Sharing You

13

Kamryn

June 22, 2015

“YOU SOUND HAPPY, baby girl.”

I smiled and lowered myself onto the couch. “I am happy, Barb. Things are going really well with the shop, Kinlee is still as crazy as ever . . .” I drifted off and smiled at Barb’s belly laugh, but the smile faded as the words I couldn’t say played through my head. Even though you warned me against it, I’m dating a married man.

“Is she still trying to set you up with someone?”

Barb’s psychic! “Eh. Sort of. She’s backed off a lot, but that’s just because she and Jace really want me to be with Aiden.”

“From what you said, I don’t see what was wrong with Aiden.”

I chewed on my bottom lip and thought back to just last weekend at Kinlee’s birthday party. Once Aiden and I were inside the house, he hadn’t made any more comments hinting at an us, and I’d been thankful for that. Because, other than completely ignoring him, I wasn’t sure what more I could do.

“Kam, honey?”

“Hmm?”

“That Aiden boy—is there something wrong with him? You stopped talking.”

“Oh, no.” I shook my head, even though Barb couldn’t see me, and sank into the cushions until I was comfortable. “No, there’s nothing wrong with him. He’s gorgeous, has a very admirable job, he’s polite . . . I’m sure you’d love him. He’s just not it for me, you know? I went on that one date with him, but there was nothing more than a friend bond for me.”

Barb stayed silent for a few moments, and just as I was about to ask if she was still there, she spoke softly. “I know you’ll find a good man, Kamryn. You just have to. Your life is finally going how it always should have, and I just know there’s a man lined up in there somewhere. But you’re only twenty-three. You have plenty of time to find him.”

I’d found him, there was no question about that. “Right.”

“Okay, sweet one, I need to get up early to get your parents’ Sunday brunch started, so I need to get me some sleep. You have a good rest of your weekend, all right?”

“’Kay. Love you, Barb.”

“I love you too.”

I pressed END and let my phone fall to the cushion as I stood to find something in the kitchen. Just as I hit the end of the couch, my phone chimed. A chime I’d reserved specifically for Brody.

Racing back to the phone, I pulled open the text.

B:

I’m coming over

Olivia? No hotel?

The only response was the sound of my garage door opening. I quickly ran to the door leading to the garage and watched as Brody’s black Expedition pulled in. The second he was in the clear I was shutting the garage door behind him. My body was humming as I watched him exit his SUV and walk over to me.

“Olivia?”

“She left with her parents for Washington and won’t be home until Monday.”

A smile crossed my lips at the thought of having him to myself for more than a day. “What about the hotel?”

He shook his head once, his dark gray eyes never leaving mine. “I didn’t have the patience to wait any longer.”

Before I could respond, his hands were grabbing around my waist, pulling me to his body, and his lips were pressed firmly against mine. A small giggle bubbled up my throat, and I wrapped my arms around his neck.

“I missed you,” I said against his lips.

“God, I’ve missed you too.” Pulling away from me, a sharp laugh left him when he saw me frown, and his fingers traced my bottom lip. “Don’t pout. There’s something I need to tell you, something I should have told you long before now.”

My forehead scrunched in confusion, but I didn’t say anything, just waited for him to continue.

“I love you, Kamryn.”

Those four words washed over my body, and a shiver ran down my spine. I’d known Brody loved me; it was unmistakable when we were together. What I hadn’t known was that I’d been waiting to hear those words from this man my entire life. A smile broke across my face, and I threw my arms around his neck again as I crushed my mouth to his.

Pulling back just enough to speak, I looked up into his eyes and replied with every fiber of my being: “I’m so in love with you, Brody Saco.”

My body tingled with the truth and rightness of those words, and I wanted to say them over and over again, but Brody’s mouth silenced anything else, and soon he was walking us back toward my bedroom.

“WHAT IS IT?” I asked Brody late the next afternoon after we’d finally left my room to eat something.

Brody turned and looked at me confused, his eyebrows pinching together as he set his mug down. “What is what?”

I took a few calming breaths and forced my hands apart when I started nervously playing with them. “About Olivia? What is it about her that’s kept you together all these years?” Brody’s confused expression turned pained, and I hurried to continue. “I know this will sound horrible coming from me, but I’ve always thought divorce was bad . . . but that’s only because the people around me who I saw getting divorced were doing it because they grew tired of who they were with.” Or the men wanted someone younger and the women wanted someone with more money. That’s just how it was in the racing world. “From what everyone has said, that’s not what’s going on between you and Olivia.”

