She paused to take it all in. “Kellan…wow…it’s beautiful.”
Leaning against the railing, I paused to take her in. “Yes, it is.” Opening my arms wide, I added, “Come here.”
She walked over and wrapped her arms around me, and I looped mine around her. Content with her in my arms, I shifted my gaze to take in the lights of the city. It really was magnificent up here.
I could feel Kiera’s eyes on me. After a moment of inspection, she whispered, “Why me?” I wasn’t sure how this conversation would begin, but explaining why she’d caught my eye seemed as good a place as any.
Shifting my gaze to her, I smiled. “You have no idea how attractive you are to me. I kind of like that.” It was just one of the many things about her that made her different. Kiera blushed in a beautifully modest way, and I paused as I pondered how to explain everything to her. “It was you and Denny…your relationship.”
I knew that wouldn’t make sense to her, so I wasn’t surprised when she frowned. “What do you mean?” she asked, threading her fingers through the hair above my ear. Suddenly faced with opening my heart, I felt my nerves spring to life and I looked back over the city. I wasn’t sure if I could do this. Kiera grabbed my cheek and made me look at her. She wanted me to stop hiding; she wanted an answer. “What do you mean, Kellan?”
With a sigh, I looked down. I couldn’t stay quiet anymore. Not with her. I needed to open up and tell her everything. Show her everything. Hopefully it didn’t hurt too much, although it couldn’t hurt as much as the thought of losing her. “I can’t explain this properly, without…without clarifying something Evan said.”
Kiera thought for a moment, then said, “When you told him, quite rudely, by the way, to back off?”
Wishing we were already past this part and she already knew, I murmured, “Yeah.”
“I don’t understand—what does that have to do with me?”
I shook my head with a sad smile. “Nothing…everything.”
She seemed amused by that. “Eventually you’re going to start making sense, right?”
I laughed and looked out over the skyline. “Yeah…just give me a minute.” Or three, or four. I can do this…
Respecting my wishes, Kiera put her head on my shoulder and held me tight. As I held her head in place and rubbed her back, I felt my unease dissolving. This wasn’t just anyone I was opening up to. This was Kiera. She had my heart, every corner of it, so what did it matter if she knew about the darkness that surrounded me? She would love me anyway. I was sure of that. My secrets were safe with her. I was safe with her.
I began quietly, because it was the only way I could get the words out. “You and Evan were right about the women. I’ve been…using them…for years.” I’d been too angry at the time to admit it to myself when Evan had cornered me about it in the back room, but now I could clearly see what I’d been doing to women my entire life as I’d aimlessly searched for a connection with someone. Anyone. I’d used them to make myself feel better. To make myself feel worthwhile, even if it was just for a moment.
Kiera had an odd, hurt expression on her face. “For years? Not just because of me?”
Smiling, I tucked some hair behind her ear. “No…although that certainly made it worse.” So much worse. I’d been completely obsessed with finding a distraction, a replacement. I’d been so stupid. There was no replacing her.
Kiera shifted her stance, a little uncomfortable. “You shouldn’t use people, Kellan…for any reason.”
I found that response ironic, and I called her on it. “You didn’t use me, to block out Denny our first time?” I knew she had. The way she’d been drowning her sorrows in alcohol…she’d gulped me down with just as much ferocity. She’d used me to abolish Denny in her mind. Embarrassed by the truth, Kiera averted her eyes. I grabbed her chin and made her look at me again. “It’s okay, Kiera. I suspected that.”
Letting her go, I looked out over the water on the other side of the Needle. “It didn’t stop me from believing we might have had a chance, though. I spent that whole damn day wandering around the city, trying to figure out how to tell you…how much I loved you, without sounding like an idiot.”
“Kellan…”
While Kiera said my name, memories of every place I’d gone that day flooded me. I’d been so scared to tell her how I felt that I had left her alone, and probably believing that I didn’t care about her at all. No wonder she’d instantly taken Denny back. She’d probably thought I was an unfeeling asshole.
Returning my eyes to her, I confessed my pain. “God…when you went right back to him, like we were nothing at all, that killed me. I knew it…The minute I finally came home, and heard you two upstairs, I knew we didn’t have a chance.” I couldn’t keep the remembered anger from my voice.
Kiera blinked when I was finished. “You heard us?” she asked, confused. I had given her some lie about seeing his jacket, if I was recalling that night correctly. I’d been pretty wasted.
Looking down, I cringed. I probably should have left that out. “Oh…yeah. I came back and heard you guys in your room, getting…reacquainted. That…pretty much sucked. I grabbed a fifth, headed to Sam’s, and, well, you know how that turned out.” With me shit-faced.
By the shock in her voice, it was clear she hadn’t known any of that. “Kellan, God, I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
“You didn’t do anything wrong, Kiera.” I glanced at her, then looked away. “I was such a dick to you afterwards. I’m sorry about that.” Kiera grimaced when I gave her a sheepish smile. Apparently, she agreed with me. “I’m sorry, I tend to lose the filter on my mouth when I’m angry…and no one seems to be able to make me angrier than you.” Wasn’t that the truth?
With a humorless laugh, Kiera raised an eyebrow at me. “I’ve noticed that.” I laughed at her comment and her expression changed. “You were always right though. And I did kind of deserve your…harshness.”
Quieting, I cupped her cheek. “No, you didn’t. You never deserved the things I said to you.”
“I was horribly…misleading to you,” she said, guilt and sadness drawing down her features.
“You didn’t know I loved you,” I whispered, stroking her cheek.
Her eyes were a liquid green when she looked up at me. “I knew you cared for me. I was…callous.”
Callous? I suppose I could give her that much. There were times when she’d been coarse with me. And vice versa. To soften the blow of agreeing with her, I gave her a small smile and a kiss. “True. But we seem to have gotten off track. I believe we were talking about my messed-up psyche.”
Shaking away the seriousness of the moment, she let out a brief laugh. “Right, your…whoring.”
“Ouch.” I laughed at her comment, gathered my courage, then pulled off the bandage that had been holding my splintered heart together for far too long. “I suppose I should start with the whole tortured-childhood speech…”
She tried to stop me from telling her things that she knew would bring me pain, but I needed her to know the whole story, the one I didn’t tell anyone, not even Denny. I prepped her with “You’re going to find it funny.”
She disagreed, and I supposed she was right. It wasn’t ha-ha funny, but it was interesting. For us, at least. “Well, okay, maybe not funny…coincidental, then.”
When she gave me a confused expression, I slowly began my story. It was difficult, but I started peeling back the lies that were wrapped around me, started showing her the skeletons that I’d pretended my entire life weren’t there. “It seems that my mother was…enamored with my father’s best friend. So when dear old Dad had to leave town for several months…some family emergency thing back East…you can imagine his surprise when he came back home to find his blushing bride pregnant.”
Kiera’s mouth fell open, and I could tell she’d instantly spotted the similarities to our own situation. By the shock on Kiera’s face, she hadn’t suspected my dad wasn’t my real dad. No one did. That was our family’s greatest secret, and biggest shame, and it wasn’t something we openly discussed. With anyone. And it was the main reason why neither one of them loved me.