I Love You, My Neighbour: Chapter 26
What good is a celebration without cake?
Logan
“Do you really expect us to believe that, LJ? Since when does Kristy decide to go shopping instead of hanging out with us?” Kyle asks.
I take a swig of my beer and try to pretend the current inquisition isn't bothering me as much as it does. “As hard as it is for you to believe that things are fine between us, yes.”
The music I choose to play through my iPhone speakers is moody and angry, and it suits my mood perfectly. Despite the fact I had way too much to drink last night, I'm still forcing down a beer. Bourbon, however, is something I'm steering clear of tonight. I just can't stomach it.
Truthfully, I haven't been able to stomach much at all today. This morning might count as the very first time I've thrown away something Kristy made for me. But after she dropped bombshell after bombshell on me, there was no way I could force down bacon and eggs.
I can't believe she's moving. Fuck, I can't believe she had feelings for me before we started having sex. I should have seen it. That’s what I keep telling myself. But I’ve been so caught up in making up for lost time, sexually, that I've seen what I wanted to see and not a thing more. And now I've ended up hurting someone who's come to mean far more than I ever wanted her to.
“This is bullshit,” Adam says. “I've stood back and tried to respect your wishes by not making a move on Kristy. But your excuse about not wanting me to ruin things is just crap. And-”
Kyle puts a hand on Adam’s shoulder and squeezes, causing Adam to break off and start pacing around my backyard.
“What Adam is trying to say,” Kyle begins. “What we’re all trying to say, is that we know there’s something going on between you two. And we think it’s time you came clean with us about your relationship to her.”
“There is no relationship.”
This morning has seen to that.
“We’re just friends,” I say, my voice flat and unconvincing to my ears.
Jaime, Kyle, and Adam all just stare at me, completely disbelieving. And how can I blame them for doubting me when I can't stop questioning it myself? Did I really make the right decision to pull the plug on this thing with Kristy?
The emotion that squeezes my chest every time I think about Kristy moving away makes me doubt it. As does the need to go next door, pick her up, and carry her over here because she should be here with me. She belongs here as much as my friends do, and I don't want to spend tonight without her. I don’t want to spend any night without her.
Is it any wonder I'm having dreams about letting Izzy go? It doesn't take a genius to figure out their meaning. I'm trying to hold on to Izzy. I don’t want to let her go. And yet at the same time, I am. I'm starting to move on. The pain I usually feel whenever I think of her isn't the same as it once was. What I feel for Kristy is…well, it's more than I thought possible under the circumstances. In the short time we've been sleeping together, she's brought out feelings and sensations I believed I'd never experience again.
And isn't that really why I end this thing between us?
My developing feelings for my neighbour make me feel disloyal and guilty. Even if I know maybe I should be letting go of Izzy, actually doing so feels like a betrayal of her and the love we shared. I never thought I'd care for someone the way I care about Kristy, especially so soon after Izzy’s death.
“Then you wouldn’t mind that much if Adam went ahead and asked Kristy out on a date?” Kyle persists.
I nearly have a coronary when I see Kristy dancing so sexily with Adam. The memory makes me want to crack skulls. But now that I've slept with my neighbour – now that I know what it feels like to have her stare up at me like I'm her world while I'm inside her...I can't handle the thought of her with anyone else. Not Adam. Not anyone.
“What part of ‘I don’t want anything to screw up my friendship with Kristy’ don’t you understand?” I ask angrily.
“But if she’s moving away, anyway,” Adam starts. “I don’t see what the problem is.”
Curse the fact I told them about that. They haven't stopped grilling me since they arrived and realized Kristy wasn't here. After they asked too many questions, I told them Kristy is moving and they'll have to get used to her not being next door sooner rather than later.
“I say no, Adam. She’s off-limits. Forever and always. If you go near her, our friendship is through. Do you understand me?”
I stare Adam down, hoping he gets my message. Instead of apologizing and backing off like I expect him to, however, he merely grins.
“You are right,” Adam says, looking at Kyle. “The boy is a goner.”
“Told you,” Kyle says happily.
“What the hell are they going on about?” I ask Jamie and Gemma, frustrated beyond belief with the current conversation and ready to strangle all my friends.
And where is Kristy? She said she’d be here around dinnertime. Isn't it pretty much that now? We're holding off ordering food until she gets here. I give her another five minutes and then I'm going over to her place to find out what's keeping her so long.
Jamie’s look is filled with amusement as he takes a swig of his beer. Once he swallows it, he grins at me. “Kyle’s been pointing out to us how territorial you get over Kristy. It’s just like watching you with Izzy all over again.”
