Forever Red (36 page)

The majority of the pictures were her friends. There was one of the two of us, this one at a prom. There were a few of Carson and her, one at her college graduation, another at a beach when they looked to be mid-twenties. The fact that he’d gotten all those years with her still fried my ass. I knew it wasn’t his fault we’d lost so much time, but it was easy to make him the scapegoat and force him to carry the blame.

Another photo caught my eye and I forgot all about Mike.

The dude I was staring at looked freakishly like Mr. Knightly. This guy was older, but then again, Lia was older in the picture. She was, I’d guess, mid-twenties and dressed in a sexy little black dress that showed too much cleavage. One hand held a champagne flute, the other arm was wrapped around her date.

I glanced at the other photos, seeing him in more. In every one, his arm was around her or he was touching her or smiling at her in a way that I was all too familiar with. I’d seen the same one on my face in pictures with her; knowing she was yours made you the happiest man on the goddamn planet and it showed. There was a collage on the wall over her desk. I moved across the room, positive that I’d be wrong, that it wasn’t the one man I still hated. I wasn’t.

This set of pictures was more like a visual timeline. Lia grew a little older in each shot. Three photos in, Craig Knightly – looking almost just like he had when he was my teacher – showed up. He was hugging her, lips on her temple as she grinned at the camera. My stomach knotted and my fist clenched.

The door swung open and a humming Lia came in, picking up the shirt I’d forgotten last night. She stopped suddenly, eyeing me cautiously. “What’s wrong, honey?”

I turned, ripping my shirt from her fingers. I didn’t want to have this conversation now. I needed to calm down. And I needed to ask my best friend why in the fuck he never mentioned that one little detail of my girlfriend’s life. He’d told me he was done keeping shit from me, we’d thrown some punches and it was supposed to be over.

Yeah, not so much. I was going to kick his fucking pussy ass for not telling me shit like that. ‘Cause with as many pictures as that prick was in, Carson had to have known about him. Hell, I was surprised he didn’t kill the man himself; if there was someone else that loved my girl as much as I did, it was Carson.

“You’re scaring me. What’s going on?”

I strode across the room and ripped the picture of her and Knightly off the top of the dresser. “Feel like explaining this?”

Her face fell. She opened her mouth but then closed it and swallowed. “Craig and I teach at the same school.”

“What?” That dick was still teaching? Fuck that, he was a teacher with Lia? “Why is he not in jail, Lia? That man is a fucking pedophile. He shouldn’t be allowed to work with kids again. Ever.”

Her hands went to her hips. “No, he isn’t. He made one mistake—”

“One mistake?” I seethed. “Which one was that, huh? Fucking a sixteen-year-old girl who not only was his student but also a child he was trusted to protect when he was hired as a coach? Or maybe it was fucking that sixteen-year-old when he was engaged to another teacher in the school, a teacher who not only found out, but also made it her mission to make that student miserable? Or maybe it was running away instead of facing the consequences and letting the brunt of the blame fall on the student?”

With each question, my voice rose, and by the end, I was screaming.

“Shut up!” Lia snapped. “Cort’s still here.”

“Oh, you don’t want her to know what kind of monster her colleague is? One you are obviously protecting?”

“Craig isn’t a monster!” Lia yelled back.

“The fuck he isn’t! He had sex, more than once, with a teenage girl.”

She barked out a humorless laugh. “You are such a fucking hypocrite. How many teenagers have you fucked, Mr. Bigshot?”

I narrowed my eyes. No way in hell she was comparing him to me. “There’s a big fucking difference between screwing an eighteen-year-old that comes to a party just so she can brag to her friends she nailed you, and a teacher bending his student over his desk.”

“You’re right, there is! That teacher who bent me over his desk was five years older than me. Those teeny bopper’s you fuck are babies. I guarantee you don’t check their ID to verify they’re legal. Even if you did, they’re still ten, twelve years younger. They’re children; you’re a grown fucking man. That’s disgusting.”

