Chapter 28
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Kenny
E verything happened in the span of a few seconds.
Liz was standing, her hand on my arm. My brother and mother also stood, and my father leaned back, arms crossed, expression full of judgment and, if I wasn’t projecting, hatred.
“Why don’t you sit your skinny ass back down and let’s see what baby Ken has to say. I’m not even sure why you’re here to begin with,” Glen Jr. said, pointing a greasy finger toward Liz.
That had me rising to my feet. “Now, now. No name calling. Plus I happen to think Liz’s ass is absolute perfection.”
No lies, plus I wasn’t about to get riled up just because he was. He’d always had a hair-trigger temper and my ability to not respond almost always made him worse.
So maybe I was leaning into that a bit .
“You’ve been living like a king and can’t bring yourself to help us? We’re not asking for a handout, we’re just?—”
“You literally just did,” Liz said through gritted teeth.
“You’ve always been ungrateful. Leaving us behind with nothing while you ran off to do whatever you wanted. Leaving your pregnant fiancée behind like the trash you are. Abandoning the people who gave you life, who raised you…” My mom shook her head like she couldn’t believe I’d betrayed them so thoroughly, eyes welling with tears.
I’d never been so deeply grateful for the therapy I’d done until this moment. Historically, this interaction would’ve destroyed me. I could feel my insides crumbling as it was, little pillars of confidence and hope and determination collapsing in on themselves.
But I didn’t have to stand here and take this. We could just leave. I was long past trying to make them see my perspective or to respect the choices I’d made. They’d made it clear time and again they never would.
I reached for Liz’s hand, and she clasped it, but when I tugged, she stood firm. When I looked at her face, she was practically breathing fire.
“I have never met a more pathetic group of people in my life,” she said, her voice so low and crisp it sounded almost violent in its razor sharpness.
“How dare you, you little?—”
“You don’t get to speak.” Her words whipped at my brother, effectively shutting him up, his eyes blowing wide in shock that she’d said anything at all, much less directed it at him.
“I don’t know if you’re greedy or stupid, or just rotten at your cores, but whatever the case is, you should be ashamed of yourselves. Your son is the kindest person I’ve ever met. He’s genuine and selfless and funny and good in a way I suspect none of you will ever understand. He’s generous and I have no doubt he might have given you some money if you really needed it. But you don’t get to guilt him for leaving a family who treated him so hatefully. You don’t get to try to make him feel bad for joining the military and serving his country. And you will not shame him for making a life here and working at a job he loves that also happens to earn a decent wage.”
Those parts of me crumbling were suddenly knitting back together, and she wasn’t done.
“Kenny is the best man I know, and you should be absolutely devastated you don’t know him—you don’t get him in your life, and you don’t deserve to. I can’t speak for what he does or doesn’t want to give you, but I can promise you that as long as I’m around, you won’t get another chance to speak to him until you get a grip and start respecting him.”
She began walking then, but stopped short, raising her chin in Glen Jr’s face despite him having six or more inches on her.
“And you? You’re a pathetic excuse of a human being and your desperate attempts to make your brother feel small or like less than you should eat at you. You’re a faithless, dishonorable jerk and the only thing you deserve is pity.”
I said nothing, following her lead as she navigated through tables, most of whom had somehow missed the dressing down she’d just given my family thanks to our out of the way table location.
My heart, though? My heart was exploding.
All I could think with every step was… her words. Her words.
She’d defended me. Not just defended me, but lauded me to people who didn’t deserve a second of her attention. She’d said more in those fleeting seconds than I’d heard her say at any other time and it had been all about me. For me.
As I tightened my grip on her hand, emotion built in me. Sadness and disbelief were there, the inevitable byproducts of having my family be cruel and also ask for money after not speaking for so many years, but also something far more powerful.
Adoration. Admiration. Something bordering dangerously on love. It was too soon for that, but what else was I supposed to feel?
She was fierce and commanding and furious in the most beautiful way. Did it make me a monster that I felt like she’d set me on fire as she’d shredded my family?