After the confusion and betrayal to Izzy I've felt all day today, his comment scrapes across raw nerves and I snap. “This thing between Kristy and me is nothing like me and Izzy. The two aren’t comparable in any way, shape, or form. Izzy is the love of my life. Kristy is just a friend. Nothing more!”
I could keep going and going, but the way my mates stare at a spot behind me makes the cold fist of dread reach into my chest and yank out my heart. Without turning around, I know Kristy is there – and that she just hears every word I say.
God, could this day get any worse? I don't think so, but then I turn around and see Kristy standing there, hurt brimming in her eyes, an expression on her face that claws my insides, and I know it can get a whole lot worse.
“I brought cake,” she says, her voice tight and small, her gaze miles away from mine. “It’s in the kitchen. And champagne, too. What good is a celebration without champagne, after all?”
Gemma stands up. “Do you remember unpacking any glasses? I’m not sure Logan has any, but we should go and take a look. See what we can find. I think I could use a glass, myself.”
Gemma takes Kristy by the arm and leads her inside, but not before throwing Jamie a look I can only interpret as ‘kill Logan. Stat.’
After Kristy walks away with Gemma, my friends surround me, leaving me feeling like a caged animal. All day I've felt raw and screwed up, and knowing I just hurt Kristy all over again today – knowing my friends can see exactly how much I'm screwing everything up right now – tips me over the edge.
“Are you happy now?” I ask them. “Are you happy now that you’ve completely fucked up the best thing that has happened to me in years?”
“You need to calm down and get a hold of yourself,” Kyle warns. “And while you’re at it, would you listen to yourself? The only one screwing up everything with Kristy is you. The only person fucking up things with Kristy is you.”
“Things would have been fine if you’d kept your mouths shut.”
“Fine? Really?” Kyle asks.
“You’d already started making a mess of things before we started asking questions,” Adam reminds me. “If everything is fine between you two, Kristy would have been here today. She’s always here. She cares about you-”
“Don’t you think I know that?” I yell. “I never wanted to hurt her. It wasn’t supposed to be like this.”
“Like what?” Jamie asks. “You mean, you aren’t supposed to care about her, too?”
I sit down on the edge of the patio – the same patio the guys and I put together only a few weeks ago – and cover my face with my hands. “I wasn’t supposed to feel this way about Kristy. I wasn’t supposed to be able to let go of Izzy so easily.”
“You think you’ve let her go?” Kyle asks. “Dude, look at what you’ve done in the name of love. You bought a house for her. You spend every spare second working on it so it’s perfect. You have pictures of her everywhere, like you’re afraid you’ll forget her if you’re not looking at her face all the time.”
“I don’t want to forget her.”
“It’s not possible, Jacobs, and you know that. She lives on in your memories. She lives on in all of our memories. No one is forgetting her. No one is saying pretend it never happened.”
I lower my hands and look at them. “I’m afraid it’ll be like it never happened if I…” If I give in and let myself explore what I feel for Kristy.
Jamie sits down beside me. “Grief doesn’t leave any man unchanged. It’s changed you. It’s changed all of us. Things are different. They’re always going to be different now. But that doesn’t mean you have to be miserable and depressed for the rest of your life.”
Kyle sits down on the other side of me. “Ever since the accident, you’ve been a shell of the man you used to be. But then Kristy came along and now we see glimpses of the man you used to be.”
“I’m not that man,” I disagree. “Not anymore.”
“We know that,” Jamie says softly. “But there’s nothing wrong with finding a little piece of happiness in the life you’re living now. Izzy would want that for you. If you are the one who had died, wouldn’t you want to know that Izzy is happy – that if she found someone she cared for even a little bit, that she’d embrace it?”
Of course, I would. But that doesn’t take away the guilt I feel about letting someone else in, does it?
“Izzy would have liked Kristy,” Adam says softly.
Our conversation comes to an abrupt halt when Kristy and Gemma walk back into the yard, holding a couple of plastic cups full of champagne.
Kristy looks so awkward and uncomfortable. She won’t meet my eyes, and she is holding one arm around herself protectively. I want to walk over to her and wrap my arms around her. I don’t want her to feel like she needs to protect herself from me. More than anything, I am afraid that if I don’t make up for everything that has happened, that she will leave – leave my house, leave the neighbourhood. I am afraid she’ll leave my life. And that thought brings its own grief.
“I’m going to go and get food,” I announce.
If I leave and give her some breathing room, maybe she’ll stop looking as though she is in danger of falling apart. I owe her that much. And I owe her so much more. Because Kyle and Jamie are right. Since Kristy has entered my life, she has made me smile more. She made me feel like I wasn’t dead inside anymore.
