14. Kieran
14
KIERAN
W e walk toward our favorite place in the park in silence, her moan on repeat in my ears.
It was...
I close my eyes for a beat, trying to force the thoughts away.
I’m meant to be looking after Effie right now, not having these wild ideas about what it might have been like to keep going, to work my way up her leg and?—
“Here we are,” she says.
My feet stop moving of their own accord, and when I look up, I find she’s right.
It took us quite a bit of time to find this place, but it’s perfect.
Quiet and secluded.
Even if someone saw us jumping over the closed fence, there’s only a slim chance they’d find us here.
Effie lowers herself to the leaf-covered ground. She doesn’t care that she might get a little muddy, or that there are bugs down there. Effie isn’t like any of the women I spend time with. She doesn’t care if her makeup is on point or not, or if the dress or shoes she’s wearing are designer. There is no fakeness or pretense; she’s always just one hundred perfect herself. I love it, and I wish there were more people like her.
“Are you joining me or…” Effie trails off as she gazes up at me.
The sight of her puffy eyes is exactly what I need to drag me back to reality.
“Of course,” I say as I drop to the ground. “Hungry?”
She wants to say no, I can hear the refusal dancing on the tip of her tongue, but she fights it.
“Yeah,” she muses, making me smile.
Pulling her sub from the bag, I pass it over and watch as she unwraps it.
After a few seconds, I drag my eyes away and do the same. The only difference is that I instantly devour mine like I haven’t eaten for a month, not just a few hours, while she nibbles at hers.
Once I’m done, I ball up the paper bag and lie back on the leaves.
It’s dark, and the trees above us almost completely cover the sky, but every now and then, the wind blows, revealing some stars.
There’s nothing but silence between us, and while I might still be feeling weird about that little moment between us earlier, it’s not uncomfortable.
I replay the events of the day, thinking about the vast differences in the reactions of everyone she spoke to.
Her father being the worst of them.
Anger pulses through my veins as I think of his dismissive tone.
If I ever get the chance to become a father, there is no way on Earth I would ever speak to my child like that. Hell, I wouldn’t even speak to someone else’s child like that.
I give Prince more respect, and he’s just a baby.
But then there were Grams' friends and neighbors. All of them were so sweet and supportive of Effie, offering to help in any way they could.
That’s what it should be like. In hard times like this, people should come together. I know it took me longer than it should have to get here. But I’m here, and I’m not going anywhere. And I’m hoping that when I do, Effie will be coming with me to return to her life in Chicago.
As much as I’d like to think that she’ll be able to walk away from all this after the funeral, I’m not sure it’s very realistic. Her heart is here in St. Louis right now, and it’s broken beyond belief.
She needs to figure out how to put it back together before considering returning to work.
She’s barely finished a quarter of her sub when she wraps it back up and puts it in the bag.
With a sigh I feel all the way down to my toes, she lies back with me.
“I know that losing someone is meant to hurt. But this…I never thought it would be like this,” she confesses quietly. “I’ve never felt anything like it. It’s…excruciating.”
I don’t respond. How can I? Everything I could say to that would sound patronizing. As much as I can sympathize with her, I don’t really know what she’s feeling right now.
All I can do is just be here.
So that is what I do.
Reaching out, I find her hand and hold it tight.
She releases a shaky breath, and I roll onto my side to see her.
Silent tears fall from her eyes.
My chest tightens, my own emotion clogging my throat.
We stay like that for the longest time with the cool evening air blowing lightly around us.
“Do you think what they say about stars is true?” she suddenly asks, her cracked voice startling me.
“W-what do they say about stars?”
“That those…” She sucks in a breath, trying not to break down again. “That those who leave us are up there, watching.”
“She’ll always be with you. Whether she’s up in a star or haunting you as a ghost and judging your cooking.”
A smile pulls at her lips, and I give myself a mental high-five.
“She’d make a great ghost,” she says lightly. “Spying on everyone. Learning all their secrets. She’d finally find out if the couple at the end of the street are swingers.”
“What?” I blurt.
“Oh,” she laughs. “They moved in a couple of years ago, and apparently, they have a lot of guests. Grams put two and two together and?—”
“Probably came up with twelve?” I ask.
“Probably. For someone who claimed not to be nosey like all the others, she sure did see a lot.”
“Explains where you get it from,” I tease.
“What?” She gasps.
“Oh, come off it. How long have you been trying to figure out if the two guys in your building are fucking?”
Finally, she turns to look at me.
“They totally are. I’ve never seen either with a woman.”
“Must be gay then,” I mock. “Can’t be any other explanation.”
She laughs, and my smile grows.
“You’re a nightmare.”
“I’ll be anything that makes you smile like that, Lucky.”
“Kieran,” she teases, but before she can say anything else, I jump to my feet.
“Come on,” I say, holding out my hand.
“We’re leaving?” she asks, her face dropping.
“Not yet. Trust me?”
