business suits and seemed like upscale clientele, that didn’t stop them from dissolving into frat-bro talks about banging their secretaries.

“You just wanted to slide up between your secretary’s double-Ds. It’s different for me.” The speaker coughed and cleared his throat, clearly either having been sick or something recently.

Still, the voice sounded oddly familiar. Despite my curiosity, I chose to ignore the noise around us so that Ky wouldn’t feel worse about our seating arrangements.

“You dodged a fucking bullet, if you ask me.” Another recognizable voice said from amongst the suit-wearing frat-bros. Why did that voice raise my hackles?

“He’s right. Think about it, now you can go get all the pussy you want without having to hear some woman nagging at you when you get home about how your suit smells funny.”

“Your wife wouldn’t nag about that shit if you didn’t smell like every brand of perfume she doesn’t wear when you come home, asswipe!” That familiar voice said again.

“Where is Jackie? I miss being able to watch her walk into the room,” one of the men mentioned. It tickled something at the back of my mind, the familiar voices, that name...

“Blame him for that. He had to tell Jackie all about his feelings on his fucking wedding day and scared her away.” I turned to see Todd, my ex-fiancé’s best friend standing there glancing out at the rest of the restaurant. He appeared to be looking for someone, but that ended when his eyes locked with mine. His ears went red and I knew in that instant I was the bullet he was telling someone they dodged, which meant…

“Shit! Do you think she heard me?” Todd asked one of the men as they all sat at the bar waiting to see what I might do if I had indeed heard him.

I turned my head slowly and watched as Todd tapped someone on the shoulder and then pointed in my direction. There he was. My fiancé. Ex-fiancé.

That reminded me, I really needed to give him his ring back. It occurred to me what else Todd had just divulged. Jackie was usually here. He scared her away with his feelings. Oh wow! Jackie was the woman from Law’s letter. My heart sank because I had been her friend, and I thought she had also been mine.

Law didn’t seem to notice my distress, or realize I’d just overheard those things, as he stumbled off his barstool and headed in our direction. Ky finally noticed that my attention had stayed on the men at the bar a bit too long and swiveled around to see what I was so focused on.

“Shit! You have got to be kidding me.”

“He would never take me here,” I mentioned as Law nearly knocked over a waitress who was in his way. She wouldn’t have been, if he had been able to walk a straight line. “Now, I know why.”

“Why?” Ky asked in a worried tone.

“They just mentioned Jackie. She’s not here this time because someone told her all about his feelings for her.”

Ky nodded, as if it wasn’t news to him. Maybe it wasn’t. He had questioned why I’d invited her to the movies with us a couple weeks back. I liked her. We had hit it off at one of Law’s work functions and had been friends ever since. I wasn’t sure how she felt about Law, but knowing that he had feelings for her that were strong enough to make him walk away from our relationship on our wedding day made me rethink exactly how close the two had been.

Ky waived our waiter away quickly and told him to give us a few minutes as Law finally made it into our space. I didn’t think we would need those minutes though because I didn’t feel up to sticking around after seeing my ex-fiancé and all his work mates. They all knew he left me on our wedding day to tell their other coworker all about his feelings for her. It seemed my humiliation, thanks to Law’s selfishness, was never to end.

“Fancy seeing you here,” Law spat out, and honestly I was surprised that his words hadn’t been slurred terribly. They were somewhat sluggish on delivery.

“Yes, fancy seeing me here, since you refused to bring me to this place, even though I asked repeatedly. Imagine how it must feel for me to find out exactly why you never brought me here. This is where you came with your other woman,” I accused.

“Damn. Is that about Jackie?” One of the men asked, though Law seemed oblivious. Ky’s eyes shifted from Law to mine.

“What are you doing here?” Law asked, seemingly oblivious to everything. “You broke me and now you’re out to eat with him? At my place?”

“I think that’s about enough,” Ky told him.

“Yeah, it really is,” Law agreed. “So, are you coming home tonight or what?”

Ky stiffened and while he appeared to be ignoring Law, he was staring right at me. “You left your stuff, and you haven’t come back for it, so you’re thinking about things, right?” Law asked.

I continued to keep my eyes on Ky, not Law, as I shook my head. Law didn’t seem to notice the head shake and poked my shoulder when he didn’t get a response he could process.

“ Your condo is not my home.”

“It is. You moved all your things in.”

