Evie threw her apartment door open and took a few steps backward, looking at Kyle through her shining blue eyes. He made his way in, shutting the door behind himself and then leaning up against it as he stared at her. Within a few seconds, he lunged forward, and placing his hands on the side of her face, he pressed his lips to hers in a smoldering kiss. The two of them stumbled backward until they landed on the couch.
“No one makes me feel like you do,” he said breathlessly between kisses as he pinned her down to the couch. Just as he went to lift her shirt over her head, the doorbell rang. “Be quiet,” he told her in a whisper. “And let’s pretend we’re not here.”
“Kyle, it could be important. Come on, and let me up.”
For a moment, Kyle didn’t move. He only looked at her with hope, thinking that if he looked pathetic enough, she might just give in. “They’d knock louder if it were important,” he told her, pressing his lips back to her neck.
“Kyle… get up,” she said as she tried to push him away.
“Evie?” they heard a man’s voice say from the other side of the door, and Kyle froze. “Your father said you’d be home.”
“Oh, my God!” Evie exclaimed in a whisper, finally pushing Kyle onto his side at the back of the couch as she moved out from underneath him. “It’s Edward. Kyle, please… go into the my bedroom until I can get rid of him.”
“Why?” Kyle wanted to know as he sat up to look at her.
“Because if Edward sees you here, he’ll report back to my dad, and I’ll have to go back over there and listen to another one of his lectures. Please… I’m begging you, Kyle. It’ll only be a minute.” She paused, staring at him. “Then we can pick up right where we left off.”
“Okay,” he relented as he got up and walked to her room. With one last glance over his shoulder, he opened the door and walked inside, closing it behind himself. Behind the door, he could hear them talking, but he wasn’t even sure if he wanted to pay any attention. With a heavy heart, he leaned back against the door and sank down until he was in a sitting position. All the good thoughts in the world wouldn’t let him escape from his reality; stuck in Evie’s bedroom while she and another man, a man her father wanted her to be with, talked out there without him.
And she didn’t know. She didn’t know how he felt when he looked at her, how he longed to hold her in his arms and just stare into her eyes. Maybe he hadn’t known her long, but what did it matter?
He knew every curve of her body, every movement she made. He knew how her voice went higher when she was nervous and how she whispered to only him when she was serious. He knew her unachieved dreams and her ambition that couldn’t escape her father’s world.
And then, without warning, their voices stopped… only he didn’t hear the sound of the door. He heard nothing. Desparately, he pressed his ear to the door, straining to hear a sound, any sound. But then, it occurred to him that maybe he didn’t need to know… maybe he didn’t want to know what was going on out there, and he turned away, angry to feel a single tear making its way down his cheek. The thought of her with another man made him want to be sick.
He pressed the back of his hand to his cheek and wiped the tear away, but it didn’t matter because another one soon replaced it. He told himself that he shouldn’t cry… he couldn’t. She would come in to find him sooner or later, and she’d know that he’d been crying the second she looked at him.
He could lie. He could tell her that he was upset about something else. His grandma had died, and he had been very close to her as a boy… but then again, she was Adelyn’s sister, and she would find out the truth when she spoke to her. Maybe one of his close friends had been in a horrible accident, and he didn’t want to tell her, but he just couldn’t hold it in any longer. Yes, that would work. She would definitely buy that.
The door opened against his back, and he scooted out of the way as he made one last desparate attempt to rid himself of his tears.
“Kyle,” she said as she sat down next to him and put her arms around him. “What’s wrong? I heard you sniffing from the other side of the door. I had to tell Edward that one of my roommates had a cold.”
Kyle turned his head away from her and focused on something at the other end of the room. “Nothing,” he said. He couldn’t tell her that story. She’d know in a second that he had lied.
“Something is obviously wrong if you’re sitting on the floor in tears,” she told him, gently pressing her lips to the side of his face. “Is this about Edward being here? You were fine before.”
“Before, I had you in my arms,” Kyle replied quickly as he moved away from her kiss.
“I don’t like Edward,” she assured him. “He’s dull, and he’s boring, and… he’s nothing like you.”
“It doesn’t matter what he is. All that matters is that your father wants you to be with him. That’s all that matters. You kicked me out of the room and pretended you liked him even though you didn’t… all because your father told you to. No matter how much you don’t like him, you’ll still be with him. It doesn’t matter if you like him or not.”
“Kyle, so what if I pretend to like him? It’s you that I really like! I swear! You’re kind, and sweet, and warm… and he’s so… cold and distant. Sure, he brought me flowers, but he didn’t even attatch a card-”
Kyle turned to look at her. “He brought you flowers?”
