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I pause to find him looking at me proudly, and this time I don’t let that bitter place inside of me win, letting myself feel the sense of family he’s gifted me.
“At thirty-two, I’ve learned that it’s these oppositions that can create the best relationships.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I notice Talia as she takes up a spot at the edge of the room, her eyes on me. Her reappearance couldn’t have been timed better. I want her to hear my next words most of all.
“I look at Nyla and Kieran,” I gesture to the two love birds, “and see someone who I always knew to be hard and stubborn, fall in love with someone who is soft and giving, and how the two complement each other. I’m beginning to learn that love is found in the things wewantto be, that we didn’t have the courage to be before.”
Mine and Talia’s eyes lock, and I spill into the words I’ve been longing to say.
“To have someone’s discipline complement my chaos. Their virtues complement my corruption. I am not a perfect man. I’ve chosen things in the past that I wouldn’t choose now, but those decisions still brought me here, to celebrate the love between Nyla and Kieran.” I turn to them. “Theirs is the kind of love that lasts.”
My final words ring out across the space, but as I turn back to face the crowd, I find Talia receding to the door.
Handing the mic back to Kieran, I take off across the club’s dance floor, running after Talia. The crowd parts for me, and I hear one of Kieran’s friends start the next toast as I push through the doors.
Talia’s already halfway across the lot, making toward her car. “Talia!” I shout, running after her, but she doesn’t stop. “Talia.” I reach out for her as I approach, but she whirls on me, and her look stops me in my tracks.
Tears stream down her face, blurring the makeup around her piercing eyes. “WhyKay?” she bellows across the lot, and I freeze. She has one hand clenched in her dress skirts, the other in a fist at her side, but it’s shaking. “Why toy with me for so long? Why play those games only to win, and then push me away like you did, and then say those things?Why?”
I don’t know how to answer her. Even I don’t understand completely. “I… I just know I hate not having you around.”
“So all ofthat,” she waves her arm frantically at the club, voice breaking into hysteria, “is just to further manipulate me to keep me around? For what? Your ego? I’m sotiredof feeding your ego, Kay!”
“That’s not it, Talia.” I take a step toward her, realizing I’ve done a terrible job of expressing my intentions. But… did I evenunderstandmy true intentions when it came to her?
She takes a step back. “Fuck off, Kay,” she snarls, and for a moment, her ferocity reminds me so much of myself that I feel like I’m staring into the face of my own shortcomings.
It feels like shit. It makes it even worse knowing this reaction from her is the result of the shortcomings I pushed on her.
Maybe she’s right to take a step back…
She takes another, and I let her, my feet planted where they’re at as the early summer sunset spills its orange glow over the two of us. Her car disappears into its light, leaving me behind in the place she met me.
In the dark, where I belong.
Chapter Twenty: Talia
“With this growing workload from branching into the wedding business, we should probably hire someone to do the marketing, or at least get an assistant for you.”
I glance up at Gia from my laptop, where I’m working on our latest social post, raising a brow in question.
“It’s a whole new demographic,” she adds.
I’m surprised she’s even suggesting it. “Why would we need to hire someone else? Kay sits around doing nothing most of the time. Why don’t we just have him pick up some slack so I can focus more on marketing?” I ask, looking between Gia and my keyboard.
She goes strangely silent, and when I look up again, her pink lips are in a thin, tight line.
“What? You don’t think he can pick up the slack? Correction,” I hold up a finger, “you don’t think he’llwantto.”
“He’s just going to be so busy with the patio project,” she claims, but she says it in her exaggerated tone, the one she uses when she’s hiding something. I narrow my eyes at her, but don’t dig further because Kay is still a sore spot that I don’t feel like hearinganythingabout.
But there’s something about the way she said it that reminds me of something Kay said at the party.
Everyone’s acting strange…
But I don’t have the energy to deal with it.
Rifling through the pile of paperwork for our upcoming events, I find a form that needs Kay’s signature and get up from my seat.