“Yes, and you let me do that knowing that you had another woman in the picture. Then, you left me on our wedding day to go be with her. Sorry about your bad luck that she turned you down.”

“Come on, I ‘pologized for that.” Law swayed as if a breeze attempted to push him over, but it was just whatever alcohol he had consumed, catching up with him.

“Law, go sit down,” I demanded.

“Not until you tell me you’re coming home.”

My head hurt. It was interesting to note that my heart did not. Knowing Law, and his crush on another woman, was the reason I’d never been able to come here, and now that he was ruining my night out with Ky - our first date, all I wanted was to go home. Not to Law’s condo. Just not here. I stood and grabbed my things then turned to Ky.

“Can we go?”

He stood too, because the man was a saint. He threw a twenty down on the table even though we hadn’t even been able to order a drink yet.

“You’re gonna leave? Just like that?”

“You’re drunk. Go home Law. Get yourself together and figure out what you want out of life.”

He grabbed my arm to stop me from walking away. “I want you. Dammit, I already told you that I want you to come home.”

“You should have decided that sooner. That isn’t an option you even get to hope for anymore because I no longer want you.”

Ky reached over and pushed Law’s hand off my arm and then moved me to his other side. With his hand on my lower back, he guided me out of the restaurant.

“I can’t believe that just happened.”

“What did he mean in there? It sounded like you had a conversation where you agreed to keep your stuff at his place until you decided what to do.”

“When you left the church and he was still there, he begged me to leave my stuff and give everything some time and thought before deciding my next step. I didn’t agree to do that, but I also didn’t go pick my stuff up right away. I figured everyone could use some time to cool down first before a bunch of drama started from me trying to reclaim my life.” I threw my hand toward the restaurant. “Apparently, the drama was meant to find me anyway.”

“I’m sorry,” Ky’s apology felt wrong.

“For what?”

“Bringing you here.”

“Did you know he would be here?” Ky shook his head. “Then what are you apologizing for? That scene wasn’t your fault. I should be the one saying I’m sorry because my drama ruined our first date.”

Ky stopped me before we managed to get to his vehicle. His hands found my hips and pulled enough that it became an invitation, and not a demand for me to move closer to him. When I went with the motion and closed the space between us, he leaned in and placed a peck of a kiss right on the tip of my nose.

“You ruined nothing, Sweet Bea.” I grinned at the nickname he’d given me years ago. He hadn’t used it in forever. Once, when we were a whole lot younger, Ky heard my mom calling me sweet pea, but he thought she said sweet Bea, so he started calling me that. When he realized he’d just heard her wrong, he refused to stop, saying, ‘It’s my thing now’ . After that, my mom wouldn’t call me sweet pea anymore. She went with sweetie or sweetheart instead.

“You want to try somewhere else?”

“How about we just pick something up and head back to my place so we don’t stand a chance of running into anyone else who might want to rehash things?” He hung his head a little as he assisted me into his car. “It was poor timing to suggest our first date out this soon, anyway. We’ll make up for it soon.”

“You are wise beyond your years,” I teased. “I’m not upset about the timing, though, Ky. Everything would have been fine if we hadn’t accidentally walked into his place.” I rolled my eyes at the thought. The jerk went there enough to lay claim to it, but he refused to ever take me and he thought I’d agree to go back to him after everything else and then that, too? Yeah, he must have been drunker than he appeared.

After we picked up takeout, we ate in relative quiet before moving to his bedroom to get comfy and watch a movie. That was nothing out of the ordinary for the two of us. Ky had a great system set up in his bedroom versus the living room because he used to have a roommate who would constantly hog the TV. After his roommate moved out, and Ky decided to keep the place for himself, he never bothered to move everything back out to the living room.

He handed me one of his shirts and a pair of basketball shorts that I had to tie and roll down at the top to get a decent fit. Even after the adjustments, they were still uncomfortable to wear while lying on a bed, so I took them off, thinking the t-shirt came almost to mid-thigh anyway. Ky never said a word because that wasn’t exactly out of the realm of normal for us. I’d borrowed his clothes more times than I could count over the years.

As we laid there watching an action movie, I played with the ring that now circled my finger. I’d like to say it was an absent gesture, but honestly, I knew what I was doing. My granna had offered her ring to me when she found out I was engaged to Law, though he had been with me when it happened, and had refused on my behalf before I could say a word. It had angered me then, and we’d even fought about it later that night. My granna never said a word about it after that, but she also never spoke to Law again. He had been moved to the top of her ‘poop-list’ as she called it.