She pushes herself up so she’s sitting and shakes her head.
“Too much,” she laughs, holding her hand out so I can pull her to her feet.
“You love it,” I say before swiping the bag with her remaining sub from the ground and then taking off, dragging her along behind me.
“Kieran,” she squeals as she tries to keep up with me. “What are we?—”
I come to an abrupt halt, and she crashes into my back.
Stepping around me, she looks up to see where I’ve brought her.
“Uh…”
Taking off again, we climb the steps to the bandstand, and once we’re in the middle, I tug her into my body.
“Kieran,” she whispers, staring up at me with tear-filled eyes.
Pulling my cell from my pocket, I find the song I want before turning it up.
Effie’s breath catches the second she hears the opening beats.
She shakes her head in disbelief. “What are you doing?” Her voice is so quiet I barely hear it over the music.
“Dance with me.”
Sliding one arm around her back, I lift the other into the air, still holding her hand.
I start moving, but she doesn’t immediately fall into step with me.
Instead, she laughs. It’s emotional and full of pain, but there’s also so much joy and happy memories in there.
The song is the one Grams and her late gramps chose for their first dance. And our moves… they’re ones we learned when Grams taught us all those years ago.
Leaning closer, I whisper in her ear, “If she’s looking down at us, then don’t miss a step.”
She laughs harder, but she finally begins moving.
She smiles up at me, her joy and sadness colliding. But that smile gives me hope that her pain will subside. It won’t be today or tomorrow, or even next week. But she’ll get through it.
“I’m sorry about what you overheard on the phone last night,” I say, the memory of what I snapped at Mom coming back to me.
Effie sighs and looks down at my chest.
“It was nothing. No need to apologize for anything.”
“It hurt you; there is everything to apologize for.”
Leaning forward, she rests her head against my chest.
“I’m an emotional mess, Kieran. That’s on me, not you. You did nothing wrong. I know you’re not in love with me.”
Releasing her hand, I wrap my arms around her.
“My mom was freaking out about what color hat she needs to buy,” I confess. “Anyone would think she hasn’t lived her life surrounded by lies in the media.”
“Well, it’s humbling to know she approves of me.”
“As if you didn’t already know that. She loves you like a daughter.”
Effie spills a bitter laugh, and I know exactly why, but neither of us says it. The less time and effort we give to her parents, the better.
The song ends and quickly transitions to another, but we don’t stop moving.
“Effie?” I say after long, silent minutes.
“Yeah,” she whispers.
“You’re going to get through this. I know life will never be the same again, but you’ll find a new normal and things will get easier.”
Pulling her head away from my chest, she looks up at me with a sad smile.
“I know,” she breathes, although she doesn’t sound very confident. “Thank you for today. After what I did, I know I don’t deserve?—”
Releasing her, I press two fingers to her lips, stopping her from saying anything more.
I’ve already told her that I understand, and any hurt I felt after discovering her lie has now been overshadowed by something far more serious.
“Forget about it. Right now, we focus on Grams. Then we’ll deal with the fallout of that.”
“But…” She begins to argue, lifting her hand with her ring back in place.
“One day at a time,” I say, bringing her hand to my lips and kissing where her ring sits.
The move comes so naturally that I don’t even realize I’m doing it until my eyes meet hers.
I swear I stop breathing.
“Kieran,” she whispers before a loud bang echoes around us, forcing her to jump back. “What was that?” she asks in a rush, looking around as if someone is about to jump out with a gun and arrest us for breaking into the park.
I look up into the distance and wince when I see dark clouds engulfing the stars we were staring at not so long ago.
Thunder rumbles again, only louder this time.
“I think it’s time to go home,” I say, turning the music off and collecting the bag.
“Yeah,” Effie muses, following me as I descend the steps of the bandstand.
The wind blows cooler, and the rumbles get closer and faster.
The first crack of lightning illuminates the park just before we get to the gates.
“We’re going to get soaked,” Effie points out as the light from the almost full moon is engulfed by the storm clouds.
“It wouldn’t be the first time,” I point out, thinking of more than a few occasions when we’ve been caught out before, both here while visiting Grams and at school when we snuck out after curfew.
Effie was such a good student. I hate to admit it, but I think I was a bad influence on her.
The first raindrops hit the ground as we approach the fence.
“I can’t believe I’ve got to do this again,” Effie complains as she glares up at the top.
I guess it does look a hell of a lot more scary when you’re so small.
“Come on, we’ve got this,” I say, holding my arms out to help her up.
She huffs, but there’s a smile playing on her lips.
She loves it really, being wild and doing things that no one would expect from her.
With my hands around her waist, I lift her from the ground and sit her on my shoulder.
“Ready?” I ask.
“Nope.” But that doesn’t stop her from reaching for the fence. “Kieran,” she shrieks when my hands slide to her ass.
“What? I’m just helping,” I say innocently.
“Just because everyone thinks we’re getting married, it doesn’t give you a free pass, you know,” she teases.