18. Kieran
Chapter 18
Kieran
Shane greeted me like we’d never had that fight a few days ago. He walked into the back yard at Mom’s, hand in hand with Archer. The two of them radiated happiness and commitment to the point that it was almost hard to look at them. Not because I was jealous, but because a part of me knew where I could find something like that. Had found someone to look at me the way Archer looked at Shane.
I hadn’t seen Clay yet. Mom said he’d come out sooner or later, but I had my doubts. I’d made sure to arrive before Shane and Archer so he’d have a buffer, but Clay had yet to appear. Some of Mom’s girls were coming by; some couldn’t stay, but wanted to drop in to say hello. All that was really missing were Brodie and Clay.
“I already put the stuff in the fridge,” Shane greeted Mom first. He stooped down and hugged her where she sat in her patio chair.
When Shane bought the house for Mom, the first thing he did was have a deck built for her. The house we’d grown up in was small, with a back yard the size of a postage stamp and a patch of lawn where the grass wouldn’t grow that we’d called our patio.
Archer also hugged Mom, but his eyes darted around like he was waiting for the boogeyman to jump out from behind a tree.
“Clay’s inside,” I told him, taking a sip of my iced tea. Archer nodded and Shane tucked him in close to his side .
“Kieran, how about you be a dear and go check on him?” Mom asked, though it wasn’t really a question.
I nodded and pushed away from the railing where I’d been leaning. I stepped around Shane and headed in the back door, ignoring the quiet whispers between mother and son. Probably a warning for him to play nice.
The other day when I’d come over, Clay was out like a light in the recliner and Mom had confided in me that he hadn’t been sleeping well since our trip. Since long before actually, but it had become worse since then. I’d spotted him in the living room and at first I thought he was watching TV, but Mom quickly called me into the kitchen so I wouldn’t wake him up.
She never asked if anything had happened, but it felt like she knew. Maybe because I was her son and she’d raised me, and knew all my tells by now. Or maybe Clay had told her. Either way, she hadn’t warned me not to care for him or be with him. There had been no lecture about what Shane and Archer might think. Instead she made Clay’s favorite cookies and told me she was worried about him.
And now I stood outside his bedroom door, poised to knock, my heart hammering in my chest like it was trying to escape my ribcage and leap through the door and go to Clay.
My breath went in shaky and came out no better, but I forced myself to knock quietly. “Clay, it’s me. Mom wanted—”
I stopped and let the shame of a week of absence wash over me. Every moment we were apart, every time I’d intentionally not come over to see him was a self-inflicted wound. I was a piece of shit for wanting to kiss him now until the ache went away. “I wanted to come check on you. ”
The door didn’t open and I leaned my forehead against it. “I was an asshole for not coming to see you. For ghosting you. But you became important to me, Clay.”
Lifting my hand, I pressed it against the door, the wood cool against my sweaty palm. “I shouldn’t have shut you out. It was a dick move. But if it makes you feel better, I’ve had the worst week without you.”
“It actually does help to know that.” Clay’s voice rang out loud and clear and I spun around to see him standing in the bathroom doorway. “But I do love a good grovel, so don’t let me interrupt.”
The side of Clay’s mouth lifted like he wanted to smile, but the sadness in his eyes was deep enough to drown in. Had it been there when I saw him last? All I’d seen then was pools of blue framed by laugh lines. I’d seen the way they softened when I kissed him.
I took a step toward him, then another. Herding him into the bathroom, I shut the door behind us.
“Tell me I can kiss you.” I was already reaching for him, sinking my hands into his hair, stepping into his space. Breathing in his scent, spicy and citrusy, and clean, and undeniably Clay. My lungs opened and it was like I’d taken my first real breath in a week. I was already leaning in, unable to escape the magnetic pull of Clay’s mouth. I wanted to kiss his sadness away.
“You’d better.”
Clay barely finished giving me permission before my lips were slanting down against his. His lips were full and soft, and as much as I wanted to devour him whole, we still had an evening with my brother to get through. Pulling away was nearly impossible, but I managed to put some space between us. Just enough that our lips were no longer touching, but the urge to kiss him again and again was there lingering under the surface .
“I’m sorry,” I told him, looking him in the eyes, willing him to believe me.
“I know.”
The haunted, sorrowful look in his eyes diminished, but didn’t completely disappear. A giant stone of regret sank to the pit of my stomach.
“I can’t tell you how sorry I am.”
Clay huffed a laugh. “You can stop apologizing, Kieran. I get it.”
Narrowing my gaze, I looked at him again, really looked at him. “I don’t think you do. You’re in my head, Clay. You’re all I thought about. All week long.”
He exhaled and leaned into me, resting his forehead on my shoulder. “As much as I liked hearing you apologize to my door, and as much as I want to kiss you again, we can’t hide in here.”
