Over the Hills and Far Away (NOLA's Own #1) (22 page)

Namaste.

Yanking the mic back out, he said, “I’m comin’ home to you, Baby Girl.”

“Go get the weed,” said Alys, taking a seat on the bed.

Lili flounced out and returned with a fat blunt. She lit it up, took a few hits, and handed it to me. A good heavy hit set my brain right.

“What the fuck did I just watch?” I wheezed and exhaled. “Was that shit real?”

“That shit was real,” said Alys.

“That shit was real, real,” confirmed Lili.

We passed the blunt around a bit in comfortable silence before Alys and Lili exchanged a look
,
and Alys turned her attention back to me.

“So, NOLA’s Junk’s New Orleans concert is in three weeks, two days after your birthday,” she said.

“Okay,” I said.

“And it was going to be a surprise, but…we bought tickets. It’s at the arena, and they’re seats. The floor tickets sold out fast.”

“Oh.”

Alys continued, “Their website says they’re taking a pretty long hiatus. This is going to be their last tour for a while.”

I nodded.

We smoked a bit more in silence, getting well and truly baked. It wasn’t like we had anything else to do, so we might as well.

“I’ve applied for a nine-one-one dispatcher position,” Lili said out of the blue. “Got an interview next Monday. If I get the job, I’ll start in about four weeks. That’ll give me time to hand in my notice with the phone company.”

“Sweet,” said Alys.

Damn, we all must be ripped.

“This way, I know I’ll have the concert night and the next day off.”

Ah, that’s where that was headed.

Heaving a huge sigh, I said, “I guess you guys would never forgive me if I chose to stay with Brian.”

“It’s not our decision to make, Sweet Pea.” Alys replied.

“I would
never
forgive you, Kenna. Never, ever, ever,” stressed Lili. “Ever,” she added just for extra emphasis.

“This is totally going to suck, you guys. Last night, he made love to me. It was incredible. It felt…I can’t even begin to describe it.”

Alys said, “Aw!”

At the same time, Lili said, “Damn it!”

“I know, right? I really felt that love—”

“Well, get over it,” snapped Lili, pointing at the computer screen. “’Cause
that
is coming home to you, and
that
is six years of pent-up sexual frustration waiting to be unleashed.”

“Damn, Lili! You just made my uterus quiver in terror!” I laughed.

“Are you sure it was terror?” drawled Alys.

It took me two days to grow a set and call Brian.

“Hey, baby,” he said when he answered the phone.

“Hey. So…I need to see you,” I told him, doing my best to keep all emotions out of my voice. “Do you work today?”

“No, I’m free until tomorrow night. What are you thinking?”

“Is it cool if I come over?”

“Always, baby.”

“See you in a bit then.”

My emotional state was just bizarre. I had a feeling of pure elation over Phil, and at the same time, I felt absolute heartbreak over Brian. Not to mention, I was still experiencing a heavy dash of grief over Grandma. I had never felt so fucking busy in my head, and I was fucking terrified of all of it. My nerves were shot to shit, and my body was continuously breaking out in cold sweats. Even though I’d hardly eaten anything in two days, it felt as though something was desperately trying to claw its way out of my stomach.

Brian opened the door with a smile, which quickly slid off his face. “Oh. It’s not good then.”

“Phil is coming home,” I told him. Then, I proceeded to burst into tears. My emotions just exploded all over my face.
Fucking hell! I just can’t seem to stop crying these days!

Brian wrapped his arms around me, gently rocking me. “Shh…baby. Come inside.”

He pulled me over the threshold before closing the door behind him. Steering me toward the breakfast bar, we sat next to each other.

“Just tell him about us,” he said softly. “He’s been gone for a long time, baby. These things happen. Maybe he’s found someone else, too.”

“He hasn’t,” I replied, choking up.

“Wow. After all this time—”

Shaking my head, I said, “Brian, my heart is breaking for what might’ve been between us. If I were a normal person, I’d be fighting tooth and nail for what you mean to me—”

“How are you not normal?”

“Because six years ago, I made a promise to a man who had to leave. I’ve never really moved on from that, and apparently, neither has he. I owe it to myself to find out if I’ve been holding on to something
real
or wasting my energy on this
.
And I absolutely hate that I’ve put you in this situation.”

“I know that, baby—”

“I never thought I would meet and fall in love with someone else along the way. At the time, it seemed impossible that I could have feelings for any other man—period. And to put you through this—” I started to sob. “It’s killing me!”

“Hey, hey, hey! Kenna, please…don’t cry like this!” He took my hands and firmly squeezed them.