Maybe it did. Maybe I was as bad as they were, wanting something from her and only being satisfied when she gave it. But it didn’t feel like that as we crossed the street, as she unlocked the door to her building, as we took the stairs leading to her apartment.
It felt like she’d done something for me I never would’ve asked her to do. It felt like she’d stood by me when she could’ve just walked out like I’d planned. She’d refused to leave without attempting to make the people hurting me see how wrong they were.
And by the time we got inside her place, I’d lost the reins on my self-control and had to show her somehow. I paced into her living room as she shut the door, then turned back toward her, all my energy driving me into her space.
“I hope you can forgive me for?—”
I took her face in my hands and drew her into me, claiming her mouth like she’d just claimed me in front of an entire restaurant.
Our mouths crashed together, the intensity and adrenaline colliding in this crush of our bodies. She instantly responded, arms wrapping around my shoulders even as we stumbled back against the door.
We separated before impact, and I was certain I’d never been so gratified as I was right now, seeing her eyes just as hungry and wild as mine must’ve been.
“You’re incredible,” I said into her hair, pressing a kiss to her temple, then her cheek, then her jaw. I found the soft place in front of her ear, then just below it. Running my nose along the smooth skin of her neck, I inhaled the soft scent of her, wanting to drown myself in her warmth and nearness.
“You are, too. I hate that they can’t see that,” she said, her voice hitching when I nipped at the skin sloping from her neck to her shoulder.
I wanted to devour this woman—to give her so much pleasure she couldn’t see straight. I wanted to hear my name on her lips and give her the heart she absolutely held in her hands.
I found those lips again, tasting her and getting lost in the press of my body against hers, the door an immovable boundary to the outside world and everything in it. We were lost in this kiss, in this otherworldly sensation, in this loss of all bearings…
Until she urged me back and held my head in her hands, nails scraping against my scalp as our eyes met and she jerked away.
My heart tripped.
Desire hung in her dark gaze, yes, but something else. Something that had me sliding my hands away from her body and pressing them into the door, resting my head against the wood and exhaling, willing a return of self-control.
Fear. Not pity as I might’ve dreaded, but fear hung in her expression, in those blown pupils, and I’d never imagined seeing it there.
She was afraid. Of… me?
“I’m sorry,” I said, finally shoving back and stepping away so she could breathe.
Had I hurt her? Had my… had I been too aggressive?
“Why would you be sorry?” she said, still breathless from our kisses.
I searched for words as my insides felt like they were shriveling up. “I—that was too much. I’m sorry. You just did this nice thing for me, and I shouldn’t have taken that as… anything but you just being a good friend.”
Her laugh made me turn back to her. Her head rested against the door, but her eyes were on me. No more fear there, but I’d seen it. I couldn’t unsee it, or could I? My stupid stomach dropped, and my idiot heart kicked because she was so damn gorgeous, all flushed and disheveled. It was all I could do not to rush right over there and kiss her again.
“I wasn’t being a good friend, Kenny.” She pressed a palm to her forehead, almost like she was testing for fever. “I was saying something true that those people should know.”
Those people.
It stung, but only because she was right not to call them my family. I’d found a new family in the military, and here in Silverton, and that was part of the years-long work I’d done to stand tall in the face of the people I’d come from.
At some point, I’d have to face them again. They wouldn’t just leave, especially if they thought they could get something from me.
But she’d stood up for me when I would’ve walked away, and now I’d let myself get wrapped up in the moment and taken things way too far.
“I’m sorry, Liz. ”
“Stop apologizing. You have nothing to be sorry about,” she said, eyes searching mine. We stayed like that, connected through our gazes but standing what felt like miles apart. “But for now, maybe we should take a breath.”
She swallowed and crossed her arms, effectively creating a barrier to herself.
I couldn’t even tell what I felt, but I knew I’d respect her need for space. “Of course. Thank you again and I’ll see you tomorrow, yeah?”
With her nod, I left, wondering what that edge of fear in her eyes had been, wondering if she’d forgive me for being so pushy, and wondering how long it’d take me to get past all this.