She's Only Seventeen: A Novel of Sex, Drugs and Rock & Roll (29 page)

“I don’t know where that came from but I think I’d like that,” she said smiling.

I let out a breath, she started struggling with a root, “god let me help you with that,” I laughed. Putting my hand on hers I pulled the root out with her and fell backwards. We laughed together, and the Kat I had known shone through so bright and so beautiful that I had to pinch myself to know I wasn’t dreaming.

James

May 2001

“Shane asked me to go out tonight,” Kat told me and Ian, “I think I’m kind of excited to go.”

I wasn’t surprised. She had told me of what Tom had said to her before he died, he had wanted her to be with Shane, maybe that why she didn’t pursue much with me after my divorce, although I had pressed it…

“Is that a good idea?” Ian asking the question I didn’t dare to.

“I’m really not sure,” she answered, “I would like to see him and talk to him, after all, he is Darla’s father.”

“Do you still love him?” I asked boldly.

She turned to face me straight on, “Sometimes I think I do, other times, I’m not so sure.”

We finished up the piece we were working on.

“Wife’s calling,” Ian said with a frown, “Can we pick this up tomorrow?”

Kat shook her head “yes” and he bent over and gave her a kiss on the cheek before exiting.

“Okay, what?” she said getting up from the stool and standing in front of me.

“I just think… I don’t know, Kat. Shane?”

“Tom wanted it.”

“But do you?” I asked

“I do…sure.”

I stood up so that we could be eye to eye. I cupped her face with my palm, letting my fingers run along her cheek. She came closer to me, shaking; as she put a hand to my face in the same fashion I had her.

She nodded, knowing what I was thinking. I crushed my mouth against her; her lips opening to receive me.

“You want to?” I asked breathlessly.

“We can’t” she said slowly.

I let go of her.

“Don’t be mad, James…”

“I understand, Kat.”

“It’s not that I don’t want you because I do,” she admitted

“Then why not let it happen?”

She looked down at the ground

“Right, because Tom said,” I answered for her

She shrugged then nodded.

“If you think he will really make you happy…” I said

She threw her arms around me, “thank you,” she said smiling

I kissed her forehead and held her close, I didn’t want to let go of her. We had been friends for so long and although we had never been together in truth, I felt as if she and I could have had something great if ever given the chance.

“Will you help me find something to wear?” she asked, taking my mind away from the thought.

I nodded, “of course I will.”

She smiled, taking my hand and leading me upstairs.

I watched as she opened her giant walk in closet. “Dresses are over here,” she said, “Which one, which one…?”

“I like the purple,” I suggested.

Kat smiled, “I was thinking that one too.”

She stripped off the clothing she was wearing so she was down to her undergarments. She stepped into the dress and turned to me, “zip me up?”

My hands brushed her bare skin, she shivered at my touch. I wrapped my arms around her and brought her closer, my head resting on her shoulder. She placed her hands on my arms and leaned back against me. “I’m nervous,” she admitted.

“Don’t be,” I whispered into her hair. She spun around, letting her dress fall to the floor.

“Kat…”

She kissed me suddenly, holding onto me tightly. “I don’t know if I can do it,” she said when she broke away.

“You were with him for so many years, Kat; you can go on one date with him.”

“No, I mean… I don’t know if I want to…” she said looking up at me.

“God, Kat, you just said…”

“I know what I said; I just wasn’t expecting to feel this way about you. Maybe it’s always been there… I don’t know,” she said, confusion in her voice.

“So you admit you feel something for me?” I asked her.

She nodded.

My heart beat faster as she came back closer to me.

“Did you mean what you said? That you love me?” she asked

My arms went around her waist, “I do love you, Kat, I have for a long time.”

She smiled with me for a moment before speaking, “will you still love me if I choose Shane?”

I dropped my arms and looked at the ground, “I will,” I responded honestly.

“I’m sorry,” she said as she lifted my head up to face her and wrapped her arms around my neck, “I’m so sorry, I do love you, in my own way I do, I want you to know that.”

I stood, not knowing what to say to her.

“Just kiss me,” she said, “please kiss me.”

I did.

Shane

May 2001

Kat answered the door wearing a beautiful, dark purple dress with lace on the sleeves. She had left her long legs bare and was wearing nude heels.

“Ready?” I asked taking her arm in mine.

“So, I guess this is where we tell each other what we have been doing for the past moths,” she said, settling into the chair at the restaurant.

“I guess so,” I said smiling like a fool. She made me feel so comfortable, so… wanted.

“I’ve been working on some new songs with James and Ian, and…”

I cut her off, “Did you really sleep with Roy,” I said quietly.

She blushed, “I did. It was so long ago, it was stupid.”

“I was just a little shocked about that.”

“Was that all that shocked you?”

“I was a little disappointed about Alex; I had thought he hadn’t touched you.”

“It was a onetime thing,” she said, “I hope you didn’t get angry at him.”

“No,” I lied “I didn’t, it’s all in the past.”

She looked hard at me. “I’m sorry, Shane, okay, I really am about that. I just, someone needed to know. Everyone needed to know.”

“Have you done it since Tom?” I asked her

Her eyes opened wide, “Why? Have you?”

“No, I haven’t,” I answered.