“Think what you want about me, but those girls come to me knowing what they want. There’s a difference between being sixteen and alone and eighteen and horny. And, there’s a big fucking difference between being a musician and being a teacher. His job is to protect you and help you grow, not seduce you! Obviously, he not only seduced you, he brainwashed you, too!”

Her eyes sparkled dangerously. “I came on to him on that trip. The affair was on me, not him.”

“So, he put his dick in you – repeatedly I might add – by mistake?”

“Oh, grow up! You know damn well that it was my fault. He was a challenge, one I had won.”

I hadn’t thought about her pathetic sex game in years. “How could I forget? I was one of those challenges, after all.”

Blood fell from her face. “No, you weren’t,” she whispered.

“Yeah, I was. Or did you conveniently forget that?”

She shook her head as if in denial, but we both knew she couldn’t rewrite history.

Holding the picture up again, I demanded, “He get that cozy with all his co-workers.”

Her tongue moved across her bottom lip as she bored holes into the picture, avoiding my eyes. “Craig and I dated.”

I snorted. “You don’t say.”

“As adults.” Her eyes snapped to mine. “We were together for a long time.”

“And what? He cheat on you with a student?” I was being a prick, but I couldn’t stop.

“He asked me to marry him.”

The words burned. They shouldn’t have bothered me, but they fucking scorched my heart. I tossed the frame onto her bed. I wanted to throw it against the wall and watch it shatter into a hundred pieces. My restraint was definitely progress. “You told me you’d never gotten serious enough with anyone to talk marriage.”

“I hadn’t. There’s a reason we’re not still together.” She swallowed, taking a step toward me. “I love you, Neil. I—”

“I can’t do this right now.” I ran a hand through my hair, stressed. I needed to find my shoes and get the hell out before I said anymore.

“You’re leaving? You won’t even talk this out with me?”

“I have a plane to catch, Lia. You have a job to get to.”

“I’ll call out. I can drive you to Boston—”

“No!” I cut her off. Being trapped alone with her in a car for three hours was the last thing I wanted to do. “No. I’ll call a cab. We’ll talk later.”

Snatching my sneakers off the floor, I yanked open her door and my eyes fell on a very distraught and confused looking Courtney. I didn’t even offer her a nod. I had to get the fuck away from her before I exploded.

The front door slammed, making me jump. I couldn’t move. I should have told him months ago, but I’d known he was going to react the way he just did. Still, the news should have come from me instead of pictures on my walls after a night like last night.

Shit. Memories from the night before came rushing back, my heart started to pound, and I couldn’t breathe. I sank onto the bed, wrapping my arms around my stomach.

Last night had been amazing. The best night of my life. I was so in love with him and I was positive that he felt the same way about me. We’d made love twice more, each time better than the one before it. Each time, he held me when he was done, kissing me, telling me he’d missed me and he loved me.

I looked up when Courtney came in, not able to return her small, sympathetic smile. Sitting on the bed next to me, she pulled me into her arms. “The best thing about men like Nate Kelly is that they say what they have to, they yell and make a scene, get it all out, and then it’s over. There won’t be any passive aggressive bullshit like there is with other men.” I knew she was talking about Ben. “Nate will cool down and then he’ll call you to say he loves you.”

“I should call him.”

“No. Uh-uh. You need to let him have his timeout or it will just make it worse.”

“But I want to explain. I want to tell him…” I trailed off, sitting back and looking at her. She had heard our fight. She must know. I felt like I was going to throw up. “You heard…” I whispered. Cort wouldn’t understand, either.

Big, beautiful blue eyes searched my face. “I heard my best friend and her boyfriend getting freaky with it half the night. Then I heard them have a disagreement about their past this morning. That is all I heard, CeCe.”

I took a deep breath, trying to calm my racing heart. I leaned my head onto her shoulder again. “I really shouldn’t call him?”

Her hand held mine. “Nope. Let him sort out his shit, and then he’ll call.” She gave my hand a squeeze. “Come on, let’s get to work.”