“You right to drive?” Adam asks.
“I’ve only had a couple of beers, I’ll be fine. What does everyone want?”
I listen to the chorus of takeaway requests. When Kristy doesn’t answer, I look at her and wait. “Kristy?”
Warily, she lifts her eyes to meet mine. “You know what I like.”
Considering everything that has transpired between us today, those words shouldn’t have hit me like a punch of lust to the gut. But oh, how they do. Because I do know what she likes. She likes it any and every way I want to give it to her. She is always ready for me. My blood stirs as memories assail me, and I feel my groin tighten and begin to swell.
Originally, I put her insatiability down to the fact she is making up for lost time, same as I am. After this morning’s conversation, however, I now suspect that her appetite for me has a lot to do with the feelings she had even before we started hooking up.
The thought of those feelings of hers tangled up in her reaction to me in the bedroom should frighten me and remind me why I want to put a stop to this, but all I feel is the low heavy thrum of desire buzzing through me, and a longing to see the emotions she feels for me in her eyes as we make love again.
I try to swallow the inevitable huskiness of my voice. “I do.”
Then I address everyone else. “I’m going to go to the place in Caranbie Heights.”
It is twenty minutes away, but that will be enough time to give everyone some breathing space, including myself.
Kyle nods. “We’ll see you when you get back.”
I wave and get the hell out of there, hoping Kristy will feel a little more relaxed when I get back in an hour or so.
Who would have thought an hour is long enough for someone to get drunk? Not me.
“What on earth happened?” I ask after I put the food in the kitchen and walk into the backyard.
Gemma and Kristy giggle as they dance to something on the radio. It isn’t anything I left playing. I can’t be one-hundred percent sure, but I think they might be dancing to Lady Gaga. God help me, Gaga is on my stereo, and all I can think about is the fact Kristy looks happy for the first time all day. It might be the first time I like GaGa.
I am also incredibly grateful Kristy didn't leave after hearing my comment earlier.
“Kristy hasn’t stopped drinking since you left,” Jamie tells me. “She and Gemma have polished off one and a half bottles of champagne between them. They get along way too well.”
I am glad they are getting along. I want Kristy to feel comfortable and happy with my friends. The drive to Caranbie Heights has provided me with some time to reflect. After listening to my friends, I am once again left wondering whether I’ve been too hasty in putting an end to our arrangement. After all, Kristy has never asked me for anything.
She never asks me for a relationship. She’d never ask me to love her. She doesn’t ask me to do anything she knows would be too much for me. She enjoys what we have together, and the only reason she ended it this morning is that she realized that if she doesn’t, I would.
But I don’t want this to be the end of us. I can’t go back to being just friends with her. I don’t want to go to sleep without her tonight. I’m not sure I'm ready for a full-on relationship, but the idea of Kristy having feelings for me doesn’t scare me the way it did last night. Instead, the idea of those feelings makes me feel…good. There are a lot of things about Kristy that make me feel good. And the guys are right. Izzy would want me to be happy. If Kristy makes me feel that small amount of happiness, what could be wrong with taking the comfort she offers me? If she's okay with that, of course.
Either way, I owe her an apology for freaking out last night and for what she heard me say today. Because we aren’t just friends. Not anymore. I don’t know what we are, but we are definitely more than that.
“Dinner is here, girls,” Adam calls out to Gemma and Kristy.
I see the moment my presence registers on Kristy’s face. She stops dancing and looks right at me. Just like that, her awkwardness returns, and I feel guilty all over again.
Adam walks inside, and Kristy quickly follows him. Clearly, she has no desire to be alone with me right now. Am I going to be able to put things right with her tonight while our friends are here?
Jamie stands up from his spot on my patio and pats my arm before following his woman inside. Kyle comes to stand beside me when everyone else has left the yard.
“I’m pretty sure Kristy is close to toasted. I was worried that if you took any longer, she’d be on her way to puking or passing out. You need to get some food into that girl A.S.A.P.”
“I’ll do my best,” I say, following Kyle inside.
Once we all have plates full of food, we opt to sit in the lounge. It isn’t that the weather isn't nice and warm outside, but chairs and couches just seem like the better option for eating.
“So, Kristy,” Adam says after a pause that is caused by tension and people eating. “Tell us about Jess, this housemate you’ve got coming back. Is she as cool as you?”
“No,” Kristy says after finishing chewing, waving her fork through the air. “Jess is way cooler than me.”
“No one could be as cool as you,” Adam says indulgently.
Fork still in the air, Kristy shakes her head. “You say that because you haven’t met her.”