“I don’t care about flowers!” Evie insisted.
“Aren’t you listening to me?” he yelled, standing up and looking down at her. “It doesn’t matter whether you care or not! All that matters is that you’ll stay with him as long as your father tells you to! You say it’s me you want, but if it’s only going to be some secret affair, then I don’t want anything to do with it.” Without another word, he opened the door and headed out, but before he could get halfway past the living room, she had her arms around him, holding him back.
“We’re not even supposed to be together,” she told him. “I thought all you wanted was sex!”
“Then you’re crazy!” he told her. “Let go of me!”
Instead, she moved in front of him, and when his eyes met hers, he looked away.
“You’re not like other boys,” she told him. “You’re not the boy I thought you were.”
“What,” he said in a horse whisper as he turned back to look at her. “Are you disappointed?”
She only stared at him, seemingly studying his face.
He decided not to wait for her any longer, and he shook her away, making another attempt for the door. And this time, he succeeded. He walked out and closed it tightly behind him, and as he walked down the hallway and toward the stairwell, more tears flooded his eyes until he could barely see where he was going.
Justin sighed as the elevator doors opened and let him into the hallway that led to his apartment. He was pulling his key out of his pocket when he looked down and saw Kyle sitting next to his door. His face was red and his eyes were puffy. He had obviously been crying.
“Kyle,” he said, squatting down to his brother’s level as he placed a hand on his shoulder. “What’s wrong? What happened?”
Their blue eyes met, and Kyle leaned into Justin’s shoulder. “I broke up with her,” he mumbled as Justin sat down next to him.
“I didn’t know you were exactly going out,” Justin brought up. “I thought you were only…”
“We were in her apartment kissing,” Kyle went on. “And some stupid guy that her dad wants her to go out with came to the door. She actually made me get out of the room while she talked to him… pretending that she wanted to be with him and not me! I’m not going be her secret boyfriend just so she can please her dad. I can’t do it!”
Justin leaned back against the wall. “You shouldn’t have to,” he told his brother. “Do you want me to go and talk to her? This guy can’t be anything special. Not compared to you, anyway.”
“She doesn’t even like him,” Kyle groaned. “She told me she thought he was boring and dull… but none of that matters because her dad likes him. That’s all she cares about. And hey, if she can have me while she’s at it, then that would be just perfect, wouldn’t it?”
“You did the right thing,” Justin assured him. “You shouldn’t have to do that. She should be proud to be with you.”
“It’s the right thing,” Kyle said as he rested his head on his brother’s shoulder. “Then why do I feel so horrible about it? Why do I want to go over to her place, pull her into my arms and tell her I didn’t mean any of it… that I don’t care about her father, as long as I get to be with her.”
Justin patted his shoulder. “Because you love her,” he explained. “It always hurts to let someone you love go.”
“I can’t possibly love her,” he muttered. “I haven’t even known her for a week. How can I love her? How can I justify loving her if I haven’t known her for a week, Justin?” He looked up at his brother as if expecting some profound answer… an answer that would solve all his problems.
“It’s not a bad thing to love someone, Kyle. If you love her, then you love her, and that’s all there is to it.”
“No, that’s not all there is to it. If she doesn’t love me, then why am I wasting my time loving her?”
“You’re not wasting your time,” Justin assured him. “It’s Evie who’s wasting her time with that boring guy when she could be with you. It’s not your fault, Kyle. Obviously she has some issues that she needs to straighten out with her parents before she can live her own life. Maybe she just needs time.”
“I can give her time,” Kyle mumbled. “As long as she’s not spending it with him! He makes me sick, and I didn’t even see what he looked like.”
Justin reached his hand over and placed it on the top of his brother’s curly head. “I know that I can’t really say anything to make you feel any better right now,” he said, “but maybe you should try and focus on other things… like school. Didn’t you have any homework this weekend?”
“You sound like Nicki. And I did it last night,” Kyle mumbled. “Well, most of it, anyway.”
Justin’s eyes widened. Kyle had actually done his homework? He ruffled his brother’s hair and smiled. “You’re going to be okay,” he promised. “Let’s go inside. I have a story to tell you about Adelyn’s dunce of a partner. He was acting so weird… well, weird for a normal person.”
Chapter 16
Keeping the Peace
Family: Timberlake
Non-Nsync Fiction
I'll Never Stop {Fiction}
Email Me (irishgirl982@yahoo.com)