I let her pull me up, get me coffee, and drive me to work. Then I let my students distract me. Nina came over with pizza and we spent the night catching up and laughing as I relayed stories of Noah and my boys. I tried not to think about Neil. I didn’t stare at my phone, didn’t check a hundred times for text messages. I was proud of myself.

By the time I went to bed and still hadn’t heard anything, I was pissed. We were adults, damn it. If we had a problem, we need to talk about it. And the fact that he was angry over something that happened while he wasn’t in my life, when he didn’t know why I made the decisions I had made, irked me.

Before crawling in bed, I took the first step and sent him a simple message:

I’m here when you’re ready to talk. I love you.

He didn’t respond.

Every morning, and every night, without fail, she sent me a text message. I wasn’t ready to talk to her yet, but I did send a text back every night telling her I loved her. I needed her to know that even though I just needed a little while to process everything, I was still here. I knew firsthand what it was like to have the person you love disappear, and I wouldn’t put her through that.

Our schedule had been crazy since I’d flown back to my band and I hadn’t had a chance to talk to Carson. We’d had two crazy nights in Ohio and then back to the bus for a quick trip to Michigan. After that show, it was back on the bus to head to Pennsylvania, and then on to New York where we had shows in three separate cities before our final leg of the summer tour in the city that never sleeps on Friday.

I didn’t want to talk to him on the bus because there was never really any privacy. Yeah, the guys could put in their ear-buds, but there was always the chance someone would be nosy and listen. I didn’t want them to know anything about her, let alone this.

We got into NYC just before nine on Friday and Mols and I were rushed right to interviews with a local radio station group. As soon as it was over, I grabbed Mike, saying I needed some coffee and wanted company, promising Molly I’d be back in time for the next round of interviews.

We walked to a little coffee shop a couple of blocks away, blending into the crowd and finding a table wedged between two others. When we sat, the women at one table never glanced up and the couple at the other were lost in their own conversation. That’s one thing I loved about this city. You could sit in a crowded restaurant where the people at the next table were practically sitting on your lap, and have a serious conversation that no one would overhear because they were too busy trying to talk over the noise.

Carson watched me for a few seconds. He’d known there was something wrong and had asked me once, but I’d lied, telling him I was fine. He dropped it, but I knew the way he was staring that he was waiting.

“Tell me about Knightly.”

There was a flash of recognition in his eyes before he quickly covered it.

I didn’t want to deal with the bullshit. “How long were they together?”

His eyes narrowed. “Ask your girlfriend that shit, not me.”

“I’m asking you so I don’t have to talk to her about it.”

He shook his head once, looking out the window that was a few feet away. He rolled his eyes and sighed before glancing back to me. “A few years. I hated it. Hate him. So I don’t know much about it. I do know it wasn’t serious. It was after college, after she moved back to Maine.”

“They done?”

“It’s been over a few years.”

“He hit her?”

Carson’s eyes narrowed again. “He still breathing?” he asked and I got the message. If Craig had hurt her, he’d be ten feet under now. “I’m not getting in the middle again. I told you ‘cause I kept shit from you before, but I’m done. You wanna know more, you talk to our girl.”

I got that. “I haven’t talked to her all week,” I mumbled.

He nodded, not surprised. “Then I’d say you’ve got some time to make up for.”

*****

I chuckled at the déjà vu as I pulled into her apartment complex early the next morning. I hadn’t told her I was coming. We’d planned on spending Labor Day weekend together, yeah, but that was before the argument last week. I’d had Carson rent me a car and I’d left as soon as I could after the show, driving all night just to be there to wake her up.

Her apartment was black, but there were lights on in others as people got ready to greet the day. I found a spot, hurrying into the entryway. A woman, dressed in workout gear, was leaving just as I got there. She smiled at me, eyes doing a onceover as she held the door open. I threw her a wink and thanked her.

The building was quiet as I took the stairs, not hurrying this time. Instead, I was perfecting the apology I’d written in my mind as I drove. When I finally made it to her door, I was actually nervous. The thought would have been humorous: me, the man who could walk out on a stage and sing in front of sixty-thousand people and not bat an eye, the man that could stand on a stage at an award show, in front of millions of people and act like it was something I did every single day. But apologizing to a certain little redhead and hoping she’d forgive me had my stomach tied in knots.