“She’s a model, right?” Kyle asks.
“Yup. But that’s not all she is. She’s a great friend. The best. And she’s so smart and good-natured.”
“How long have you been friends for?” Gemma asks.
“A really long time. Like, since I was ten.”
“Wow, you must have a lot of history together.”
“Tonnes.”
“Well, I’m not sure I’m going to like her that much when she’s the reason you’ll be moving away,” Adam remarked.
Kristy’s gaze collides with mine, panic and betrayal in her eyes. “You told them?”
Adam shoots me a worried look. “He was worried about how we’d take it, so he was trying to prepare us early.”
Kristy looks down at her food. “Yes, she’s engaged. I’ll have to find someone else to share with.”
“Well, if you need help with anything at all, looking for a place, moving, or packing, you let us know,” Kyle commands. “We’re your friends. Hope you know that. No matter what happens with this lug over here.”
“Here, here,” Jamie and Adam second, Adam giving me a gentle punch on the shoulder.
“I’ve already offered her a room,” I tell them when Kyle shoots me a meaningful look.
Kristy stands up suddenly. “Does anyone else want a drink?”
She can’t look at me, won’t talk to me, and now that I’ve brought up my offer, she looks ready to bolt. This night is a disaster.
“Isn’t the champagne all gone?” Gemma asks.
“I brought beer as well,” Kristy tells her.
She came here with the intention of getting drunk tonight. Even before she heard my comment earlier, she’d armed herself with enough booze to get shit-faced. Whenever she comes over to hang out with us, she has a drink or two. But tonight she is looking to numb herself, and I doubt she will stop until she is ready to puke or pass out.
“Can we talk?” I ask her, standing up.
I don’t want to see her sick and miserable tomorrow. I have to put a stop to her self-destructive bender. And while I'm at it, I have to talk to her about us, too – try to ease some of the awkwardness that she feels.
“I don’t want to talk. I just want to drink.”
When she walks out of the lounge room, I start after her, but Gemma gets up and stands in front of me.
“Maybe you should wait until tomorrow to talk to her, Logan,” she suggests. “Let me go.”
“Dude, you go in there, and she’s going to drink herself to death while trying to deal with you,” Kyle tells me.
As much as I hate to admit it, he is probably right. I really want to talk to Kristy – about everything – but I have to give her a chance to sober up first.
“Do you think you can talk her out of poisoning herself with alcohol tonight?” I ask Gemma.
“I’ll do my best.”
Kristy comes out of the kitchen ten minutes later, holding a cup of water. I shoot Gemma a look that I hope conveys how grateful I am.
Gemma and Jamie leave shortly after because Gemma has an early start in the morning. Adam and I go outside to move something I need help with, and when I walk back into the house, Kyle is nowhere to be seen, and Kristy is passed out on my couch.
Kyle walks into the lounge a minute later and stands beside me and Adam. “She was awake a minute ago. I swear.”
“Are you going to take her home?” Adam asks me.
I shake my head. No way is she going home tonight. When Kristy wakes up, she's going to feel like crap, and I want to be there to take care of her when she does. I want her to stay here with me tonight. In my bed. Maybe that will be a good way to start putting things right between us.
“I’ll be back in a minute,” I tell them, putting one arm under her knees and the other under her back, lifting her.
She stirs only slightly as I carry her to my room, but when I put her down on my bed, she opens her eyes and looks at me.
Sleepy and confused, she blinks a few times. “Logan?”
“Hey.”
She tries to sit up, but I push her gently back. “Get some sleep.”
“Where am I?”
“In my bed.”
“So I’m dreaming,” she concludes. “That’s not fair. You don’t belong in my dreams anymore.”
I might deserve her silly, sleepy comment, but it still slices through me. There's no point trying to correct her though; her eyes have already drifted closed once more, and her breathing is starting to change.
After removing her shoes and her jeans – and ignoring the arousal I feel at having her half naked in my bed – I slide her legs underneath the covers on my bed. She sighs softly and shifts into a more comfortable position, ready for sleep. Her hair fans out around her, and she looks content. Peaceful. Unable to help myself, I lean down and press a kiss to her forehead before forcing myself to leave her be.
At the doorway, I pause to look at her once more. The wave of tenderness and possessiveness that crashes through me as I look at her is undeniable. I never thought I'd have a woman in my bed again, but Kristy belongs there.
I wish I'd realized that twenty-four hours earlier. I would have saved us both a lot of pain. I have to hope that tomorrow she'll hear me out, and I'll be able to convince her how sorry I am for hurting her. Because I know now, without a doubt, I'm not ready for this to be over.