Thinking back to moments like that, I realized there had been red flags all along that I shouldn’t have ignored in my relationship with Law. Another had been his refusal to take me to the restaurant I wanted to try so bad, and now I knew there had been a perfectly logical reason – on his part – for his refusal. That too had been a red flag I’d missed. My heart hurt just thinking about it. Oddly enough, not because I was broken up about the loss of Law, but because I allowed myself to stay with a man who couldn’t be trusted to do right by me.

My phone rang and pulled me from my thoughts. I glanced at it to see Law’s face pop on the screen. Ky watched me as I turned the thing off and then he reached over to his and followed suit before tucking them both onto the nightstand.

“Come on,” he presented his chest with his arms wide open and there was no hesitation on my part before I slid into the warmth and comfort he offered.

I had stayed at Ky’s place many times over the years, and borrowed his clothes too. None of that was new. Waking up in his arms in the morning, with his front spooned up against my back – that was different. We had never slept all night in the same bed before. Either he had given up his bed for me or I had fallen asleep on the couch. My heart swelled and for just a moment, I let myself live in the bliss of a dream I’d once had when I was much younger.

Plenty of girls dreamed of going to bed with KylanArmstrong. I was the one who always fantasized about waking up in his arms. Maybe it was my innocence, back when my crush on him had been at its height, but the sex part of a relationship with him had always been on the back burner of my mind.

It was the intimate moments I craved the most. The kisses we might one day share, having him hold me, and waking up in his arms had been the stuff of my dreams. Sure, there were the occasional dirty dreams too, but I wasn’t ready to recall those just yet. Not while lying in bed beside him, half naked, and well, recently sort-of married. The last thought gave me pause.

We were married. Didn’t that mean sex should be a given? It wasn’t legal though, not until we signed the paperwork. Granted, it wasn’t like I was waiting on marriage to have sex. I’d been with two other men. It’s just that this was Ky, my Ky, and…

“If you think any harder over there, you’re going to give me a headache,” Ky mumbled into my hair before he planted a kiss on my head and rolled to his back. He never let go of me as he moved, so I was forced to follow his movements or cut off our connection. I wasn’t ready for the latter, so I rolled with him and snuggled my front into his side while resting my head in that perfect little spot where his chest and arm met.

“Sorry,” I muttered. “I was just running through my memories.”

“About?” He asked, and I hadn’t missed the way his body stiffened slightly beneath mine. The tension gave me pause, but only for a moment.

“This is the first time we’ve slept together.”

Ky chuckled. “Yeah, not how I’d imagined we would end up snuggled together in the morning, but I’m not complaining either,” he teased.

Sudden banging on his door startled both of us. Ky gently moved me to the side and slid out of the bed. “Be right back.” He got up and stood there beside the bed, and stretched his muscles. My eyes refused to look away, no matter how many times I begged them to. Ky only wore a pair of shorts, and they hung on for dear life at the base of his hips, obviously having been pulled lower from his movements in his sleep. My eyes dipped from his muscular chest, down his glorious torso, and then my devilish orbs continued to follow his treasure trail of hair down to where his muscles dipped into a “v” that pointed to…

BANG. BANG. BANG

I glanced back up after the banging on the door startled me again to see that Ky grinned at me knowingly. He winked and took off to see who in the heck had attempted to tear his door down before ten in the morning.

Curious, I got up to follow him, in case it was someone in my family checking to see if I was alive. I forgot that we both turned our phones off the previous night, and I hadn’t remembered to let my parents know that I wouldn’t be coming home. It wasn’t out of disrespect or thinking I was too old to have to be considerate. I simply hadn’t lived with them in so long that it didn’t occur to me that I needed to be considerate of anyone else by letting them know my whereabouts.

As soon as I rounded the corner into the hallway with a clear view of the front door, my stomach felt as though it dropped to my feet. Law stood there, looking angrier than he had a right to be. His eyes scanned my body, taking in the fact that I was wearing a t-shirt that obviously belonged to Ky. It wasn’t lost on him that we both must have just come from the bedroom – from bed – considering our attire and rumpled appearances. Our half-dressed, mussed hair, sleepily contented faces all dug under Law’s skin as his scowl deepened.