Brody stayed silent, his body still as stone as he stared down at the granite countertop on the kitchen island.

“I know why you married her, and it’s honorable, Brody, but if you’re so miserable—and if she’s as evil as everyone says she is—why would you stay with her all these years?”

He didn’t answer for a long time, and he never moved. When he did finally speak, his eyes wouldn’t meet mine, and his body seemed to somehow tighten even more. “Because I ruined her,” he said on a breath, the words haunting, matching the torture in his eyes.

When he didn’t say anything else and minutes ticked by, I asked softly, “Ruined her how?” He didn’t respond, but I watched as the torture in his eyes washed over the rest of his features. “Does this have to do with you needing to make sure she’ll be okay?”

Another five minutes passed, and all Brody had done was nod. Knowing he wasn’t comfortable with this conversation, and knowing I wouldn’t get my questions answered, I slid off the stool and walked around the island toward him. Wrapping my arms loosely around his rigid frame, I placed a kiss on his chest and took a step away from him. My chest ached when he didn’t look away from the spot on the island he’d been staring at. Turning, I walked quickly from the kitchen and into the bathroom to clean up.

My movements were slow as I moved to the bedroom to put on some clothes, and while I was hurting for whatever pain Brody was in, I was terrified that I’d just pushed him away somehow. It had felt like he was a thousand miles away in the kitchen, and I couldn’t help but worry that feeling wouldn’t go away. I’d strained to hear the door closing, or the garage opening as he left, but there had been nothing. No sound, no indication that he’d even moved from his spot against the counter.

“I haven’t been in love with Olivia for a long time.”

I jumped at the sound of Brody’s voice and instinctively covered myself with the shirt in my hands as I turned to face him. “I know.” Sliding my arms into the sleeves, I pulled the shirt over my head and went to sit on the end of my bed. Brody wasn’t looking at me again, but if he was going to talk, I wasn’t going to rush him.

“But before meeting you, Kamryn, leaving her seemed like the cowardly thing to do. She’s not a good person. She’s always been manipulative, vindictive, and a person who will do anything to make sure she gets her way. And there’s still that side of her . . . but I—I absolutely destroyed her. And to destroy her that way, and then leave her?” He raked a hand through his hair and kept it there. “I just couldn’t do it. Since meeting you, whenever I see the scheming side of her, I don’t know why I bother trying anymore . . . until I see the broken side again, and I know that I still owe it to her to get her help. Because everything that happened to her was my fault.” Looking at me sadly, Brody shrugged helplessly. “She’s this fucked-up shell of the woman that she’d been before, and it’s all my fault,” he whispered.

I watched as his body settled back against the wall, like he couldn’t handle standing on his own for another second. I wanted to go to him, to comfort him . . . but I couldn’t force myself to move.

“When Liv gave birth to our son, I guess it went bad. There was a lot of bleeding, she had to go into surgery, and afterwards she was told that she’d never be able to have another baby. That alone was hard for her to deal with, and then . . .” He cut off, and a single tear ran down his cheek.

“Brody?” My voice was barely above a whisper, but I couldn’t manage anything more. I was terrified of what came after the “and then.” Brody had told me they didn’t have children . . . and with how this story started, and how tortured his face was, I knew it didn’t end well.

“My son was only six months old . . . I had to go to the store for Olivia, and she wanted time alone, so I took Tate with me. It was really icy that morning, and we were stopped at a red light. The guy who came in behind us couldn’t stop, and when he hit us my car slid into the intersection.”

Tears slid down my own face at the pure anguish in Brody’s voice. I’d never heard the kind of torment that I was hearing from him now, and my heart broke for him as I tried to prepare myself for what would come next.

“A car had been flying through and clipped the back of us, and I couldn’t stop the car from spinning no matter how hard I tried. And God, I tried so damn hard,” he cried. “We hit a median, but another car that had been trying to avoid us ended up swerving into us instead. I don’t remember anything after that until I woke up in an ambulance. I freaked and tried to get out, to get to Tate, but they kept me on the stretcher and shut the doors. They didn’t tell me until after I woke up again in the hospital that he was gone,” he choked out, and more tears fell down his face as he slid down the wall. “The car that had hit us up against the median rolled my car over it, and more cars coming up to the intersection slammed into us. He was dead before another driver could come and try to check on us.”