“It just hurts so much! I never—”

“Baby, you’ve been nothing but honest with me from the very beginning,” he said to me. “I forced this. I don’t regret a single fucking minute I’ve had with you. I’d do it all again even if it ended the same way. I’m no saint here. I did my damnedest to make you fall in love with me, to make you forget him, so that I’d have a fighting chance.”

“But why? Why put yourself through this?” I sniffed.

“Do you really have no idea what an amazing person you are, Kenna? You’re beautiful, inside and out. How could I
not
try to make you love me, even a little?”

Snagging a napkin from the holder in the middle of the breakfast bar, I wiped my eyes and pinched my running nose. “I do. I
do
love you, Brian. It’s what makes this so hard.”

“I love you, too, baby.” He gave me a heartbreakingly sad smile. “I guess that’s why I can let you go—but not just yet.”

I looked at him in surprise. “What do you mean?”

“We’re going to end this…properly and say good-bye to one another in a way that we’ll both remember with happiness—and a whole lotta love.” He stood up and pulled me into his arms. His mouth pressed against mine with a sweet, if not overly wet on my part, kiss. “One last night, baby. Tomorrow, we can start being just friends.”

Not caring if it would make it harder for me to leave, I replied, “Okay.”

I honestly loved this man
. If this is what he wants, then how can I tell him no? How can I not say good-bye to us properly?

Back in his bedroom, we had sex in every way imaginable. First, it was slow and sweet. Then, it was rough and hard, doing all sorts of positions—from behind, up against the wall, on all fours on the floor. That time, I got rug burn on my knees as he smacked my ass and pulled my hair. Then, with me on top, we were laughing and playful. By the early, early hours of the morning, he made love to me, one last time, face-to-face.

We both had tears in our eyes. It was
that
emotionally charged.

“I love you,” he whispered, slowly pushing into me. “A part of me will always love you.”

I took a shaky deep breath, letting the warmth of his words fill me. “A part of me will always love you, too, Brian.”

“I want you to promise me something.”

“If I can, I will.”

“Promise me that if you don’t find what you’re looking for…please, please come back to me.”

I nodded, finding it a hard task to whisper, “I promise.”

The next morning, I woke up and took one last loving look at Brian’s sleeping face. With my heart tripping around in my throat a million miles a minute, I got up, got dressed, and slipped out, like I should have done half a year ago.

Bubba grunted and followed me to the front door where, tearfully, I gave him some good lovin’ and placed a kiss on the top of his wrinkly head.

“Good-bye, Bubba,” I whispered.

My whole face started to tremble with the powerful heartache I was feeling.
Damn it, I was even going to miss his fucking dog!

After locking the door behind me with the spare key Brian had given me, I placed it in his mailbox and headed to my car.

The clock on the dash said it was a few minutes past nine.

As I started Gretchen, I turned off the CD player, not really in the right frame of mind for NOLA’s Junk. Instead, I turned the radio on and listened to the local rock station, not even hearing the commercial break as I backed out of the driveway. I stopped and stared at the front of his house for a few heartbeats.

I can stay if I want. I can pull the car back into the driveway, run inside, and make us both happy. I can avoid this heartbreak. I can find happiness and love inside there and never have to leave it.

However, fate and the radio conspired against this sort of thinking as the DJ’s voice seemed to communicate divinely through my speakers.

“…and since we’ve gotten so many requests for it, here’s NOLA’s Junk, live in Rio, with ‘Louisiana Baby.’”

“Well, fuck me running.” I snorted, laughing and crying all at once.

If this wasn’t just a little piece of fucked up, I didn’t know what was.

I still had the following week off from work. Alys and Lili didn’t though, and I found I had a lot of free time by myself.

It was really hard not to call Brian. Lonely and sad, I wished I could take back everything. I missed him. But that wasn’t a good enough excuse to drag us both through the emotional upheaval it would cause. So, I didn’t call him. And he didn’t call me.

I planned to spend the week doing a lot of yoga and a lot of meditating. I needed to get my head into the right frame of mind. When I went back to work, I would need to focus on my patients. I couldn’t think about
him
until the moment it happened—
if
it happened.

You didn’t dump Brian for an
if, I told myself. At least, I hoped I hadn’t.

Tuesday morning found me on the back porch. I’d completed ninety minutes of torturous yoga, and I was feeling pretty fucking good at this point. Sitting in lotus pose, I let my mind just…go. I sank deeper and deeper within myself.

I was about to get really comfortable in my own head when the loud rip of a chainsaw right next to the fence made me startle so hard that I nearly shit myself.