“I’m so easily replaced?” He asked me with a low, menacing voice. Ky moved to step into his line of sight, effectively blocking me from view, but I managed to move closer. I put a hand on Ky’s lower back to let him know I was okay, and he slid the slightest bit to the right so that I could face Law, even as his body blocked enough of me that I would be safe from attack. Not that Law would ever put his hands on me, but the gesture wasn’t’ missed by anyone.

“No easier than you replaced me on our wedding day. How would that look right now if she hadn’t shut you down? Would you even care where I spent my night? Would I be the one standing on your doorstep while the other woman – Jackie was it? – stood there in your shirt?”

Law staggered back as if I struck him. “It wouldn’t have been like that. I would have been respectful.”

Ky scoffed as his muscles bunched with the tension from holding himself still. “About as respectful as you leaving your fiancé a note about going to woo another woman on your wedding day?” He asked before his anger got the better of him. “Get out of here with your judgment. Bea fell asleep at my place, watching a movie, because we are being respectful of one another. You didn’t factor into that equation at all. Why should you?” He made a tsking sound at Law then. “Don’t preach to Bea about being disrespectful just because you feel like things turned around on you. It was your disrespect of her that set everything in motion.”

I was shocked that Ky didn’t attempt to insinuate more happened between us just to get under Law’s skin. My respect for my best friend rose just a bit higher in the wake of his words.

“Well, obviously Bea wasn’t serious about marrying you then, if you can’t even seal the deal with her.” Law showed his true colors as he sniped back at Ky. Then he turned his attention toward me alone. “I promise, I will prove to you that we’re meant to be together, Bea. I’ll work to fix things and then we’ll say our vows to one another the way we were supposed to.”

I wanted to laugh, but honestly I was speechless. He literally stood there and told me that if Jackie had said yes, he would have been respectful during the shift from being with me to his new woman. Then suddenly he changed gears and told me we belong together, and the idiot didn’t see the problem with that at all.

“Vows don’t seem to be something you’re capable of making,” Ky explained to my ex-fiancé when I couldn’t find the words to respond. Then, Ky slammed the door shut in Law’s face and turned to pull me into his arms. My failure to return the gesture right away worried my best friend enough that he pulled away and looked me in the eye. “Are you angry with me for saying that?”

“No, he deserved far more than your parting shot – which was just you speaking the truth anyway.” I leaned in then and wrapped my arms around his neck. “Thank you for keeping it classy and real earlier.” I told Ky before sliding up to kiss his lips. It was a brief kiss, but so darn profound all at once. “He didn’t deserve to know that we hadn’t been together, but I appreciate you telling the truth on my behalf.”

“If you’re going to reward me with kisses, then I can’t wait to be honest again,” he teased. Though judging from the heated look in his eyes he meant every word.

I laughed and thought maybe it would end there and we could move on to breakfast and being our normal selves, but I was quickly disavowed of those notions.

“Really,” Ky told me as his fingers slipped under my chin to lift my face so that our eyes met once more. “My shirt looks sexy as hell on you, Bea.” He puckered up, as if that bit of ‘honesty’ deserved a reward. I gently face-palmed him and playfully pushed him away. Then quickly spun on my heels and made my way back to his room so that I could get dressed. Ky followed me, as he pouted about not getting another kiss.

“Your ass looked fantastic in those jeans last night.” Ky told me as I bent to retrieve them from the floor. “But I might prefer this view way more.” I turned to see his head tilted slightly as his eyes remained glued to my ass. The t-shirt I wore rode up in the back, as I bent and he could probably see my upper thighs and a little panty-clad ass cheek before I rose back up with jeans in hand.

I couldn’t hide the grin while turning fully to face Ky who had stepped closer to land us toe-to-toe. He deserved a kiss for more honesty. There was no reason to deny that I wanted to reward him. My best friend -pseudo husband- had driven me to the brink of insanity with his never-ending comments and the sexy smolder that threatened to light fire to my panties. I leaned in and nibbled on his top lip, leaving the plumper bottom one alone for now. This too had been a dream of mine long ago, and the reality didn’t disappoint.

As I kissed him, Ky reached out and pulled my body forward, bringing us so close that his body’s reaction made it perfectly clear how he felt in that moment. The proof of it was plastered against my torso. Instead of the playful little nibble I meant to leave him with, Ky deepened the kiss while stealing my very breath from me. He then made me a promise with his mouth that he was being honest with me once more – just not in words this time.