I knocked loudly, hoping to wake them up quickly. I heard the deadbolt click open almost instantly, though, surprising me. Maybe she’d been awake already. I knew Courtney ran early, so maybe she was up and ready to go.

That’s why when an angry man jerked open the door, I instinctively took a step back, glancing at the number on the door to make sure I’d gotten the correct apartment. Realizing I had, in fact, knocked on the right door, I moved my eyes back to him. Recognition hit us both at the same time; I felt myself straightening up as my fists clenched; he, on the other hand, seemed to relax as if I wasn’t who he expected.

I didn’t know why in the hell Craig Knightly would be at my girlfriend’s apartment at five o’clock in the morning. If it was late morning, afternoon, or hell, even evening, I’m sure there would be a good reason. There was no good reason, no fucking reason at all, that he’d be at her apartment in the early morning hours, wearing nothing but a pair of gym shorts and looking like I’d just woken him up.

“Neil.”

I didn’t even know what to say. I pushed past him into the kitchen. “Where is she?”

“This isn’t—” His words died on his lips as I shoved him into the wall.

“Not a fucking word,” I hissed in his face. He wasn’t a lightweight. In fact, he’d gotten a lot more physically fit since the last time I’d gone up against him. I knew he could easily fight back if he wanted, and most of me wanted him to, just so I could kick his ass.

Somewhere behind me, I heard movement and I knew she was coming. Still, hearing her voice calling my name tore me apart. Shoving Craig one more time, I turned.

She was breathtaking. Dressed only in a tank top and a pair of the fleece pajamas I picked on her for wearing, her hair all wild from sleep, I wanted to rush across the room and pull her into my arms. Even now, after finding him here with her, knowing that she’d spent the night with him, my body still ached to hold her.

She was talking but I only heard parts. “Cort’s gone for the weekend.” “Didn’t want to be alone.” Her roommate was gone and she didn’t want to be alone so she called her ex-boyfriend to come stay? The same man that caused our fight last week? Fuck, no. I didn’t play those games.

“He spending the weekend?”

Her features twisted in panic. “Yes, but it isn’t what you think…”

Of course it wasn’t. I’d been a fucking fool. For years, I’d been a moron. I’d been in love with a woman that had completely played me. She’d been playing me for years.

It all came crashing forward, the pieces all clicking together. It wasn’t just me she’d played. It had been him, too. Ally had sworn Lia had cheated with him all those summers ago. She’d worn his necklace close to her heart for God knows how long while fucking me. Then, after college, they’d been together because I wasn’t an option.

What had she told him when she went to spend the summer with me? Had she strung him along or was he just that much of a fool that he was waiting for her. Now that she thought I was gone, he was here again. I wasn’t going to be her fool. She wasn’t going to lead me around by my dick, making a fucking fool out of me any more than she had.

“This”—I motioned between us—“is over. We are done.” My voice was hard, hatred oozing around my words. The pain on her face as she shook her head in denial didn’t faze me. The tears that glistened in her eyes, streaming down her cheeks, however, made me swallow and look away.

“You’re outa line, guy,” Craig argued, stepping in front of her as if to shield her from my wrath.

I ran my fingers through my hair, cupping the back of my head in frustration. I wasn’t going to hit him. I wasn’t going to hit him. She wasn’t worth it. But she was. “She’s all yours, man,” I ground out at Craig as I stomped to the door and out into the hall.

“Neil!” she shouted behind me, running after me, catching me as I ran down the stairs. “Don’t do this. Please. Just let me explain.”

“Explain?” I laughed. “There is no explanation needed, little girl. I’m done.”

“Please, please don’t say that. I love you. Don’t leave me.”

I stopped at the main door, turning to her one more time. Seeing her heartbroken expression made my own heart twist. I’d made my decision, though. “You left me first, Lia. How’s it fucking feel?” Then I pushed through the door, out into the breaking day. And away from the woman I now hated with every fiber of my being.