I waited for her to respond, she looked nervous.

“I did…with James”

I let out a breath, “Okay, well I can’t be mad I mean…”

She cut me off, “I was upset, it was comforting, it just happened… it won’t ever again.”

There was an uncomfortable silence.

“Kat?” I asked

“Hmmm?”

“Let’s get out of here.”

I drove her back to her house; she invited me in where we sat and drank. She told me about everything I had wanted and had not wanted to know.

At the end of the night, I left her, kissing her softly on the lips, and promising to see her again tomorrow.

James

May 2001

I had watched her go off with him. It broke something inside of me. That’s why it had never worked with anyone else, I had loved Kathryn Crowne. I felt like a fool, I had seen so many other men fall under her spell and I had thought myself evasive to it. Perhaps it had always been there or maybe I felt the need to fill some sort of void since my wife had left. All I knew was that I was completely and utterly smitten with her and seeing her with Shane, no, even just knowing that she was with him, made me crumble to pieces.

Kat

June 2001

“Do you want another one?” Shane asked

“Are you trying to get me drunk?”

He raised an eyebrow, “Is that bad?”

I laughed.

We had been “dating” or whatever you want to call it, for about a month now and still yet to have slept together. It didn’t seem to bother him, but I had decided it would happen tonight.

Shane brought me another drink from his “bar” he had made in the basement of our old house.

“Madam,” he said handing me the drink. I put it down on the end table and kissed him. He stopped me, “We don’t have to do anything until you’re ready.”

I kissed him again. My hands shook as I got a hold of his shirt and went to pull it over his head. I ran my hand along his chest where the hair curled down to his belly button. I was nervous, for once in my life; I was terrified to have sex with a man. He didn’t ask about anything, he didn’t question me, he just wanted me. I stood up, removing my pants. Shane stared at me as I began to remove his.

“Do you want to go upstairs?” he asked me, kissing me.

I laid myself down on the couch in response as he watched me.

He knelt down beside me as I spread my legs and helped him enter me. I cried out when he did. My body reacting to what it had missed all these months. I held on to him and he did so to me, like his life depended on it. I felt the waves take me as he exploded.

“Marry me, Kat” he asked so like he had so many years ago.

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Yes.”

Shane

July 2001

It was like starting all over with her, the relationship I had always wanted to have. She was only seeing me, and I her. It would work this time, I knew it would. We had put aside the past and had given way to seeing a better future. She was hesitant at first when we started sleeping together, it had been a long time for her, but soon enough she was the passionate Kat I had known. She was indeed different now. She was sturdy, she knew what she wanted, and what she wanted, was finally just me.

James

June 2001

“I’m getting remarried to him,” Kat told me one afternoon after practice.

I shut my eyes tight, trying to block out her words.

“Did you hear me?” she asked, kneeling down next to me, her hands on my knees.

“I heard you, Kat.”

“Don’t be mad.”

“I’m not,” I responded.

I met her eyes.

“It doesn’t change the way I feel about you, you know I will always hold a dear place for you in my heart,” she said.

“You’re just doing it because of what Thomas said.”

She looked away, “perhaps, but it doesn’t change that fact that I do love Shane, I have always loved Shane,” she faked a smile.

“Whatever, Kat,” I said standing up and walking away from her.

She stayed kneeing where she was, watching me.

I left her there; I couldn’t be around her right now.

Darla

August 2001

My parents remarried a week before my fifteenth birthday. It was the best gift I could have wished for.

Mom moved back in with us, still attempting to sell her and Thomas’ mansion. She had brought so much of him with her, Dad didn’t mind. He had loved Thomas also.

“My dad’s pissed that your dad married her again,” my friend Theresa confessed to me. She was Tammy and Drew’s daughter.

“Why?”

“Well, you know, cause of that interview!”

A lot of them were mad about that, especially dad’s manager, Roy. He resembled a hot air balloon, his face blowing up, red and ugly.

She played it off and eventually, like the charismatic woman she was, got back on his good side.

“Any boys?” my mom would always ask me.

“No” I’d reply. Like I would tell her anyways and she had NO room to talk.

She would smile knowingly, never pressuring me to tell more. I think cause that’s the way she had been raised, she turned a blind eye.

But I was anything but her. I had no desire for sex, not yet anyways.

Eventually she was welcome back into the
Arctic Circle
family who probably felt she was too old or too damaged to cause much trouble anymore. She would be thirty five in November and where most of the guys of
Arctic Circle
had traded their wives in for a younger model, my father hadn’t. He was still in love with his first.

Kat

August/September 2001

I preformed a few shows with
Neptune
which had become scare, but I still enjoyed getting us all together. In truth the memory hurt and although I had taken up playing Thomas’ role, he could never be replaced, and so that last album after his death, would be our end. I resorted myself to Shane’s faithful wife. It was new and exciting route for me.

I still wore Thomas’ wedding ring around my neck and Shane’s on my finger. Nothing made me happier than to have Thomas and Shane close to me still. If I could have had them both I would have.

Shane and I began a sort of routine. He slept with me every night and each time we were bolder with each other. It was like we were discovering each other all over again.

“Kat,” he would say, “do it like that.” Or “can I do this?”

We would test ourselves, catching up on the years that we had been apart.