Moving from the bed, I went to where he was sitting on the floor and kneeled between his legs. Grabbing the hand that wasn’t in his hair in mine, I placed my other hand on his cheek and attempted to brush away the wetness there. His body was trembling, and the guilt that crossed his face had a sob tearing from my own chest as my heart seemed to break even more for him.

“Liv was never the same after that,” he said and finally opened his eyes to look at me. “I can’t say if she’s depressed or bipolar, because the way she acts is so unlike anything I’ve looked up. But she’s not well, and that’s my fault. And Tate . . . I killed him after only having him for a few months.”

“Brody, no. It’s not—you can’t put this on yourself. It was an accident, and what happened when she gave birth was something no one could have stopped from happening.”

“I did this to them, Kamryn! I did this to her,” he yelled as he let his head fall back to the wall. “I’ve taken everything from her.”

“No! None of this is your fault.” Cupping his face, I waited until he looked at me again. “You can’t do this . . . you can’t blame yourself for any of this. What happened—I can’t imagine how difficult it was to go through that, Brody, and I’m so sorry you’ve had to. But it’s not your fault. You have to see that,” I cried when I saw the look in his eyes. He didn’t believe me—the guilt that poured off him said it all. He’d been carrying around the knowledge for years that he’d ruined his wife and ended his son’s life. But he was so wrong—how could he not see that?

“That,” he began, “is why I need to make sure she’ll be okay. She’s not well, and I need to get her help . . . I owe her that much after all I’ve done.”

I shook my head for long moments, trying to figure out the right words. Kinlee and Jace had said it was like everything that made Brody Brody had been gone for years. I didn’t see that side of Brody, because I didn’t know what he was like before everything happened. But he was never going to heal from this if he kept blaming himself. “And what about you, Brody? You’ve lost just as much as she has. Who’s supposed to help you?”

“Do you not see that that’s what you’ve been doing?” he asked. “I’ve never felt as alive as I do when I’m with you. And even when I’m not, I feel like I finally have something to live for again. I was just going through life, going through the motions, just to get through the days. Nothing mattered, and all I ever felt was pain. You’ve changed that. You are helping me.”

MY EYES HADN’T left the clock since Brody had fallen asleep two hours earlier. With each minute that passed, my body grew more and more tense, as it did every night he fell asleep with his arms around me. It hadn’t mattered last night or tonight that I’d known Olivia wasn’t coming home until Monday. She always found some way to interrupt us when she wasn’t supposed to be home. I had no doubt she’d do it again this weekend.

Some part of me thought Olivia had to know what we were doing, because there was no other explanation. Brody said she only called if he wasn’t home, but then there would be days at a time when she was gone and he wouldn’t see or hear from her. It never failed, though, every night we were together—whether it was at the hotel or one of the nights we risked staying in my condo—she called.

I knew I had no right—since technically, Brody wasn’t mine—and I knew it only made it harder for both of us, but that didn’t stop me from begging him to stay. My pleas never made a difference, because we both knew he had to leave. But it was in those moments, as I begged Brody not to go back to his wife, that I felt exactly like what I was. A mistress. A home-wrecker. The other woman. And every time he left another part of me died. I would get physically sick from the guilt of our secret, but my love for Brody would have us in the same heartbreaking situation the very next time we got the chance to be together.

I couldn’t stay away from him, and I couldn’t say no to him no matter how much I hated this.

How many movies, stories, and songs had been written about people like us? And how many times had I wondered why the girl in my situation couldn’t see that the man would never leave his wife? That my character was just a plaything and, in the end, would be left alone and shattered? Every time the girl would be so sure that he would choose her in the end, and it never happened. Still, no matter how many red flags there were in our situation, I knew Brody and I were different.

My body flinched as another minute went by on the clock, and I prayed for sleep to find me. Another minute gone, and I began counting Brody’s deep, rhythmic breaths to soothe my tightly strung nerves. Another minute . . . when it happened, I squeezed my eyes tightly.

“Please, no,” I whispered just as Brody jerked awake and searched wildly for his phone.

“Liv?”

I crawled off the bed and began searching for my clothes, not wanting to hear her cries for him to come home.

“I had too much to drink at Jace’s, I crashed on the couch.”