“Are you okay?”
Clay nodded. Then shook his head. Then nodded again. “Probably not, but I have to be, right? Eventually, I was going to have to face him again.”
“You don’t have to.” Archer wouldn’t insist on Clay’s presence any more than anyone else would. But I was starting to get the idea that Mom was hoping for some kind of a truce to be called between the former best friends. Even if they never repaired what had been broken.
“I think I do.” Clay took a deep breath and pulled away.
“Maybe I’ll take you for a spin in my new car when they’re gone.” That earned me my first real smile.
“Yeah?”
“It’s a date.” I opened the bathroom door and peeked out to make sure that no one would see us leave the room together.
“What about your truck?” Clay asked, following me out into the living room .
“Barbeque. Burned to a crisp.”
“Shit, that sucks.”
“But I got a car and it’s better on fuel.” We paused at the back door and I looked at Clay. “Maybe I’ll take it on a road trip sometime soon.”
Asking him to go with me was on the tip of my tongue, but now wasn’t the time for that. Right now, I had to pretend that Clay was just Clay and not my Clay. I had to sit across from my brother and Clay’s former best friend and pretend that I didn’t feel for him all the tangled and wonderful things I felt for him.
Until I sorted out what those feelings were and what I was willing to do to keep Clay in my life, or even if he wanted to be, it was best not to say anything. I didn’t know what this thing between us was yet and until I did, there was no sense in rocking the boat.
The atmosphere shifted when we stepped out the back door and I swear the temperature dropped ten degrees.
“Clay, you look lovely today,” Mom said to him, wrapping her acceptance and love around him like a protective shield. “Come sit.”
He stepped away and it was then I noticed the walking boot was nowhere to be seen.
“Hey, you got the all clear?” I asked.
Shane and Archer had yet to say anything to him, but that didn’t mean I was going to sit there and ignore his existence.
Clay nodded. “I’m not going to be going on long walks by the beach anytime soon. And the cast comes off Monday.” He wiggled his fingers.
“Will you still be able to draw and shit?” Archer asked.
The color drained from Clay’s face and he stared at Archer with a blank expression on his face like he was carefully folding up the horror that had jumped out of him at the question and tucking it back inside where it was secret and safe and his .
It was hard to tell if Archer’s question was meant to be malicious or if it was an accident, but after the initial shock, Clay seemed determined to take it in stride.
“The prognosis is good.” His voice was strained and his mouth was pressed into a thin, sharp line.
From the corner of my eye, I saw Archer nod, and I thought maybe he hadn’t meant to be an asshole, but his lingering pain made his edges sharper than normal. I’d always thought Archer to be a bit like a porcupine.
The back door swung open and Tia, one of the girls who’d recently lived in the shelter, came out. Her dark hair was piled up on top of her head, contrasting against the bright yellow dress she wore.
“Tia, dear.” Mom stood and embraced her. “You came. How are you?”
Tia had moved out when Clay had needed to move in, but she was ready to go anyway. We weren’t always privy to the girls’ pasts or what they were escaping, or who, when they came to the shelter, but Tia had been open about her abusive relationship. Not every person who came through Mom’s ended up becoming part of the family. Some were only there for a night while they arranged to go stay with family. Others stayed longer, as long as they needed, to get back on their feet.
Tia had stayed for a couple of months before moving in with her sister. Their relationship hadn’t been the best and though Tia insisted she’d be fine with her, Mom convinced her to stay until she was certain Tia would be okay there.
Another familiar face appeared a moment later. Josie had once upon a time stayed with Mom. She now worked at Bennett’s as a waitress, meaning I saw her frequently. We were friendly, but had never bridged that gap to an actual friendship .
“What is that?” Clay asked her, referring to the plant she carried. But it wasn’t a plant. It was a tree. A small, potted tree.
Josie grinned. “It’s a lemon tree. It’s a gift from Taylor.”
Shane leaned back and let out a bellowing laugh. “That little shit. You better accept the plant, Mom, or he’ll break into your house and you’ll wake up in a jungle.”
I quirked an eyebrow at Shane. “What?”
“He’s some sort of plant-growing prodigy. He’s plant-bombed his brother’s houses. Their jobs. He even managed to convince his dad to help him plant-bomb my office a few weeks ago. I am now the proud owner of some sort of green thing. I put Vivian in charge of keeping it alive. I don’t want to explain to Taylor that I killed one of his plant babies.”
The arrival of Tia and Julie lightened the atmosphere. The extra buffers between Clay and Archer made it seem like a normal family gathering. A bit of laughter, a bit of tension, and the promise of Mom’s homemade apple pie for dessert.
I looked over at Clay and shot him a reassuring smile. He still seemed uncomfortable, but he no longer looked like he wanted to crawl into a hole and disappear, so I called that a win. Now we just had to make it through the rest of the evening.