My stomach rolled at how easily our lies had started coming. He’d been with me since last night, but the sure tone of his voice would’ve had me believing that was exactly what had happened.

“You told me you weren’t coming home until tomorrow night. I didn’t know it would matter to you if I went to hang out with my own brother, Liv.” His eyes searched my face and a deep sorrow filled them. “All right, you’re right. I’ll be home in a bit.” Brody ended the call and tossed his phone on the bed. “Babe, please don’t cry.”

I hadn’t realized I was until he said that. “Don’t go, Brody, please don’t go.”

“Kamryn—”

“What do I have to do to keep you here with me? Name it and I’ll do it—just don’t leave,” I begged with a sob and curled into his arms when he pulled me back onto the bed.

“I have to, you know I have to. Just like you know I don’t want to. I’d do anything to stay here with you forever.”

Normally, this was where I would have stopped, but the words were out before I could stop them. “But you aren’t doing anything to change this, and you won’t! We wouldn’t have to keep doing this, Brody, if you would just tell her.”

Cupping my cheeks in his large hands, he held my head back and stared at me in shock. “God, I hope you don’t really think that. I am trying. I told you earlier, I need to get her help first.”

A sob burst from my chest, and I let my forehead fall to his chest as I shook my head back and forth. Brody held me until I was able to compose myself again, the entire time telling me how sorry he was and pressing soft kisses to the top of my head.

With a hard kiss to my lips, Brody got out of bed and collected his clothes. My body and heart felt numb as I watched him prepare to leave me again. Once his clothes were on, he looked at me with the most devastating expression and leaned in to kiss me one last time.

“One day, Kamryn, I swear to you. All of this will be behind us, and it will just be you and me.” With that, he turned to leave and I continued to stare at the empty space he’d just been occupying.

Tears slipped down my cheeks again as I realized I no longer believed his words.

A knock sounded on my door not even ten minutes after Brody left, and I cautiously left my bed and walked to the front door. It was late, I didn’t know anyone other than Brody who would show up at this hour . . . but he used the garage. And seeing as how he’d just left, I doubted it was him.

Making my steps as quiet as possible on the hardwood floor, I held my breath and looked through the peephole.

“Lee?” I gasped and hurried to unlock the door. “What are you doing here? It’s late. Are you okay?” I grabbed her in a hug when I saw her pale white face.

“Jace and I were on the phone when the sirens sounded for a fire. It’s all over the news, it’s a huge fire at an apartment complex. They’re calling trucks from other cities to come help, and knowing that he’s there is freaking me out.”

“He’ll be okay. Come on, let’s go hang out in the kitchen. Do you want ice cream?”

She nodded, but looked at the living room. “I want to keep watching the news, but I can’t watch alone.”

“’Kay. Go get comfortable, I’ll bring you something.”

Part of me was relieved Brody had left, the other part was screaming at me to tell Kinlee about our relationship. She could have gone to anyone on a night like tonight, and she’d come to me. She’d helped me more than she’d ever know when I moved here, and I cherished our friendship . . . but I had to be the worst friend ever since I couldn’t seem to do anything but keep my real life from her.

I walked back into the living room to see Kinlee’s face whiter than when I’d opened the door. Turning to look at the TV, I almost dropped the bowls of ice cream when I saw it.

Oh, Christ.

Kinlee hadn’t been lying. This wasn’t your average call for the fire department, nor was it one of the more intense structure fires I’d ever seen on the news. But this fire was out of control. The news reporter let out a yelp and ran toward the camera when the noise behind her startled her, and her soft words echoed my thoughts. Part of the first building had collapsed on itself, and as the reporter tried to straighten herself out she said the words no one wanted to hear.

“We won’t know for some time if anyone was still in the building . . .”

Kinlee and I watched the news in horror for the next three hours as firefighters worked relentlessly on the nine buildings in total that ended up catching fire. The entire time I kept her hand clasped in mine and wondered if Brody knew what was happening. Did his time in the Army, and now as a police officer, have him always prepared for situations like this? Situations where the lives of his brother and friends were at stake and the outcome unknown.

Once the fires were put out, we both held our breath as we listened for the reporters to say anything about the lives of the firemen and residents. Just before the reporters came back on the air, Kinlee’s phone went off and she grabbed it. A relieved cry left us both when we read the words.

Hubby:

Love you, baby. See you in the morning.